Review

Reviewed Work(s): Arms, Autarky and Aggression: A Study in German Foreign Policy,
1933-1939 by William Carr
Review by: Herbert A Arnold
Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), p. 1208
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869656
Accessed: 19-07-2017 05:00 UTC

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 12o8 Reviews of Books

Volk's work is thorough, based on detailed
research, with many quotations in the footnotes,
including some from the all but inaccessible
Vatican Archives of the period. One final point
might be added. Despite Volk's description of
the Vatican's intentions, one still might like
a further discussion about whether the Vatican,
or any other power for that matter, saw the
complete moral and diplomatic consequences of
signing a treaty with Hitler.
STEWART A. STEHLIN
New York University
WILLIAM CARR. Arms, Autarky and Aggression:
A Study in German Foreign Policy, 1933-1939.
(Foundations of Modern History Series) New
York: W. W. Norton and Company. 1973. Pp.
vi, 136. $7.00.
evitable but salutary, it does not seem surprising
that he should have deduced the need for Ger-
man rearmament from his ideological premises.
Since even the Fuhrer could not overlook the
fact that in the twentieth century an effective
army needs an industrial and economic base of
considerable strength and independence from
foreign interference, the connection between
ideology, autarky, and rearmament for aggres-
sion seems to establish itself almost self-evi-
dently. Unfortunately the author never presents
an account that demonstrates in convincing
historical detail his logically cogent thesis, nor
does he achieve an integration of Hitler's
foreign policy with his economic and military
policies.
In part this is because of Carr's attempt to
juggle too many balls at once and to do so in

Studies of Nazi foreign policy seem to follow a space too narrowly confined. Thus he not only
clearly recognizable patterns. Until the mid- tries to integrate narratively the stories of re-
armament and the drive for economic autarky
sixties they tended to focus either on Germany's
relations with the other major European powers with the development of foreign policy; he also
or on the narrative account of the main and endeavors to overcome what he sees as the
familiar way stations on the road to war, from traditional "primacy of foreign policy" (p. 1)
the Anglo-German Naval Agreement through approach by emphasizing the interplay and
Hitler's march into Prague. More recently the mutual dependence of external or foreign policy
internal rivalries between National Socialist with internal or military and economic factors.
party organizations and the Auswdrtiges Amt The weakness of this book also stems in part
have received monographic attention, as has the from the author's indecision about his audience.
role of Nazi ideology in the conduct of Hitler's The bulk of the material recounted is so well
foreign policy. Carr, the author of two previous known that its presentation can profit only the
books on nineteenth-century German history, beginning student. However, the assumptions
is not only aware of these trends but has based and conclusions of at least some of the sec-
his slim volume rather heavily on secondary ondary materials used in this study are by no
works that exemplify them. For his discussion means universally accepted; their presentation
of Hitler's ideology Carr relies very much on and discussion would thus seem to be most
the German edition of Eberhard Jackel's Hitlers fruitfully directed at the specialist. In sum, this
Weltanschauung (1969), while Carr's descriptionbrief book falls between too many stools to
of the diplomatic developments between the live up to its title or to the promise and po-
wars seems to owe much to Gerhard L. Wein- tential of its thesis. It is hoped that another
berg's The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany attempt will be made to demonstrate the
(1970). This procedure might be quite legitimate validity of the core propositions of this work,
in itself, considering that the title of the study but that it be done on the basis of primary
carries the promise of examining Hitler's sources and within a scope adequate to the
foreign policy in the light of Nazi economic magnitude of the task.
policy and rearmament. That promise, how- HERBERT A. ARNOLD

ever, remains largely unfulfilled. Wesleyan University

Carr's basic argument and thesis is as logical
and simple as it sounds convincing. Given
ERNA LESKY and ADAM WANDRUSZKA, editors.
Hitler's ideology or Weltanschauung, with its
Gerard van Swieten und seine Zeit: Interna-
twin goals of racial purity and territorial expan- tionales Symposium veranstaltet von der Ulni-
sion and his belief that war was not only in- versitit Wien im Institut fur Geschichte der

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