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Years of Crisis
1900 – 1939
Totalitarianism
•Joseph Stalin
•Government has
COMPLETE control
over people
•Stalin’s Five Year
Plan
•Command
economy
“Beloved Stalin is the people's happiness!”
The Years of Crisis
•Why study the years of crisis?
•Events led the world into a second world
war
•Great Depression affected people’s faith in
government
•Changes in communication changed this
era forever
•Scientific discoveries changed the world
forever
Post War Uncertainty
•Civil war in some nations…
•Russia
•China
•Changes in ideas
•Lost faith in reason and progress
•People began to experiment with modern
values
New Discoveries
•Albert Einstein
• Theory of Relativity
• As moving objects neared the speed of light,
space and time changed.
•Assembly line
• Automobile is affordable
•Changes in air travel
•Radio
Setting the Stage
•Unstable Democracies
• Little experience with representative government
• Some countries had a dozen or more political
parties making it impossible for one party to win
• Coalition governments formed but there were
too many disagreements among them
Setting the Stage
•Frequent changes in government made it
hard for democratic countries to develop
strong leadership
•OR move toward long-term goals
•Several countries were then willing to
sacrifice democratic government for strong
authoritarian leadership
The Weimar Republic
•Germany’s new government
•Serious weaknesses
• Lacked a strong democratic tradition
• Several major political parties and many minor
ones
• Millions blamed the Weimar gov’t, not the
wartime leaders, for the country’s defeat and
postwar humiliation
Understanding Inflation
• Germany had huge war expenses
• Government spends more money than it takes in
• Germany then prints more money
• Values of money goes down
• Prices go up
• Government prints more money
• Cycle continues
• Economy is in danger of collapsing
Dawes Plan
•Germany recovered thanks to an
international committee
•Dawes Plan: provided $200 million loan
from American banks to stabilize
Germany currency and strengthen its
economy
•Also set a more realistic schedule for
Germany’s reparations payments
Efforts at a Lasting Peace
•As prosperity returned, Germany and
France tried to improve relations
•In 1924 signed a treaty promising that
they would never make war against
each other
•In 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact: almost
every country in the world pledged to
“renounce war as an instrument of
national policy”
Depression hits…
•U.S. economy enjoyed a boom in
the 1920s
•Hid problems
• Overproduction
• Credit
• Agriculture fails
• Stock market finally crashes in 1929…
•Worldwide depression
•Trade between nations dropped
•Unemployment rose
The Great Depression
•Thousands of
businesses closed
•Many lost
everything
•Unemployment
•World trade
decreased
The Rise of Fascism
•What is it?
• A political movement that promotes an extreme
form of nationalism, a denial of individual rights,
and a dictatorial one-party rule.
• State is supreme
•Why?
• Many people lost faith in democratic
governments
• Economic depression
Fascism Rises in ITALY
•Caused by bitter disappointment over failure
to win territory after WWI
•Rising inflation and unemployment
contributed to social unrest
•Democratic gov’t seemed helpless to deal
with problems
Fascism Rises in ITALY
•Benito Mussolini, promised to revive
economy and build armed forces
•Founded the Fascist Party in Italy
•Publicly criticized Italy’s gov’t
•Oct. 1922 – 30,000 Fascists marched on
Rome demanding that King Emmanuel
put Mussolini in charge of gov’t
•The King gave in and Mussolini took
power “legally” – Il Duce (the leader)
The Rise of Mussolini
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•1919 Hitler joins a right wing political group:
the Nazis
•Goals: to overturn the Treaty of Versailles
and combat communism
•Private militia called the Brown Shirts
•Hitler chosen as der Fuhrer (the leader)
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•Nazis tried and failed to seize power in 1923
•Hitler arrested – jailed for 9 months where he
wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
• Germans or Aryans were a master race
• Jews, Slavs and Gypsies were inferior
• Germany overcrowded and needed lebensraum
or “living room”
• Promised to conquer eastern Europe and Russia
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•Great Depression ended loans to Germany
and German economy collapsed – civil unrest
•By 1932 Nazi party the largest political party
•Conservatives felt they could control Hitler
and advised President Hindenburg to name
him chancellor
•He came to power legally
Hitler’s Rise to Power
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•Hitler turned Germany into a totalitarian
state
• Banned any other political parties
• Opponents arrested
• Formed an elite military guard, the SS, who were
loyal only to Hitler
• Gestapo – Nazi secret police
• Citizens shocked into obedience
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•Took control over the economy
•Banned strikes, labor unions
•Put millions of Germans to work
•Unemployed dropped from 6 million to 1.5
million in 1936
Fascism Rises in GERMANY
•Hitler wanted to control every aspect of
life
• Press, radio, literature, painting and film turned
into propaganda tools
• Forbid criticism of the Nazis and the gov’t
• Children had to join the Hitler Youth
• Jews made scapegoats for all of Germany’s
problems
The Clouds of War