Good morning. We're going to keep on making our way through this move to global war unit, talking about the Germany case study today, and focusing on German expansion from 1933 to 1938. So this is after the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler's ascent to power. I want to make note of some of the changing diplomatic alignments after 1933, and how individual countries that would otherwise be dealing with Germany uh what they're looking at um as as they look out at the world and look inward at their own problems first of all across in in britain uh they're preoccupied right now with their own economic crisis uh spurred by the great depression they've got concerns in the far east with japanese aggression remember britain's got a lot of colonies uh in east asia so they've definitely got a an eye on what the japanese are doing there Many in Britain consider the Treaty of Versailles to be an unfair treaty that was harshly punishing Germany and maybe should be pulled back.
And then there's also right-wing politicians in Britain that are concerned that the Soviet Union is an expanding threat. And they see Germany, especially Germany under the Nazis, as a buffer against Soviet expansion. Next door to Germany in France...
They're concerned about a German threat, as they always are, but they recognize they can't act on their own. They tried to do that with the Ruhr crisis back in 1923, and we saw how that worked out. They're also dealing with their own economic-related problems caused by the Great Depression. So what France has been doing is working on creating the same kind of alliance system that they would have had back before World War I in getting some countries in. Eastern Europe to be on Team France against a possible German threat.
This is known as the Little Entente. I remember the Triple Entente from the First World War. Nations like Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia are going to be in an alliance and supported by the nation of France. With regard to the United States, the United States is laying low. very much dealing with their own economic crisis following the Great Depression.
And the United States will maintain an isolationist record with regard to foreign policy. And as we'll talk about in a later date, the U.S. Congress is going to pass a series of neutrality acts to keep the United States out of foreign conflicts.
We've got a lot of other factors that are going to contribute to the rise of German aggression. Economic problems in all nations of the world that are encouraging these nations to focus more inward rather than outward problems or focus on collective security, which can be very expensive. World War I is still fresh in people's minds, so nobody wants to go to a new war, even if there might be reason to do so. Britain and France and other nations of the world were actively demilitarizing.
looking at how they could draw down their military expenses in the face of things like the Kellogg-Briand Pact and then very soon after the onset of the Great Depression. The League of Nations is proving itself to be weak in the face of Japanese aggression with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. And the Treaty of Versailles was already being challenged.
Occupation of the Rhineland ended back in 1923 as we're into the... Depths of the Depression, reparations payments are going to be largely canceled. So there's already a move to pull back from the Treaty of Versailles, which is what Adolf Hitler really wanted to do. So Hitler's actions. We're going to start with, in 1933, an international meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Geneva Disarmament Conference.
And this is an international meeting organized by the League of Nations that called for national armaments to be reduced. to only defensive levels. This idea that if you just got rid of a bunch of weapons, it would be much less likely for countries to go to war.
Also, getting rid of weapons would be a lot cheaper for countries going through the Great Depression. Conference is held in Geneva to put this policy in action, but France and Britain are very much willing to do any kind of major disarming as they see Germany as a growing threat on their border. Adolf Hitler and the German representatives are going to make a request that other nations lower their arms to Germany's level.
Remember, Germany has had this demilitarized nation since the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. But France will refuse this. Adolf Hitler will pull out of the conference and pull out of the League of Nations, making the argument that because France and... Britain refused to disarm, that Germany is actually under threat, and that Germany is now in a position to rearm itself.
1934, January 1934, Adolf Hitler will enter into a non-aggression pact with Poland. Poland, right next door to Germany, is deeply concerned that the League of Nations is not going to be able to protect them. Just look at what happened to Manchuria.
And so on their own, they enter into what we call a bilateral agreement with Germany. A bilateral agreement is an agreement between two nations. Hitler's going to sign a lot of these. It temporarily for Germany will secure their eastern border and it's going to weaken France's eastern European security.
The hope that the French would have that they could encircle Germany again, as they had back in 1914, will be gone. This gives an appearance that Adolf Hitler is somebody that could be worked with. But we recognize we know what's going to happen from this history. Adolf Hitler said that. all our agreements with Poland have a temporary significance.
Adolf Hitler never intended this to be a lasting agreement. He's only using Poland while Poland was needed for him. In 1934, there's an assassination in Austria. Germany, of course, wants this union with Austria. It's one of Adolf Hitler's most important goals, him being an Austrian himself.
And Benito Mussolini opposes this Anschluss. Hitler is offering support for the Austrian Nazi Party, and the Austrian Nazis had hoped to topple the Austrian government with the assassination of their chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, back in 1934. But at this point, Mussolini is far stronger and in a better position than Adolf Hitler. He mobilized an army, put it at his northern border, which forced Germany to back down and give assurances that Austria would not be annexed. In January 1935, the Saar region of western Germany, this was a region that, according to the Treaty of Versailles, would have its coal production going over to France for 15 years.
And then after 15 years following the treaty, there would be a vote of the people to decide where they wanted to go. And so this... Tsar plebiscite. A plebiscite is a vote of the people, kind of like what we would call in the United States a referendum on an election. When this vote is held, 90% of the people of the Tsar choose Germany.
And this ends up being a huge propaganda victory for Adolf Hitler. He's also rebuilding his military during this time. Germany had long been violating the Treaty of Versailles with regard to its military restrictions.
And they justified this by looking at France and Britain, who refused to disarm to Germany's level, and a Soviet threat in the east. By 1935, the German army would increase from 7 to 21 divisions. A division is roughly 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers.
Following conscription orders after 1935, this would increase to 36 divisions. Recall, five divisions. would be about 100 000 troops which is what germany was technically allowed because of the treaty of versailles so they are well beyond this germany was also not allowed any luftwaffe any air force but in 1935 germany revealed the existence of their brand new air force featuring 2 500 planes Following this, in March of 1936, Hitler's going to take a bold step to re-militarize the Rhineland, to send German troops into the Rhineland region, which was Germany, but according to the Treaty of Versailles, this was to be demilitarized.
The world at this moment was distracted by the Abyssinian crisis, and Hitler saw a time to move. He justified his actions by the signing of an agreement between France and the Soviet Union called the The French-Soviet Mutual Assistance Treaty and that fear that Germany has long had about being encircled. He received no resistance, no opposition from Western powers. The Spanish Civil War. We talked the other day about Italy taking part in the Spanish Civil War.
Adolf Hitler is going to do the exact same. The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, and the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine, were each instrumental in the fascist victory in... Spain.
From the German Luftwaffe, the Condor Legion would launch bombing campaigns on Spanish cities, including the city of Guernica, where thousands of civilians would be killed. And Pablo Picasso in the painting, there it is, right next to me, would immortalize this scene with his painting, Guernica. The rationale for Adolf Hitler, this would give a friendly Spanish government, a friendly fascist Spanish government to trade with and to offer bases for the German navy in the Mediterranean.
This would also test his new air force, his new Luftwaffe. It would give a chance to show what this modern air force could do. He also wanted to make sure that communism was suppressed in Western Europe.
The fascists in Spain... one of the factions that they were fighting against were communists. Adolf Hitler is going to enter into some new diplomatic alignments in the late 1930s.
First, the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936. This is going to establish what are known as mutual interests between the two nations. And so now, Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, who previously were at odds with each other, are now entering into an alliance. Germany will also enter the anti-common-term pact with Japan and Italy. This was standing in opposition to international communism and to provide mutual defense should the Soviet Union attack any of them. This was the first alliance between these three nations that will join together in the Second World War.
And as we get to the end of November, or end of 1937, we see a meeting. take place between Adolf Hitler and his top generals. And this meeting is recorded in notes known as the Hossbach Memorandum that will be released and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg Conference after World War II of Adolf Hitler's absolute intent to violently build a German empire.
cleanse this German empire of anybody Adolf Hitler did not see as fit. And so it calls for the acquisition of Lebensraum and what Hitler would call the preservation of the German racial community. Some generals felt that this was too aggressive and that Germany was not prepared for a wider war in 1938 or 39. So by February of 1938, Adolf Hitler will name himself the supreme commander of the German military, and he will sack any generals that opposed him.
And so now Hitler is holding absolute military power, and we'll see in our next video what he does with this. Take care.