Volume 6, Number 3 · March 3, 1966
The Roots of Hell
By Richard Lowenthal
Russia and Germany, a Century of Conflict
by Walter Laqueur
Little, Brown, 367 pp., $6.75
There can be no doubt that the map of Europe and the constellation of world powers would be utterly different today but for Hitler's decision to attack Russia. Without it, Russian troops would not now stand on the Elbe; large parts of Europe would not have fallen under Soviet domination; Germany would not be divided. It is not even certain that Hitler would have been defeated at all; conceivably, he might have succeeded in invading Britain before the United States entered the war, and might have retained control of the main part of the continent. Yet no strategic necessity, no insoluble diplomatic conflict forced the victorious Fuehrer to follow Napoleon's road to Russia and catastrophe. Apart from his sneaking respect for Britain and his reluctance to face the dangers of a cross-channel invasion, his crucial motives were his belief in the inherent weakness as well as the ultimately irreconcilable hostility of the Bolshevik regime, and his vision of a leaderless Russia as the natural field for German colonial rule, the natural long-term basis for German world power.
Review, 2586 words
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