The Upstairs Room [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION X HE Second World War started in 1939 when the German army marched into Poland, but the war had been in the making for many years, perhaps twenty, ever since the Germans lost the First World War and were forced to sign a peace settlement that they considered unreasonably harsh and humiliating. They especially resented the fact that they were not allowed more than a token army. Many veterans could not find jobs and looked angrily for an outlet for their energies. Adolf Hitler had been an impassioned soldier in the German army during the First World War, and he was even more upset than most when Germany lost the war. He decided to go into politics and bring back glory to his country. He had an incredible hatred of Jews, and he blamed them for Germany's defeat; he blamed others, too. Not the German soldiers though. They had been brave, he said, and capable, and would never have lost the war. Many discontented Germans