Book Review: Western Europe: Germany and the Atlantic Alliance

DOI10.1177/002070206702200234
Published date01 June 1967
Date01 June 1967
Subject MatterBook Review
340
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
primary
and
secondary
sources
led
him
astray.
To
a
large
degree
he
relies
upon
memoranda and
positional
papers
of
experts
within
the
Foreign
Office
which
survey
the
advantages
and
disadvantages
of
various
tactics and
then
make
recommendations.
Regrettably
he
used
none
of
Stresemann's papers
for
1928
and
1929
and
only
a
relatively
small
portion
of
the
papers
for
the
earlier
period.
Another
curious
omission
from the
bibliography
are
the
three
volumes
of
Stresemann's
diaries,
which
were
carefully
edited
and
largely
ignore
the
Russian
question
but
which
are
still
useful
for
the
overall
picture.
The
author
has
also
apparently
disregarded
the
many
fine
monographs
concerning
German
domestic politics
and
has
instead
recreated
the
internal
situa-
tion
in
Germany
from
the
memoranda
of
the
Wilhelmstrasse.
These
gaps
in
research-and
these
are
the
only
reservations this
reviewer
has
about
Professor
Dyck's
documentation-may
well
have
led
the
author
to
underestimate
Stresemann's
role.
Foreign
policy
is,
after
all,
made
not
only
within the
Foreign
Office
but
also
by
the
Foreign
Minister
in
consultation
with
the
other
elements
of
the
power
structure.
The
fact
that
Stresemann's
death
was
followed
by
a
crisis
in
German-Russian
relations
indicates
that
he
gave
a
sense
of
proportion
and leadership
to
the
conduct of
German
foreign
affairs
which
was
not
easily
replaced.
One
might
argue,
in
fact,
that
for
the
next
two
decades his
chair
remained empty.
Queen's Unsversity
ROBERT
F
HOPWOOD
GERMANY
AND
THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE.
The
Interaction
of
Strategy and
Politics.
By
James
L.
Richardson.
1966.
(Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press.
Toronto:
Saunders.
vii,
403pp.
$8.95)
This
is a
timely
book,
for
it
appears
just
when
the
debate
over
Germany
threatens
to
add
further
strains
to those
already
testing
the
Western
alliance.
And
the
questions
which
it
raises
gain
added
point
at
a
time when
the
Germans
themselves
are
increasingly
and
with
growing
impatience,
articulating
views
about
and
concern
for
their
own
national
future.
If
Germany
and
the
Atlantic
Alliance
is
two
years
behind
in
the
data
which
it
analyses
(the
manuscript
appears
to
have
been
completed
just
before
Khrushchev's
fall),
it
will none
the
less
afford
a
useful
framework
in
which
to
examine
the
policies
of
the
new
Kiesinger-Brandt
government,
and
the
reaction
of
the
major
powers,
of
East
and
West,
to
them.
The
author
is
at
present
a
member
of
the
Arms
Control
and
Disarmament
Research
Unit
in
the
British
Foreign
Office.
His
book
is
of
special
interest for
its
examination
of
the
manner
in
which
political
problems complicate
and
circumscribe
the
strategic
choices
available
to
military
planners.
Richardson
begins
with
a
historical
analysis
of
the role
of
Germany
in
the
Atlantic
Alliance
from the
formation
of
the
German
Federal
Republic
in
1949
until the
mid
1960s,
which
includes
a
convincing
destruction
of
the
legend
of
the
"lost
opportunity"
of
creating
a
neutral
Germany
following
the
Soviet
note
of
March
10, 1952,
as
well
as
an
account
of
the
German debates
over
conscription
in
1956
and
over
atomic

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