Hitler

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Hitlers Foreign Policy 1933 - 1939
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Factors of International Relations in Europe 1933
- 1939

• Financial Instability
• Fear of Communism
• Rise of Fascist leaders
• Diminishing role of League of Nations
• Fear of War
• Admiration for German Recovery Stability
• Increasing dislike of Treaty of Versailles
• Appeasement

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League of Nations Failure(1919 1939)

• USA never joined
• No Army could not impose their decisions
• Slow to React Unanimity of Decision-Making
  Required
• Depression created more selfish behaviour by
  individual countries e.g. Germany Italy
• Rise of Imperial Fascism Germany, Italy Japan

• Japan left in 1933
• (Invasion of Manchuria)
• Germany left in 1933
• (Treaty of Versailles)
• Italy left in 1937

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League of Nations Complexity
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(No Transcript)
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Hitlers Foreign Policy Aims

• Grossdeutschland Creating a larger, more
  powerful all-German Reich that Hitler claimed
  would last 1,000 years.
• Anschluss Uniting Germany Austria into one
  greater German Reich
• Lebensraum Creating living space in the east
  i.e. displacement of inferior (Slavic) races to
  make way for re-population of Germanic peoples.
• Destruction of Treaty of Versailles The War
  Guilt Clause and restrictions on German Armed
  Forces as well as the loss of territories
  colonies was naturally a key focus of Hitlers
  Foreign Policy
• Eradication of International Jewry While this
  was a facet of Hitlers rhetorical oratory, it
  would not become a key policy until much later in
  the 1930s, culminating in the Final Solution
  proposed in 1942.

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European leaders 1933 - 1939
United Kingdom Neville Chamberlain (1937
1940) France Édouard Daladier (1933, 1934,
1938 1940) Italy Benito Mussolini (1922
1944) Spain General Franco (1939 1975)
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1934
German Polish Non-Aggression Pact

• A ten-year non-aggression pact with Poland gave
  Hitler the appearance of a benevolent, peaceful
  statesman. However, it lulled the Poles into a
  false sense of security and weakened their
  alliance with France.

Stresa Front
In July 1934, Austrian Nazis staged a coup
detat. Vice-Chancellor Schuschnigg quickly
suppressed it and Hitler was kept at bay by the
threat of Italian intervention. Hitler declared
that he had no interest in Austria. However,
Britain, France and Italy did not believe him and
formed the Stresa Front to formally oppose German
interference in Austria
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1935
Anglo-German Naval Agreement
In March 1935, Hitler announced that Germany was
rearming, thereby repudiating the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles. The British concluded a
naval agreement (Anglo-German Naval Agreement)
with Germany showing that even the Allies
regarded the Treaty as a dead letter
Saar Plebiscite
In January 1935, the people of the Saar region in
France voted (Saar Plebiscite) to re-unite with
Germany, which greatly encouraged Hitlers dream
of creating a larger German Reich
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1936

• Re-militarisation of the Rhineland
• On the 7th of March 1936, Hitler took an enormous
  gamble by sending German troops into the
  de-militarised Rhineland, which had formed a
  buffer zone of safety for France since the Treaty
  of Versailles. The gamble paid off, as Britain
  was unwilling to go to war over this and showed
  that France either could not or would not resist
  open German defiance of the Treaty of Versailles
  regulations.
• Spanish Civil War
• German involvement in the Spanish Civil War from
  1936 on placed Franco in Hitlers debt with the
  Supply of German dive-bombers (STUKAS), expertise
  and manpower.
• Rome-Berlin Axis
• The closer links between Germany and Italy were
  reflected in the drawing up of the Rome-Berlin
  Axis, an agreement by the two countries to follow
  a common foreign policy

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1937
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Joachim Von Ribbentrop Foreign Minister 1938 -
1945

• Appointed Foreign Minister in February 1938.
  Replaced the conservative cautious Neurath
• Radical pro-war, Von Ribbentrop was both feared
  and hated. His appointment was a signal that Nazi
  Germany was moving to a much more aggressive
  foreign policy.
• "Ribbentrop belongs to the category of Germans
  who are a disaster for their country. He talks
  about making war right and left, without naming
  an enemy or defining an objective
• - Benito Mussolini (1938)

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1938 Sudetenland Munich Conference Peace in
our Times

• Hitler demanded that the 3 million German
  speaking inhabitabants of the Sudetenland region
  of Czechoslovakia be returned to the German
  Reich.
• Hitler fully realised that his German army was
  not yet ready for all-out war. With a secure
  relationship already established with Mussolini,
  he secretly asked him to call a conference of
  European leaders. On the 28th of September 1938,
  Chamberlain, Hitler, Daladier Mussolini met at
  Munich.
• Czechs had little choice but to secede to
  Hitlers demand for control of Sudentenland.

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1938 Anschluss Sudentenland Annexation
Throughout 1936 and 1937, pressure from Hitlers
Germany forced the Austrian Chancellor
(Schuschnigg) to legalise the Nazi party and
place key ministries under the control of Nazis.
When Schuschnigg tried to hold a referendum to
ensure Austrian independence, Hitler threatened
to invade if Schuschnigg did not resign. He did
so, and Seyss Inquart (Austrian Nazi Party)
became Chancellor. Inquart invited the Germans
into Austria. to preserve law and order
In April 1938, 99 of Austrians voted to accept
Anschluss Union with Germany
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1939
Annexation of Czechoslovakia
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

• Urged on by Hitler, Poland and Hungary annexed
  the region of Teschen and Ruthenia, while
  Slovakia declared its independence in March 1939.
  
• Hitler persuaded the Czech President Hatcha To
  invite German troops into what was left of the
  country to preserve law and order. Czech Army
  was disbanded and the Skoda factories fell into
  German hands. Major military coup for Germany
  even before WWII had started.
• Hitler continued to put pressure on Poland as he
  did not take the Anglo-French guarantee to Warsaw
  seriously. He demanded concessions from the Poles
  in the regions of Danzig and the Polish Corridor.
  

On the 23rd August, 1939, Nazi Germany USSR
signed a ten year Non-Aggression Pact. This
contained secret clauses to partition Poland and
divide it between themselves.
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1939

• Invasion of Poland

On the 1st September 1939, German forces staged
an attack on a German border checkpoint. Hitler
declared war on Poland and invaded on the same
day. On the 3rd of September, after an
ultimatum to withdraw from Poland passed with no
response, Britain France declared war on
Germany. The Second World War had begun
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Lebensraum
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Past Exam Questions

• 2006 2011 0 Questions
• 2003 D.1. Hitler and Mussolini Foreign Policy
• To what extent were the foreign
  policies pursued by Hitler and Mussolini
  responsible for the outbreak of WWII.
• 2000 D.3. International Relations, 1933-1939
• Discuss critically the view that Hitlers
  aggressive foreign policy was the main
  cause of WWII.