Download The Interwar Years

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Fascism as ideology
 State is supreme above all else
 Rejected socialist internationalism, collective
property, democratic control
 Rejected Bolshevism and “big business”
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Fascism tended to be ultranationalist and
violent
 Wanted to eradicate the decadence of liberalism
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Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
 Wanted to lead a revolution, like Lenin
 Support from Italians disillusioned with
weak postwar gov’t
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1922 = Mussolini’s “March on Rome”
 took over as supreme leader of Italy
 Used the Squadristi to intimidate political opponents
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1924 = assassination of Giacomo Matteotti
 And consolidation of Mussolini’s power
 1925 = openly establishes dictatorship
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1929 = signs Lateran Treaty with Pope Pius XI
 Brings a sovereign Vatican back to Rome
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November 1918 = sailors mutiny
Moderate German Social
Democrats (SPD)
January 1919 = Spartacist Uprising
in Berlin
 Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Liebknecht, and the
German Communist Party (KPD)
 Put down by the Freikorps
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11 August 1919 = Weimar Republic
established
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March 1920 = Kapp Putsch
 German army refuses to help re-establish order
 German workers put down the coup
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April 1921 = Allied reparations committee
demands $33 billion in payment from Germany
 1922 = Germans beg for a 3-year moratorium
 January 1923 = France occupies the Ruhr
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August 1923 = Gustav Stresemann’s attitude of
compromise
 Treaties of Locarno (1925)
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Weimar’s economic/political instability =
disillusion
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
 Born Austrian (20 April 1889)
 Failed artist in Vienna
 Served in WWI (as a “runner”)
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Beer Hall Putsch (November 1923)
 Hitler’s rising influence within the German Workers’
Party (DAP) – eventually the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)
 8 Nov. = Hitler & stormtroopers try to occupy Munich
 9 Nov. = Hitler & supporters march on the Bavarian
Defense Ministry
▪ Stopped by soldiers
 Hitler is arrested and put on public trial
▪ Sentenced to 5 years; served 9 months (wrote Mein Kampf)
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January 1933 = Hitler appointed Chancellor
 February 1933 = Reichstag Fire
 23 March 1933 = Enabling Act, Reichstag votes
itself out of power
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Nazi dictatorial regime . . .
 By 1934 = 2,500,000 stormtroopers
▪ BUT, the SA are purged in June 1934
 Nazis have three major goals: Lebensraum,
rearmament, and economic recovery
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Early collaboration with Mussolini
 October 1936 = Rome-Berlin Axis
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Some context . . .
 Spain = rule by monarch/aristocrats until World
War One
 1923 = right-wing military coup installed dictator
 1931 = King abdicates; dictatorship dissolves
 1932 = Spanish Republic formed
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1936 = Spain elects a “Popular Front”
 Property seized from aristocrats
 Catholic clergy attacked
 Nation-wide strikes by revolutionary workers
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July 1936 = right-wing military coup led by
Francisco Franco
 Established “Nationalist Zone” in northern Spain
 Civil War between Spanish Republicans and the
right-wing Nationalists
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July 1936 = right-wing military coup led by
Francisco Franco
 Established “Nationalist Zone” in northern Spain
 Civil War between Spanish Republicans and the
right-wing Nationalists
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April 1939 = Nationalists take Madrid;
Republicans surrender
 Franco becomes dictator until 1975
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LOTS of foreign involvement
 For Franco/Nationalists: Mussolini sends troops,
Hitler sends tanks, technology, airstrikes
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July 1936 = right-wing military coup led by
Francisco Franco
 Established “Nationalist Zone” in northern Spain
 Civil War breaks out between Spanish Republicans
and the right-wing Nationalists
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April 1939 = Nationalists take Madrid;
Republicans are forced to surrender
 Franco becomes dictator until 1975
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LOTS of foreign involvement
 For Franco/Nationalists: Mussolini sends troops, Hitler
sends tanks, technology, airstrikes
 For Republicans = International Brigades, Soviet
supplies and advisors, Mexican armaments
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March 1938 = Hitler annexed Austria
(Anschluss)
September 1938 = Munich Conference
 Sudetenland ceded to Germany
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March 1938 = Hitler annexed Austria (Anschluss)
September 1938 = Munich Conference
 Sudetenland ceded to Germany
 Chamberlain: “Peace in our time”
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October 1938 = Hitler demands the return of
Danzig
March 1939 = Hitler invades Czechoslovakia
May 1939 = Pact of Steel (Hitler & Mussolini)
 Defensive alliance between Germany and Italy
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August 1939 = Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
 Soviets and Germans promise not to fight each other
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1 September 1939 = Hitler invades Poland