Paul Kennedy's Accountability On The German Home Front

The secondary source is in perspective of British Historian Paul Kennedy, arguing in his work of 1989 that whilst soldiers value total war, it leaves home fronts in a state of economic and social calamity. The origin aids in reliability, as the date of 1988 was post-war, and thus was no censorship on what historians wrote, meaning Kennedy’s descriptions are free of external control. The narrow perspective Kennedy limits the reliability, evident in his favorable comparisons of the allied home fronts, opposed to the German home front. The sources fails to consider the positive innovations of the German home front, such as the ersatz products resulting from the blockade . Kennedy’s persuasive tone reduces the reliability, as Kennedy’s motivation to elucidate that all powers will fall from their zenith and the economic condition of a country will affect its victory or downfall during wartime. …show more content…
Kennedy emphasizes that stability on the home front results in a fruitful outcome during war, and Germany, the naval blockade and the “chronic neglect of agriculture” has resulted in “an insane imbalance”, between resources abstracted towards the home front and the front itself, making it useful for an Historian studying total war, and it social and economic impact on civilians from an allied perspective. The source however is less useful due to the narrow perspective and the unattainability of a German perspective. Source four presents great limitations, which makes it quintessential to obtain additional sources to gain a holistic