Chapter 27 and 28 The Great Depression and the coming of World War II

1. Chapter 27 and 28The Great Depression and the coming of World War II

2. Reparations and War Debts • Most money collected by European nations from German reparations go to the United States • Normal business, capital investment, and international trade difficult and expensive for Europe • Leads to discouragement of trade and production, hurting employment in Europe and the United States

3. Stock Market Crash • Americans take money out of European investments and put them into booming stock market in 1928 • Stock market crashes in 1929 as a result of virtually unregulated financial speculation • Only needed 10% of money in cash to buy • People cannot pay back loans to banks and many banks collapse • No FDIC or other protection for people

4. The End of Reparations • As the German economy worsens, American president Herbert Hoover announces a one-year moratorium on all payments of international debts • The Lausanne Conference in 1932 effectively ends reparations

5. Problems in the Agriculture • Collapse of grain prices mean lower incomes for European farmers • Large estates in Eastern Europe broken up for small inefficient farms • People in Asia, South America, and Africa could no longer afford to buy finished good from industrial Europe • Commodity production outstripped world demand leading to vast unemployment and an increased depression

6. Government Policies Towards the Depression • Orthodox economic theory felt cuts in government spending would prevent inflation • John Maynard Keynes – urged government spending to expand overall demand • Private economic enterprise becomes subject to new trade, labor, and currency regulations

7. Germany: Depression and the Rise of the Nazis • Unemployment reaches six million in 1932 • Parliamentary deadlock between Social Democrats and conservatives leads to the uprising of extreme political parties (Communists and Nazis) • Nazi politics meant power and intimidation of the Social Democrats and Communists

8. Hitler Comes to Power • President von Hindenburg • After eight months of trying to appease the Nazis without putting Adolf Hitler in power, he is forced to name Hitler chancellor in January 1933 • Von Hindenburg appointed several Conservatives to the cabinet including Franz von Papen as a way to attempt to control Hitler

9. How Hitler Came to Power • Blunders of conservative German politicians who hated the Weimer Republic put Hitler in charge • Hitler mastered techniques of mass politics and propaganda • Support came, not just from lower classes, but war veterans, farmers and the young (particularly hurt by the depression) • Technically, Hitler came to power through legal means

10. Hitler’s Consolidation of Power • Reichstag Fire – mentally ill communist burns down Reichstag as a result Hitler issues Article 48 – emergency decree suspending civil liberties and arresting suspected Communists • The Enabling Act – permitted Hitler to rule by decree, giving him unlimited power • 1933 – National Socialists the only legal party in Germany • Internal Nazi Party Purges – Hitler orders German army to kill SA or storm troopers including leader Ernst Roehm because they were becoming too popular • Hindenburg dies – Hitler names himself chancellor and president making him sole ruler of Germany and Nazi Party

11. Anti-Semitism and the Police State • SS organization – commanded by Heinrich Himmler, became chief vehicle of police surveillance and carried out the purges • Attack on Jewish economic life – anti-Semitism based on biological racial theories, leads to Nazis excluding Jews from civil service and the boycotts of Jewish businesses and shops • Nuremberg Laws – German Jews robbed of citizenship, prohibited from marrying non-Jews, and publicly humiliated • Kristallnacht– Jews forbade to be in business, thousands of Jewish stores and synagogues destroyed and Jews forced to pay for the clean-up • The Final Solution – Jews forced into small ghettos, then taken to prison camps and in 1941 and 1942 the Final Solution leads to the extermination of six million eastern European Jews

12. Women in Nazi Germany • Women were expected to breed strong sons and daughters to make a pure race of Germans • Jewish, Slavic, and Gypsy women were killed • Women who bore weak children were sterilized, killed or forced to have abortions • Motherhood emphasized, but women were encouraged to work especially as educators teaching the young about Nazi philosophy

13. Nazi Economic Policy • Hitler’s oppressive regime received support because he swiftly ended the Depression in Germany • People would sacrifice all political and civil liberty, limit private exercise of capital in order to prepare for war and aggression • Massive public works programs • Renunciation of the Treaty of Versailles leads Hitler to appoint Hermann Goring, to undertake a four-year plan to prepare the army and economy for war • Trade unions crushed and outlawed

14. Italy: Fascism and the Economy • Fascist leader Benito Mussolini attempted to nationalize the wheat industry – the Great Depression affected Italy anyways • Corporatism– planned economy linked to the private ownership of capital and to government arbitration of labor disputes • Industry first organized into syndicates – two groups would negotiate labor settlements, one from labor and one from management • Corporations– grouped together industries relating to a major area of production • production not increased, but bureaucracy and corruption increase • to support going to war, government requires citizens to buy government bonds

15. Russia: Rapid Industrialization • The slowing down of economic production, leads Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin to abandon Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) and reject free market operations • Series of Five-Year Plans would rapidly increase government run heavy industries • The State Planning Commission or Gosplan oversaw every aspect the economy • economy grows 400% between 1928 and 1940, but at the cost of deplorable human conditions for the workers

16. Collectivization • Stalin forces Russian peasants to give up their private farms and work collectively on farms owned by the state – collectives • Stalin felt this policy would end the hoarding of grain and produce enough domestic food and for foreign export • “Dekulakization” – the removal of any peasants, especially those who were well off, who resisted collectivization • Millions of peasants are killed, imprisoned, exiled to Siberia or starve to death • Religious leaders of many faiths are attacked and their places of worship closed • By 1937, 90% of the country’s grain is collectivized

17. Flight to the Soviet Cities • Between 1928 and 1932, twelve million peasants leave the countryside for the city • Many women and elderly left behind in impoverished villages • Many starved to death

18. Consumer Shortages in the Russian Cities • Shortages of the basics – housing, food, and clothing • This will be a problem for the Soviet Union during its entire existence.…even today. • Cities lacked proper transportation, sewer systems, paved streets and lighting • Crime and disease widespread

19. Stalin Versus Fascism • Allowed communist and non-communist parties to work together to combat Nazis and other fascists • Supported Popular Front in France

20. The Purges • Stalin, starting in 1933, gets rid of his enemies and opponents, both real and imagined in the Great Purges • The assassination of party chief Sergei Kirov leads to the first purges • Kirov’s death still a mystery • Killed either by party opponents or perhaps by Stalin himself • Ex-high Soviet leader Bukharin along with other members of the Politburo are executed • Millions of people (family members of government leaders, ordinary Soviet citizens, members of the military) are either executed or sent to labor camps • Stalin’s thirst for power and his paranoia caused the purges • Communist Party moves away from the philosophies of Lenin and other early Communist leaders

21. Once More, the Road to War • In Germany the economic woes of the 1930s compounded the humilations of defeat in World War I. • In response, the Nationalism of the Nazi party became popular, catapulting Adolf Hitler into power.

22. Hitler’s Goals • Hitler expressed his main goals in his book Mein Kampf. • His primary goal with the unification of the German people, the Volk, under one flag. • This nation would include all of the Germanic parts of the Habsburg Empire, including Austria. • It would need extra room to live, Lebensraum, which would be taken in the East from the Slavs, an inferior race, and cleared of Jews, the lowest of the races. • Rearming • In 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations. • In 1934 Germany signs a non-aggression pact with Poland • 1935 Hitler formally renounced the disarmament provisions of the Versailles treaty, and soon reinstated conscription. • Though the League of Nations denounced Germany’s decision to rearm, it was helpless to prevent it, indicating it uselessness.

23. Italy Attacks Ethiopia • In October 1935 Mussolini attacked Ethiopia • France and Britain were both willing to appease him, in the hope that Italy would offset Germany’s growing power. They offered to allow him to control Ethiopia in fact, if it would remain legally independent. • Mussolini refused, but France and Britain still did not substantially oppose him.

24. Remilitarization of the Rhineland • Mussolini’s success convinced Hitler that the western powers would also not oppose him substantially. • On March 7, 1936 he sent a small armed force into the demilitarized Rhineland. • France and Britain both registered a complaint with the League of Nations, but did nothing else.

25. The Spanish Civil War • The new dividing line in Europe between Fascist and Western democracies was made clearer by the Spanish Civil War. • The war broke out in July 1936, between the elected Popular Front Government and the Fascists, lead by General Francisco Franco (1892-1975). It lasted three years. • Germany and Italy supported the Fascists • The Soviets supported the Republicans. • The Western democracies remained neutral. • The Fascists won in 1939.

26. Austria and Czechoslovakia • In 1938 Hitler’s new found closeness to Mussolini encouraged him to attempt to take Austria. • He marched into Austria on March 12th, in order to forestall a plebiscite on Anschluss, the union of Germany and Austria. Italy did not object. • The Anschluss was strategically significant, as Germany now surrounded Czechoslovakia, a country which was an affront to Hitler’s sensibilities.

27. Austria and Czechoslovakia • Throughout 1938 Hitler increased the pressure on the Czechs • Disseminated false rumors that the Germans would attack, forcing the Czechs to mobilize their army on the German border in May. • September 12: Hitler made a speech at a Nazi rally, which provoked ethnic German rioting in the Sudetenland • The Czechs declared martial law. • Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, made three flights to Germany between September 15th and 29th, attempting to appease Hitler and avoid war. • He ended up conceding the Sudetenland to Germany, by withdrawing support from Czechoslovakia. However, Hitler insisted that the Czechs withdraw within three days. It looked like there would be war.

28. The Munich Conference • On September 29th, 1938, Mussolini called a conference at Chamberlain’s request. • Results of the conference: • Hitler’s demands were met, and he gained control of the Sudetenland. • However, he promised that he had no further territorial demands in Europe. • Chamberlain claimed he had brought “peace with honor.”

29. The Beginning of the War • March 15, 1939 • Hitler occupied Prague, taking the rest of Czechoslovakia • Spring, 1939 • Germany put pressure on Poland to return the formerly German city of Danzig, and for the rights to build a connecting railroad through Poland to East Prussia. • March 31st • Chamberlain announced a joint Franco-British guarantee of Polish independence. • August 23rd • The Soviets signed a pact with Germany, agreeing to divide Poland between them. • September 1st • Hitler invaded Poland. • September 3rd • Britain and France declared war on Germany.

30. The German Conquest of Europe • Germany quickly overran Poland, using the new technique of Blitzkreig, “lightening warfare,” which employed fast moving armored columns supported by airpower. • September 17th, the Russians invaded from the east. • The French remained behind the Maginot Line, while the British rearmed and the British Navy blockaded Germany. • April 1940, Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. • May 1940, He began a Blitzkrieg through Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The British and French Armies in Belgium were forced to flee. • Hitler continued into France, while Mussolini attacked from the south on June 10th. Less than a week later, the French, under Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, surrendered.

31. France at Home • The terms of the 1940 Armistice allowed the Germans to occupy more than half of France. • In Southern France, Petain set up a dictatorial regime based in Vichy. Many conservatives viewed this as a positive thing. • Some French men and women fled to Britain after the occupation, organizing the French National Committee of Liberation, or “Free French,” to resist the occupation and the collaborators. However, large scale resistance did not begin until 1944.

32. Great Britain • May 22, 1940, Parliament gave the government emergency powers, allowing them to institute a draft, rationing and economic controls. • By 1941, Britain production had surpassed Germany’s. • The “blitz” bombings in 1940-41 were the most immediate experience of the war for most Britons. By the end of the war 30,000 were killed.

33. The Battle of Britain • May 1940, Chamberlain replaced by Winston Churchill (1874-1965), an early and forceful critic of Hitler. • August 1940, Germany began bombardment of Britain, in the hopes of softening the country up for invasion • He managed to destroy much of London and kill 15,000 people • However, he lost twice as many planes as the British, and was forced to abandon the invasion plan. • This allows for Britain to be used as a staging base for a future invasion of the continent.

34. The German Home Front • Hitler demanded few sacrifices from the German people at first. • The economy improved during the war. • By 1943 labor shortages made it necessary for teenagers, retired men and some women to work in the factories. • Radio and Film propaganda were used to boost the Nazi cause • After the Allied bombing campaign began, the Germans had much to fear.

35. The German Attack on Russia • December 1940, Hitler tells his generals to prepare for an attack on Russia by May 15th, 1941, to be called Operation Barbarossa. It was designed to destroy Russia before winter set in. • Operation Barbarossa does not actually begin until June 22, 1941. • The Russians were quite surprised, Stalin had not expected Hitler to violate their pact. • In the first two days 2,000 Russian planes had be destroyed on the ground. By November 2.5 million of Russia’s initial 4.5 million troops were dead. • Hitler delayed the advance in August, to decide strategy. He diverted a troop south. By the time he got back to attacking Moscow, winter had ravaged his army, and the city was better fortified. It had turned into a war of attrition. • November and December 1941, the Russians counterattacked.

36. The Soviet Union • No nation suffered more than the Soviet Union during World War II • 16 million were killed • Within occupied portions of Western Russia there was an active resistance movement against the Nazi’s. • This made it very difficult for the Nazi’s to maintain effective control behind the lines of battle

37. Japan and the United States Enter the War • Throughout the 30s and 40s Japan’s Imperial interests had been thwarted by the United States • October 1941 • A war faction led by General Hideki Tojo took power in Japan and basically created a military dictatorship • December 7th, 1941 • The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, catching the Americans completely off guard. They destroyed or damaged most of the pacific fleet with one key exception • The aircraft carriers were at sea • The US and Britain immediately declared war on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the US.

38. The Tide Turns • Spring 1942 • The US has a string of victories against Japan in the pacific • Summer 1942, • The Battle of Stalingrad raged for months, with the Russians eventually prevailing. The Germans lost an entire army of nearly 2 million men • The aura of German invincibility is shattered • November 1942, • An Allied forced lands in French North Africa, defeating German forces there. • July and August 1943, • The Allies take Sicily. • In 1943 the Allies began a massive bombing campaign in Germany. By 1945, the Allies could bomb at will.

39. Yalta and Pottsdam • February 1945, The Big Three Powers (Britain, Soviet Union , United States) met in Yalta located in the Crimea. • The Americans encouraged the Russians to join the war against Japan. In the tradition of Wilson, Roosevelt encouraged a united-nations organization. • In July 1945, after the defeat of Germany, they met at Pottsdam. Germany was carved up into zones. The rest of Europe was split up. • This lays the groundwork for the beginnings of the Cold War

40. The Defeat of Nazi Germany • June 6th, 1944, D-day, a British-American invasion force lands at Normandy beach on the coast of France. By the beginning of September, France had been liberated. • December 1944, • The Germans launched a counter attack in Belgium and Luxembourg. Known as “The Battle of the Bulge,” this was Germany’s last gasp in the West. • By March 1945 the Allies were near Berlin. On April 30th, 1945 Hitler commits suicide. Germany surrendered within the week.

41. The Fall of the Japanese Empire • August 6th, 1945, The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Two days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. • On August 14th, 1945, Japan surrendered. • This still remains the only time nuclear weapons have been used on a people

42. Racism and the Holocaust • One of the pillars of Nazi Ideology was racism • All non-Aryan peoples, such as Slavs, Jews and Gypsies, were considered lower orders of beings • Hitler had envisioned a special fate for the Jews. He wanted to make all of Europe Judenrein, free of Jews. He planned to exterminate them. • The Fate of the Polish Jewish community as a case study for the Holocaust. • The joint German-Russian invasion of Poland brought millions of Jews under the control of the Nazi Government. • 1940, The Jews were moved into Ghettos, separate from the rest of the population. Many died of disease and malnourishment • 1941-1944, a systematic campaign of extermination was carried out. Jews were transported by rail to death camps throughout Poland, where millions were gassed to death. • By 1945 90% of the pre-1939 Polish Jewish population of Poland had been destroyed. • Approximately 6 million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust