German challenges to the post-war settlements (1933-1938) Notes

German Expansion 1933-38 - Events

1. Hitler’s expansion up to the start of WW2 can be understood as a series of challenges to post war agreements.
2. Nevertheless, not all of his advances into European territories were open violations to these settlements.

German Challenges to the Post-War Settlements (1933-1938)

Challenge 1: Hitler leaves the League of Nations

1. Under Stressemann, in 1926, Germany had joined the League of Nations.
2. As a member of the League, Germany was invited in 1933 to the Disarmament Conference of the League.
3. In that meeting, France and Germany clashed: Hitler pushed for parity with France in terms of armament. Either France had to disarm or Germany had to be allowed to rearm.
4. The British presented a gradual 5 year plan for a movement towards troops parity for France, Germany, Italy and Poland. Nevertheless, Germany would not be allowed access to certain technology and weapons.
5. During the Conference, Hitler was very vocal about what he saw as the hypocrisy of the victors of WW1: they spoke about disarmament and peace, but the only country that had actually disarmed had been Germany, as part of the punishment of Versailles.
6. When the Conference was coming to its end, Htiler announced Germany leaving the Conference and the League altogether.
7. Once out of the League, Hitler started increasing the scale of his military but he did it in a cautious way. Only after 1935 he openly showed rearmament and conscription as a part of his domestic and foreign policy.

Challenge 2: Failed Anschluss

1. According to Versailles, Germany was forbidden to put forward an Anschluss (political union) with Austria.
2. The aim was to prevent Germany from becoming strong enough to potentially put forward a new attack and start a new war.
3. Nevertheless, after the Nazis got to power in Germany in 1933, Nazi ideals had been expanding into Austria, and in 1934 there was a strong Nazi party branch that tried to achieve Anschluss through a coup d’etat.
4. Hitler openly supported the Austrian Nazis before the coup, but he didn’t give them open help.
5. As we have seen, the Austrian Chancellor at the time asked for Mussolini’s help and he responded by sending troops to the Austro-Italian border. The Anschluss failed.

Challenge 3: the Saar Plebiscite (1935)

1. The region of the Saar was under supervision of the League of Nations as per the Treaty of Versailles.
2. According to Versailles, after 15 years had passed, the people of the Saar would be allowed to vote in a special election, a Plebiscite, to decide whether they wanted to be a part of Germany again.
3. Over 90% of the voters were in favor of reuniting with Germany.
   1. This was a victory for Hitler and even when we label this event as part of the challenges that Hitler put forward, it is not technically a challenge: his acquisition of the Saar was fully legal and under the terms of international law.

Challenge 4: Reintroduction of conscription and announcement of rearmament (March 1935)

1. Openly violating the terms of Versailles, Hitler declared plans to vastly expand Germany’s military forces, including compulsory service and the formation of a large army and air force.
2. The announcement triggered concern among Britain, France, and Italy, leading them to form the Stresa Front in April 1935, but we have already seen this was short lived.

Challenge 5: Remilitarization of the Rhineland (March 1936) - The point of no return

1. In March 1936, Hitler entered the region of the Rhineland, in Western Germany. This was a somewhat small piece of land along the Rhine River, bordering France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
2. In Versailles, the region had been demilitarized in order for it to act as a buffer to protect France from potential aggression.
3. When HItler’s army marched into the Rhineland, Hitler was violating not only Versailles, but Locarno (1925).
4. He went into the Rhineland with extremely limited resources: it was only a small, lightly armed force of about 22,000 soldiers. Of these, around 3,000 were combat troops, the rest were police and support units dressed in military uniforms to appear more formidable.
5. Hitler’s military advisors had warned Hitler against the move, as his army could be easily defeated. The troops had orders to retreat at the first attack.
6. But things went smoothly, and the German army literally walked into the Rhineland with no opposition.
7. At the time, the League was occupied with Abyssinia and Britain and France had shifted to the appeasement policy.

Challenge 6: Diplomatic realignment during the Spanish Civil War.

1. The Spanish Civil War started in the summer of 1936 and at the time the German army was very significant for the beginning and the course of the war.
2. They cooperated with Franco’s nationalists with transportation, weapons and military operations, like the infamous Guernica bombing.
3. During the war, Hitler and Mussolini became aligned, and signed the Rome Berlin axis in 1936 (a friendship treaty) and Hilter also signed the Anti Comintern Pact with Japan later in the same year.

Challenge 7: Anschluss (1938)

1. Towards 1938, with the first signs of economic strain in Germany, Hitler became interested (again after 1934?) in Austria.
   1. Austria had factories, reserves in gold, iron and magnesium, and a large workforce.
2. In order to achieve the Anschluss, Hitler invited Austria’s Chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg, to a meeting.
   1. In that meeting, Schuschnigg was bullied by Hitler into making concessions in favor of Germany.
3. Schuschnigg appointed a Nazi minister of security, this gave Hitler control of the police of Austria.
   1. Schuschnigg also released all Nazis that were serving time in Austrian prisons.
4. Nevertheless, this was not enough for Hitler, who publicly declared that Schuschnigg was oppressing the German population living in Austria.
5. To combat Nazi advances and showcase his legitimacy in Austria, Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite for March 9.
   1. The Austrian people would be free to vote to unite with Germany or to remain independent.
6. Hitler feared a loss, so he pressed the political authorities of Austria to sack Schuschnigg.
   1. He was eventually replaced by a Nazi leader that invited the German army into Austria.
7. On 12 March, German forces entered Austria without facing resistance, and soon after, Austria was officially merged with Germany following a heavily managed plebiscite: 99% of the population “voted” in favor of the Anschluss.
8. Britain and France chose not to intervene.
   1. In part because the unification seemed to reflect the wishes of many Austrians, reducing political pressure to act.
   2. This was another example of appeasement in action.

Challenge 8: The Sudetenland (September 1938)

1. After the Anschluss, the border with Czechoslovakia became vulnerable and was Hitler’s next target.
2. The official reason for the advance into Czechoslovakia were the Sudeten Germans
   1. Hitler aimed to absorb the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia with over 3 million ethnic Germans, claiming he was protecting their rights and unifying all Germans under one Reich.
3. Czechoslovakia had been created by Versailles, and in HItler’s eyes the Sudeten Germans had been denied self determination.
4. Hitler reached out to the Nazi Party in the Sudetenland, who began to demand that the Czech government allowed Hitler to take control over the Sudetenland.
5. The Czech government, led by president Beneš, ordered mobilization to stop what they thought was an Nazi advance on the Sudetenland (this was a false report).
   1. France warned HItler that they would intervene if the Nazis entered Czechoslovakia, and this enraged Hitler.
6. Hitler spoke of entering Czechoslovakia with full on invasion, and at that point British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, intervened to calm things down.
7. Chamberlain summoned Daladier (French leader), Mussolini and Hitler and on 30th September 1938 they signed the Munich Agreement.
   1. Beneš wasn’t even invited to the meeting.
   2. Nor was the League of Nations. After the Agreement was signed, Beneš resigned.
8. The terms of the Munich Agreement established that Hitler would take the Sudetenland with no resistance, but in exchange Hitler promised no further demands on Europe.
   1. It was a verbal promise and he broke it months later, occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia.

German challenges to the post-war settlements (1933-1938) - Responses

1. The main response from the international community was appeasement.
   1. You can revise the information in the Causes for German and Italian expansion section.
2. In parallel with appeasement, countries began rearming:
   1. Britain as of 1934.
   2. France in 1936.
   3. Stalin also started to rearm as early as 1930, but purges and problems with the Five Year Plans made them not fully ready for war in 1939 (which in part explains the pact Stalin signs with Hitler in that year)
3. Historian Richard Overy estimates that, in total, military expenditure rose more than six times in the period 1934-1939 in Germany and Britain, in the USSR, eight times, and, in France, ten times.
4. There were also military realignments during the decade. Revise the information in the Causes for German and Italian expansion section.
5. Italy’s response to Hitler’s advances during the decade is a topic that we have also already seen.
6. Remember that Mussolini went from hesitation to alliance. In the early 1930s, Mussolini viewed Hitler with caution and initially tried to keep Italy positioned as a mediator between the major European powers.
7. Mussolini tried to foster Italy’s international standing by sponsoring a Four-Power Pact in 1933 that included Italy, Germany, Britain and France.
   1. The signatories agreed to abide by the League of Nations and work towards disarmament, but the pact was never ratified and failed to produce any significant outcomes.
8. Italy responded strongly to the 1934 Austrian Nazi Anschluss attempt, deploying troops to the border to deter German interference.
   1. Mussolini also joined Britain and France in the 1935 Stresa Front to collectively oppose further German treaty violations.
9. Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 drew criticism from Britain and France, prompting Mussolini to seek closer ties with Hitler abandoning the Stresa Front.
   1. By 1936, Italy had signed the Rome-Berlin Axis, realigning diplomatically and contributing to the erosion of Allied unity.