Unit 8 The Origins of the Second World War Flashcards
Introduction
Hitler gambles that invading Poland will not spark general war as had worked in Czechoslovakia, it does as France allied to Britain is then forced to declare war buy his invasion
Origins - 28/06/1919 Treaty of Versailles did this simply turn WWI and WWII into a thirty year war with a break in the middle?
The Germans actually believed they had been close to victory in WWI and holding there own and were aghast at the treaty’s terms
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points of peace creates League of Nations and lets Germany off the hook in the last paragraphs ‘we wish her to only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world
8.1 The postwar Settlement, 8.1.1. The peace treaties to end al peace
France’s Clemenceau arrives at Versailles with a ‘Realist’ or ‘realpolitik’ view, wants to maximise reparations and reduce Germany’s size
Lloyd George also interested in reparations but not policing Europe as empire is primary interest
germany loses 10% of territory, Rhineland to be occupied for 15 years and then demilitarised, French control over Saar industrial region (it votes to rejoin Germany in 1935)
Reparations high as US accidentally allows British veteran’s pensions to be included
8.1 The postwar Settlement, 8.1.1. The peace treaties to end all peace 2
US secretary of state Lansing in 1919 believes that treaty is too harsh and will provoke further strife ‘We have a treaty of peace, but it will not bring permanent peace because it is founded on the shifting sands of self-interest
Germans also believe that clause 231 ‘war guilt’ unfairly attributed to them
8.1.2 The wars after the war , 8.1.3 The peace and the League of Nations based in Geneva, making the best of a bad job
Russo Polish war as Poland tries to expand into Russian sealed by the Treaty of Riga in March 1921
Sometimes effective - Schleswig’s plebiscite, and irrelevant - Police Russian Borders
Strong on collective minority rights who brought complaints to the League, though Minority-treaties concerning them signed by successor states e.g. Czechoslovakia and the league, but were not signed by the great powers
German diaspora from Poland to Germany, Germany very annoyed, land redistribution in Poland from 1925 disproportionally affects German landowners, Poland sees any complaints as disloyalty
Poland’s fate sealed with the Russo German non-aggresion pact pact of 23 August 1939 which meant partition
8.1.4 Peace at work: Germany from Locarno to 1933
Germany would ultimately decide whether any postwar agreement would last
Weimar adopts passive resistance to the French occupations and political tricks like the Rhenish Republic a vehicle to evade reparations
germany reorganises its banks currency (rentenmark) aided by the Dawes Plan (1924) indicated a willingness to a negotiated approach, French actions also fail to attract British backing
Gustav Stressman (German chancellor), Aristide Briand French foreign minister seek compromise
8.1.4 Peace at work: Germany from Locarno to 1933 2
Dawes Plan (1924) reduces reparations to 1/2 1921 levels and US facilitates loans to European countries which owed war debts and would lose out on reparations
Locarno Treaties (1925) a collection of treaties firming up borders agreed at Versailles and arbitration treaties only between Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia (problems later) France signs treaties backing up Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (the Little Entente)
1928-29 the Kellogg-Briand Pact for renunciation of war (Germany, France USA) paves the way for for opening disarmament in Geneva from 1932
The Young Plan (1929) Reduces further reparations payments spreading them over 59 years at moderate yearly payments, in effect the same deal as the Allied powers wartime debts - Germany off the hook
8.1.4 Peace at work: Germany from Locarno to 1933 3
Stressman and Briand get the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926! Chamberlin got his in 1925 - the Locarno Spirit
1922 Germany uses the commercial Treaty of Rapello with the Soviets conducts military developments and exercises in Russia (duplicitous)
Stressman’s real aims - Ending the Rhineland occupation and status as demilitarised, protecting the ethnic Germans in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania and an eventual Anschluss with Austria
Calm about payback but expects repayments to become unsupportable and notes that Allies debt repayments are higher than Germany’s
8.1.4 Peace at work: Germany from Locarno to 1933 4
Stressman wants to use diplomacy to get out of problems he leans towards aggressive non warlike military and economic diplomacy, his annexationist views may well still be there in his letter to the Crown Prince of 1923
1932 - Lausanne, it is agreed to reduce war payments to a nominal level provided the US reduced Allied loan payments, in effect reparations payments virtually ceased
8.2 To what extent was the Second World War ‘Hitler’s war’? 8.2.1 Summary of Hitler’s actions
March 1933 Hitler is dictator as a result of the Enabling Law
October 1933 - Germany leaves Geneva disarmament conference and League of Nations
January 1934 - Polish-German 10 year non Aggression pact
March 1935 conscription reintroduced and formation of Luftwaffe, Anglo German navy treaty (35% of RN)
March 1936 - Reoccupation of the Rhineland and the march into Cologne no counter military action by France/Britain, later historians say that had France/GB countered the Germans had had orders to pull back
8.2 To what extent was the Second World War ‘Hitler’s war’? 8.2.1 Summary of Hitler’s actions 2
July 1936 - Spanish Civil War intervention (German training ground)
March 1938 - Anschluss with Austria
October 1938 - Occupies the Sudetenland again if France and GB had countered they would have withdrawn
March 1939 = Retakes Memel from Lithuania and creates Slovak (Facist) Independence forcing Bohemia and Moravia to become a German protectorate
German threats also occur more or less at the same time as Soviet, Japanese and Italian ones - the allies/League gutless
8.2.2 Hitler’s thoughts; Mein Kampf
Rejects mere Versailles revisionism it must be overturned
Unification of all Germans wherever they are and a staged plan ‘Stufenplan’
Conquest of Lebensraum i.e. Russia,only successfully here would secure world power status - a German continental state that could counter the USA
Other thoughts -
The achievement of a moral rearmament of the state (Volk, Nation) through authoritarianism
AJP Taylor sees Hitler as an opportuniste, exploiting events using short blitzkrieg to take advantage of limited opportunities - the last thing he actually wanted was a full scale general war, 1939 was a mistake the result on both sides of diplomatic blunders - though some think A J P Taylor’s positing not correct (I do)
8.2.3 From four-year plan to the Hossbach memorandum
Hitler gives Goering the Job of economic completion of a four year plan to encourage production and facilitate self-reliance, autarky.
Hitler, polycratic, struggle between individuals or bodies to get the same job done in an area of government, called his cabinet only sporadically
Engineered creative chaos, a weak dictator, leaving others to complete the task, he issues no written orders i.e. not an intentionalist (planner - the master holocaust plan) but a functionalist (leaving others to fulfil their jobs based on an idea not clear instructions, an opportunist chancer who followed the leads of minions when they started exterminating Jews i.e.operation Barbarossa). The Fuhrer Myth, i.e. he was above policy and always right.
8.2.4 Hitler on a roll, 1938 - 1939
Anglo-French pressure on Czechs to capitulate in September 1938 convinces Hitler that Chamberlin and Deladier are gutless, 15th March 1939 Bohemia and Moravia made protectorates, 35 Czech divisions lost and Skoda armament works grabbed
August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol to dismember Poland but Britain had drawn the line at Czechoslovakia.
Germany attacks Poland 1st September and Britain declares war 3rd September.
But - Hitler fails to achieve a quick end to the war in the west and if France and UK had attacked immediately in the West where there was a 4-1 advantage, Hitler’s plans would have been derailed
8.2.5 Crushing England’s hope: Operation Barbarossa
‘World’ war occurs when Hitler declares war on USA on 11 December 1941 and attacks Russia 22 June 1941
How did this happen?
1) Unleashing of a long-planned final battle for racial domination and creates continental world power?
2) polycratic pressures, economic needs, pushed into attacking by different game players for (functional) strategic reasons?
3) Swiftly ending war in the west by ending England’s last hope (Russia was making aggressive moves near Romania also ) - Halder 1988
8.3 Why did Britain and France appease Germany in 1936-1938?
Was Versailles the catalyst that became Hitler’s genesis?
Did France and Britain hope that Germany and Russia if left to it would go to war and destroy each other?
British intervention difficult as and until Germany effected outright aggression. Expansion did not involve this and only affected German speaking populations
British and French realise it’s all going wrong in September 1938 when Czechoslovakia dismemberment starts
