Section C Flashcards
What was AJP Taylor’s argument about the Second World War?
- 1961
- ’Origins of the Second World War’
- Hitler wanted a German Empire but did not have a master plan or wanted to go to war in 1939
What was Fischer’s argument about the Second World War?
- 1961
- ’Germany’s Aims in the First World War’
- Germany’s goals in 1914 were not that different from their 1939 goals
- Nazi foreign policy was not unique but a continuation of long held German expansionist policies
What were the 4 main influences of Hitlers foreign policy?
- Racial history that drove Hitlers firm views on race (anti-semitism/social Darwinism)
- Nostalgia for earlier empires and a sense that power and land were Germany’s right
- Lebensraum
- World War 1/Treaty of Versailles
How did the Aryan racial theory drive foreign policy?
- To Hitler, Germans were Aryan, although he thought that some other countries in Northern Europe like Britain had Aryan roots.
- Other races included Asians, Slavs, Jews, Gypsies and Black people
What was Pan-Germanism?
- Political idea that sought to unify all the German and German speaking people under a single nation
- Pan German League had over 1 million members
- However Nazi alliances with “inferior” counties was said to be a necessary evil to gain temporary advantage
When was the First Reich?
•962-1806 (Roman Empire)
When was the Second Reich?
•1871-1918 (German Empire)
How did Hitler show he was ‘restoring’ a Great Germany?
Promised the Third Reich for Germany
Most propaganda featured the Aryan Race
How did the First World War effect Nazi foreign policy?
- As there was no public surrender or open admission to defeat many Germans believed Germany could have won the war if the Kaiser kept fighting
- Germans felt they had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the ‘November Criminals’ (politicians who signed the ToV)
What were some of the Terms of the Treaty of Versailles?
- Germany lost land Danzig 6.4 million German outside the border
- No submarines, no tanks, no Air Force, no longer conscript soldiers and limited army at 100,000 men
- Demilitarisation of the Rhineland
- Reparations (Set 132 million gold marks in 1921)
- Banned from a Union with Austria
What other reasons did Germany resent the Treaty of Versailles?
- Had to sign a clause to take responsibility for starting WW1, couldn’t join the LoN so wasn’t accepted as an equal Power in Europe
- Germany had no say, it was a dictated peace treaty
- Disarming was humiliating for a country that held its military power in such high esteem
How was the ToV being undermined even before Hitler?
- Weimar politicians privately agreed not to reinforce it
- Broke demands for disarmament and limitations on the size of German army
- Made secret rearmament agreements with the USSR
- Some Army members felt the Weimar Government was not legal
What was the consequence of the ToV creating small new states?
- Became weak and had ethnic divisions
* Became more land for Britain, France or Russia to want to take over or influence
Why did Britain and France allow German rearmament?
- ToV seen by some as too harsh
* Didn’t want to have to fight/start another war
What is a reason to show Hitler had a step by step master plan for WW2?
Compare the Nazi Land gains from 1935-39 to his aims in Mein Kampf
