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Watt shows Hitler to be a gambler, who embarked on a reckless foreign policy in order to win territories for Germany. He did not wish to go to war, but he was determined to expand Germany’s borders and recover all the lands lost under the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler eventually unintentionally provoked France and Britain, by invading Poland and this led to the outbreak of a general war in September 1939, which is something he did not want.

Based largely on Neville Chamberlain's, the British Prime Minister’s perspective. This book describes how were it not for Chamberlain's policy of ‘appeasement’ which sought to prevent war by agreeing to Nazi Germany’s demands on issues such as the Sudetenland, World War II might have been avoided. Ruggerio showed that Chamberlin’s policy only made Hitler to seek more territory. Eventually, Chamberlin recognized that Hitler would make continual demands and this led him to change his policy and when Hitler invaded Poland he declared war and this was to lead to the second world war in just over twenty years.

This book firmly blames Adolf Hitler for the start of the Second World War. He was eager to create a racial empire in Europe, which the Germans as the ‘master race’ would dominate. Wright believes that Hitler had to persuade and even mislead the Germans into entering into a war with their neighbors. Many Germans, after the First World War were unsure about going to war. Hitler’s by exploiting German nationalism was able to win enough support to embark in an aggressive territorial policy and this provoked the western allies to declare war on Nazi Germany in September 1939.