This book is intended to serve as an advanced course text for students studying the Cold War. The rearmament of both Germanies in the late 1940s-early 1950s was one of the defining moments of the Cold War. The question of rearming Germany became one of the most difficult questions faced by the Western Allies after World War II. Inside West Germany there was also a considerable debate as to whether Germany ought to rearm at all. Once the decision to rearm was made, the Germans and Western Allies ran into all the practical problems of deciding whether Germany would join NATO, what role the...

This volume places the history of the Second World War and the Baltic states into a multidisciplinary and international perspective. It includes contributions from the fields of diplomacy, strategy, military operations, intelligence and propaganda. It presents not only a multi-layered interpretation of a region affected by total war, but also reveals a great deal about the nature of that conflict. It discusses the attitudes of the great powers towards small states, the nature of military operations around the advent of mechanization and close air support, and techniques of population control...