Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | World War II (Lecture 30)

Lecture 30: World War II (1939–1945) was a renewed and perfected “total war,” even more intense than World War I and ultimately taking a toll of some 50 million dead. This lecture examines the diplomatic bombshell that paved the way to war: the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939. We outline the scale of Hitler’s ambitions for hegemony, culminating at last in the invasion of his Soviet ally in 1941. We turn to discuss the complicated alliance coordination of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, including the key conferences in Tehran and Yalta, where the personalities of the wartime leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin played crucial roles.

Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 332–422.

Supplementary Reading:
John Keegan, Winston Churchill.
Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of German Expansion, pp. 121–250.