The development of tension

• Who was Hitler?

  • Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, promised to solve German unemployment, which had reached nearly six million by 1933, 'Right the wrong of the Treaty of Versailles', and make Germany strong again
  • In the midst of the Depression the people of Germany turned to the Nazis, and so in 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?


  Overturn the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler felt that the Treaty humiliated Germany and should be abolished
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?

  Rearm to make Germany strong again and to create jobs in munitions factories and the armed forces
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?

  Take Lebensraum, living space in the east. The Treaty of Versailles redistributed 13 percent of German land so Hitler wanted to make sure that Germans had enough land to live on and to farm
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?

  Unite Volksdeutsche (people with German blood, but without German citizenship) and create a Greater Germany. Ten percent of the German population found themselves living outside Germany after 1919. Some had been badly treated by the countries they were living in
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?

  Unite Germany and Austria once again in Anschluss
• How did Hitler promise to make Germany a world power again?

  Destroy Communism. A Jewish man named Karl Marx had developed the idea of Communism. Hitler hated Jews and felt that they were ruining Germany, so he believed that Communism would destroy Germany if he did not destroy it first
• How did Hitler's policies alarm other countries and lead the whole world into war?

  Lebensraum

  • Hitler wanted land in the east
  • To get this, he would have to invade countries in Eastern Europe
  • This would be considered an act of war and other countries might try to protect the ones being invaded
• How did Hitler's policies alarm other countries and lead the whole world into war?

  Rearmament

  • Under the Treaty of Versailles Germany's military power was severely restricted and the Rhineland had been demilitarised
  • Hitler wanted to introduce conscription and build a Luftwaffe (air force) to help reduce unemployment and to make Germany strong again, but this broke international law (the Treaty of Versailles) and other countries would become suspicious about why Germany needed a large army
• How did Hitler's policies alarm other countries and lead the whole world into war?

  Volksdeutsche

  • Reunite German-speaking people and create a Greater Germany
  • To build a Greater Germany Hitler planned to reclaim land that had been lost in the Treaty of Versailles
  • He also planned to unite areas that were no longer German land but where Volksdeutsche were living as part of Germany
  • However, it was unlikely that other countries would give up these regions without a fight and once again Hitler was breaking international law
• How did Hitler's policies alarm other countries and lead the whole world into war?

  Destroy communism

  • The USSR had a massive army and had begun to develop better relationships with Britain and France
  • The USSR was also allied with many of the Eastern European countries that Hitler was targeting for Lebensraum
  • Hitler was provoking a powerful nation that was bound to fight back
• How did Britain react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Neville Chamberlain was Britain's prime minister from 1937 to 1940
  • Hitler's speeches in the 1920's worried the British government and people
  • But when Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934, many British politicians were satisfied that Hitler didnt really want war after all
• How did Britain react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Many British people remembered the horrors of the First World War and would do anything to prevent another, even if that meant turning a blind eye to Hitler
• How did Britain react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • In November 1937 Chamberlain sent his friend, Lord Halifax, to meet with Hitler
  • Halifax was tasked with finding out what Hitler wanted
  • Chamberlain used the term 'appeasement', meaning giving Hitler a little of what he wanted in the hope of stopping a full-scale war
  • This was Chamberlain's policy until 1939
• How did Britain react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Public opinion about the Treaty of Versailles had also changed
  • Many felt that it was too harsh and that Germany should be allowed to reclaim some of what had been lost
  • This would help Germany become strong, which could help stop the expansion of the Communist USSR, and France, who Britain feared were becoming too powerful and might start to dominate Europe
• How did Britain react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • There were a few people who thought that Britain should take a stronger stance against Hitler
  • Winston Churchill believed that appeasement was a mistake
  • Britain also signed the Stresa Front with France and Italy in 1935, in which the three nations promised to unite against the threat of Hitler
• How did France react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Edouard Daladier was president of France, for much of the 1930s
  • The 1930s were a difficult time for France
  • The people suffered greatly in the Depression and some started rebelling against the government
  • The government found it difficult to concentrate on the threat from Hitler with so many problems of their own, and there was no way France could have afforded to act against him without the support of Britain
• How did the USSR react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Communist USSR
  • Communism was a very different political system from that of most countries in the West and because of this, the USSR's international relationships were often hostile
  • Stalin was concerned about Hitler - who had promised to destroy Communism - but he was also wary of the USA, Britain and France
• How did the USSR react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Relations had started to improve in 1934 when the USSR had finally been allowed to join the League of Nations, and in May 1935 a treaty of mutual assistance was signed with France, saying that the two countries would work together
  • Stalin decided that it was worth cooperation with capitalist states if it meant that Hitler's expansion into the East could be stopped
• How did the USA react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to power in 1932
  • Throughout the 1920s America had followed a policy of isolationism, avoiding getting involved in European affairs
  • The 1930s were no different
  • Unemployment had reached 25 percent in the USA, following the Wall Street Crash, so FDR focused on creating jobs for his people
• How did the USA react to Hitler's foreign policies?

  • A poll published in 1934 said that 70 percent of Americans felt that the USA should never had got involved in the First World War and that if there was a second world war the USA shouldn't interfere
  • In the 1936 election FDR promised to keep America out of any war in Europe
  • In 1938, FDR did try to get Hitler to promise that he would stop invading countries, but Hitler did not take the request seriously
  • There was little more that FDR could do, so the US government watched and quietly started preparing its armed forces
• Hitler leaves the League of Nations Disarmament Conference

  • 1933
  • During the period 1932 to 1934, the League of Nations held a Disarmament Conference
  • Hitler said he would disarm, as long as every other nation would too
  • If other nations would not do this then he wanted ot be allowed to have an army equal in size to that of France
  • France refused to cooperate
  • This gave Hitler the excuse to storm out of the conference while claiming that it was the French, and not him, who were being unreasonable
  • Germany then left the League of Nations and so was no longer expected to keep to its Covenant and work to avoid war
• The Dollfuss Affair

  • 1934
  • Hitler was born in Austria, and Germany had been ruled by Austria for around 600 years
  • Many Austrians and Germans felt that the two countries should be one and were outraged when Anschluss was forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles
  • Hitler's foreign policy included uniting all Volksdeuche and overturning the Treaty of Versailles, so it made sense that he would try to unite with Austria
  • Aware of Hitler's intentions, the Austrian chancellor, Dollfuss, banned the Nazi Party in Austria
  • In 1934 Hitler responded by telling Austrian Nazis to create havoc in the country and they murdered Dollfuss
  • However, Hitler's plot ultimately failed as the Austrian army supported the government and Mussolini moved his troops onto the Austrian border, promising to stop Hitler's Anschluss
  • Hitler realised that his army was not strong enough to engage in war, and backed down and claimed that the Austrian Nazi Party had acted alone
• Englebert Dollfuss

  • Dollfuss became the Austrian Chancellor in 1932; in March 1933 he shut down the parliament and banned the Austrian Nazi party in order to become the Fascist dictator of Austria
  • He modelled his dictatorship on Mussolini in Italy and the two became close allies
• The Saar Plebiscite

  • 13 January 1935
  • The Saar was a rich industrial area, which had been given to the League of Nations for 15 years under the Treaty of Versailles
  • This agreement was due to expire in 1935 so a plebiscite was held to decide who should govern the area - France or Germany
  • 90 percent of the population voted to rejoin Germany and Hitler was able to use this victory as propaganda to show that German-speaking people wanted to unite under the Nazis
  • He also gained rich coalfields which could be used to power his industry and build weapons ready for the future
• Rearmament

  • March 1935
  • At the 'Freedom to Rearm Rally' in 1935 Hitler showed off weapons and troops that he had secretly been building
  • He also announced that he was reintroducing conscription (which he did in 1936), expanding his army to one million men and building a Luftwaffe (air force)
  • This marked the fact that Hitler was sure that he could openly defy the Treaty of Versailles, without other countries stopping him
• The Stresa Front

  • April 1935
  • The Stresa Front was an agreement between Britain, France and Italy that stated that they would guarantee the terms of the Locarno Treaty, to protect Austrian independence and work together to stop Hitler from breaking any more terms of the Treaty of Versailles
  • However, Hitler was not concerned by this agreement
• Anglo-German Naval Agreement

  • June 1935
  • For some time people in Britain had felt that the Treaty of Versailles had been too harsh on Germany
  • In June 1935 Britain signed an agreement with Germany saying that Hitler could build his navy to 35 percent of the size of the British one
  • When Germany offered to restrict the growth of its navy and respect Britain's naval supremacy, it was too good an offer for Britain to decline
  • Britain also allowed Germany to build 45 percent of the number of British submarines
  • Hitler saw this as Britain admitting that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair and that they could, therefore, ignore it
  • The military terms of the Treaty were officially dead and, significantly, Britain hadn't consulted France and Italy before signing this agreement