334 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Jugoslawien und das Dritte : Eine dokumentierte Geschichte der deutsch-jugoslawischen Beziehungen von 1933 bis 1945. By Johann Wuescht. Stuttgart: Seewald. 1969. 359 pp. Bibliog. Index. DAl 28. THIS book is not what it elaims to be-a documented history of German• Yugoslav relations from 1933 to 1945-but a series of polemically-written essays designed to clear the record in the Balkans not only of , but also of the German national minority there (die Volks• Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/46/2/334/2668388 by guest on 27 September 2021 deutselze). In the preface to his bnok, the author, himself a German from Yugoslavia who had until his retirement a few years ago worked in the BU1/c1esarc/til' in Koblenz, anticipates criticism along these lines by saying that it is difficult for anyone, like himself, who disagrees with the 'official view' not to become suspected of neo-Nazi views or appear in the role of one trying to restore Hitler's system's honour (ill del' Rolle eines Ehrellrl'tters des lJitlersystems, p, 12). If the author had been content with eliminating some of the cruder and more simpliste interpretations of the nature and character of the Nazi conspiracy, his book might have been a real contribution to the historical understanding of the period. Unfortunately, he is not satisfied, for example, to prove that there had been no Nazi war plans for attacking Yugoslavia when Hitler ordered the invasion on March 27, 1941, thus modifying the Nuremburg thesis of a Nazi aggression systematically planned since 1933. Yugoslavia, after all, was, from Hitler's point of view, a country in Mussolini's sphere of influence. And he had plenty of plans of one kind or another. Herr Wuescht goes further than that and tries to pin the blame for the outbreak of war in 1941 on the Yugoslav Government (p. 171). This kind of reasoning, which makes a small country responsible for being attacked and dismembered by a powerful one that could not have possibly felt itself endangered at the time, is not so much a sign of nco-Nazi sympathies as of bad taste and lack of tact. The background to the March coup of 1941, which provoked Hitler into giving the order to attack Yugoslavia, is complicated, and the coup itself, in the view of some historians, had as much to do with internal politics in Yugoslavia as with foreign policy and resistance to Hitler. But the fact remains that, whatever the political sympathies of the officers who staged it and the ministers who joined the Simovic government after the coup, Yugoslavia did not declare war on Hitler nor did it threaten to do so. In fact, the Simovic government made desperate efforts through Mussolini to appease Hitler. If Yugoslavia had been trying to trick Hitler into attacking her, the reactions of her leaders would have been very different. After all, how could they hope to succeed against Hitler and his allies when they knew very well that there was no chance of effective British support? It was precisely this hopeless outlook which had persuaded the Cvetkovic government to sign the Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941. Herr Wuescht shows a similar lack of elementary tact and finesse when dealing with events during the occupation, Once again, we have the unwillingly playing its role as the chief occupying power and being tricked into heavy reprisals against the population by the wicked Communists and others. There were among the German officers in Yugo• slavia humane men like, for example, General Glaise von Horstenau in Croatia, who deplored the atrocities committed by the and their allies. But there were many more others like Siegfried Kasche, the Nazi HISTORY 335 envoy in Zagreb, who urged the adoption by the local occupation regimes of precisely those policies and measures which were most likely to fan the flames of civil war. The fact that in a relatively peaceful Serbia between 1942 and 1944 the German occupation authorities looked after the popula• tion's needs in terms of soap and flour does not justify the real horrors committed by Hitler's troops in a war-torn Bosnia and Croatia in that same period. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/46/2/334/2668388 by guest on 27 September 2021 Herr Wuescht is right to point out that those responsible for these things and others who were not responsible suffered a terrible retribution. This was particularly true of the German minority in northern Yugoslavia whose members were expelled from the country after the war. But here, too, the fact remains that, objectively speaking, that minority played a role helpful to the occupation regime in terms of military and political support and what happened to it in and after 19-+5 was not any worse than what happened to the native Yugoslavs who had, after defeat, found themselves in the hands of the Communist regime. Once again, had the author been content to modify the picture, his modifications could have helped. By overstating his case, he helps undermine it. A serious and scholarly account of the war from the German point of \iew still remains to be written. KRsTo F. CVII{,

The Causes of the German Collapse in 1918. Sections of the officially authorised report of the Commission of the German Constituent Assembly and of the German Reiehstag, 1919-1928, the selection and the translation oll1cially approved by the Commission. By Ralph Haswell Lutz. 3rd cd. Trans. by W. L. Campbell. Hamden, Conll, London: Archon. 1969. 309 pp. Index. $9. Third edition of a work first published in 1934, which provides a summary of the military, diplomatic and eventual internal collapse of Germany in 1918. The author has selected fifty-four documents from the Committee's consideration of the' moral and historical responsibility of the leaders and of certain groups '.

The Revolutionary Internationals, 1864-1943. Ed. by Milorad M. Drachkovitch. 2nd ed. Stanford, Cali/.: Stanford University Press for the HOOl'a Institwion on War. Rel·olwion. and Peace; London: Oxford University Press. 1968. 256 pp. Index. (Stanford Paperhack, 65.) $2.95. 26s. 6d. Paperback edition of a book first published in 1966 and reviewed in IlIternariollai Affairs, July 1967, p. 57~. It comprises a collection of essays discussing the three Revolutionary Internationals, all of which had the common goal of unifying the proletariat of all countries and destroying the system of private property, but which differed in national and international conditions, problems of organisation and personality between leaders.

INTERNATIONAL Contending Approaches to International Politics. Ed. by Klaus Knorr and James N. Rosenau. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press for the Princt!ton Center of IlItt!l'IIational Studies; London: Oxford Uni• versity Press. 1969. 297 pp. Index. 72s. ConOict and Communication: The Use of Controlled Communication in International Relations. By John W. Burton. London: Macmillan. 1969. 246 pp. Bibliog. Index. 46.1'. TEACHING of, and research into, International Relations in institutions of higher learning were almost unknown until after the First World War; and