History Memes

Isn’t internal propaganda like that just a way to sell a decision you’ve already made, rather than the cause of the decision?

That would have more weight if the myth had started with the rearming of the Nazi government. However, the stab-in-the-back myth was concocted before the bodies on the Western Front were cold. It was a way to absolve the 'honorable' military of the German Empire from responsibility in the defeat suffered in WW1. A massive number of Germans were veterans (or relatives of veterans) who wanted to believe they were not at fault for the disaster that befell Germany.

And, to be fair, most German veterans were not at fault for the disaster. Some - correctly - sought to blame the incompetent German government for getting involved in a war that had no fucking point to begin with. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front is an excellent piece of interwar literature by a WW1 German veteran that points to this conclusion. Others, who were unwilling to let go of their wartime indoctrination, incorrectly sought to blame various 'outside' forces, like Jews, leftists, pacifists, and national minorities.

I’m very skeptical of the idea that states go to war for ideological reasons. I’d always heard they were afraid of being contained and believed that their unfavourable position could only possibly get worse so they decided to roll the dice now.

One thing many policy strategists miss in their analysis is that they don't run countries. The fucking lunatics run the asylums.

Some governments are more rational (and thus predictable, not necessarily 'good') than others.

That being said, the timing of Germany's invasions of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union do owe some to that line of thinking - German high command was aware that they were industrially outmatched, and that time would work against them once the Allies started rearming.