Download RISE OF DICTATORS

RISE OF DICTATORS
Warm Up (Interwar Years)
1. 63 nations pledge to renounce war as national
policy
2. What league turns out to be a great failure?
3. Policy of appeasement:
4. Why does value of German money go down?
5. a period of low economic activity and rising
unemployment
6. Black Tuesday:
7. Totalitarian state:
Benito Mussolini
• Became the dictator of Italy
– Becomes known as Il Duce or “the leader”
• In 1919 he founded the National Fascist Party
– Fascism = an authoritarian form of gov’t that places
the good of the nation above all else, including
individual rights
– Push extreme nationalism and love for the state
– Envisioned an aggressive state ruled by a strong allpowerful leader, tended to glorify violence
• In 1922 Fascists became a major force in the Italian
parliament
– Mussolini organized his followers, called the Brown
Shirts, and led the March on Rome
– The King of Italy made Mussolini prime minister
• Mussolini than started to consolidate power by
terrorizing opposition and shooting their leaders
• He soon gained control of the press and outlawed
all other political parties
• Mussolini did make an agreement with the Catholic
Church, called the Lateran Pact
– Established Vatican City as an independent state and
in return the pope officially recognized Italy
• Mussolini wanted to build a glorious Italian empire just
like in Roman times
Joseph Stalin
• Became the dictator of the Soviet Union
– Used other leading members of the Communist
party to outmaneuver the frontrunner after Lenin
died
– Once he achieved this goal, he then either exiled or
killed the people he used
– Turns himself into a living god of Communism
• Introduced Five-Year Plans
– Each factory and mine had production goals set by
the state
– Led to increases in industrial output, but not for
consumer goods
• Collectivization = combine private farms into larger,
mechanized state-run farms
– Peasants, who received land under Lenin, lost their
lands and then are forced to work on these collective
farms
– Peasants who protested were either executed by
Stalin’s police forces or sent to the system of labor
camps in Siberia called the Gulag
– People in the Ukraine resisted and Stalin allowed
millions to starve to death in retaliation
• Stalin killed millions of people he thought were or could
plot against him
– In the late 1930s he wiped out most of the military
officer corps
– In 1936 he launched a series of show trials, in which
people were tortured until they confessed to what
Stalin wanted them to say
• He used this to wipe out the Old Bolsheviks,
people who had been in the party prior to 1917
• Ten million people were arrested, several million
were immediately executed, others sent to the
Gulag
– Also tried to wipe out the middle class
• Stalin ruled with an iron fist and ruthlessly removed all
opposition, real or imaginary
Stalin’s reign
• Stalin is responsible for the murder of about
43,000,000 people
• Stalin imposed a famine on Ukraine that
murdered by starvation about 5,000,000
Ukrainians.
Adolf Hitler
• Became the dictator of Germany
– Born in Austria, failed artist, fought for Germany in
WWI
• After the war he joined the National Socialist
Party, or Nazi for short
– Tries to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch
– Fails and Hitler goes to jail, where he writes Mein
Kampf or “my struggle”
– It outlines his major political ideas and goals
• Decided to reinvent the Nazis as a political party
and use the existing political structure
Hitler in WWI
• Hitler volunteered at age 25 by enlisting in a Bavarian
Regiment
• Throughout most of the war, Hitler had great luck
avoiding life threatening injury. More than once he
moved away from a spot where moments later a
shell exploded killing or wounding everyone.
• Hitler, unlike his fellow soldiers, never complained
about bad food and the horrible conditions or talked
about women, preferring to discuss art or history. He
received a few letters but no packages from home
and never asked for leave. His fellow soldiers
regarded Hitler as too eager to please his superiors,
but generally a likable loner notable for his luck in
avoiding injury as well as his bravery.
• Hitler's luck ran out when he was wounded in
the leg by a shell fragment during the Battle of
the Somme. He was hospitalized in Germany.
It was his first time away from the front after
two years of war. Following his recovery, he
went sight seeing in Berlin, then was assigned
to light duty in Munich. He was appalled at
the apathy and anti-war sentiment among
German civilians. He blamed the Jews for
much of this and saw them as conspiring to
spread unrest and undermine the German war
effort.
• In August 1918, he received the Iron Cross first
class, a rarity for foot soldiers. Interestingly,
the lieutenant who recommended him for the
medal was a Jew, a fact Hitler would later
obscure. Despite his good record and a total of
five medals, he remained a corporal. Due to
his unmilitary appearance and odd
personality, his superiors felt he lacked
leadership qualities and thought he would not
command enough respect as a sergeant.
– Creates the S.A., the Nazi army, which went around
intimidating opponents and causing violence
– Hitler promised to fix the economic problems and to
overturn the Treaty of Versailles and bring glory back
to Germany since Germans were the master race
– By 1933 the Nazi party gained the majority of seats in
the German parliament and Hitler was named
Chancellor
• Once in power, Hitler passed a series of acts that gave
him almost total authority
– Banned all political parties except the Nazis and
trade unions as well
– Hitler now had to appease the only threat left, the
German army
• The army didn’t like the power of the S.A.
• 1934 the “Night of the Long Knives” = Hitler has
the leaders of the S.A. murdered
• Following this attack, the German army pledges
their complete loyalty to Hitler
• Hitler becomes a totalitarian ruler, taking the title of
Fuhrer
– He was glorified as a great ruler and used
propaganda to control the German people
– Created Nazi youth organizations brainwash young
Germans
– Began to rebuild the German army and economy
– Also put his anti-Semitic beliefs into action, which led
to the Holocaust and millions dying
Hideki Tojo
• Became the dictator of Japan
• Many Japanese lost faith in their gov’t during the Great
Depression and turned to the military for leadership
– The military began to promote the fighting spirit of
Japanese troops
– Put military personnel in public schools, children
began to learn aspects of warfare
• 1930s Japanese soldiers and military leaders carried out
a series of assassinations of gov’t officials
– The gov’t grew more dominated by the military
Francisco Franco
• Became the dictator of Spain
• In the 1930s the Spanish Civil War broke out
– One side was the Nationalists, a fascist-like group, led
by General Franco
– They fought against the Republicans, who were
trying to save the democracy
– Italy and Germany helped out Franco by testing their
new weapons on towns that did not support him
– France and Great Britain refused to help the
democracy, so it ended up getting help from the
Soviet Union
• Franco wins and sets up a dictatorship in Spain
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW3UCc
17AI
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZcs1SHVb
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