Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War: Goals, Expectations, Practices is a collection of essays edited by Marina Cattaruzza, Stefan Dyroff, and Dieter  Langewiesche, and published by Berghahn Books in December 2012. In this blog post, the editors explain how the collection sheds new light on our understanding of Germany’s European allies during the Second World War.

Until now, research on the Second World War in Europe has focused on two main areas: on the one hand, the individual countries, and on the other, the two big “blocs”: the Allies and the Axis Powers. On the part of the Allies, historians made the point very early that states with different political systems and values managed to cooperate temporarily while still striving to achieve their respective goals. Awareness of this was heightened by the sudden shift from the partnerships in the Second World War, to the reality of the Cold War between previous allies the United States and the Soviet Union and the East/West division of the European continent by the Iron Curtain.

Continue reading “New Perspectives on World War II and Central Europe” →