ssians. The original plan contained much room for flexibility depending on the situation, and was to be used only in the case of a two front war. Over the next two decades, however, the original plan was tinkered with to the extent that it became both inflexible and the only plan for military action, whether a two front war was probable or not (Dupuy, 1977).
When war appeared imminent in 1914, Germany launched the Schlieffen Plan, guaranteeing the two front war that it may yet have avoided, and executed it badly, failing to knock out the French quickly. During the inter-war period, German veterans of the Great War discussed and lamented their rigid adherence to the plan, realizing that they had forgotten the essential rule of flexibility in strategy and tactics. Among these men were Adolf Hitler, and the requirement for flexibility took hold in him in ways that were to lead to both victory and defeat for his nation in the next war.
Once Hitler took power and undertook the rapid and massive re-armament of the nation, the logic of war was locked into place. The militarization of Germany created a super-heated economy with an ever-growing need for more resources. Thus, in addition to Hitler's long held belief in Lebensraum, there existed a more immediate economic need for conquest. When Germany acquired the Sudetenland and Austria, it also acquired much needed coal and oil fields, industrial sites, and $200 million in foreign cash reserves (Kennedy, 1989, 308). Still, by early 1939, German cash reserves were once again dangerously low. Then followed the annexation of Czechoslovakia, with its large and profitable industries and the substantial assets of the Czech banking system. At this point, it must have been clear to the world that war for plunder and profit was the essential underlying logic to Hitler's economic plan; as Kennedy points out, it was clear by May that Poland was the next target (p. 309).
Hitler was ...