Nazi Policies And Actions In Europe 1933-41

Question 1

A key year - 1936

Answer 1

1. The Rhineland
   Hitler detested the fact that the treaty of Versailles had left Germany’s border with France undefended.
   Therefore in March 1936 thousands of German troops and policemen reoccupied the hitherto demilitarised Rhineland. An act that violated the terms of both the treaty of Versailles and Locarno treaties. Hitler was testing the waters to see how the allies would react. He knew the German forces were still comparatively weak and had even ordered them to retreat if challenged.
   However France and Britain took no action, preferring to achieve a peaceful solution. This strategy became known as appeasement and allowed Germany to expand with no action being taken to stop them until 1939. Neville chamberlain, the British prime minister from 1937-40 strongly supported appeasement. This policy increased Hitlers belief in the allies weakness.
   Hitler’s success in the Rhineland gave a massive boost to his popularity at home. In a plebiscite held in late March to allow Germans to give their opinions on the remilitarisation all but one percent voted to support Hitlers actions.
2. Alliances
   Hitler also moved to ensure Germany would not be alone if war was ever to break out. By the end of 1936 military agreements had been made with
   - Italy (the Rome- Berlin axis)
   - Japan (the anticomintern pact)
   Hitler also got involved in the Spanish civil war (1936-9). He sent the airforce flying as the condor legion, to perfect bombing techniques. He hoped to:
   - help establish a like minded system
   - secure another ally
   By 1936 it was clear that hitler was intending to go to war. In that year he gave Göring the task of overseeing the creation of a war economy through the four year plan. A year later as recorded in the hossbach memorandum, Hitler secretly told his generals that he could see Germany being involved in a major war by mid 1940s.

Question 2

Anschluss

Answer 2

1. Failure
   In July 1934, Nazis in Austria attempted to seize power. However, Hitler failed to support them because:
   - Germany was still militarily weak
   - Italy had threatened to intervene militarily to stop Austria becoming a Nazi controlled state

By 1938 things were very different:

• Italy was now Germany’s closest ally
• secret contacts with France and Britain indicated that they would not oppose Germany gaining control of Austria
• Hitlers felt Germany was strong enough militarily to attempt an Anschluss

2. Success
   In early 1938 Hitlers forced Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg into appointing Nazis into his govt. Schuschnigg was so concerned about the impact of Hitlers increased influence he announced there would be a plebiscite over Austria’s future. He hoped that Austrians would vote against an Anschluss.

Hitler was outraged and demanded that Schuschnigg cancel the plebiscite and resign as chancellor. Schuschnigg agreed and was replaced by Artur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian national socialist. Seyss-Inquart then asked Hitler to send his army into Austria. With no one to oppose them the troops began to move on 12 March 1938. On the next day Hitler announced that the Anschluss had taken place and Austria had become part of Germany. A subsequent referendum on the Anschluss resulted in 99% approval for the action.

Versailles had again been broken and, by acquiring territory not held before, hitler was now moving forward with his plans for a grossdeutschland. In addition Germany had gained access to the resources of the Austrian army. Again the allies protested but did nothing else, thus encouraging further expansion.

Question 3

Czechoslovakia

Answer 3

1. The Sudeten crisis
   Hitler’s next target was Czechoslovakia. It had a sizeable German minority. Hitler:
   - launched a misinformation campaign against the Czech govt, arguing that it was allowing the mistreatment of the 3 million Germans living in the industrially developed Sudetenland region
   - encouraged the pro-Nazi Sudeten German party led by Konrad Henlein to make impossible demands for the Czech govt and to engage in civil unrest when these demands were not granted.

British prime minister Neville chamberlain was so concerned about the prospect of war that he flew to meet Hitler in September 1938. At this meeting Hitler demanded that Germany be given all parts of the Sudetenland that were over 50% German. Britain and France persuaded Czechoslovakia to accept these demands.
Hitler now upped the pressure by demanding all of the Sudetenland be handed over to him by 1 October. This time the Czechs refused and negotiations broke down. With war seemingly inevitable another meeting was organised for Munich. Before this meeting took place, Hitler declared that once he had gained the Sudetenland he would demand territory off no other European country.

2. Munich
   Apart from Chamberlain and Hitler, the conference was attended by the leaders of France ( Daladier) and Italy (Benito Mussolini). Amazingly however, Czechoslovakia’s leader (Edvard Beneš) was excluded and Czechoslovakia’s ally the Soviet Union was no invited.
   There were three main agreements reached:
3. Germany would gain the Sudetenland
4. Hitler agreed to the holding of plebiscites in mixed areas of Czechoslovakia (to work out the wishes of the other minority groups in the country)
5. Germany promised to respect the independence of the rest of Czechoslovakia

Question 4

The road to war

Answer 4

1. Broken promises
   In March 1939 hitter forced the Czech govt to hand over the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which had German minorities). For the first time Hitler had taken over non-German territory. Days later the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia were also dealt with. Slovakia came under German protection. While the Provence of Ruthenia was handed over to Hungary which had supported Germany’s foreign policy. Britain and France issued yet another protest. Not surprisingly Hitler paid no heed to their condemnations and continued the same vain by successfully demanding former German port of Memel from Lithuania, which has seized the port in 1923.
2. Nazi-soviet pact
   In March 1939 Hitler turned his attention to Poland. His initial demands were for the return of Danzig and the provision of a road and rail link across the Polish corridor to connect east Prussia with the rest of Germany.
   Britain and France offered Poland a security guarantee on 30 March 1939. Hitler chose to ignore their actions. Germany stated it no longer supported the 1934 non-aggression pact and preparations for an invasion were stepped up. Perhaps to guarantee that he had an ally, a full military alliance, the pact of steel was signed with Italy in May.
   Tied in with lebensraum was Hitler’s desire for the destruction of communist Russia allied with access to its immense natural resources, including oil. Other powers were amazed, therefore, when on 23 August 1939 Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, two countries whose political ideas were completely opposed signed the Nazi-soviet pact.
   As well as agreeing not to attack each other for ten years, the pact contained a secret agreement to divide Poland up between both countries. This left Germany free to attack Poland without taking the risk of having to face opposition from Russian troops.
   As far as hitler was concerned, the Nazi-soviet pact cancelled out any threat of Britain and France defending Poland. On 1 September 1939 therefore, Germany launched an invasion of Poland. Two days later Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany.

Question 5

Nazi foreign policy

Answer 5

1. Aims
   Hitler had three main foreign policy aims
2. To restore the strength of Germany’s armed forces by removing restrictions imposed by ToV
3. To unite all those claiming German nationality into the third reich
4. To create lebensraum (living space) by acquiring new territory from racially inferior central and Eastern European states especially the USSR to support the needs of the growing German population
5. Disarmament
   At the 1919 Paris peace conference it had been agreed all countries would disarm. However Germany was the only country that did so. It was decided that an international conference would be held in Geneva to resolve the problem. It first met in 1932.
   At the conference Germany demanded that the other major powers disarm. The French govt refused and in response Germany walked out of the conference and withdrew from the League of Nations. At the same time hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in January 1934.
6. Rearmament
   Throughout the 1920s Germany used its friendship with the USSR to help rebuild its military strength despite the restrictions imposed by the ToV. At first Hitler continued with this cautious policy but once he felt secure in power, military expenditure tripled to 9 billion marks and rearmament speeded up:
   - the navy began to construct new vessels including submarines
   - the Air Force was officially set up in 1935; it soon had over 2500 aircraft
   - conscription was publicly announced in March 1935 although the army had already quadrupled in size from the official 100,000 set at Versailles

All of these actions broke the terms of the treaty of Versailles. In response the leaders of France, Italy and Britain met in Stresa in April 1935 to condemn Germany’s actions. However within weeks this partnership had collapsed. This was because Germany and Britain signed a naval agreement in June 1935 which permitted Germany to increase its naval fleet until it was 35% of the size of the Royal Navy.
This agreement was a massive diplomatic victory for Hitler:
- the anti German Stresa coalition broke up
- the German navy could now increase massively
- one of the countries that created the ToV was involved in breaking its terms.

There was also other successes for Hitler at the time.
- the Versailles settlement had provided for a future plebiscite to decide who would control the Saar region. This vote finally took place in January 1935. Nearly 91% voted for return to German rule.