#125 - War in the Nazi Imagination: Richard J. Evans on Hitler's Goals in Poland, British Diplomacy, Winston Churchill, and the Final Solution

“If the experience of the Third Reich teaches us anything, it is that a love of great music, great art and great literature does not provide people with any kind of moral or political immunization against violence, atrocity, or subservience to dictatorship.” -Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, 2003 Original YouTube: https://youtu.be/FAHUyHDTphQ Provided by the Departments of History and Art History at the University of Otago, October 2017: https://www.youtube.com/@OtagoHumanities How did the Nazis conceive of war? In this lecture, Professor Evans—a world authority on Nazi Germany—argues that Hitler's belief that war was necessary for the fitness and survival of the German race led him to promote the indoctrination of German society at every level with a will to wage war and the preparedness to do so. Perpetual conflict was the aim, and the idea that World War II would have ended had the Nazis won is an illusion; it would have been followed by other conflicts, principally with America. In this way, defeat was built in to the Nazi war effort from the beginning.