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Germany's Aims in the First World War.
Professor Fischer's great work is possibly the most important book of any sort, probably the most important historical book, certainly the most controversial book, to come out of Germany since the war.
704 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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646 people want to read
About the author
Fritz Fischer
42 books16 followersFritz Fischer was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I. Fischer has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing as the most important German historian of the 20th century.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 17, 2008
Interesting to go back and read the groundbreaking revisionist history of WWI. Fischer argues compellingly about the consistency and extremity of Germany's vision for a postwar order. With a critical mass of politicians, royalty, landowners, industrialists, military leaders, and populace supporting a lowest-common-denominator policy of expansion across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the South Pacific, Wilhelmine Germany would have made itself into a global power on par with only the U.S. after 1919. As the actual peace of Brest-Litovsk illustrated, Germany coveted the oil, minerals, agriculture, and strategic waterways of the Balkans, European Russia, the Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, and the Caucasus (enough to impose a harsh peace on defeated Russia). Fischer provides an extensive account of Germany's similar aims in the West (control over Belgium's and France's channel ports, annexation of the heartland of France's mines and industry, and annexations in Belgium and Luxemburg), Africa (Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, Kenya, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Nigeria, Guinea, Canary Islands), and the South Pacific (Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, Marshall Islands). Although Fischer's account is by no means exhaustive, it does paint a fairly accurate picture of what the world would (and to some extent briefly did) look like had WWI ended differently. Furthermore, it provides a startling portrayal of the continuity of Imperial and Nazi German ambitions.
September 21, 2015
This is the book to read if you want to understand Germany's political and economic goals during World War I. Fischer demonstrates (sometimes ad nasueam) that the conservative German elites were intent on using the war as a pretext to further "Weltpolitik". The result, if they had gotten their way, would have been a German Empire to rival Britain, America and Russia. Surprisingly, the majority of the German left continued to support these goals in the Reichstag by voting for war credits until the end of the conflict. Although the length of this book can make it tiresome (at times it feels like Fischer is recounting for you every scrap of paper he found in the archives), it continues to flare up now and again with great insights. Fischer's discussion of Brest-Litovsk and its aftermath is especially fascinating.
I was motivated to read this because it was such "bombshell" for German historians when it was first published in the 60s. In this regard, I am thoroughly unimpressed and puzzled. I suppose this would be a ground-breaking publication if you believed that Germany fought a defensive war against encirclement in 1914, but the naivete of this view was probably apparent to many people before the book was even released. The idea that any of the Empires involved in World War I were not interested in territorial aggrandizement would most likely have been laughed at by sensible people in 1915. At this point in the war, Austria-Hungary had seized Serbia, Japan had devoured Germany's far eastern colonies and Anglo-French forces had conquered most of German Africa.
Fischer illustrates that Germany wanted to run Belgium and the Ukraine and all its other conquered territories like colonies, which would have resulted in a harsh Germanizing regime and economic exploitation for people living there. In the context of the world of 1914, isn't this a "so what?" I would never defend policies like these, but I have always suspected that the outrage over the Kaiserreich's imperialist excesses is partly due to the fact they were directed against white Europeans and not the millions of darker-skinned people under British, French, and Russian rule. Fischer wanted to use this book as a vehicle to demonstrate continuity in the history of German imperialism. According to this line of argument, Hitler's goals were a natural outgrowth of the policies of the Kaiserreich. All Fischer really demonstrates is that the Germans were as grandiosely imperialistic as any of the other major powers at the time. When he was criticized by other historians for not comparing German war aims to those of the Entente, Fischer replied that the scope of his research only allowed him to discuss Germany. This response is unconvincing coming from someone who wrote a work over 600 pages long. To his credit, Fischer does mention Sykes-Picot once or twice(!). As for his continuity theory: The Nazis planned to murder millions in the territories they occupied and did so. The imperialists in Wilhelmine Germany did neither. If anything, this disparity in goals suggest a serious break with the past, and not continuity.
One can take further exception with Fischer's idea (not expressed in this particular book) that "Hitler was no accident". Instead he was the likely or inevitable result of Germany's "Sonderweg" (special path to modernity). Before the Great Depression the Nazi's had the votes of 2-3% of the German electorate. After the crash in '29, their popularity skyrocketed to approximately 30% of the electorate in 1933. Unless the stock market crash was caused the by the Germans (wouldn't that be a wonderful way to unite all of modern history in a common narrative!), I would have to suggest that Hitler's rise to power was, to some extent, an accident after all.
I was motivated to read this because it was such "bombshell" for German historians when it was first published in the 60s. In this regard, I am thoroughly unimpressed and puzzled. I suppose this would be a ground-breaking publication if you believed that Germany fought a defensive war against encirclement in 1914, but the naivete of this view was probably apparent to many people before the book was even released. The idea that any of the Empires involved in World War I were not interested in territorial aggrandizement would most likely have been laughed at by sensible people in 1915. At this point in the war, Austria-Hungary had seized Serbia, Japan had devoured Germany's far eastern colonies and Anglo-French forces had conquered most of German Africa.
Fischer illustrates that Germany wanted to run Belgium and the Ukraine and all its other conquered territories like colonies, which would have resulted in a harsh Germanizing regime and economic exploitation for people living there. In the context of the world of 1914, isn't this a "so what?" I would never defend policies like these, but I have always suspected that the outrage over the Kaiserreich's imperialist excesses is partly due to the fact they were directed against white Europeans and not the millions of darker-skinned people under British, French, and Russian rule. Fischer wanted to use this book as a vehicle to demonstrate continuity in the history of German imperialism. According to this line of argument, Hitler's goals were a natural outgrowth of the policies of the Kaiserreich. All Fischer really demonstrates is that the Germans were as grandiosely imperialistic as any of the other major powers at the time. When he was criticized by other historians for not comparing German war aims to those of the Entente, Fischer replied that the scope of his research only allowed him to discuss Germany. This response is unconvincing coming from someone who wrote a work over 600 pages long. To his credit, Fischer does mention Sykes-Picot once or twice(!). As for his continuity theory: The Nazis planned to murder millions in the territories they occupied and did so. The imperialists in Wilhelmine Germany did neither. If anything, this disparity in goals suggest a serious break with the past, and not continuity.
One can take further exception with Fischer's idea (not expressed in this particular book) that "Hitler was no accident". Instead he was the likely or inevitable result of Germany's "Sonderweg" (special path to modernity). Before the Great Depression the Nazi's had the votes of 2-3% of the German electorate. After the crash in '29, their popularity skyrocketed to approximately 30% of the electorate in 1933. Unless the stock market crash was caused the by the Germans (wouldn't that be a wonderful way to unite all of modern history in a common narrative!), I would have to suggest that Hitler's rise to power was, to some extent, an accident after all.
November 9, 2020
I have been wanting to read this book ever since I read Margaret Macmillan's Peacemakers.
It is so good. It explains everything. It really is amazing that the Entente powers won in the end.
Perhaps without the late US entry they would have failed. Germany had such a wide ranging plan from fermenting civil war in Ireland, to Muslim uprisings in the East, as well as encouraging Mexico to attack America.
A must read for anyone interested in WW1 and 2 and perhaps even if one were to think of the past as prologue and look to the future relations of China and America.
It is so good. It explains everything. It really is amazing that the Entente powers won in the end.
Perhaps without the late US entry they would have failed. Germany had such a wide ranging plan from fermenting civil war in Ireland, to Muslim uprisings in the East, as well as encouraging Mexico to attack America.
A must read for anyone interested in WW1 and 2 and perhaps even if one were to think of the past as prologue and look to the future relations of China and America.
January 27, 2013
it took me two weeks to get thru this. Had read little about the first world war before this. Had a bit of trouble with all the names i was not familiar with and my thoughts about the time were not the same as the author. I do not know for sure what they are now but i do know i must do a lot more reading up on it. It was a well organized book and i am sure well researched. Glad i read it.
Read
September 27, 2015An essential -- though controversial -- work which describes the manner in which Germany instigated the war and asserts that her war aims were essentially predatory from the start. The debate over this work is enormous, but Fischer's claims must be contended with by anyone who seriously hopes to understand what the war was about and how it is popularly perceived.
August 22, 2019
A milestone in its time, current research has somewhat corrected some of his interpretations.
June 20, 2023
Monday, July 24, 2017
Overrated Classic: Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in the First World War
Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in the First World War is an acclaimed classic, usually cited for breaking with forty years of German accepted wisdom that, unlike in 1939, in 1914 Germany “slid” blamelessly into war (to quote UK PM Lloyd-George). That is to say, Fischer asserted iconoclastically that the German Reich bore "a substantial share of the historical responsibility for the outbreak of the general war." And this assertion, commonly accepted outside of Germany long before Fischer's 1961 pronouncement, is what gained Germany's Aims in the First World War such fame and notoriety – even though Fischer himself states in his book “It is not the purpose of this work (to debate) the question of war guilt.” p 87 And truly, what Fischer spends over 500 pages on is not war guilt, but an effort to show that the Second Reich sought to use the war to establish itself as a “world power,” through the political annexation of its nearest neighbors and the economic subordination of much of Europe into a Mitteleuropa.
Unfortunately for readability, Fischer pursues this goal by repetitive chronological rendering of state papers and the opinions of Germany's government officials and occasionally politicians and leading businessmen. Make no mistake, getting through this tome is a slog, one that is rarely rewarding.
Fischer's genuine thesis is buried halfway through the book: “Leading circles in Germany were convinced that only a victorious war ending in substantial gains would enable them to maintain their political and social order;” p. 329 Such a stance certainly explains the stubbornness with which the Emperor, Army (and Navy), and Reich and Prussian governments held to to arrogant war aims – domination of Belgium and Poland, exploitation of Romania, seizure of the Baltic, Ukraine, even Caucasus, and commandeering the mine fields of northeast France.
But Fischer's emptying of the German archives into his expose leads him astray, by overvaluing any and all documents that support his thesis of an unchecked German will to power. For example, he cites the views of the head of the German Colonial Association and the head of the Reich Colonial Office as proof of German war aims in Africa. p. 587 Bureaucratically, an organization will always advocate for its own narrow goals, irrespective of whether those goals serve the greater good. Without clear evidence that the goal was accepted by the state, such views are interesting, but not dispositive. One might as well say a child's wish for a pony proves the existence of the stable.
And again, Fischer proffers arguments such as that on page 603: “a long report (in June 1918) by the [Prussian] Ministry of State (was) one more testimony to Prussia's obstinate determination to expand....” It is more likely that the report is testimony to the inertia of bureaucracy, offering reports to the captain on how to arrange the deckchairs long after hitting the iceberg.
The past few years have seen numerous new books on the question of why the Great War broke out. Any of them, even the least of them, is a better contribution to the field than Fischer at this date.
Overrated Classic: Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in the First World War
Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in the First World War is an acclaimed classic, usually cited for breaking with forty years of German accepted wisdom that, unlike in 1939, in 1914 Germany “slid” blamelessly into war (to quote UK PM Lloyd-George). That is to say, Fischer asserted iconoclastically that the German Reich bore "a substantial share of the historical responsibility for the outbreak of the general war." And this assertion, commonly accepted outside of Germany long before Fischer's 1961 pronouncement, is what gained Germany's Aims in the First World War such fame and notoriety – even though Fischer himself states in his book “It is not the purpose of this work (to debate) the question of war guilt.” p 87 And truly, what Fischer spends over 500 pages on is not war guilt, but an effort to show that the Second Reich sought to use the war to establish itself as a “world power,” through the political annexation of its nearest neighbors and the economic subordination of much of Europe into a Mitteleuropa.
Unfortunately for readability, Fischer pursues this goal by repetitive chronological rendering of state papers and the opinions of Germany's government officials and occasionally politicians and leading businessmen. Make no mistake, getting through this tome is a slog, one that is rarely rewarding.
Fischer's genuine thesis is buried halfway through the book: “Leading circles in Germany were convinced that only a victorious war ending in substantial gains would enable them to maintain their political and social order;” p. 329 Such a stance certainly explains the stubbornness with which the Emperor, Army (and Navy), and Reich and Prussian governments held to to arrogant war aims – domination of Belgium and Poland, exploitation of Romania, seizure of the Baltic, Ukraine, even Caucasus, and commandeering the mine fields of northeast France.
But Fischer's emptying of the German archives into his expose leads him astray, by overvaluing any and all documents that support his thesis of an unchecked German will to power. For example, he cites the views of the head of the German Colonial Association and the head of the Reich Colonial Office as proof of German war aims in Africa. p. 587 Bureaucratically, an organization will always advocate for its own narrow goals, irrespective of whether those goals serve the greater good. Without clear evidence that the goal was accepted by the state, such views are interesting, but not dispositive. One might as well say a child's wish for a pony proves the existence of the stable.
And again, Fischer proffers arguments such as that on page 603: “a long report (in June 1918) by the [Prussian] Ministry of State (was) one more testimony to Prussia's obstinate determination to expand....” It is more likely that the report is testimony to the inertia of bureaucracy, offering reports to the captain on how to arrange the deckchairs long after hitting the iceberg.
The past few years have seen numerous new books on the question of why the Great War broke out. Any of them, even the least of them, is a better contribution to the field than Fischer at this date.
January 8, 2019
Insightful and eye-opening historical book about the German government in the First World War.
Read
September 22, 2020Studying - using for my essay
August 31, 2021
Slightly better than the other books about Germany but not much better
July 22, 2022
Interessiert hat mich nur die Zeit bis zum Ausbruch des 1. Wk. Wegen der Fülle an Informationen ist das Buch nur schwer zu lesen.
September 14, 2022
Absolute garbage
August 23, 2025
Definitive
January 12, 2015
An exhaustive (and a tad exhausting) account of its subject, this not just first-rate historical writing, but also an extremely rich resource for studying european politics in the first quarter of the 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews