Interwar%20Period%201919-1939

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Interwar Period 1919-1939

• Bakke

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Great Depression in Europe

• 1) Financial crisis ? war Versailles settlement
  
• 2) Crisis in the production and distribution of
  goods in the world market
• 3) No country provided strong economic leadership
  or sense of cooperation

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Financial Tailspin

• Germany claimed to be in default of reparations
• January 1923 France occupies the Ruhr mining
  manufacturing district
• Weimar orders passive resisitance
• ? Easing of reparations on Ger
• Oct 1929- Wall St. Stock market crash
• ? little capital investment left for EUR
• ? Keditanstalt bank crashes in Central Europe

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Agricultural/Commodities Crisis

• World Wheat Prices fell to record lows
• ? farmers make less? buy less consumer and
  industrial goods
• Worsened by worldwide financial depression
• Result
• Stagnation and depression for Eur industry
• Unemployment spread from ag sector to those
  producing consumer goods
• Less govt. spending ? worsens problem of
  investment

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Weimar Germany

• Made up of Socialist Democrats, moderate SPD,
  German Liberals
• Most known for accepting the humiliating terms of
  Versailles Treaty of 1919
• Weimar Constitution
• Highly enlightened
• Complicated representive Reichstag system

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Haunted by Versailles

• 1921 Presented w/ final bill for WWI 132 Billion
• 1923 French Occupation of the Ruhr
• Inflation printing money to pay debts Runs wild
  in Weimar Germany
• Devastated by unemployment and worldwide economic
  depression

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Hitlers Early Career

• WWI Veteran
• Austrian born Settles in Munich GER Influenced
  by Mayor Karl Leuger
• NDAP formed in 1920 (few members)
• Formulate 25 Point Program of Nazi Party
• Repudiation of Versailles
• Union w/ Austria
• Exclusion of Jews
• Economic Ag Reforms that benefit farmers/sm
  businesses

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SA Storm Troopers Formed c1925

• Brown Shirts
• Paramilitary organization that provided its
  members w/ food, uniforms, wages
• Role Chief Nazi instrument of terror and
  intimidation
• Who ?
• Why?
• SA Numbers over 1 million strong by 1933

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Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923

• Failed Revolution to overthrow the Weimar
  Republic
• Arrested, tried, and sentenced to 5yrs writes
  Mein Kampf
• 1) Moment when he saw himself as leader of mvt
• 2) He and Nazis must come to power legally

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Stresseman Stability Spirit of Locarno

• Only moderately successful period in Weimar
  (1924-29) Chancellor/For Min
• Stabilized inflation, lower unemployment
• Renegotiated reparations payments
• Forced French out of Ruhr
• Attempted to revise Versailles diplomatically
• Oct 1925 Locarno Agreements
• New hope for lasting peace in EUR

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And then The Depression

• Govt Deadlocked to solve crisis
• Bruning appt. as Chancellor
• Evokes Article 48 of Constitution
• 1932--6 Million Germans unemployed
• ? Appeal of Radical Extremist Parties
• Communists and Nazis

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Presidential Election of 1932

• Tallman (KPD) Hitler (NSDAP) Hindenburg (I)
• 10 36.8
  50.3

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Chancellor Carrousel

• Bruning? Franz Von Papen ? Kurt Von Schleicher
  ? Hitler (Jan 30 1933)

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Hitlers Consolidation of Power

• 1) Capture of full legal authority
• 2) crushing of alternative polt. Groups
• 3) Purging of rivals w/in Nazi Party

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Reichstag Fire Feb 27 1933

• Dutch Communist (mentally ill) sets fire to
  Reichstag
• Effect Communists outlawed/arrested Article 48
  invoked
• March 1933 Enabling Act Passed- Rule by Decree

"'This is a God-given signal! If this fire, as I
believe, turns out to be the handiwork of
Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop
us now crushing out this murder pest with an iron
fist.'
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Timeline

• May 1933- Leftist trade Unions seized
• July 1933- Nazi Party only legal Party in GER
• June 1934- Purge of Ernst Roehm and the SA
• Knight of the Long Knives
• Aug 1934 President Hindenburg Dies
• Sept 1935 Nuremburg Laws Passed

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The Nazi State

• The Police State of the SS (Schutszstaffel) Black
  Shirts
• Primary vehicle for surveillance (Gestapo)
• Led by Himmler
• Most elite Nazi paramilitary organization

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Society and Gender in the Third Reich

• Women
• Saw women as educators of the young and
  protectors of German cultural values
• Women were encouraged to bear many children
• Task To preserve racial purity
• Cult of Domesticity and Motherhood embraced
• Socially-
• Hitler Youth formed
• Social programs- Strength through Joy
• Volkswagen program
• Cultural identity- Book burnings/Censorship,
  Propaganda, Volksgemeinshaft, German culture
  celebrated i.e. Wagner etc.

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Hitlers Goals

• 1) intended to bring the entire German Volk
  together into a single nation (Grossdeutsh)
• 2) Lebensraum in the East
• 3) Destruction of Versailles
• Withdrew from League of Nations
• Renounced disarmament of Treaty
• Army and Air Force of 500K raised via
  conscription
• March 1936 Remilitarization of the Rhineland

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Remilitarization of the Reinland
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Formation of the Axis Powers

• Italy Invades Ethiopia 1935
• The Spanish Civil War 1936
• Franco becomes fascist leader of SPA
• 1936- Anti-Comitern Pact brings Japan into Axis

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Policy of Appeasement

• Tenants
• 1) Germany had real grievances
• 2) Hitlers Goals were limited
• 3) Best policy was to negotiate and make
  concessions b/f a crisis could lead to war
• Austria March 1938
• Anschluss w/ Austria
• Czechoslovakia
• Sudetenland

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• Munich Conference

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Failure of Munich

• I have no more territorial demands to make in
  Europe. Adolf Hitler
• It is a peace with honor. I believe it is peace
  for our time. --Neville Chamberlain
• 15 March 1939 Hitler breaks promise, occupies
  Prague and all of Czechoslovakia
• Next up
• Polish Corridor (Spring 1939)

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Nazi Soviet Pact of Non Agression

• AUG 1939- Divided Poland Gave Rus the Baltic
  states
• Sept 1939- Ger invaded Poland- WWII Begins

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German Conquest of Europe

• April 1940- Invasion of Denmark Norway
• May 1940- BeNeLux Invaded
• Dunkirk
• Maginot Line Exposed on the left flank (Bel)
• ? May 1940 France invaded Surrenders in under 6
  weeks
• Vichy Govt. Set up under Petain DeGaulle Flees
  to England Free French est.

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Maginot Line
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Vichy France
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Battle of Britain Aug 1940

• German Luftwaffe vs British RAF
• London bombed every night

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Operation Barbarossa June 1941

• Seige of Leningrad
• Battle of Stalingrad
• Why?
• Hitler wanted Lebensraum in the East

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America Enters the War

• Dec 7 1941 Pearl Harbor
• Pacific Theater opens
• Battle of Midway turning point
• Allied landings in Sicily/Italy-- Nov 1942
• Downfall of Mussolini AUG 1943