Foreign Policies of Hitler: Regional and Global Impact

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Foreign Policies of Hitler Regional and Global
Impact
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Hitlers Foreign Policy

• Once in power, Hitler implemented his mission of
  reviving German strength and establishing a
  foundation of a pure racial state
• Acquiring territory or Lebensraum was closely
  tied to domestic policies
• In order to achieve his goals, Hitler needed to
  create a sense of national community unified in
  mind, will, and spirit
• This could only be achieved through total state
  control every facet of cultural and social life
  had to be controlled

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Hitlers Foreign Policy

• War was obviously a real possibility and the
  domestic policies were aimed at creating a nation
  ready and willing for war
• Reverse the Treaty of Versailles
• Created a Greater Germany by uniting all German
  speaking people
• Lebensraum (living space) for all German people

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Hitlers Foreign Policy Greater Germany

• Hitler wanted a single homeland for all German
  speaking people
• After Versailles, millions of Germans were living
  in foreign countries
• Versailles had also forbidden the union of
  Germany and Austria

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Hitlers Foreign Policy - Lebensraum

• Hitlers Greater Germany would have a
  population of over 85 million people which could
  not be fed inside her existing borders
• Hitler intended to expand eastward towards Poland
  and Russia which contained inferior people
• Social Darwinism dictated that Germany was
  entitled to take their land

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Operation Barbarosa
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Hitlers Foreign Policy Reversing Versailles

• From 1933-1938
• (1933) Germany withdrew from the League of
  Nations to reduce possible foreign control over
  Germany
• She began rapid rearmament
• (1935) Announced that they had established an air
  force
• (1936) Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in
  violation of various treaties with no foreign
  opposition

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Hitlers Foreign Policy Reversing Versailles

• (1936) Hitler informed his top officials that
  Germany must be ready for war by 1940
• (1936-9) Germany fostered closer relations with
  fascist Italy and the two nations assisted
  General Franco in overthrowing Spains Republican
  government during the Spanish Civil War

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Hitlers Foreign Policy Reversing Versailles

• From 1938-1945
• Germany strengthened its ties to Fascist Italy
  and Japan by signing the Anti-Comintern Pact in
  which the nations pledged to defend each other
  against the Soviet Union and international
  communism
• The Pact of Steel was signed with Italy
• (1938) Hitler carried out the Anschluss, the
  annexation of Austria

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Hitlers Foreign Policy Reversing Versailles

• (1938) The Munich Agreement was signed which
  ceded the Sudetenland to Germany
• Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia
• Hitler made it seem like his demands could be met
• (August 1939) The German-Soviet Nonaggression
  Pact was signed and Hitler could now attack
  Poland without Soviet intervention

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Hitlers Foreign Policy Reversing Versailles

• (Sept 1939) Hitler invaded Poland. Britain and
  France declared war on Germany two days later

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Hitler During the War

• Invades
• Poland Sept. 1, 1939
• Denmark and Norway Apr. 9, 1939
• Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemberg, France May 10,
  1939
• Greece and Yugosloavia Apr. 6, 1941
• USSR Jun. 22, 1941

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Hitler During the War

• Wasnt ready for war with the invasion of
  Poland, he expected appeasement from Britain and
  France
• Blitzkrieg was successful at first, but didnt
  end up having enough tanks, trucks, planes, etc.
• The economy wouldnt be unified and converted to
  a wartime economy until 1942
• Wasted war materials on death/concentration camps
• No central war planning by the military services
  everything had to go through Hitler individually

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Hitler During the War

• Hitler didnt stop the Dunkirk evacuation
• Wanted to consolidate his position
• As a result, 330,000 French and British troops
  were evacuated
• Hitler stops the Battle of Britain
• The intent was to destroy the British airforce so
  that a land invasion could take place
• Also wanted to lower the morale of the British
• He stops the Battle to divert attention to the
  invasion of the Soviet Union

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Hitler During the War

• Invasion of the USSR
• Would make Britain desperate to surrender
• Would destroy Jewish-Bolshevism
• Would provide oil
• Germany was overstretched and it ends in a
  disaster
• D-Day Invasion
• Thought that it was a diversionary attack, so he
  waited to send reinforcements

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Hitler at the End

• By early 1945, Hitler ordered that all military,
  transport, communication, industrial, and supply
  facilities are to be destroyed. The order
  included bridges, dams, and utilities
• Speer (head of the economy) protested to Hitler
  that the resources to be destroyed would be
  needed for survival in the postwar period
• Hitler believed that if the war is to be lost,
  the nation also will perish

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Hitler at the End

• He always laid fault to either his military
  generals, the troops, or Jews, but never himself
• He established a Flying Special Tribunal to go
  immediately to places where German armies were
  defeated, to try soldiers of all ranks, and to
  carry out its judgments on the spot

Defeated German soldiers in the USSR
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Hitler at the End

• Hitler wouldnt surrender
• The army came down to drafting 14-year old boys
  and even some 12-year olds
• The militia came down to drafting 8-year olds as
  well as old men
• They used anything they could find to fight