Download Interwar Period 1919-1939

Interwar Period 1919-1939
Bakke
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
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
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
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
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
Hitler’s 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
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
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 Nazi’s
must come to power
legally
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
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
Presidential Election of 1932
• Tallman (KPD) Hitler (NSDAP) Hindenburg (I)
• 10%
36.8%
50.3%
Chancellor Carrousel
• Bruning Franz
Von Papen 
Kurt Von
Schleicher 
Hitler (Jan 30
1933)
Hitler’s Consolidation of Power
• 1) Capture of full legal authority
• 2) crushing of alternative polt. Groups
• 3) Purging of rivals w/in Nazi Party
Reichstag Fire Feb 27 1933
"'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.'
• Dutch Communist
(mentally ill) sets
fire to Reichstag
• Effect:
Communists
outlawed/arreste
d & Article 48
invoked
• March 1933:
Enabling Act
Passed- Rule by
Decree
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
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
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.
Hitler’s 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
Remilitarization of the Reinland
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
Policy of Appeasement
• Tenants:
– 1) Germany had real grievances
– 2) Hitler’s 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
• Munich
Conference
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)
Nazi – Soviet Pact of Non Agression
• AUG 1939Divided
Poland &
Gave Rus
the Baltic
states
• Sept 1939Ger invaded
PolandWWII Begins
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.
Maginot Line
Vichy France
Battle of Britain Aug 1940
•
•
German
Luftwaffe vs
British RAF
London
bombed every
night
Operation Barbarossa June 1941
• Seige of
Leningrad
• Battle of
Stalingrad
• Why?
• Hitler wanted
Lebensraum
in the East
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