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The German Path to War Adolf Hitler’s theory of racial domination laid the foundation for aggressive expansion outside of Germany. The German Path to War (cont.) • Adolf Hitler became chancellor of the German government with support of the Nazi Party. • Hitler wanted to build a vast Aryan racial state, known as the Third Reich, which he believed would dominate Europe for thousands of years. The German Path to War (cont.) • Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by creating a new air force and expanding Germany’s army. France, Great Britain, and Italy condemned these actions. • Hitler’s first aggressive move occurred when he invaded a demilitarized zone in Germany known as the Rhineland. The German Path to War (cont.) • Great Britain adopted a policy of appeasement and did not take military action against Germany. The German Path to War (cont.) • Hitler looked for allies with common political and economic interests, which he found in Benito Mussolini of Italy. • Mussolini and Hitler created the Rome-Berlin Axis, a pact recognizing their shared political and economic goals. The German Path to War (cont.) • By November of 1936, Hitler formed an anticommunist alliance with Japan known as the Anti-Comintern Pact. • Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria on March 13, 1938. • Hitler announced, in 1938, that he would wage a world war if he was denied occupation of Sudetenland. The German Path to War (cont.) • France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany all agreed to Hitler’s plan at the Munich Conference, abandoning the Czechs. • Hitler continued to advance into Czechoslovakia and eventually demanded the Polish Port of Danzig. The German Path to War (cont.) • Great Britain and France soon realized they would need help from Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union to contain Nazi aggression. The German Path to War (cont.) • To avoid fighting a war on two fronts and to gain access into Poland, Hitler signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact on August 23, 1939, with Joseph Stalin. The German Path to War (cont.) • On September 1, 1939, German forces invaded Poland, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany two days later. The Japanese Path to War The need for natural resources fueled the Japanese plan to seize other countries. The Japanese Path to War (cont.) • The Japanese cleverly devised a ruse to justify conquering Manchuria, a country containing 30 million Chinese and vast natural resources. • On September 18, 1931, Japanese troops dressed as Chinese and blew up a portion of a Japanese-owned railway. The Japanese Path to War (cont.) • Against worldwide protest, Japan “retaliated” by seizing and renaming Manchuria as Manchukuo. • Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was embattled in a civil war against the Chinese Communist Party and did not want to go to war with Japan. • Chiang and the Communists put their differences aside and fought against the Japanese for the entire length of the war. The Japanese Path to War (cont.) • Japan wanted a New Order in East Asia, which would comprise Japan, China, and Manchuria, and act as a model for other developing nations. • Japan did not want to fight the European colonial powers or the United States, but by 1940, they began to demand rights to French Indochina. • The United States objected and warned that it would retaliate with economic THE END Next Chapter 18-2