What is this about?
Causes of World War II (shocking)
- Causes of World War II primarily lay in the unresolved issues after World War I
- Economic instability in the postwar economies of Europe led to civil unrest in Italy and Germany
- Rise of fascism in Italy was directly tied to Italy’s declining economy
- In Germany, the unrealistic political and economic demands made by Allies for Germany caused economic and political instability
The Path to War
Weimar Republic and its Unpopularity
- After World War I, the democratically elected Weimar Republic replaced the monarchical rule of the kaiser
- German government, under Treaty of Versailles, was ordered to pay billions in reparations and was not allowed to have an army
- German people viewed the republic as weak and blamed them for not fixing their problems; became heavily unpopular, especially in the Great Depression
- Problems included stuff like unemployment
- As a result many people turned to right-wing politics
Rise of Nazism
- Nazism is a specific form of fascism
- Hitler declared his anti-Semitic views in Mein Kampf in 1924
- Nazis came into power in 1932
- Hitler used fear and panic to convince the German people that they were in a state of emergency and used this to justify his fascist actions
- Ex: Nazis stage a burning of the Reichstag, the German parliament building, and blamed radical extremists for the act
- Used this to justify outlawing all other political parties and all forms of resistance to his rule
- Hitler openly promoted ultra-nationalism and scientific racism
- Nazi propaganda emphasized a need for a state for the “pure Aryans"
- Also blamed German Jews for the country’s problems
- Hitler believed that the only way to eliminate the corrupting influence of groups like the Jews was to purge them
Nuremberg Laws
- Passed in 1935; they were designed to discriminate against Jews
- Forbade marriage between Jews and people who are not Jewish and stripped Jews of their citizenship
The Axis Powers
- Hitler sought to acquire Lebensraum (”living space”)
- Belief that the German people needed to acquire more land and resources in order to sustain their growing population and become a dominant world power
- The “superior” Germans were justified in taking land for the “inferior” races
- Formed alliance with Italy
- Both shared a political ideology and economic interests
- Also needed Italy for military support
- Formed alliance with Japan
- Based on mutual distrust of communism
Kristallnacht
- “Night of the Broken Glass”
- Happened in November 1938, when massive anti-Jewish riots took place
- Seemed like it was conducted by citizens on their own will but Nazi leaders had actually engineered the entire operation
- Resulted in the destruction of nearly every synagogue in Germany and some 7,000 Jewish shops
Nazi Germany’s Aggressive Militarism
- In 1935, Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles and announced the creation of a German air force and a policy of conscription to enlarge the size of the army
The Treaty of Versailles
- Treaty of Versailles made a 31 mile wide buffer zone in Rhineland between Germany and France
- Germany was not allowed to station troops here
- Germany broke this and sent troops to Rhineland in 1936
- British and French protested this but took no other actions
Appeasement
- Foreign policy strategy that involves making concessions to an aggressive or hostile power in order to avoid conflict
- Britain followed a policy of appeasement when dealing with Nazi Germany in hopes of avoiding conflict
- Despite this, Hitler kept increasing his power
- Ex: Germany supported the fascist movement in Spain
German-Austrian Unification
- Anschluss was the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938
- With this Germany and Austria became united
Czechoslovakia
- Hitler demands that Czechoslovakia hand over the territory of Sudetenland in 1938
- Munich Conference:
- Hitler meets with leaders of Britain, France, and Italy in Munich
- Neville Chamberlain, the British PM, argued that a policy of appeasement would keep the peace and put an end to Hitler’s demands for more land
- Hence in the Munich Conference Hitler was allowed to annex Sudetenland on the condition that he would annex more territory
- Hitler, emboldened by the fact that the British weren’t going to do anything, proceeds to seize control of all of Czechoslovakia in 1939
German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
- In 1939, Germany and Soviet Union sign the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
- They promise not to attack each other and promised neutrality towards each other
- Was a shock to the world because we have a fascist country ally with a communist country
- Also secretly agreed that USSR could control eastern Poland if Germany was allowed to control western Poland
- Allowed Germany to invade Poland in 1939, starting WWII
Japan’s Expansion
- By the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Japan had already been moving aggressively against Korea and China for almost 50 years
- Japan invades Manchuria in 1931, creates puppet state of Manchukuo
- In 1937 Japan launches a full-scale invasion of China, marking start of WWII in Asia