Causes Of World War 2
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Causes of the Second World War
I believe Hitler’s actions and the appeasement that followed it are the key reasons for the outbreak of World War 2.Hitler’s foreign policy was firstly German need more Lebensraum and secondly to unite all German speaking people under one Reich in a Pan-German Empire. He did this in 2 phases: Phase 1 – 1933-1937 — Cautious Expansion
Phase 2 – 1937-1939 — Aggressive Expansion
Phase 1: In 1933 Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations after storming out of the Disarmament Conference where no conclusion was reached because no country really wanted to disarm especially to the level of German which was only allowed 100,000 troops and 6 battleships and no air force. This meant that Hitler was free to do whatever he pleased and would not have to answer to the League of Nations.
Also in the same year Hitler, in July, Hitler announced the German rearmament and conscription which was against the Treaty of Versailles but no action was taken against him, not even a moral condemnation by the League of Nation which, though it was a pathetic attempt to stop the nation doing what it did by scolding it, should have been done to show Hitler that the League of Nations were against it. However you could argue that there no longer was a Treaty of Versailles because the allies had killed it long before, for example in 1924 they had re-negotiated reparations in 1924; allowed Hindenburg to deny War Guilt in 1927; in 1935 Britain even made a Naval-Arms agreement with Germany and therefore co-operated in overturning the Treaty of Versailles. In response to Hitler rearming Germany, Britain, France and Italy all signed the Stressa Front which meant that they would help each other if the Germans attacked — this is a sign of collective security.
Then in March 1936 Hitler even ordered his troops to march into the de-militarised Rhineland with orders to “back off at any sign of French resistance” which shows that Hitler was really nervous here and if the French had made any resistance the troops would have to retreat. But here the French and British appeased Hitler, which started the appeasement of Hitler, by allowing him to take back the Rhineland. This appeasement triggered Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy and gave Hitler a lot of confidence and Hitler went into phase 2.
Phase 2: Hitler first started the Pan-German Empire by having an AnschluДџ with Austria in March 1938 which is forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler had already tried to do this earlier in 1934 but was stopped by Mussolini. However this time because of the failure of the League of Nations in Abyssinia, Italy had withdrawn from the League of Nations and formed an alliance with Germany, Rome-Berlin Pact, where these 2 great Fascist powers combined. Hitler encouraged the Austrian Nazis to stir up trouble for the Government which they did by staging demonstrations calling for a union with Germany and causing riots. Then Hitler pressurised the Austrian Prime Minister, Sschushnigg, into agreeing for an AnschluДџ, but Sschushnigg asked for help from Britain and France who rejected him and therefore he was forced into having a plebiscite. The vote was that 99.75% of the population wanted an AnschluДџ, though this could be seen as a bit of a untruthful view of the Austrian people’s opinion because had ordered his troops to march into Austria before the plebiscite took place supposedly to guarantee a “trouble-free plebiscite” which in actual fact meant that the Nazi troops would be watching over the plebiscite and making sure they got the vote by intimidating the people voting at the polling booths. This was a great triumph for Hitler because the reWard of this was that Germany had gained Austria’s soldiers, weapons, industry and rich deposits of gold and iron. All of this happened without any military confrontation form wither France or retain or the League of Nations and the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain, even felt that the Austrian people should be united with the German people even though it said in the Treaty of Versailles that this was forbidden, and Britain’s Lord Halifax even suggested before the AnschluДџ that Britain would do nothing to prevent this from happening. This again gave more confidence because again he was appeased by Britain and France and encouraged Hitler to keep going which eventually led to the outbreak of War.
After the AnschluДџ Hitler turned his sights toWards the Sudetenland which was taken from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles and given to Czech Slovakia. There were 3 stages in Hitler gaining the Sudetenland:
Hitler has a meeting with Chamberlain where he says he only wants parts of the Sudetenland and that will only happen if the Sudeten Germans agree to it. Chamberlain agrees to this because he sees this as reasonable and also thinks the Treaty of Versailles was unfair.
Then Chamberlain flies to Czech Slovakia to tell them they have to surrender those areas of the Sudetenland,