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The Path to War

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Title: The Path to War Author: William G. Soff Last modified by: me Created Date: 3/30/2004 12:18:45 AM Document presentation format: On-screen Show – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Path to War


1
The Path to War
  • Hitlers Germany and its path towards World War II

2
The Ascension of Hitler
  • Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf The army was never
    defeated in 1918. Germany was stabbed in the
    back by traitors at home and betrayed by the
    Allies. Most of the woes of Germany were caused
    by the Jews, who had manipulated finances to the
    ruin of Germany and who could never be loyal to
    Germany or to any other government. Germany had
    to become strong again. The country must be
    cleansed of traitors, and the Versailles Treaty
    must be scrapped!

3
The Ascension of Hitler
  • Nazi rallies were masterpieces of political
    display.
  • Hitler mesmerized crowds with his frenzied
    tirades.
  • Hitler viewed the masses merely as tools, and he
    was actually contemptuous of them.
  • In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote
  • the intelligence of the great masses is small.
    As a result, all effective propaganda must be
    limited to a few points
  • Many believe that most political campaigns since
    the 1930s have been influenced by this Nazi
    style.

4
The Ascension of Hitler
  • Hitler became German chancellor in January 1933.
    With that, the Third Reich was born. (The First
    Reich, or empire, was begun by Charlemagne in 800
    and abolished by Napoleon in 1806, the Second
    Reich began in 1871 with German unification and
    ended in 1918).
  • Hitler claimed the Third Reich would last 1000
    years.

5
The Ascension of Hitler
  • Through the Enabling Act (March, 1933), Hitler
    became dictator. He stripped the Reichstag of
    any real power.
  • He dissolved opposition parties outlawed labor
    unions censored the press suspended civil
    liberties.
  • He threw out laws not beneficial to Nazism.

6
The Ascension of Hitler
  • In 1933, the Nazis established labor camps and
    concentration camps.
  • The first camp was at Dachau, near Munich.
  • These camps were initially for political enemies
    (like Socialists/Communists, and later for Jews
    and homosexuals, etc.)

7
The Ascension of Hitler
  • Hitler proclaimed himself der Fuhrer (the leader)
    and immediately required all members of the armed
    forces to take an oath of loyalty (the Blood
    Oath), not to Germany or the German Constitution,
    but to Hitler himself.
  • The Nazis hired over 100,000 informers to report
    anyone (even parents) suspected of disloyalty.

8
The Ascension of Hitler
9
Hitlers (and Germanys) Anti-Semitism
  • According to Hitler, Germans were Aryans (which
    means noble in Sanskrit) and were the master
    race or super race. All others, particularly
    Jews and Slavs, were inferior. Jews were to be
    eliminated and Slavs were to be made into slaves.
  • Hitler said Nature is cruelso we may be cruel,
    tooI have a right to remove millions of an
    inferior race that breeds like vermin.

10
Hitlers (and Germanys) Anti-Semitism
  • Looking for scapegoats to blame for Germanys
    problems, Hitler consistently blamed the Jews.
  • In the mid-1930s, Germanys Jewish population
    represented less than 1 of the total population
    (about 500,000 people).
  • In 1935, Hitler began to eliminate Jews from
    German national life with the Nuremberg Laws.

11
The Nuremberg Race Laws
  • Known as the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law
    for the Protection of German Blood and Honor.
  • These deprived Jews of most civil liberties. It
    was the beginning of the German tactic of
    isolating them from the rest of the population.
  • There was a national boycott of Jewish
    businesses.
  • Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews
    and Jewish lawyers were not allowed to advise
    clients.

12
The Nuremberg Race Laws
  • Jewish children were barred from German schools.
  • Books written by Jewish authors were banned
    and/or burned.
  • Intermarriage was prohibited.

13
Kristallnacht
  • In October, 1938 a 17 year-old shot and killed a
    German embassy official in Paris.
  • The teenager was reacting to his parents
    harassment and humiliation from the Nuremberg
    Laws.
  • The Nazis retaliated on the night of November 9,
    1938, when violence against Jews (a pogrom) broke
    out across Germany and Austria. This was called
    Kristallnacht, (the night of the broken glass).

14
Kristallnacht
  • Over 1,000 synagogues were burned or destroyed,
    7,000 Jewish business were trashed and looted,
    over 350 Jewish people were killed and several
    hundred wounded, and Jewish cemeteries,
    hospitals, schools, and homes were looted.
  • The next day, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and
    sent to concentration camps.

15
Kristallnacht
  • Jewish businesses could not reopen unless they
    were managed by non-Jews.
  • New curfews were placed on Jews.
  • Any person identified as being Jewish now had to
    wear the yellow Star of David.

16
Kristallnacht
17
Kristallnacht
18
The Third Reich was organizing for War
  • The Nazis molded the minds of German citizens
    through a program that glorified war. Textbooks
    were rewritten.
  • Hitler began massive preparations for the
    expansion of Germany (lebensraum), which
    included food rationing laws (designed to make
    Germany self-sufficient in the event of war).
  • These laws regulated the amount of food each
    person could have and where they could buy it.

19
The Third Reich was organizing for War
  • Germany was also short of raw materials so laws
    were set up so nothing was wasted.
  • Shopkeepers were allowed a specified amount of
    wrapping paper households were to save empty
    toothpaste tubes, waste animal fats, and paper
    (to be recycled into useful items for warfare).

20
The Third Reich was organizing for War
  • Economic revival through pump priming
    (stimulating the economy through public works
    programs) built popular support for the Nazis.
  • From building tanks and airplanes (thus violating
    the ToV) to farm production and the Autobahn,
    unemployment went from over 6M in 1932 to 1.6M in
    1936 (nearly a 75 decrease).

21
The Third Reich was organizing for War
  • The Autobahn highway system was built to permit
    the rapid movement of troops around the country
    (but built under the guise of getting thousands
    of unemployed men working).

22
The Third Reich was organizing for War
23
Germany and Geopolitics
  • Geopolitics is the study of government and its
    policies as affected by physical geography.
  • Created in Germany in the 1920s, geopolitics
    initially stated that the country that controlled
    eastern Europe would be able to control the
    Heartland, the area extending from southwestern
    Russia to Mongolia. Command of the Heartland
    would lead to control of the World-Island,
    consisting of Europe, Africa, and Asia (roughly
    2/3s of Earth).

24
Germany and Geopolitics
  • Picture of World Island

25
Germany and Geopolitics
  • Hitler believed that under German control,
    eastern Europe, with its vast mineral and
    agricultural resources, would become a great
    industrial region.
  • This would enable Germany to control the
    Heartland. By controlling the Heartland, vital
    industries could be moved to remote regions,
    beyond the range of attack. The result would be
    world domination by Germany.
  • Geopolitics was a major factor leading Hitler
    into Eastern Europe and then Russia.

26
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Hitler had Germany withdraw from the League of
    Nations in 1933.
  • In March 1935, Hitler denounced the Treaty of
    Versailles and announced he was rearming Germany
    (on the grounds that other nations had failed to
    disarm in accordance with the Treaty). He
    quickly took the army from 100,000 troops to
    nearly 600,000.

27
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Having correctly assessed the spinelessness of
    Britain and France, in March 1936 Hitler sent
    German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland,
    totally violating the Treaty of Versailles.

28
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Only a token force of three German battalions (a
    battalion is between 300-1200 soldiers) actually
    entered the Rhineland, and they were under strict
    orders from their nervous generals to withdraw at
    once if the French responded to this breach of
    the treaty with military force.
  • The German generals knew that the much larger
    French army could crush their army at this time,
    and believed that Hitler was taking a dangerous
    gamble.

29
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • The British were obliged under the Treaty of
    Locarno (1925) to provide France with military
    support in such a situation, but when asked by
    France for that support, the British government
    refused to honor its treaty obligation.
  • Despite having thirty army divisions at the
    border in readiness to cross and disperse the
    three German battalions, the French lost their
    nerve in the absence of support from Britain.

30
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Hitlers successful challenge of the hated Treaty
    of Versailles increased his popularity in
    Germany.
  • The western democracies denounced his moves but
    took no real action.
  • France and Britain did not want a war with
    Hitler.

31
Entering the Rhineland
32
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Many in Britain thought Hitlers moves were
    justified since they thought Versailles was too
    harsh on Germany. Why should not Hitler have the
    right to fortify his own territory? If this
    demand can be satisfied, Germany will likely
    become a good neighbor.
  • What do think might have happened if Britain
    honored its obligation to France and France
    forced the Germans out of the Rhineland?

33
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • If France had acted firmly in what would have
    been little more than a police action, and
    Britain had fulfilled its treaty obligations to
    France, the German troops would certainly have
    been instantly withdrawn, and Hitler's prestige
    would have been dealt a deadly blow from which it
    might never have recovered.
  • The last opportunity to bring Hitler into
    compliance, and halt the rise of a militarized,
    aggressive Germany without risk of a serious war,
    had been thrown away by weak politicians.

34
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • The western democracies adopted the policy of
    appeasement, giving into the demands of an
    aggressor in order to keep the peace.
  • In both Britain and France, many saw Hitler as a
    defense against a more insidious evil--the spread
    of Soviet Communism.

35
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • The Great Depression also sapped the energies of
    the democracies.
  • Finally, widespread pacifism and lasting disgust
    from World War I pushed many governments to seek
    peace at any price.

36
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • In 1936, Hitler and Mussolini sent in troops and
    supplies to help the Fascists take over Spain.
  • This brought Mussolini and Hitler closer together
    and in October 1936, the Rome-Berlin Axis was
    announced.

37
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • One month later, Japan was added to the Axis as
    the three signed the Anti-Comintern Pact
    (promising to unite against Communism).
  • By the end of 1936, Hitler was convinced that no
    one would stand up to his aggression.

38
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria (the Anschluss)
    creating a union between the two largest German
    speaking countries.
  • Hitler forced the Austrian chancellor to appoint
    Nazis to key government posts and when the
    chancellor refused other demands, Hitler sent in
    the German army to preserve order, essentially
    taking over the country.
  • The western democracies again took no action.

39
German Troops enter Austria
40
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Hitlers next victim was Czechoslovakia. In
    1938, Czechoslovakia was one of the two remaining
    democracies in eastern Europe (the other was
    Finland). About three million Germans lived in
    the western Czechoslovakian region known as
    Sudetenland, and Hitler claimed that area.

41
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • In September 1938 at the Munich Conference,
    Britain and France again chose appeasement.
    Hitler assured Britain and France that if the
    Sudetenland was given to him without a fight, he
    had no future plans for expansion.

42
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • Returning from the Munich Conference, the British
    PM, Neville Chamberlain, told the crowd in London
    he had achieved peace for our time. In the
    House of Commons, he declared that the Munich
    Pact had saved Czechoslovakia from destruction
    and Europe from Armageddon.

43
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • In response to Chamberlain, Winston Churchill
    said They had to choose between war and
    dishonor. They chose dishonor they will have
    war.

44
Germany Defied the Democracies
  • As Churchill predicted, Munich did not bring
    peace. Less than six months later (March 1939),
    Hitler had gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia.
    The western democracies finally realized that
    appeasement failed.
  • Britain and France now promised to protect
    Poland, the next likely target of Hitlers
    expansion.
  • Britain and France also finally began programs of
    preparedness, but it was too little too late.

45
Hitler and Stalin
  • In August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by
    announcing a non-aggression pact with his great
    enemyJosef Stalin.
  • Publicly the Nazi-Soviet Pact bound Hitler and
    Stalin to peaceful relations.

46
Hitler and Stalin
  • Secretly the two agreed 1) not to fight if the
    other went to war, and 2) to divide up Poland and
    other parts of Eastern Europe between them.
  • The Pact was not based on friendship or respect
    but need. Hitler wanted to protect his eastern
    flank from a Russian attack when Germany would be
    at war with Poland. It gave Stalin some time to
    build up Soviet military strength.
  • Soon Germany would betray the agreement.

47
Hitler and Stalin
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