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Unit 14
Part 3
The Road to World War II
ADOLF HITLER
The Night of the Long Knives
 June 30-July 2 1934: Hitler purges the SA
and their leader Ernst Roehm
– They had become too powerful (1 mil active and 2
mil reserves) and posed a threat to the regular
army
– 1,000 people murdered without trials (Carried out
by Heinrich Himmler and the SS)
 August 2,1934 Hindenburg dies and Hitler
combines the positions of Chancellor and
President
The Police State and Anti-Semitism
 Anti-Semitic laws
– 1933: Jews excluded from civil service and
Jewish shops are boycotted
– 1935: The Nuremberg Laws took away
citizenship (legal exclusion and humiliation)
– 1938: Kristallnacht The beginning of state
sanctioned violence against the Jews.
Synagogues and shops burned
Hitler’s inner circle
– Herman Goehring (Luftwaffe)
– Ernst Roehm (SA)
– Heinrich Himmler (SS)
– Karl Doenitz (U-Boats; Kriegsmarine)
 Fuhrer # 2
– Joseph Goebbels
 (Propaganda minister)
Himmler
Goehring
Heydrich
Doenitz
THE GERMAN MILITARY
STRUCTURE
 GERMAN MILITARY: THE “WERMACHT”
 COMPONENTS:
– “HEER”: GERMAN ARMY (INFANTRY,
ARMOR, ARTILLERY, etc.)
– “LUFTWAFFE”: GERMAN AIR FORCE
(including airborne /paratrooper units)
– “WAFFEN – SS”: SS COMBAT UNITS (infantry,
armor, military police) – SERVED IN COMBAT
ALONG W/ ARMY
– “KRIEGSMARINE”: GERMAN NAVY
– POINTS OF NOTE:
The Road to WW II
 Hitler’s goals laid out in Mein Kampf
– Unite all Aryan people, Lebenstraum, slavs)
– Rid Germany of the Jews
 Germany re-arms
– Stopped reparation payments in 1933
– 1933 Germany withdrew from the League of
Nations
– Signed a non-aggression pact with Poland
(undermined France’s ability to contain Germany)
– March 1935: Hitler formally renounced the Treaty
by forming the air force (Luftwaffe) under
Herman Goehring and conscripting a 250,000
man army
The League of Nations Fails
 Japan grabbed Manchuria and
they did nothing
 Germany rearms they took no
action
 Italy attacked Ethiopia and their
Emperor Haile Selassie in
October of 1935
– Used poison gas to restore the
Imperial “Glory” of Rome and
distract from problems at home
avenge loss in 1896 (1 million died
from 1936-1941)
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
 Hitler makes this decision based on the
impotence of the League of Nations in the
Ethiopian problem
– March 7, 1936 marched troops into the
Rhineland
 Appeasement begins
– Britain would not support any action and
France could not stand alone (FEAR)
– Great opportunity to stop him and no one did
anything
Austria and the Anschluss
 Hitler had attempted a Nazi coup in Austria in
1934 but was stopped when Mussolini moved
troops to the Austrian border
– 1938: There was a new diplomatic situation and
Hitler was ready to try again
– The Austrian Chancellor called for a vote and Hitler
sent his army into Austria on March 12 1938
– After the anschluss France’s ally Czechoslovakia
was now surrounded on 3 sides
Czechoslovakia
 Problems for Hitler: Czechoslovakia was
democratic and pro-Western (allied to both
France and the USSR)
 He concentrates on a region known as the
Sudetenland (3.5 mil Germans)
– The Nazi party in this area continually demanded
concessions from the Czech government
– May of 1938 tensions were running high based on
the rumor of a German attack (riot in September
after a speech in Germany)
The Munich Conference
 September 29th 1938: Mussolini called for a
meeting in Munich of Germany, Italy, GB and
France (Edourd Daladier) to settle the
Sudetenland question
– Germany received everything they asked for and the
Czechs lost their buffer German attack
– Hitler promised that he had “no more territorial demands
to make in Europe”
– Neville Chamberlain of GB announces that they have
achieved peace with honor and peace in our time”
– Problem: Russia was not invited which cut them out of
the anti-Hitler loop (led to non-aggression pact)
– March 15th 1939 Hitler violates the agreement and takes
the rest of Czechoslovakia
Poland
 The next target for Hitler was the formerly
German city of Danzig on the Baltic Which was
run by the League of Nations
– Also he wanted direct access to East Prussia
– Propaganda insisted that Germans were being
mistreated by the Poles
– March 31 1939 Chamberlain announces the
Franco-British Guarantee of Polish
independence
– However..there was not a lot of support for war to
defend Poland in either country (needed Stalin’s
help)
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
 August 23rd 1939 Hitler and Stalin announce
the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression Pact
– Divided Poland and allowed the Soviets to occupy
the Baltic States and take part of Romania
– September 1st 1939 Hitler invades Poland
– September 3rd Br/Fr declare war on Germany
– September 17th Russia invades Poland (occupied
the Baltic States)
– November the Russians invade Finland (took 6
months to defeat them)