Source Analysis Practice

📜 Source Analysis Practice

Applying NOP Analysis:

Nature: A political speech delivered to Germany's parliament, the Reichstag. Public, formal, intended for domestic and international audiences. It states Hitler's foreign policy aims in direct terms.

Origin: Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor since January 1933, speaking in May 1933 — just weeks after Germany left the World Disarmament Conference. Hitler was consolidating power domestically and beginning to signal his intentions internationally.

Purpose: The speech served two audiences simultaneously. Domestically, it rallied German nationalists who resented the Versailles settlement. Internationally, it put Britain and France on notice that Germany intended to rearm — though it was phrased carefully enough that appeasers could dismiss it as rhetoric.

Grade 9 Model Paragraph:

This source is useful to a historian studying Hitler's foreign policy aims because it confirms, from Hitler himself, that the destruction of Versailles was a central objective from the very start of his chancellorship. The specific phrase "tear up the fetters of Versailles" directly supports the historical consensus — represented by Trevor-Roper and Kershaw — that Hitler had a consistent, pre-planned programme of revision rather than simply responding to circumstances. However, its utility is limited because, as a public speech, it was carefully crafted for political effect rather than being a candid statement of all his aims. Crucially, the speech says nothing about Lebensraum — the eastward expansion of German living space outlined in Mein Kampf — which historians now consider the most dangerous of Hitler's three aims. A historian would therefore need to use this source alongside the Hossbach Memorandum (1937), in which Hitler privately outlined his plans for war, to gain a fuller picture of his true intentions.