Customer Reviews

1939: Countdown to War

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Richard Overy's latest great book is a short book about a short, but very important period of time, the two weeks right before WW II started with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

We're taught today that the invasion of Poland was inevitable, Hitler was continuously resolute, and that there was little to be done or was done to stop the invasion.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong as Overy demonstrates. In fact, the invasion was postponed once, a number of very prominent Nazis were looking for a way out, Stalin was on the fence, Mussolini washed his hands of the whole thing, and there was almost continuous shuttle diplomacy up to and even a few days after the invasion on September 1. He renders this was a pace and economy that moves the reader along quickly, with just the right amount of detail.

Most WW II books are long because the war was long and global in scope. Overy has a knack for asking a basic question we think we know the answer to, and then demonstrating that at a minimum there is a lot we don't know, and doing it tersely and effectively. He did this before in his excellent 'Why the Allies Won' and he has done just as good a job here with 1939.

If you're a history buff, you'll love this book. It would be an ideal book for the holidays for anyone else interested in diplomacy, WW II, Nazi Germany, or the intersection of politics and war.

Bravo!

This short book concentrates very specifically on politics a few days either side of the German attack on Poland and on the expectations of the leadership of Germany, Poland, France and Britain.

The style achieves a balance between being easily readable and rigorous.

The author's thesis is that rather than the outbreak of a general war being foreordained, both sides suspected the other of bluffing. Hitler wanted only a local war (against Poland) in 1939 and given his earlier diplomatic successes, thought France and Britain would back down. France and Britain assumed that against their slightly bigger combined war potential, Germany would not be so rash as to seriously follow through with a full scale war and Hitler could be made to back down by their warning that they would honour their pledge to protect Poland. He emphasises the role of personality, exhaustion and intuition in the diplomatic exchanges leading up to the eventual allied declarations of war.

The focus is likely to be too narrow for those with a casual interest in WWII. But for those with a deeper interest, this book is unsatisfying. Even with its narrow focus, it's so short that it leaves out relevant detail available from more general books. Another shortcoming is the absence of a timeline to make the narrative easier to follow.

Preparing to launch what he hoped would be a limited war with Poland (that is to say against Poland alone), on August 24, 1939, Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered the German military to prepare to invade Poland on the morning of the 26th. However, on the 25th, Hitler was taken aback when a British-Polish Agreement of Mutual Assistance was announced, and he quickly postponed the invasion. But, in the days that followed, while the British and French governments sought to avoid war, Hitler was determined to launch a war against Poland and was only spending his time trying to ensure that the Western nations would not come to Poland's aid. This is the story of that brief week, from August 24 to September 3, as Europe teetered on the brink of war...and then fell over.

This is a very short book, on a very limited subject. It covers only about eleven days, examining what went on behind the scenes as the subject of war and peace was discussed in the capitals of Europe. There are no "bombshells" in this book, no recently declassified events that will change how you look at the beginning of World War 2. But, what it is is a very good, in-depth look at what was happening behind the scenes in the very final days before and into the War.

Now, if you are expecting a big book, full of important information, you will be disappointed. It's a small book, on a limited subject, and what it sets out to do it does very well indeed. So, if you know what this book is about before you pick it up, you will be quite pleased with it.

If you had always thought that the deceleration of war against Poland by Germany was the start of WWII and did not know much about what lead to that situation this is the book for you. The book describes what was happening in the months,weeks and days in Europe politically taking backing to the year before to 1938 when Munich Agreement was signed and its ramifications to 1939. This book also most importantly tries to gauge the minds of the more important political leaders at the time about to be involved in the largest conflict the world had ever seen. It tries to piece together different thoughts that moved back and forth to finally lead to the war. I also liked the references of thoughts of regular people in contrast to there leaders which were also supportive. It not only does so in a efficient but also concise and to the point way,the writing style is simple to follow with out going too deep into specifics and sticking to the main objective of telling what lead to the world's greatest war

Although this is a short book, it shows that WWII didn't just happen. The French and British understood after Germany took the Czech Republic that Hitler couldn't be trusted. At the other extreme, Hitler thought he could manuever the British and French into not going to war with Germany over Poland. Chamberlain and the French would negotiate but not to Hitler's desire on Danzig and the Polish Corredor. Ultimately, both groups miscalculated.

This is an interesting and short read about the actual coming of war. Although it could have been longer, the analysis was right on. This is a solid read.

This is an interesting short look at the days leading up to the outbreak of WWII. When looking at history at this level of detail, the reader is able to feel how things might have gone differently. The hero of the book, quite unexpectedly, is Neville Chamberlain. Overy argues that Chamberlain felt personally betrayed by Hitler's response to Munich and was staunch in making the invasion of Poland the trigger for a general war. Hitler, it seems, really believed that Poland would be yet another in the series of regional wars that he had fought and won. The villain of the book (aside from Hitler of course) is the French foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, who does all he can to delay the declaration of war.

Overy's point is that the declaration of war was not inevitable and that it was possible - and Hitler was betting on it - that Hitler might have been allowed to take Poland like he did Czechoslovakia. Although not a massive book, it is tightly argued and written in an engaging way.

First things first: Overy's "1939 - Countdown to War" isn't a bad book by any meaning. It's written in that great essayist style I've come to love from anglophone authors, a style that distinguishes them positively from most German authors in the field of non-fiction books. "1939" isn't a grand scale history of WW2, and it doesn't want to be that. Overy's book looks at the fateful days between August 24 and September 3, 1939, and tries to give the reader an overview about who the actors were and in what kind of a relationship they stood towards each other. There is some interesting information to be found in there, for example as to how the British saw the Swedish negotiator Birger Dahlerus, who - as a friend of Göring - tried via shuttle diplomacy between London and Berlin to prevent the outbreak of war. Another example is the strenous relationship between the French Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister, Bonnet.

That being said, the book does have obvious shortcomings. It merely *describes* events rather than trying to *explain* them while in the same breath criticising the conclusions of some other authors' works who *did* try just that. "1939" is also limited in more than just one way. Describing a "Countdown to War" while - consciously - leaving out the very steps that ignited said countdown makes for an exercise in disjointed reading. It's hard to get to terms with events when the actions that lead to them - the British guarantee of spring 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact & and Soviet-Allied discussions preceeding it - are pretty much ignored.

Secondly, "1939", even though it consciously limits itself to a very short period of time - adds little in the way of new information that works on a larger scale have not already presented in even more detail and in better context. For those who have read Schultze-Rhonhof or even Buchanan, "1939" is - simple regarding the amount of information given to the reader - a significant step back. And at a tad bit fewer than 35,000 words, Overy's book - hardcover or not - is still severly overpriced.

My advice: If you haven't read anything beyond school book literature about the outbreak of WW2, Overy's "1939 - Countdown to War" is a good but expensive start. If you've however already read Schultze-Rhonhof or others of the same caliber you might just as well save yourself the money and the time.

The answer to that question, as given and supported in this well-written but brief little book is, a qualified yes. It's qualified because, even though Hitler was willing to fight Poland over the issue of Danzig and the German Corridor to it, he did not appear to want this to be more than a small, local war. He gambled that, once he made his non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the Western powers (Britain and France) would most probably dither about doing anything, and then in the end do nothing.

Of course, we all realize that his belief did not stand up to the subsequent events after September 1, 1939, even though up to that date many high-ranking folks on both sides felt that some type of accommodation could be reached, and thus have war averted. It's fascinating to read of the behind-the-scenes activities taken to try to ensure no war, all of which, for one reason or another, were doomed to failure.

As I said, this is a little book (both in size and length) but it encapsulates very well what happened between the last days of August, 1939, and the declaration of war by Britain a few days after September 1. Reading this, I really believe that, no matter what anyone in the West tried, there was not going to be any solution to the Polish situation without a war, and this developed into the most destructive war in the history of the world. Read this book and learn of what might have been, because we all know what happened.

This book provides a short (about 120 pages) history of the diplomatic events preceding the onset of the Second World War. On the positive side the book is very well researched. It documents well events such as the backdoor diplomacy that was underway between France and England and Goering that, to a large extent, bypassed Hitler. It also covers other factors in the diplomatic equation that were rarely covered in most previous works on the subject. A perfect example is the physical exhaustion of the main players and the impacts that Overy posited that had on the negotiations. On the negative side much of what the book contains is already common knowledge. For example Hitler's surprise at the English and French declaring war on Germany. All and all, however, the fact that the book is well researched and well written more than makes up for its negatives.

Prof. Overy's compelling essay deserves to be in a book that includes some of his other essays. It is hard for me to see the justification for putting out a book of around 30000 words (124 pages at approx. 250 words per page) with a price of $26! Such crassness is disappointing given the overall quality of Overy's writing style and his unquestionable mastery of sources and content.

It is a quick read - especially for those with a passing familiarity with the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, Sudetenland, and the betrayal of the Czechs at Munich. One problem I did have with Prof. Overy's approach of trying to accurately describe the thought processes and concerns of all the primary actors explicitly without the benefits of hindsight, is that it suggests a kind of moral equivalence between Hitler on the one side and the Poles, Great Britain and France on the other. Prof. Overy's intent is to reconstruct a real time play by play description of how the major actors dealt with the weighty decision of whether or not to plunge Europe into a second major World War. In this he is largely successful. However, his success has a severe price. In focusing on essentially the last 10 days of August, Prof Overy left me with the sense that the grossness, barbarity and illegal behavior of Hitler over the preceding 6 years were being largely ignored and left out of the decision proceses in Britain and France. True, the fulfillment of the French and British guarantees to the Poles were the immediate trigger - but the reality as Overy well knows was that it was never a question of IF there would be war, but WHEN, so long as Germany was in the thrall of Hitler and the Nazis. Overy's conclusion that Chamberlain and Daladier went to war "to save Britain and France from the dangers of a disintegrating world" (page 124) downplays the reality that the world in which Hitler operated was already an abomination. How else can Overy account for the fact that, in the July before the actual invasion of Poland,Hitler had already created the special units, Eisensatgruppen,whose primary objective was to find and murder all Poles who might possibly renew Poland's sense of nationhood - along with any Jews they might happen across. While it is probably true that little was known of these specific plans for the Polish elite, there was plenty of evidence from the thousands of refugees from newly controlled territories that Hitler's world was Hell for those deemed enemies of the Reich. This was the reality, I believe, that drove British MPs and decision-makers crazy over Chamberlain's vacillation. A general War was coming, the only question was when. The Poles became victims not of the British and French decision to go to War, but because of Hitler's and the Reich's total disregard for International Law and barbaric notions of Race War. One final point - it would be interesting to understand why Churchill is so invisible in Overy's narrative.

By all means read the book, but please do not reward the publishers behavior: Read a copy from the public library or wait for the paperback