Democracy, Totalitarianism & World War II, 1919-1945 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Democracy, Totalitarianism &World War II, 1919-1945

Chapters 26 & 27

• France tried to enforce the treaty
• US & GB returned to isolationist policies
• Bolshevik Revolution knocked out Russia
• Many in Europe looked to the L of N
• The League lacked enforcement ability
• France forms “Little Entente” w/Eastern Europe
• 1922 Rapallo Pact
• Germany agrees to supply manufactured goods to USSR & engage in joint military maneuvers

• Short lived trend to democracy after WWI
• Women got the vote in many countries
• Labor unions got more power
• Social legislation helped civilians
• Eastern Europe sees new states with democratic governments
• All had ethnic minority issues
• Conservatives & Socialists opposed democracy
• Land reforms failed to end underdevelopment
• Only Czech. Seemed to work

• Two major problems:
• Faced numerous economic & political problems
• Extremists on the left & right wanted to overthrow it

• Founded by two political parties:
• Social Democratic Party - left centered
• No longer Marxist – wanted to advance a German welfare system
• Catholic Center Party – right centered
• Neither party wanted a Communist or right-wing takeover

• 1919 Communist Spartacists tried a coup
• They were captured & executed by the right-wing Freikorps
• 1920 the Freikorps tried to overthrow the Weimar – Kapp Putsch
• Prime Minister Ebert called for a general strike which prevented the rebels from being able to move

• Representatives to the Reichstag were chosen by proportional representation
• 10% of the vote = 10% of the seats
• Allowed a diversity of views – made it difficult to establish a stable majority government
• Easier for extremists to gain a voice
• President of the republic could suspend parliamentary rule in emergencies
• “suicide clause” allowed democratic rule to be undermined

• Weimar government was associated with the Treaty of Versailles
• All saw it a diktat – a dictated peace
• Demagogues perpetuated the myth that Germany had been on the brink of winning the war in 1918
• Claimed “Jews, socialists, communists democrats” sold them out to establish a republic
• Made the Weimar Republic the scapegoat for all problems

• 1932 Germany fell behind on its reparations payments
• France & Belgium invaded the Ruhr Valley
• Wanted to extract payments in coal & steel
• Germany encouraged workers to resist (passively)
• Weimar had to pay the workers benefits & wages in more & more paper money
• By Nov. 1923 the value of the mark was at an all time low

• $1 = 4,000,000,000,000 Deutsche Marks
• Overnight wealth became worthless
• Confidence in the government plunged
• Hitler attempted to overthrown the Bavarian government in the Beer Hall putsch (1923)
• The coup failed – Hitler served 5 years
• Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison

• Great Britain criticized France and Belgium for their invasion
• The US intervened
• Our former allies said they could not pay back our loans if Germany didn’t pay them
• US gave loans to Germany
• This was the Dawes Plan – helped for a while
• US rescheduled loan repayments in exchange for French withdrawal from the Ruhr

• 1924-1929 was a period of peace & hope
• Diplomats turned to negotiation not war
• Locarno Pact
• Streseman – Germany & Briand – France
• Germany accepted the loss of Alsace-Lorraine
• Germany worked with Poland & Czech to make new borders
• Germany entered the League of Nations in 1926

• 65 nations signed the pact
• Condemned all war
• Had no power to enforce itself
• Like the League of Nations
• Japan invaded Manchuria (’31) & Italy invaded Ethiopia (’35) but there was no punishment
• 1930 France began work on defensive forts along the German border
• Maginot Line ~ symbol of false security

The Great Depression

• Strong Inflationary Pressures
• Rationing & borrowing, devalued currencies and inflation
• Disrupted Markets
• India & others replaced Europe during WWI
• Agricultural Depression
• Glut on the grain market meant price drop

• Economic Nationalism
• Many countries passed high tariffs to protect their industries
• Reparations
• World capital flowed from US to Germany; from Germany to France & Britain and back to US
• Credit financing
• Advent of payment plans allows deferred payments
• Buying stock “on Margin” allowed borrowing up to 90% of the stock’s value – when it crashed . . . .

• Investment & world trade plummeted
• Unemployment reached all time highs
• US & Germany were at 35% unemployment
• Unstable credit caused bank failures
• Currencies were devalued
• Wrecked the gold backed system
• First Britain then the US dropped the gold standard ’31
• Trade reverted to bilateral agreements or barter

• Usual economic methods failed to help
• John Maynard Keynes offered an idea
• Argued gov’t needed to “prime the pump”
• Use deficit financing, cut taxes, increase gov’t spending on aid programs
• This approach becomes the norm after 1945

• Great Britain was most dependent on trade
• 1926 General Strike caused by conflicts with industry
• Squashed by government
• Labour Party replaced the Liberal Party and worked to increase the rights of workers
• Britain gave autonomy to many areas under their control
• They were in a weakened position

• Hit less hard than GB since they were less dependent on trade
• President Poincaré stabilized the value of the franc – made French goods cheaper to buy
• There was a rise in right-wing political power
• Left-wing coalition Popular Front took power from 1936-38 & made some reforms
• Lost power as tensions increased after the start of the Spanish Civil War

• FDR’s New Deal started in1933
• Government $ was injected into society
• These provided some relief, but unemployment spiked again from 1937-38
• According to most historians, only WWII truly brought the US out of the Great Depression

• Norway, Sweden and Demark combine socialism and democracy
• Embraced Keynesian and creative approaches
• Used producers’ cooperatives to regulate the prices of agricultural products and state ownership of key industries

• Mass politics and intellectual trends after 1870 contributed to “irrational ideologies”
• Anti-Semitism, anarchism’s glorification of violence and the rabid nationalism associated with imperialism
• Darwinian evolution was used to justify the strong dominating the weak
• Post WWI growth of radio & motion pictures were used to control people

• Absolute monarchs got power from traditional institutions
• Extended power to areas vital to the state
• Taxes, trade, religion
• Geography & communication issues hindered centralization
• Dictators used mass media to mobilize people to fanatical support
• Every aspect of life must be subordinated to the party, movement and leader

Passive Obedience

Total Control of Society

• Fascism was an interwar European phenomenon
• It was not the liberalism of democracy or the revolutionary class-based Marxism
• This “third way” was based in the 19th century’s irrational ideologies
• Fueled by the instability of the 20th century

• Militarism
• War is the proving ground of national identity
• Glorification of the state
• State=all powerful – culmination of evolution
• Fuhrer Principle
• Voice of the people was most potent in 1 man
• Antidemocracy
• Democracy=weakness
• Anticommunism
• Condemned class warfare
• One-Party Rule
• Suppressed elections, free press, multiparty systems

• Italy was mad that it had been a “winner” but got no prize
• Not allowed to reclaim lost lands
• Had unemployment, inflation & high deficits
• Lots of problems for the parliamentary democracy
• Benito Mussolini was left-wing journalist
• Became right-wing after WWI
• Used the squadristi to intimidate opponents
• Mussolini was seen as a champion of law & order
• 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III was intimidated into naming BM premier

• Acerbo Law gave 2/3rds of parliaments seats to the party that had the most votes
• 1924 Fascists gained control of the parliament
• Giamoco Matteotti (Soc leader) was assassinated by fascists
• Had exposed corruption & violence in the gov’t
• Public demanded Mussolini’s resignation
• Used the incident to secure power
• By 1926 the press was censored, there was only 1 party & the secret police (OVRA) were everywhere

• Pluralistic society becomes singular
• Mussolini introduced the corporative state
• Economy was run as 22 separate corporations
• Each had representatives from business, fascist-organized labor unions & the state government
• The state decided policy & production priorities
• Private property & profit were allowed
• Failed to address the problems of the GD
• Created a program of public works
• “Mussolini made the trains run on time”
• Needed colonies to survive

• Mussolini & RCC signed the Lateran Accords
• Recognized Vatican City as separate from Italy
• Papacy vows to stay out of Italian politics
• Mussolini offers incentives to families with more children, awards for fertile moms & holidays to honor motherhood
• The role of women was to have healthy kids
• Healthy kids needed physical fitness
• Dopolavoro was the state sponsored fitness movement

• Hitler = Nazism in the minds of the world
• Originally Austrian
• Embraced anti-Semitism of Vienna’s mayor
• Hated the “mongrel” Habsburg Empire
• Ethnically diverse with aristocratic snobs
• Moved to Bavaria to avoid Austrian draft
• Enlisted in Bavarian army – served well
• Message runner – victim of poison gas

• Post-WWI he joined the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)
• His speaking ability made him leader
• After the failure of the Beer Hall putsch he focused on “legality strategy”
• Nazi message was simple: Weimar = rule by the worst – democrats, socialists, Jews – Germany needed strong national government based on race

• Hitler laid out the need for lebensraum (living space) in Mein Kampf
• As a superior race, Germany should take the land to the east
• Treaty of Versailles was Hitler’s constant focus for blame
• Brown Shirts (Hitler’s S.A. – Stormtroopers) started street fights & generally got off
• Targeted workers who only gave him 3% in ‘28

• Political turn around caused by
• Great Depression
• Switch in tactics to appeal to the middle class
• Nazis used modern tactics to win votes
• Hitler visited 50 cities in 15 days by plane
• Portrayed as party of youth & dynamic leadership
• Had 37% of the vote (230 seats) by 1932
• Now the largest party
• Some saw Hitler as the best hope against Communists

• The Reichstag caught fire
• Nazis blamed Communists
• Banned the party & arrested the leaders
• Still only gained 45% of the vote
• Rammed the Enabling Act through
• Hitler gets right to rule by decree for 5 years
• Hitler=dictator
• Passed the Civil Service Act in 1933 – al gov’t employees had to swear personal loyalty to AH

• 1934 Hitler smoothes his path
• All political parties EXCEPT the NSDAP are declared illegal
• Federal governments (such as Bavaria & Saxony) were abolished – now there is 1 German gov’t
• Leaders within the S.A. & all political opponents were executed
• June 30, 1934 – Blood Purge
• Hindenburg died 2 months later – AH = Prez

• Secret police (Gestapo) arrested all perceived threats
• Sent to concentration camps
• SS (Schutzstaffel) replaced the SA
• Eventually absorbed the Gestapo
• Ran the death camps & promoted Aryan elite
• All social & civic groups were run by Nazis
• All for the state & its goals
• See the film, “Triumph of the Will”

• Nazis used the “pump priming” concept
• 1936 Hitler enacted the 4-Year Plan to promote autarky (self-sufficiency) in fuel & rubber – 2 strategic commodities
• Promises of gov’t contracts won industry
• Independent unions were replaced by Nazi controlled unions
• Only union members could get jobs
• Built the Autobahn

• Boys joined Hitler Youth
• Girls joined League of German Maidens
• Promoted “church, kitchen & children”
• Nuremburg Laws 1935
• At first Jews were excluded from civil service & the army
• Defined who was a Jew – striped Jews of citizenship – prohibited relationships with Aryans

• Jews hoped the anti-Semitism would fade
• Nov 1938 – it turns violent
• Synagogues were burned
• Businesses destroyed
• Hundreds of Jews were killed or arrested

• “Unfit” were sterilized
• Terminally ill, insane & physically deformed were euthanized
• Approximately 200,000 were killed from 1939-1941
• Protest by Catholic & Protestant religious groups slowed & eventually halted this

• 1928-1938 was a period of intense modernization
• Trotsky was expelled
• NEP was ended
• It became clear there was no impending world revolution of workers
• Stalin took Trotsky’s ideas on strong central planning & implemented them

• The Goal:
• Build a strong base of heavy industry
• Aim for self-sufficiency
• Create modern infrastructure
• Gosplan (central planning agency) was in full control
• Could not borrow $ - repudiated tsars debts
• Relied on agricultural sector

• NEP had created a class of wealthy land owning peasants – the kulaks
• Kulaks were widely resented
• Stalin forced all peasants – including kulaks – onto collective farms
• Kulaks resisted by destroying crops & killing livestock
• By 1932 collectives were the norm
• Millions had died resisting
• Millions died from famine – especially the Ukraine

• USSR avoided the biggest problems of the Great Depression
• Became world’s leading producer of tractors & locomotives
• Overall US & Germany surpassed USSR in total industrial production
• Often Soviet quality was poor & few consumer goods were produced
• Massive growth is explained by its low start point

• Independent political parties, labor unions & free expression were eliminated
• Government controlled cultural life
• Art, literature & film were for propaganda
• Socialist realism – glorification of factories & workers
• Cult of Personality
• Huge posters of Stalin everywhere

• All the old Bolsheviks were targeted
• Got rid of anyone who had supported Trotsky
• Got rid of any lingering capitalists
• Great Terror 1934-1938
• 4 million were charged with “crimes”
• 8 million were executed
• Basic standard of living improved
• Women lost rights
• Wanted to increase population – still had to work

• Germany did not mobilize effectively for wartime production
• Hitler did not want to promote women in the workforce
• Hesitated to ration consumer goods – saw what happened a the end of WWI
• Germany relied on slave labor from conquered territories
• 1942 Albert Speer was asked to centralize production of armaments

• In USSR WWII = “The Great Patriotic War”
• Billed as a fight for survival – not like WWI
• More than 20 million Soviets died
• Most of any nation
• Moved entire factories inland when the Nazi had conquered the best farmlands
• Stalin urged supercentralization around the production of war goods
• Leningrad endured a 900 day siege
• Survived on mice
• Women served as combatants in the military

• Great Britain also centralized for war
• All adults assisted
• Senior citizens in the Home Guard & women in the factories
• People planted victory gardens and many items were rationed
• Rationing continued until 1951

• US became the “arsenal of democracy”
• No nation produced more tanks, planes & ships
• Never entered a complete wartime production
• Used rationing much less extensively than in Europe
• Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forced into internment camps to prevent them from “conspiring with the Japanese Empire”

• Europeans in occupied nations had stark choices:
• Collaborate – help or passively accept the enemy
• Resistance – engaged in acts of sabotage, hindered production, helped prisoners escape
• More popular as the tide of war turned

• Conservatives in many nations welcomed the order the Nazis brought with them
• Often created puppet governments
• In Norway Vadkun Quisling led the Nazi controlled government
• To call someone a quisling is to call them a traitor
• In France the Vichy government was Nazi
• In the Balkans the Ustashe (nationalist, Catholic government of Croatia) led reprisals against the Orthodox Serbs

• Charles de Gaulle led highly organized French Resistance fighters
• General Tito in Yugoslavia was so successful against the Nazis they needed no help to liberate themselves
• The Polish council, Zegota, saved hundreds of Polish Jews
• The leaders of the White Rose in Germany were executed when they were caught distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets

• The Final Solution was intended to “cleanse” society of undesirables
• 1942 Reinhard Heydrich led the Wannsee Conference
• Created death camps to eliminate Jews and others
• Stepped up executions as Germany started losing
• 6 million Jews & 5 million from the other groups were murdered