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)