Road to World War II

1
Road to World War II

• Weimar Republic
• Rise of Hitler Nazis
• Nazi ideology
• Elsewhere
• Japan in Manchuria (1931)
• Italy in Ethiopia (1935)
• Anti-Comintern Pact
• Spanish Civil War (1937)

2
Weimar Republic

• Formed before the end of World War I
• Signed the Treaty of Versailles
• Liberal, democratic
• Problems
• System encouraged the rise of small parties
• Economic crisis
• 1919 1 US dollar 8.9 German marks
• 1923 1 US dollar 4 billion marks!
• Germanys authoritarian past

3
Adolf Hitler

• Gained control of National Socialist German
  Workers (Nazi) Party (1921)
• Beer Hall Putsch (1923)
• Prestige increases
• In jail,
• Wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
• Vowed to take over Germany through legal means

4
Attraction to Hitler

• Military attitudes techniques
• Uniforms, salutes, emblems, flags imbued party
  members with a sense of solidarity and
  camaraderie
• Effective use of propaganda
• At mass meetings, Hitler was a spellbinder who
  gave stunning performances. His pounding fists,
  throbbing body, wild gesticulations, hypnotic
  eyes, rage-swollen face, and repeated, frenzied
  denunciations of the Versailles treaty, Marxism,
  the republic, and Jews inflamed and mesmerized
  the audience. Hitler instinctively grasped the
  innermost feelings of his audiencetheir
  resentments and longings (Perry).

5
Nazi Ideology

• Aryans as master race
• Anti-Semitism
• ExpansionLebensraum
• State administration of economic activity
• State control by dictator (fuhrer)

6
Nazis Take Power

• Great Depression
• Election of 32
• Nazis become biggest party (37.3, 230 seats in
  Reichstag)
• Hitler named Chancellor
• Fire in Reichstag, emergency powers
• Storm Troopers (SA)
• Enabling Act
• Hitler able to bypass legislature
• Used democracy to destroy democracy

7
Trouble Elsewhere

• Manchurian Incident (1931)
• Exposes impotence of League of Nations
• Mussolini invades Ethiopia (1935)
• Anti-Comintern Pact (1937)
• Germany, Italy, Japan
• Spanish Civil War (1937-39)
• Struggle between Left Right in Europe