The Unfinished War: Hyenas and Herbivores of Europe a Hundred Years Ago

Course Program: Cycle Two. The Pact and Its Consequences. Part One. Instead of a Foreword: As of March 1939, Hitler wanted nothing to do with the USSR, yet by August 18, in a personal letter to Stalin, he was literally pleading with the 'leader of all times and peoples' to accept his representative and sign an agreement. Why was Hitler in such a hurry, given that the Rapallo Treaty was still formally in effect between the USSR and Germany? Who or what created these conditions for Hitler? A complex web of international geopolitics involving the USA, Britain, France, Italy, the USSR, and Poland from 1918 to October 1939. 'All coincidences are purely accidental' (c). In the spring of 1941, the then-head of the 'Eastern Army' department and future founder of West Germany’s military intelligence, Reinhard Gehlen, reported to Hitler that a moral issue for the Wehrmacht in the upcoming campaign could be the 'Spirit of Rapallo.' Himmler disagreed and was ultimately proven right. Why? And why does modern historiography attempt to 'stretch the owl over the globe'? The international situation of the mid-1920s and its echoes in 1939.

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