The Fischer Thesis On The Origins Of The First World War

Discuss the merits and shortcomings of the ‘Fischer Thesis’ on the origins of the First World War.

The First World War stands as one of the most destructive and tragic conflicts of the twentieth century, both in terms of loss of life and its subsequent political consequences. Historians have extensively studied its causes and motivations but nevertheless remain divided on the central question of which belligerent power was most responsible for the outbreak of the war? In response to this question, Professor Fritz Fischer formed a highly controversial thesis in 1961 which would be coined the Fischer Thesis. This essay will examine and discuss the merits and shortcomings of the Fischer Thesis on the origins of the First World War with reference to relevant sources.
Fritz Fischer, upon his release from a P.O.W camp in 1947 returned to his professorship in the University of Hamburg. The Second World War and its aftermath, including the downfall of fascism, likely had a significant impact on Fischer, leading to the re-evaluation of some of his beliefs. John Moses’s biography of Fischer indicates that his initial writings after the war sought to contradict the popular explanations of the rise of National Socialism offered by men like Friedrich Meinecke who claimed that Hitler and the processes that facilitated his rise to power were simply a Betriebsunfall (essentially a freak accident). Fischer instead alleged that the rise of extremist expansionism in Germany in fact pre-dated the Versailles Treaty and even the First World War, that it was the result of the long-standing ambitions of the German elite including the Lutheran Church to which Fischer specifically mentions.
Paul Waibel, in his review of the work of Fischer, describes th...

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...f ‘Social Darwinist’ theories in relation to the survival of states, the glamorisation of empire building and warfare and the genuine belief that the war would only last a matter of months, his work is nevertheless largely supportive of the Fischer Thesis. He declares that while Germany was not exclusively responsible for the conflict, it was the prime mover “her political and military leaders saw war as an answer to her internal and external problems and as a means of assuring Germany’s standing and expansion as a world power”. To quote Dr Paul Kennedy who also argues that the Germans were at the least responsible through recklessness, observing that “Germany possessed the only offensive war plan which included not just a violation of neutral territory but also an attack on another power, regardless of whether or not the latter actually wished to become involved”.