Impact on foreign policy

• Everything discussed today is about the maintenance of power, not consolidation
• Treaty of Versailles


  • Hitler wanted to overturn and modify it
  • Britain and Italy were willing to work with Germany on modifying it
  • France refused to revise the treaty
• Saarland


  • Territory taken from Germany that Hitler wanted back
  • A plebiscite was held where 90% voted to rejoin Germany
• Anti-Comintern Pact


  1. Germany reached out to Japan to form an alliance against the Soviet Union

  2. Italy later joined the pact

  3. This formed the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan to divide up control of the world
• Germany takes Austria, Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia


  Hitler sets his sights on invading Poland
• Nazi-Soviet Pact of Non-Aggression (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)

  1. Agreement between Germany and Soviet Union to not attack each other for 10 years

  2. They agreed to split Poland between them
• The invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union is the start of World War II