This book provides a comprehensive view of trhe reamament of Germany after World War II. The book centers on the debate on German rearmament inside Germany and in the international context. The issues of military planning and economic effects of German rearmament are discussed, as well as the rearmament of the East German State.

This probing examination of the period just before and after Hitler came to power corrects many misconceptions about German rearmament. Drawing on previously unexploited sources, Edward Bennett unravels German military plans and shows their implications, undermining the notion that Hitler's accession represented a radical break with Germany's past. He also lays bare the fears and rivalries that hindered the West's response, particularly at the 1932-1933 World Disarmament Conference. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In Germans to the Front, David Large charts the path from Germany's total demilitarization immediately after World War II to the appearance of the Bundeswehr, the West German army, in 1956. The book is the first comprehensive study in English of West German rearmament during this critical period. Large's analysis of the complex interplay between the diplomatic and domestic facets of the rearmament debate illuminates key elements in the development of the Cold War and in Germany's ongoing difficulty in formulating a role for itself on the international scene. Rearmament severely tested West Germany's new parliamentary institutions, dramatically defined emerging power relationships in German politics, and posed a crucial challenge for the NATO alliance. Although the establishment of the Bundeswehr ultimately helped stabilize the nation, the acrimony surrounding its formation generated deep divisions in German society that persisted long after the army took the field. According to Large, the conflict was so bitter because rearmament forced a confrontation with fundamental questions of national identity and demanded a painful reckoning with the past.

At the end of World War II, the Allies were unanimous in their determination to disarm the former aggressor Germany. As the Cold War intensified, however, the decision whether to reverse that policy and to rearm West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet threat led to disagreements both within the US government and among members of the nascent NATO alliance. The US military took the practical view that a substantial number of German troops would be required to deter any potential Soviet assault. The State Department, on the other hand, initially advocated an alternative strategy of strengthening European institutions but eventually came around to the military’s position that an armed West Germany was preferable to a weak state on the dividing line between the Western democracies and the Soviet satellite states. Sheldon A. Goldberg traces the military, diplomatic, and political threads of postwar policy toward West Germany and provides insights into the inner workings of alliance building and the roles of bureaucrats and military officers as well as those of diplomats and statesmen. He draws on previously unexamined primary sources to construct a cogent account of the political and diplomatic negotiations that led to West Germany’s accession to NATO and the shaping of European order for the next forty years.

This volume presents a cross-section of the most common transport vehicles produced and used by the German army. Tanks plus auxiliary vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, vans, ambulances, trucks and tractors made it possible for the troops to keep moving. These lightly armored or unarmored vehicles--aka "soft skins"--operated behind the front lines, maintaining supply lines, connecting armies with their home bases, and ultimately determining the outcome of battle. Beginning with the development of military vehicles in the early 1930s, this volume discusses the ways in which this new technology influenced and, to some extent, facilitated Hitler's program of rearmament. Nomenclature, standard equipment, camouflage and the combat roles of the various vehicles are thoroughly examined. Individual vehicle types are arranged and discussed by the following classifications: cars and motorcycles; trucks and tractors; half-tracks and wheeled combat vehicles. Accompanied by well-researched, detailed line drawings, each section deals with a number of individual vehicles, describing their design, manufacture and specific use.

This book, first published in 1955, examines the total economic, political and social breakdown that Germany suffered in the last year of the Second World War and in its immediate aftermath, and the beginnings of the recovery in the Western half of the now-divided nation. The process of ‘denazification’ is analysed, as are the policies of the occupying powers and the subsequent political stability and economic expansion.