Although a number of deep-rooted tensions lay at the heart of World War II, it is safe to say that they sprang most directly from the ambitions of one man. Adolf Hitler became dictator of Germany in 1933, and he immediately began to chip away at the despised Treaty of Versailles. In direct violation of its terms, he started to re-arm Germany, and also began attempts to recover the east German territory that the Allies had used to restore Poland.
At the end of 1933 Hitler led Germany out of the League of Nations and its long disarmament negotiation. In the spring of 1935, he:
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denounced the Versailles Treaty re-imposed the draft for all men of military age began to build an air force |
These were all actions prohibited by the Versailles Treaty. In the spring of 1936 he moved German troops into the demilitarized border region of western Germany known as the Rhineland. This meant that the French would no longer be able to move their own soldiers easily into Germany should they want to deter Hitler from striking their allies in the East.
The nations of western Europe met Hitler's aggression with indecision. Unprepared to protect the Treaty of Versailles with force, British and French policymakers could not decide how (or if) to counter his hostile moves. France was bitterly divided politically, and the French Right increasingly tended toward appeasement. The ruling British Tories also did not want the expense and danger of risking a European war. In both countries, the memory of World War I was still fresh enough for people to feel wary of further combat. In part, then, the reluctance to respond aggressively to Hitler's actions sprang from an overall sense of war-weariness. As we shall see, it was also a response to fears about the Communist Soviet Union. But largely, the Allies' uncertainty came as a reaction to their own domestic politics. The Depression that had hit most of the western world meant that no one had the economic resources for large-scale military engagements.
Most European governments were also busy trying to cope with fascism within their own borders. Nearly every country in Europe had a pro-fascist or pro-Nazi movement in the 30s, and these groups often proved contentious rivals for the government in power. Often anti-Semitic, the fascist movements of Europe rejected liberal institutions, yearned for "action," and proposed an authoritarian collectivism for social organization. Some, of course, were stronger than others, and in the countries that were eventually overrun and occupied by the Nazis, these parties were put in control (e.g., Quisling in Norway, Degrelle in Belgium, Mussert in the Netherlands). In France and Spain, the fear of fascism was so great that left-wing parties that were previously rivals joined together in a winning electoral coalition known as the Popular Front:
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The Popular Front in France: The Depression had a severe impact on the French economy and had polarized French politics. The pro-fascist Action Française held street demonstrations against the government, and directed their wrath against socialists and Jews. This led to riots in 1934, which galvanized French republicans, socialists, communists and other parties of the Left to band together against the threat of fascist takeover by forming the Popular Front. The Popular Front made large gains in the elections of 1936 and briefly held power under Prime Minister Leon Blum (1872-1950). Although the Popular Front remained in power until 1938, it was rapidly compromised by internal disagreements, part of which sprang from Blum's unwillingness to get involved militarily in the Spanish Civil War. The Popular Front in Spain: In 1936 the Spanish Popular Front party, also an amalgam of Leftist parties, won elections against the monarchist and fascist (the Falange) parties. In response, the Falange (with the support of other right-wing groups and much of the Spanish army) staged a coup. The civil war that resulted pitted the Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, against the Republicans, the defenders of the legitimate government. Although 38 nations signed a Non-Intervention Pact agreeing to stay out of Spain's civil war, Germany and Italy quickly came to Franco's defense, supplying the Nationalists with troops, weaponry, and planes. The Soviet Union did the same for the Republicans, although on a lesser scale. Thus, the Spanish Civil War quickly came to represent the global struggle between Fascism on the one hand and democracy on the other. As a result, individuals from all over the world came to Spain on their own to fight as volunteers in the two armies. For the most part, they did so without their government's support. Although Great Britain, France, and the United States denounced the rebellion and expressed outrage at the German and Italian violation of the pact, they refused to come to the aid of the Spanish government. Fearful of helping Communism, even in defense of democracy, they withheld the supplies and troops that might have balanced the scale. Yet even without western assistance, the war dragged on for three years. Finally the Republican forces collapsed, and Franco took over the whole of Spain, which he ruled as dictator for almost 40 years. In hindsight, the Spanish Civil War seems to have paved the way for World War II. This particularly bloody conflict foreshadowed many of the atrocities of World War II, including the bombing of civilian populations (which occurred at Guernica in 1937). |
Following the devastation of the First World War, the nations of the world dedicated their energies to ensuring that a global war would never again occur. New peacekeeping measures emerged in the 1920s and 1930s as the notion of collective security became generally well accepted. Chief among these new measures was the League of Nations, a collective international organization that experienced some initial success soon after its inception in 1919. Intended to mediate and arbitrate disputes among nations, both political and otherwise, the League had the power to call for sanctions against nations that it recognized as aggressors. Nevertheless, the League of Nations did not achieve much power. Although President Woodrow Wilson had conceived of the organization, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify American membership. And in the 1930s, challenges to the League's aims and authority began in earnest.
The first signs of the League's weakening influence came in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of the Chinese province of Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo by the Japanese). Outraged by this blatant disregard for her national boundaries, China asked the League of Nations to rebuke Japan. The League issued a formal condemnation, but imposed no sanctions to back up their expressed disapproval. It began to look as though the League might not have the strength to back up its words with action.
By the mid-1930s the League's weakness was plain. In 1935 Mussolini took over Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in a grandiose attempt to make Italy a colonial power. The League condemned the attack, declaring Italy the aggressor and demanding her withdrawal. But when the organization also imposed economic sanctions, Britain and France undermined their impact by continuing to trade secretly with Italy. In response to the condemnation, Italy left the League in 1937. (Hitler had already pulled Germany out in 1933). By 1939, 14 of the original 63 members had left voluntarily, and the Soviet Union had been thrown out after its invasion of Finland. The League was dissolved formally in 1946.
The refusal of Britain and France to stand by the economic punishment of Italy reveals a bit of the logic behind their foreign policy of the 1930s, a policy that would have drastic implications when it came to Germany. With regards to Hitler, Britain and France came to pursue a policy now known as Appeasement, which they hoped would prevent the outbreak of another war. The leaders of the two Allied nations believed that by allowing Hitler both to eliminate some of the harsher conditions of the Versailles Treaty and reclaim ethnically German lands, they would satisfy his ambitions and stop further military aggressions. Their hopes would prove radically misplaced. Appeasement did nothing less than feed into Hitler's plans.
Hitler was guided by the desire to reclaim lands that were either once German, or which still held ethnically German populations. In part, his concerns were economic; he wanted the resources that the surrounding nations held. He also believed that Germany needed vast areas of Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe on which to settle Germans and achieve agricultural self-sufficiency. He had outlined these views in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, but few Western statesmen took these announced intentions seriously. He also had, as we have seen, more ideological concerns, and his annexations also functioned as an attempt to create a greater Aryan nation. But as Europe was about to learn, the full scope of Hitler's ambition was larger still.
When Germany reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936, Britain and France did nothing. When Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938, making it part of the "union of Aryans" that he desired, the two allies sat quietly by. And when he compelled the Czechs to surrender the German-populated region of the Sudetenland, they again did not protest, even agreeing to the annexation at the Munich Conference in October of 1938. At the Conference, Hitler swore that he had fulfilled his ambitions and would carry out no more expansion. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain promised that by "appeasing" Germany, he had secured "peace in our time." It would take less than a year for him to find out how wrong he was.
READ A SPEECH BY HITLER, JANUARY 30, 1939
Despite his promises, on March 15, 1939, Hitler took advantage of the rivalry between the remaining Czechs in the western, developed half of the country (Bohemia and Moravia) and the Slovaks in the poorer, agricultural east (Slovakia). He marched into Prague and incorporated Bohemia and Moravia into Greater Germany as the so-called Protectorate and he established a puppet Slovak Republic. With this move, the first annexations of non-ethnic Germans into the Reich, advocates of appeasement could no longer make the case that Hitler just wanted to regroup Germans.
During the summer of 1939, the Germans began to put pressure on their next target: Poland. They demanded the return of the so-called Polish Corridor, the territory that separated East Prussia from the main body of Germany until the Versailles Treaty deeded it to Poland in 1919, as well as Danzig (today's Gdansk), a city of mixed ethnicity that had been ruled by Germany for centuries until its separation under the administration of the League of Nations (also in 1919). In response to these latest threats, Britain and France finally guaranteed to come to Poland's aid if she was attacked. But with the experience of Austria and Czechoslovakia behind him, Hitler had good reason to doubt their commitment. After striking a deal with Josef Stalin that assured Soviet neutrality in the event of a Polish invasion (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact) Hitler launched his attack into Poland on September 1. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Hitler, but they failed to take effective action to stop him. Within a month, Hitler had conquered Poland.
Could appeasement have worked? Historians continue to debate this vexing question. Certainly Hitler's long-term projects for conquest were clear from the 1937 briefing of generals and officials that was recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum. He had also laid out his plans clearly in Mein Kampf. His philosophy of Lebensraum was clear to those who chose to see it. Why then did the British and French try appeasement at all?
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The Allies were tired of war. World War I had meant heavy losses, and few wanted to see the fighting (and dying) begin again. The memory of trench warfare weighed heavily. Britain and France were reluctant to commit to the expense of rearming and fighting another war. Many honestly did not believe that Hitler could act as aggressively as he did. They discounted his earlier writings and argued that he would be constrained by moderate forces in his government. |
(Could appeasement have worked if Britain and France had been more patient? Was it an effective policy? An honorable one?)
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