Why Germany Lost The First World War Essay

World War I fundamentally transformed the political European map with the defeat of the Central Powers- Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. The 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia led the founding of the Soviet Union. As a result of the end of the war, the allies gained territory, new nation-states were created, and the League of Nations was created to prevent future war. Due to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany suffered great humiliation - losing territory, reparations imposed, and limits placed on armed forces. With this, nationalist sentiments grew in the European nations most especially Germany and Japan. These strong nationalist sentiments drove World War II and inflated the ego of Hitler and his lieutenants.

This paper will explore how and why Germany lost the war on the Eastern front; through both the canonical account and personal accounts. Max Hastings in his book Inferno claims that “Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was the defining event of the war,” this statement describes the canonical account of war. The Soviets believed that they were not only exempt from Hitler’s expansionist policies, but also beneficiaries of growing Nazi aggression. The Soviets easily believed this because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the Nazi-Soviet Pact, that promised neutrality between the two nation-states until Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Despite this, the Nazi’s invaded the Soviet Union, breaking the pact, and risking millions of Soviet and Nazi troops. Hitler, and by proxy the Nazi’s, viewed the Soviets as “others,” often comparing the Bolsheviks and the Jews that needed to be fought in order for the German people to exist. The Germans ideologically, were much like the Greco-Romans, they were civilized and cultured whereas everyone else were barbarians. The concept of Lebensraum, living space, also fueled Hitler to pursue the Soviet Union. Germany,