world war ii · 2017-06-07 · nazism required and had many accomplices. hitler’s leadership...

{World War II

Or WWI.2

The treaty of Versailles did NOT create peace.

It was really about revenge, not justice.War Guilt Clause.Reparations.Occupation of German territory.

The Failure of Versailles

Germany was forced to accept the blame for the losses in World War I.

It was determined that Germany owed the Allied powers 132 billion German marks (33 billion U.S. dollars).

They would pay this back in installments.

War Guilt Clause

The first payment by the new Weimer Republic was made in 1921—by the next year, Germany stopped paying.

France was ANGRY.Britain NEEDED the money.Global repercussions! more on this

to come…

Reparations

Germany lost large tracts of territory to the newly created Poland, Czechoslovakia, Alsace Lorraine.

French troops occupied German territory. The French really stuck it to Germany here by

using elements of the French Foreign Legion (many of these troops were black)! More on this later…

The German public had been told they were winning until they were given these very onerous terms of “peace.” Resentment

Occupation

A lot of hope was placed in the League of Nations to maintain the peaceUnited States refused to join!Proved to be too weak to enforce the

peace.Never agreed to use force against bullies.

League of Nations

Lasted 2 years longer than the Nazi regimes (“Thousand-Year Reich”).

First European power after Russia to give women the vote.

Returned Germany to international respectability.

Weimer Republic

Strongest economy in continental Europe.

Inherited it’s infrastructure intact after the War.

Surrounded by weaker, poorer neighbors.

Weimer Republic

The Republic was not balanced in its dealings with left wing Communists and right wing extremists.Communists would get life in prison or

death sentences.Right wing extremists would get light

penalties and commuted sentences.

Weimer Republic

The left (liberals) wanted a revolutionary, Communist regime instead of a liberal, democratic republic.

The right (conservatives) considered the whole idea of democracy to be weak, ineffective, and non-German.

Both worked against the elected government and severely weakened it’s credibility.

Weimer Republic

General climate of political polarization.Parties at the extremes (Nazis,

Communists) gained at the expense of moderates in the middle.

Weimer Republic

Hyper-inflation:Not just a result of crushing

reparations payments. Germany had quit paying these.

Irresponsible fiscal (money) policy.Currency reform in 1923 halted the

problem. By the time Hitler came to power in 1933,

hyper-inflation was 10 years in the past.

Weimer Republic

America coasted along for a couple years and then came 1929 and everyone suddenly realized that America didn’t actually have any money—they held a lot of debt that was never going to be paid back…

The Death of the Republic and the Rise of Hitler

Remember when I said Germany quit making payments for their war reparations?

By not paying Britain and France, Britain and France defaulted (quit paying) on their loans from the United States.

The United States looked really wealthy on paper after WWI because everyone owed us money.



1929: U.S. Stock Market Crash sends world into global depression.Germany: growing unemploymentFarmers: falling prices, shrinking markets

1930s: Political crisis brought about by.High taxes Increased tariffsCuts in govt. spendingDeflationary policies

Last French troops withdraw from Germany.


Dictators depend upon popular support. Nazism required and had many accomplices.

Hitler’s leadership helped to set the agenda.

He had a consistent world-view (zeitgeist).Mein Kampf was a work of propaganda.Hitler’s obsession with blood and race were

shared by a lot of Germans.


Hitler would be arrested for high treason—he tried to violently overthrow the government.Used terror tactics, attacked

Comunism, Social Democrats, Jews, and homosexuals.

5 years of prison.Only served 13 months in prison.



The popular claim that no one could resist the magnetic force of Hitler’s oratory doesn’t fit the record: 60% of German voters had no trouble voting

against him in 1932. They found him “braying, annoying, low class,

and offensive.” November 1932 elections: Nazis lost 2,000,000

votes. Hitler contemplated suicide!


Sense of urgency: time was running out! If the German race was not saved immediately, it would be too late. Sense of racial panic. Apocalyptic connotations.

Fuhrer Principle: importance of uncontested leadership. Power must be focused in order to be effective.

Not a brilliant, original thinker.No new ideas—even the way he

recombined those old ideas was not new.

What was different and important was the intensity and urgency of how he presented them.


Hitler was never actually elected to power.

Miscalculation of his rivals:Franz von Papen: conservative nationalist,

convinces Hindenburg to name Hitler Chancellor. Trying to buy popular support for himself. Expected to be named Vice-Chancellor.


German President Hindenberginvokes Article 48 of German constitution:President may govern by decree in a

state of emergency.Hindenberg was never a fan of

democracy.At this point, German Democracy is

dead.


Other conservatives and industrialists backed Hitler to prevent Communists increasing in strength.

Power was handed to Hitler.


End Part IBegin

Part II:

International Economic Depression.Political chaos and upheaval.Fascism vs. Communism

Imperialism and AlliancesJapan vs. ChinaWar…

Path to War

After WWI, the world economy simply collapsed.

Rule of War: War never generates profit: it redistributes wealth that is not destroyed. So much was destroyed in terms of lives and

property that the economies of the world were broken.

Global Depression

Agriculture:Prices dropped (wheat) and farmers

went bankrupt. In the U.S. the dust bowl, a result of

bad farming practices, destroy America’s “bread basket.”

Global Depression

Stock Markets destabilizedPrices soared, but business declined

(nobody understood how badly the war hurt business and commercial infrastructures).

America looked good on paper, but was living in a house of cards. Britain and France owed us money, but

because Germany wasn’t paying reparations, America wasn’t getting paid either!

Global Depression

Germany and America were the hardest hit.

China was untouched!Nobody knew how to handle the

crisis effectively, so the middle class in Europe and America suffered horribly.

Global Depression

Benito Mussolini of Italy becomes the leader of a radical and dangerous political movement called Fascism.

Italian Fascists, called Blackshirts, use intimidation, violence, and bullying to target their opponents (and especially socialists).

Mussolini becomes Dictator (Il Duce “The Leader”) in 1922.

What did this Mean?

Racial:Nationalism is the dominant ideology.Racial unity is stressed, necessitating the

removal of different ethnic groups.Efficiency:Wheat campaign raised agricultural

productivity. Improved railroads, irrigation, roads, and

power utilities.

Fascism:

Freedoms: Dissent was outlawed. Non-Fascist newspapers were shut down. Elections were prohibited and Mussolini’s opponents

were jailed.Politics:

One political party rules the state. Opposition is outlawed. Elections are outlawed our only offer candidates

from a sanctioned party.

Fascism:

Economics: Italians should only buy Italian goods. Increased production, but no wealth.Everyone works, but no one makes much

money.State controls prices, production, and

labor relations.Labor Strikes are illegal.

Fascism:

Germans resented the Weimar Republic, the surrender was a stab in the back.

Immediately following WWI, there was extreme inflation, high unemployment, and considerable poverty. Remember the reparations? The Republic tried

to simply print money to pay: this made the German Mark worthless.

Germany

Through a perfect storm of political and economic chaos, combined with moral apathy and severe stress on the middle class Hitler rises to power.

Hitler idolized Mussolini.The National Socialist German Workers’

Party (Nazi) is modeled on the Italian fascism.

Nazi storm troopers were the German equivalent of the Blackshirts.

Germany

March 23, 1933: the German Reichstag cedes power to Hitler.

May 10, 1933: German students across the nation begin to burn books accused of an “un-German spirit.” In Berlin, an estimated 40,000 people gathered to

hear propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, pronounce that “Jewish intellectualism is dead” and endorses the students’ “right to clean up the debris of the past.”

Timeline to War

“Where they have burned books, they will end in

burning human beings.”

― Heinrich Heine ― 1823

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16071.Heinrich_Heine

1933: The first concentration camps of the Holocaust open. (Dachau)

June 30, 1934: the Night of the Long Knives. 100 storm troopers and Nazis suspected of

disloyalty are executed in the night.March 7, 1936: Hitler and the Third Reich

invade the Rhineland.March 12 and 13, 1938: Austria is annexed.

Timeline to War

November 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht The night of broken glass. Open attacks on Jews begin.

March 15, 1939: Prague, Czechoslovakia fall.August 23, 1939: German/Soviet Non-

aggression pact (Lets divide Poland between the two of us!)

Timeline to War

September 1, 1939: Germany Blitzkriegs (Lightning war) through Poland. France and England declare war on Germany.

May 10, 1940: Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France fall to Germany.

September 7, 1940: The London Blitz.September 27, 1940: Germany, Japan, and

Italy sign the Axis Pact.

Timeline to War

August 9-12, 1941: Roosevelt and Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt freezes all Japanese assets in America.

This along with actions by the British and Dutch East Indies cut’s all Japanese access to oil imports by 88%.

December 7, 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, then Malaysia, the Philippines, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Wake Island.

Timeline to War

world war ii · 2017-06-07 · nazism required and had many accomplices. hitler’s leadership...

Documents