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Overview: This lecture is part of a series of four lectures that presents the history of the world wars from the perspective of Eastern Europe, where both wars began, and where both left their deepest scars. The aim is to present a familiar story from an unfamiliar vantage point, and in so doing to shed some light on the deeper roots of more recent events. All three of the great European crises of the twentieth century—both world wars, and the Cold War that followed—began in Eastern Europe. The first great European crisis of the twenty-first century has now begun there as well. It would be unwise to imagine that history is repeating itself. But the history is worth thinking about, nonetheless.
Part 2: From Brest-Litovsk to the Munich Crisis (1918-1938) The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, imposed by the Germans on the new Bolshevik government in Russia, attempted to redefine Eastern Europe as colonial space under German control. Germany’s subsequent defeat by the Western powers overturned that result, but the expansionist ambition that produced it survived. Hitler’s foreign policy was intended to prepare for the renewal of war in the East. The Munich settlement was the final, failed attempt to deflect him from that goal.
