Road to War : Europe

• By the end of 1918, the European powers had fought each other to near exhaustion in “The Great War”.
• The war had killed millions and devastated the economies  of most of the combatant nations
• The Russian Empire collapsed the previous year and had been replaced by a Communist dictatorship.
• A few weeks before the war’s end, the German Kaiser (king) abdicated and Germany became a republic, known as the Weimar Republic.
• Despite clearly losing the war, when a halt was called, German forces still occupied land in France and Belgium. Germany itself was relatively untouched by the fighting.
• An ‘Armistice’ was enacted at 11am in 11 November, 1918. The Armistice was not a formal surrender by Germany; it was simply a pause in the fighting -- with strings attached. 
• Negotiations for a peace settlement took months and the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.
• Article 231 became known as the ‘war guilt’ clause as it put restrictions on Germany's ability to wage war in the future and made Germany ‘pay’ for the war.
• Germany’s army could have no more than 100 000 men (in 1918 it numbered 4.6 million soldiers). It's navy was greatly reduced and it could have no submarines. Nor was Germany allowed to possess an air force.
• The Treaty stripped Germany of approximately 65 000 square kilometers of territory, 7 million of its population living in those areas, most of its overseas colonies and territory it took from the Russian Empire when it collapsed in 1917 and Russia made peace with Germany.
• Germany was also expected to pay roughly US$270 billion (in today’s dollars) to the Allies. (It's repayment finally ceased in 2010)
• When the world-wide economic disaster, known as the Great Depression, hit, Germany’s economy was destroyed.
• Unemployment skyrocketed and ‘hyperinflation’ -- for example, a loaf a bread that cost around 160 ‘Marks’ (the German currency) in 1922 cost 200 Billion Marks a year later.
• These factors -- the humiliation of the German military, the loss of land and people and the burden of ‘paying for the war’ -- bred resentment in the German population for their government, foreigners and minorities within Germany -- particularly the Jewish population.
• The treatment of the Jews deserves special attention as it had a number of causes that made it so ‘palatable’ to the majority of the population. 

  • European anti-semitism (anti-Jewish) was not new.
  • Jews were distinct from other Germans by culture and ethnicity.
  • Much of the finance industry (banks etc.) were controlled by Jews.
  • “Bolshevism” was often thought of as a Jewish ideology.
• Adolf Hitler joined the political party (which would eventually be known as the Nazi Party) in 1919, rising to become it's leader in 1921.
• Hitler lead a failed revolution, known  as the Munich (or Beer Hall) Putsch,  in 1923. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison -- being released after only 9 months.
• As a politician, his results were mixed. Hitler spoke well, bringing a mix of promises of work and prosperity along with blaming scapegoats for Germany’s defeat in The Great War and its economic problems since. His paramilitary supporters, the brown-shirted ‘SA’ used violence against opponents of the Nazis.
• However, the Nazi party was not initially widely popular. In 1928, they gained less than 3% of the vote in the Federal election. This rose to 18% in 1930. In July of 1932 it rose again to over 37%, but fell back to 33% in a second election later that year.
• However, the aging President, Paul von Hindenburg, was convinced to make Hitler Chancellor (their version of a Prime Minister) in January of 1933. 
• Once in power, Hitler moved quickly. When the Reichstag (Parliament building) caught fire in February, Hitler blamed a young communist and banned the Communist party. He then intimidated the Reichstag members to pass the ‘Enabling act’, which gave Hitler emergency powers to govern without having to consult parliament. Hitler abolished other political parties in July.
• A year later, Hitler ordered the murder of many of his rivals, including an old friend and the head of the SA, Ernst Rohn. Hitler’s personal bodyguards, the SS, where used for the purge. It became known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives”.
• In August of 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler combined the office of Chancellor and President, naming himself Fuhrer (Leader).
• On the day of Hindenburg's death, Hitler made the army swear an oath to him personally, rather than to Germany itself.
• In 1934, the Reichstag enacted the Nuremberg Laws. The purpose of the laws was to exclude Jews from the wider society. For example, Jews couldn’t marry non-Jews, work as doctors or teachers or for the government. Jews also lost their citizenship. The previous year, Hitler had already declared a national boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.
• In November of 1938, anti-Jewish mobs went on a rampage throughout Germany and Austria, burning damaging and looting synagogues and Jewish businesses. The destruction became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. 

  30 000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
• As soon as Hilter became Chancellor, he stopped paying war reparations, as set out under the Treaty of Versailles.
• The German army and navy grew far beyond the restrictions placed on it in 1919 -- the army was 37 times larger in 1939 that it had been after the war.  Pilots for the new air force would train in civilian ‘aero clubs’.
• Following The Great War, Germany was not allowed to have troops stationed in the Rhineland, an area of western Germany that bordered France. In March of 1935, Hitler sent in two divisions (about 20 000 men).In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria.Both actions were violations of the Treaty of Versailles
• Later that year, Germany made an agreement with Great Britain, France and Italy to take over a strip of Czechoslovakian land on the German border. The Czechoslovakian government were not consulted. It was known as the Munich Agreement. Britain and France hoped that by appeasing Hitler they would avoid another war with Germany. 

  Hitler broke his agreement in March of 1939 by invading the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
• In late August 1939, Germany demanded that Poland ceade some of the territory it gained following the end of The Great War. Poland refused and Britain and France pledged to come to Poland’s aid if Hitler invaded.

  German troops crossed into Poland on the 1st of September. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany on September the 3rd.