he light of what we can discover about those assumptions (Joll 19-20).
Joll finds that prevalent at the time were various ideas and images that contributed to the climate in which war was accepted and even welcomed by some (Joll 24).
The most prevalent view has been that Germany was responsible for the onset of the war either through design or because of various policies which produced the environment that would lead to war. This created some controversy in Germany, of course, where scholars have argued over whether Germany was trying to start a war deliberately, was the victim of circumstances, or was not responsible at all for what happened. Often such arguments have been based on different views of guilt over the war--whether Germany should be guilty, how guilty Germans should feel, and so on. The actions taken against Germany at the end of the war by the victors clearly signaled their view that Germany was responsible for what had happened, and subsequent events showed how much Germans resented this view and fought against it, leading in time to World War II.
The view that Germany was indeed responsible is upheld by Fritz Fischer, who argued in 1961 that Germany had been inspired by economic interests and had sought to achieve world power, making a conscious decision to go to war. Indeed, he argues that Germany developed a war-like stance that extended from 1900 to World War II. Herwig notes that Fischer believed that Germany had opted for war in July of 1914, seeing that the time was "now or never":
Far from willing merely to undertake a "calculated risk," Bethmann-Hollweg chose war in order to realize his ambitious scheme of economic and territorial aggrandizement. . . In short, inspired by economic interests, German decision makers, under considerable pressure from right-wing lobbies, deliberately escalated the management of the July crisis into a major war--purposefully choosing not to deescalate it and to ...