Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild S Adolf Hitler giving the Nazi salute at a rally in Nuremburg in By , the Nazis were the largest political party in the Reichstag. In January of the following year, with no other leader able to command sufficient support to govern, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building in Berlin, and authorities arrested a young Dutch communist who confessed to starting it.
Hitler used this episode to convince President Hindenburg to declare an emergency decree suspending many civil liberties throughout Germany, including freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the right to hold public assemblies. He expanded the army tremendously, reintroduced conscription, and began developing a new air force—all violations of the Treaty of Versailles.
His regime also suppressed the Communist Party and purged his own paramilitary storm troopers, whose violent street demonstrations alienated the German middle class. In , Hitler began his long-promised expansion of national boundaries to incorporate ethnic Germans. The Czechs looked to Great Britain and France for help, but hoping to avoid war—they had been bled white in World War I—these nations chose a policy of appeasement.
The following year, the German army swallowed up the remainder of Czechoslovakia. I believe it is peace for our time. Born in Maine, Gillars was a former Broadway showgirl who moved to Berlin in She remained in Germany after President Woodrow Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points. But from the moment the leaders of the For four years, from to , World War I raged across Europe's western and eastern fronts, after growing tensions and then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignited the war.
Trench warfare and the early use of tanks, submarines and airplanes meant the Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Leading up to World War II. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Pearl Harbor. The Holocaust. Japanese-American Internment Camps. The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Allied Military Leaders.
Axis Military Leaders. World War II History. The enormous reparations put on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles also increased the debts. Coupled with ineffective governments in many of these European States notably the Weinmar Republic, pre-Mussolini Italy and Socialist France led to slow reconstruction and poor economic growth.
Unable to repay these loans, the economies of the West collapsed, beginning the Great Depression. After winning the Russo-Japanese War in , Japan quickly became the dominant power in its region. Russia recognized Korea as a Japanese sphere of influence and removed all of its forces from there and Manchuria, the sparsely populated northeastern region of China.
In , Japan annexed Korea as its own with little protest or resistance. Still, Japan was a quickly growing country, both population-wise and economically.
It founded the South Manchuria Railway company in Manchuria in , and with that company was able to gain government-like control of the area. By , the Depression had struck a blow to Japan. Instead, the public favored the Japanese army, and soon the civilian government had lost control of its military.
Manchuria was vast and thinly populated, and would serve as excellent elbow room for an already overcrowded Japan. It was also thought that Manchuria was rich in forests, natural resources, and fertile land. The fact that the Japanese believed themselves to be far superior to the Chinese only moved Japan towards conflict faster.
Additionally, the warlord of Manchuria went against Japanese expectations and declared his allegiance to a growing Chinese military movement. So, in , the army staged an explosion at a section of railway near Mukden, a city in Manchuria, as a pretext to invade and annex China. Japan met little resistance, although it did not have support of its own government, and Manchuria was completely occupied by the end of the year. Japan subsequently set up the puppet state of Manchukuo to oversee the newly acquired region.
The s saw a weak and politically chaotic China. Warlords of the many provinces of China constantly feuded, and the central government was weak and decentralized, unable to do anything to stop conflict. Chiang led an expedition to defeat southern and central Chinese warlords and gain the allegiance of northern warlords.
He was successful, and he soon focused on what he perceived to be a greater threat than Japan, which was communism.
But in , the deposed warlord general of Manchuria kidnapped Chiang and refused to release him until he at least temporarily united with the communists against the Japanese threat. The Japanese army responded by staging the Battle of Lugou Bridge, which was supposed to provoke open war between China and Japan.
It worked and the Sino-Japanese War began. The beginning of the conflict was marked by the Chinese strategy of giving up land in order to stall the Japanese. It is important to note that the Japanese was not to completely take over China; rather, the Japanese wanted to set up puppet governments in key regions that would protect and advance Japanese interests. The fall of Nanjing in the early stages of this conflict saw the beginning of Japanese war atrocities.
Not only could Britain never have stood by and seen Hitler enslave mainland Europe, but it was obvious by the spring of that the Nazis could not be trusted to keep to any agreement they signed. So Hitler emerges, surely without question now, as the person most responsible for the war. And the fact that such a dark figure — ideologically driven to the point of taking foolhardy risks — exercised such control in over the destiny of both Germany and the rest of Europe must, even now, 80 years later, be a warning for us all.
Indeed, what a study of this subject has led me to believe is that on 30 April , when Hitler finally realised the game was up and held a revolver to his head, if he had actually had the power, he would have blown the whole world apart along with his brains.
Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. Adolf Hitler attending Nazi military exercises in Germany, 14 September
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