Guilty Germans? (1942)
"National United Does Not Solve the Problem of Victory"
Smith, Aubrey Douglas. Guilty Germans? London: Victor Gollancz, 1942.
Octavo. Hardcover. 1st Edition.
First edition of this insightful history of Germany and Britain's relations to it up to 1941 including the rise of Hitler and the first few years of the war. Written by a resident tutor at the University of Cambridge, this work strives to explain the culture and national characteristics of the German people in an attempt to allow the at-war British to decide the best pathway to victory. Smith's history of Germany begins with its gradual unification and continues through the First World War and into the Second (ongoing as of the time of publication). Smith's path to victory is fundamentally socialist, rejecting fascism, Nazism, imperialism, and capitalism together as creating the conditions of inevitable war. This is not the Left Book Club edition, but rather the first edition (provided to the general public). Book fine, with usual interior toning due to acid content of wartime paper. Fragile dust jacket about-fine, with only light rubbing and toning to extremities.