The Start of the Second World War

Hitler's Foreign Policy Goals

• Hitler had formed a totalitarian state in Germany, however he had certain foreign policy goals which he wanted to achieve.
• Nullifying the Treaty of Versailles, which was one of his major propaganda points before his election as chancellor.
• He wanted to nullify the treaty as he thought it was unfair.
• The treaty prevented Germany from having a powerful army, and annexing other countries, such as unifying with Austria.
• Creation of Great Germany, called the Third Reich.
• The First Reich would have been the Holy Roman Empire and the Second Reich would have been Imperial Germany.
• The Third Reich was also called the "Thousand Year Reich", as it was expected to last a millennium.
• Hitler wanted to unite all the culturally German regions.
• Hitler wanted more living space for the growth of Germany (called lebensraum in Germany) from the east, which would be acquired through war.
• It was believed that German's were more crammed together than other populations and needed more space for expansion, living and growth.
• Hitler didn't care for colonies too greatly but was more interested in using them for bargaining.
• Hitler wanted to destroy communism, making the USSR one of his enemies.
• Hitler wished for the Aryan race's hegemony across the world (although his focus was more on Europe for the time being).
• Hitler wanted to manage the other races when he would supposedly take over the world.
• For example enslaving the Slavic population and getting rid of Jews.
  

Decay of the Treaty of Versailles

• In 1933 Germany left the League of Nations, with Italy and Japan following suite.
• Militarization, rearmament of Germany, forming an air force in 1933 and starting conscription in 1935.
• German expansion and appeasement from the Allies.
• Re-militarization of the Rhineland.
• Hitler wanted to end the demilitarization of the Rhineland, which was embarrassing for Germany and weakened their military strength.
• This was a risky move as Hitler's army wasn't large enough to fight against France if they were willing to enforce the demilitarization. However they faced no opposition as France and Great Britain wanted to avoid a conflict and weren't too worried as the Rheinland was Germany's own territory anyway.
• The main points of the Treaty of Versailles had been broken.

German Expansion

• After vast propaganda campaign, the Saar-region was returned to Germany after referendum 1935.
• There was a voting for the Saar-region's inhabitants to decide whether they wanted to stay with France or join Germany.
• Germany won by a landslide.
• This was due to the population of the Saar-region being mostly Germans, and having no connection to France, leading to a great success with the help of the propaganda campaign.
• Nonetheless this was a huge success for Hitler, as he was "giving back to the people" after the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles.

The Annexing of Austria

• Anschluss (the name for the Austrian Annexation).
• Hitler wanted to unify Germany with Austria but this was a difficult task as Austria was an independent country, even if Austria and Germany were very similar (language, culture, heritage).
• Austria had a powerful political party but not as powerful as Germany's.
• In 1934, before Germany and Italy were allies, Mussolini was afraid that a German annexation of Austria would lead to a dangerous border with Germany.
• Hitler invited the chancellor of Austria Kurt Alois Josef Johann von Schuschnigg to negotiate the unification of Austria and Germany.
• Schuschnigg was worried about this and wanted to make a vote in Austria on whether or not the unification would occur.
• Hitler knew he wouldn't win this vote despite having some sympathies from the Austrians, so he took a risk and marched his army into Austria in 1938.
• The army managed to enter without conflict, and was even welcomed by some.
• The ballot was still held, but with influence of the Nazis who were now present in Austria, they managed to win easily.

The Sudetenland

• The Sudetenland was a territory in Czechoslovakia with many Germany ethnic people.
• There were rumors that Hitler would invade the Sudetenland (when he wasn't planning to at the time) in 1938 and Great Britain and France issued an ultimatum stating that they would intervene if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France would intervene.
• When Hitler didn't invade Czechoslovakia, it looked as if he had backed down from the ultimatum and the embarrassment determined him to take the Sudetenland.
  
• Mussolini proposed an international meeting between world leaders to manage the Sudetenland crisis.
• Called the Munich Conference, on the 30th of September 1938.
• Russia and Czechoslovakia weren't invited to the conference, despite it being about Czechoslovakia and Russia being a great power.
• France and Great Britain were willing to agree with Hitler's demands, in order to prevent a war.
• Hitler had been certain that the annexation of the Sudetenland would have caused a war.
• Hitler was given the Sudetenland in 1938.
  
• Germany used protection and "persecution of the Nazis" as justification and invaded Czechoslovakia later in 1938.
• Germany annexed the Czech Republic and Slovakia was made into a puppet state.
• When the Sudetenland was taken away by Germany prior, their fortifications and defenses were also lost and they were powerless in the invasion.

The Third Reich Before the Second World War

• Hitler's foreign policy was very successful, and he had annexed a great amount of territory without war.
• Other than forming a totalitarian state Hitler had made improvements to the economy and quality of life.
• Hitler had been able to acquire so much land and break the Treaty of Versailles due to the appeasement policy of France and Great Britain.
• Most citizens of Great Britain and France were pacifists and people had seen how terrible a new war would be due to the use of new technologies in the Spanish Civil War, such as in the bombing of Guernica.
• Great Britain and France hoped that once satisfied, Germany would stop acting aggressive.
• However this idea was very naive, although reasonable at the time.
• "Atoning" for the unjust Treaty of Versailles was one of the main ideas; allowing Germany to recover its former strength.

Rapid Militarization of Germany

• Great Britain and France overestimated the growth of Germany's military so they didn't want to start another arms race as it was very expensive and could lead to a war.
• The leaders still realized that a war could occur so they still began some rearmament, such as in increase airplane manufacturing.
• However they didn't want to disturb civilian production, so civilian manufacturing was given priority.

Europe Before the Second World War

Economy

• The Great War and the arms race prior to it left all the countries involved in massive debts.
• Thinking about the future, the democratic leaders didn't want to take on debts (usually from the United States).
• Juxtaposed to dictators like Hitler who weren't worried if their country would be bankrupted in a decade from excessive spending.

Distrust Towards the USSR

• A lot of western leaders didn't want to cooperate with the USSR as it was a communist dictatorship.
• Thus the USSR was often excluded from conferences and negotiations.
• Many countries had a stigma against communism, due the to fear of the ideology spreading to their own country.

The Spanish Civil War

• A nationalist fascist coup started against the republican government of Spain.
• Thus they got support from Germany and Italy.
• Hitler believed that Great Britain and France would have to intervene with help of the USSR, to prevent Fascist influence spreading across Europe.
• Great Britain and France didn't intervene as they said it was a domestic struggle and other countries should stay out of it.
• This enabled the nationalist side to win the civil war.

Isolation of the U.S.A.

• Although H.P. Roosevelt was sympathetic towards Great Britain the US offered no assistance as the US population was greatly against any intervention.

The Reduction of Strength of Great Britain and France

• Great Britain and France had lost most of their colonies as many had protested for independence.
• The commonwealth was not as useful and the only country that would support Great Britain without hesitation in war would be New Zealand which was a generally weak country.

Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

• The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a secret agreement of non-aggression between Germany and Russia.
• They agreed to invade Poland and split up eastern Europe into spheres of interest.

Alliances

The Axis Powers

• Germany, Italy, Japan and smaller powers such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania.
• These alliances were due to the interests of the countries aligning as they all wanted to expand their territory.

The Allied Powers

• Great Britain and France initially.
• France was invaded early on into the war.
• The USSR and the USA and China joined later on in 1941.
• Other smaller countries such as Canada, Brazil and so on.