Download 24-1: Dictators Threaten World Peace

World War II Looms:
Dictators Threaten World Peace (Part
2)
Aggressive Actions of the 20s-30s
Adolf Hitler
Nation: Germany
Political System: Nazism
Political Movement and Beliefs:
• *extreme nationalism and
racism
• *Establishes the Third Reich
(dissolves Weimar Republic)
•
* Pulls out of the League of Nations
•
* Built up the military (violating T. of
V.)
•
*Sends troops to the Rhineland= the
buffer zone (violating T. of V)
•
*Forms Rome-Berlin Axis Pact with
Mussolini
•
*Sets himself up as the Fuhrer
• * authoritarian
government
•
*Passes Nuremburg Laws (revoking
Jewish citizenship and enacting
“anti-miscegenation” laws)
• *private property allowed
•
*Orders Kristallnacht and other
pogroms (regarded by many as the
beginning of the Holocaust)
• * anti-communism
•
Invades Poland, 1939
• * militaristic
expansionism
Japanese Militarist/Imperialists
Hideki Tojo, Prime
Minister of Japan
Political Movement and Beliefs:
• *extreme nationalism and racism
Nation: Japan
Political System: Militarism
Aggressive Actions of the 20s30s
• *Invades Manchuria (1931)
• * Militaristic expansionism
• *Japan’s destiny is to rule over an
empire, deification of emperor,
despite limited power
(samurai/shogun tradition)
– Exploit natural resources
– -Establish sites of heavy industry for
Japanese economic expansion
– Sets up puppet state of Manchu Guo
• * Pulls out of League of Nations
(1931)
• * Invades China (1937)
– Rape of Nanking
• *Would invade most of S.E. Asia
leading up to, and during the war
Francisco Franco
Nation: Spain
Political System: Militarism
Political Movement and Beliefs:
• *Fascism
• *Militarism
• * Strong nationalism
Aggressive Actions of the 20s and 30s:
• *Anti-Communism
• * Participated in an uprising against
the elected government
• * Emerged leader of the Nationalists
during the Spanish Civil War
• * Dissolved the Spanish Parliament
Terms
• Totalitarian: A government where citizens
have no individual rights and where all
opposition is put down
• Neutrality Acts: Laws passed by
Congress in 1935 to ban the sales of
weapons/arms or loans to nations at war
(passed in response to Spanish civil war)
United States Foreign Policy During the 1930s
•
•
•
•
•
Recognized Soviet Union in 1933 (exchanged
ambassadors with Moscow)
Continuation of “Good Neighbor Policy” (started
under Coolidge and continued by Hoover – focus on
non-intervention and repairing relations with Latin
American countries)
1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (gave
President more power to make trade agreements
with countries and lowered tariffs by 50%)
Anti-War sentiment was a strong prevailing belief
among large segment of American population. Many
opposed it because of hatred for banks and
industrialists who had profited enormously from WWI.
Made it very difficult for Roosevelt to even support
other Western democracies against European and
Japanese aggressors, let alone join with others
against them.
Isolationism gives way to a
questioning of neutrality…
• Americans sympathized with many beleaguered
Europeans living under the rule of dictators. Many had
already pledged themselves to fight in Spain and East
Africa as part of special volunteer battalions
• Many elements of similar racism and oppression existed
in the U.S. at the same time (anti-Semitism, racial purity
and eugenics theories based on Darwinism)
• Churchill’s observations of Hitler and his conviction that
another world war would be unavoidable finally began to
persuade Roosevelt to throw his weight behind support
for the Allied side in the coming war, even if the U.S.
declined to become directly involved as a
combatant…..which of course, by December 1941, they
inevitably would.