Download class 1: Nations of the World

Rise of ultra-nationalism and WW II
1920s in Germany
• The new democracy is saddled with
admitting responsibility, giving up
reparations and territory, and suffering
inflation.
• When Germany is unable to make
payments, French occupy the Ruhr
• German state prints more money to pay its
bills
German Marks needed to buy
one US dollar:
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1919 April--12
December--47
1921 November--263
1922 July--493
December--7,000
1923 January--17,000
July--53,000
August--4,621,000
October--25,260,000,000
November--2,193,600,000,000
December--4,200,000,000,000
1930’s--Depression and increase
of nationalism
• rise of militant nationalism--”fascism”--in
Germany, Italy, and Japan
In Germany
• Depression hits especially hard
• 1932 Hitler and Nazis claiming Germany
had been “stabbed in the back” in WWI and
after, gains about 1/3 of electorate
• January 1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor
• February—responding to mysterious
Reichstag fire, receives emergency powers,
ending the democracy
Burning of the Reichstag 1933 and
Kristallnacht 1938
German Expansion
• Under Hitler, Germany rebuilds military
• 1938 Germany annexes Austria, justified
with bogus plebiscite
• Then invades Czechoslovakia
• France and England do nothing--for “peace
in our time”
World War II begins
• Hitler-Stalin Pact allows partition of Poland
between Soviet Union and Germany
• 1939 they invade, and Britain and France
declare war
• 1940 Germany occupies France
• 1941 Germany attacks Soviet Union
• months later, Japan attacks at Pearl Harbor
In the East
• since 1910 Japan had colonized Korea
• 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria
• 1937 Japan invades China proper
“Asian holocaust”
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the rape of Nanking
unit 731--American cover-up
“comfort women”
Induced famine in Vietnam and Indonesia
Continuing anti-Japanese sentiment
in China
Axis powers--Germany, Italy, Japan
Allies--Britain, France, then Soviet Union,
and United States
1945 Allies victorious in Europe,
then Japan
• Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki