Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Hitler's Foreign Policy and the Origins of WWII
- Hitler's aims in Foreign Policy
- Make Germany into Great Power
- Unite all German Speaking people under his rule
- Gain Lebensraum in East for German people
- Achieving Aims
- Necessary to destroy TOV
- Change Territorial
Settlement by
regaining lands
inhabited by German
people that had been
taken e.g Saar and
Danzig
- Bring the 7 million German
speaking in Austria and the 4
million in Czechoslovakia and
Poland into his empire
- Involved destroying the peace
settlement of 1919
- Build up German army
so he was supported by
force
- Expand in the east, probably
against communist USSR
- Hitler hated Communism
- Aim for the future when TOV had
been overturned and German
was in great power in Europe
- 1st stage was the strengthen lands in Europe
- Could not be done alone so Hitler felt that the
main enemies of Germany- France and USSR- had
to be enemies of Britain and Italy who they were
already allied with
- German Rearmament
- Germany allowed to join League of Nations in 1926
- One aim was to maintain peace by reducing arms of
all countries
- Little success by 1932 when the
Disarmament Conference began
- German allowed to attend
- Hitler withdrew from the Conference and LEN
- He insisted that Germany wanted peace
and would disarm if other countries did
- 1935- Germany began to rearm
- 1935 Conscription in Germany
- Hitler's excuse was that France had
increased its term of conscription
from 12 to 18 months meaning the
number of trained soldiers would
increase
- Against TOV
- Why didn't France and Britain react?
- Only opposition was the short-
lived Stresa Front to protest
against conscription in German
- Soviet Russia joined the LON- afraid of Germany
- Many in Britain felt the TOV was unfair and unjust
- Differences
between France
and Britain
- Hitler took advantage
to further his aims in
foreign policy
- He often threatened to use force to achieve his
aims
- But whenever he went against the TOV
he followed it with peaceful promises
- Britain payed more attention to
the peaceful acts than the reversal
of TOV
- France felt TOV needed to be
strengthened
- Could they invade Germany?
- Tried in 1923 when they occupied the
Ruhr because Germany had fallen
behind on reparation payments
- Failed
- France wouldn't disarm
because of fears that German
would invade again
- 10 year non aggression pact
- 1934
- Hitler signed with Poland
- Guaranteed the boundaries of Poland
- Satisfied the Poles that Hitler
would not try to take the Polish
Corridor
- Pleased Britain who saw it as further
proof that Hitler's aims were peaceful
- Germany had accepted the frontier with Poland set up in
TOV
- Failed Anschluss
- 1934
- Hitler suffered knockback to his aims
- He encouraged the
Austrian Nazi Party to
rebel
- Resulted in murder of
Austrian Chancellor,
Dollfuss
- Looked as if Anschluss would be achieved
- But prevented by Mussolini
moving his army to the frontier of
Austria and guaranteeing
Austrian independance
- Hitler realised his army was not
strong enough so he backed
down and denied involvement
with the Austrian Nazi Party!
- Anglo- German Naval Agreement
- More successful for Hitler
- 1935
- Hitler's willingness to sign
was further proof to Britain
of his peaceful intentions
- TOV limited the Germany navy to 35% of British fleet excluding submarines
- By signing, Britain were agreeing to
Germany rearming
- Britain now felt it was important to limit the size of
the German navy
- Success for Hitler because the
agreement weakened the Stresa
Front as Britain had not consulted
France and Italy
- Led to Germany proceeding with rearmament without opposition
- 1938
- German Army had 800,000
- Navy- 47 Submarines and 2,000 aircrafts
- Return of the Saar
- January 1935
- Plebiscite was held in the Saar
to decide whether
- Remained under
control of LON
- 8%
- Returned to
German control
- 90%
- Nazi propaganda took advantage
- Published as being a removal of an
injustice of the TOV
- Hitler announced to the world
that all cause of grievance
between France and Germany
had now been removed
- Return of the Saar was legal
- TOV said after 15 years
a plebiscite was to be
held
- Join France
- 2%
- Remilitarisation of the Rhineland
- Events
- 7th March 1936
- German soldiers marched into the Rhineland
- Against TOV and Locarno Pact
- The German Government had
willingly signed in 1925
- Followed with promising that Germany would
sign a 25 year non aggression pact and had no
further territorial ambitions in Europe
- France, Britain and LON
should have acted against
this
- All that happened was that
German action was condemned by
the League
- When the vote was held,
only Soviet Russia voted in
favour of imposing
sanctions on Germany
- Hitler had chosen
the right moment
- Britain and France were more
concerned about Mussolini
- He had invaded Abyssinia
- French government were
divided and didn't want to react
without the help of Britain
- Britain didn't think Hitler was doing
anything wrong
- The TOV was unjust and so
Hitler had a right to take back
his own territory
- Unlike Mussolini who was invading another country
- No-one wanted war
- Took more notice of the promise
that followed
- End of March 1936, Hitler held a vote in
Germany on his policies
- 99% in favour of them
- Hitler could have been stopped!
- He sent his soldiers against the
advice of his generals who said the
army were not strong enough
- He also went against the advice
of his financial ministers who
feared the effect that economic
sanctions could have on
Germany
- Hitler dismissed all of
this advice
- He judged foreign reactions perfectly
- Germany could have been stopped but there was no support for opposition
- Sanctions would have crippled Germany
- When the soldiers were sent the generals ordered
that if there was any opposition against them from
the french they were to immediately withdraw
- French army were much stronger than
that of Germany in 1936
- Anschluss with Austria
- Union of Germany and Austria
- Forbidden by TOV
- Hitler was born in the boundaries of Austria and said in his book, "Mein
Kampf" that he felt the rightful place of Austria was in union with Germany.
- In 1934 the Austrian Nazis, encouraged by Hitler, had
tried to seize power after the murder of Dollfuss
- This had been prevented by
Mussolini who had previously
been prepared to give support
to Austria
- 1938
- Situation had changed
- Mussolini was not allied with Germany
and occupied in the Spanish Civil War
- He was unlikely to give help to Austria
- Hitler wanted to unite all German speaking people
- Austrians were German speaking
- Nazi Party remained strong in Austria in 1938
- There were rumours of another Nazi plot to
overthrow the Austrian government
- Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor,
appealed to Hitler for help to end the plotting
- Hitler refused
- Instead of helping he put pressure
on Schuschnigg and forced him to
appoint Seyss- Inquart
- Leader of the Nazi Party in Austria
- This was followed by riots and demonstrations by the Nazis in Austria
- In spite of his position, Seyss
Inquart supported the
demonstrations and did nothing
to stop them
- Schuschnigg, however,
made a bold move the
end them and save the
independence of Austria
- He called a plebiscite on whether the Austrian
people wanted to remain independent or not
- Alarmed Hitler
- Hitler wasn't prepared to take the risk!
- It was clear that Schuschnigg had defied Hitler by calling the plebiscite without asking his permission
- He could not afford
anything other than an
overwhelming vote in favour
of unification with Germany
- To make this certain Hitler moved German troops to the border
- He forced Schuschnigg to call off the
plebiscite and resign from the office
- Schuschnigg was probably
expecting Britain and France to
give assistance to Austria
- When it was clear this wouldn't happen, Schuschnigg resigned to avoid blood shed
- Seyss- Inquart replaced
- He invited the Germans into Austria to restore order
- German army entered on 12th March
- 1st- Opponents of Hitler were removed
- Around 80,000 were rounded up and put in concentration camps
- Power was handed to Hitler and Anschluss was proclaimed
- 14th March
- Hitler processed in triumph through Vienna
- Followed by plebiscite in April
- 99.75% of voters agreed with Anschluss
- Hitler could now claim he was only fulfilling
the idea of self determination expressed in
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
- Britain and France protested
- LON was not consulted
- Anschluss was against the TOV but
Britain had sympathy for Germany
because the Austrians were German
speaking and traditionally German
- British government feared communism in the USSR more than it did Nazism
- Britain welcomed a strong
Germany because it saw it a a
barrier to the USSR and
communism
- Hitler's anti communist views strengthened this
- Many Austrians favoured Anschluss because
they felt that the Austrian economy was too
weak to remain independent