American History
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The Rise of Fascism in Europe
M VIDEO: Hitler and the Nazis
CORE OBJECTIVE
1. Assess how German and Japanese actions led to the outbreak of war in Europe
and in Asia.
In 1917, Woodrow Wilson had led the United States into the Great War in order to make the world “safe for democracy.” In fact, though, democracy was in retreat after 1919. Soviet communism was on the march during the twenties and thirties. So, too, was its ideological opponent, fascism, a radical form of totalitarian government in which a dictator uses propaganda and brute force to seize control of all aspects of national life—the economy, the armed forces, the legal and educational systems, and the press.
Fascism in Germany and Italy thrived on a violent ultranationalist patriotism and almost hysterical emotionalism built upon claims of racial superiority and the simmering resentments that grew out of defeat in the Great War. At the same time, halfway around the world, the Japanese government fell under the control of militarist expansionists eager to conquer China and all of south Asia. Japanese leaders were convinced that they were a “master race” with a “mission” to conquer
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Italy and Germany
and lead a resurgent Asia, just as Hitler claimed that Germany’s “mission” on behalf of the superior “Aryan” race was to dominate Europe. By 1941, there would be only a dozen or so democratic nations left on earth.
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The Expanding Axis
In 1922, political journalist Benito Mussolini and his black-shirted supporters had seized control in Italy, taking advantage of an inept government incapable of dealing with widespread unemployment and runaway inflation. By 1925, he was wielding dictatorial power as “Il Duce” (the Leader). Mussolini eliminated all opposition political parties and approved the killing of several political opponents. “Mussolini Is Always Right,” screamed propaganda posters. Yet there was something almost comical about the strutting, chest-thumping Mussolini, who claimed, “My animal instincts are always right.” Italy, after all, was a declining industrial power whose pitiful performance in the Great War was a national embarrassment.
Germany was another matter, however. There was nothing amusing about Mussolini’s German counterpart, the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, whom Mussolini privately described as “an aggressive little man . . . probably a liar, and certainly mad.”
Hitler’s remarkable transformation during the 1920s from social misfit to head of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) party startled the world. Hitler and the Nazis claimed that they represented a German (“Aryan”) master race whose “purity and strength” were threatened by liberals, Jews, Communists, homosexuals, and other “inferior” peoples. Hitler promised to make Germany strong again by uniting all the German-speaking peoples of Europe into a vast empire that would give fast-growing Germany “living space” to expand, dominate the “lesser” races, and rid the continent of Jews.
Mussolini seizes power in Italy (1922);
Hitler becomes head of Nazi party in
Germany
Hitler had little patience with conventional political processes. “Democracy must be destroyed,” he shouted. To enforce his rise to power, Hitler recruited 2 million street-brawling thugs (“storm troopers”) to intimidate his opponents. “We are barbarians!” Hitler shouted. “We want to be barbarians! It is an honorable title. We shall rejuvenate the world!” Hitler also urged Germany to defy the restrictions on its armed forces imposed by the hated Treaty of Versailles after the Great War.
Hitler becomes German chancellor
and creates Nazi police state (1933)
Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, five weeks before Franklin Roosevelt was first inaugurated. Like Mussolini, he declared himself absolute leader, or Führer, banned all political parties except the Nazis, created a secret police force known as the Gestapo, and stripped people of voting rights. There would be no more elections, labor unions, or strikes. During the mid-1930s, Hitler’s brutal Nazi police state cranked up the engines of tyranny and terrorism, propaganda and censorship. Brown-shirted Nazi storm troopers fanned out across the nation, burning books and persecuting, imprisoning, and murdering Communists, Jews, and their sympathizers.
FASCIST PROPAGANDA Mussolini’s headquarters in Rome’s Palazzo Braschi, which bore an oversized reproduction of his leering face and 132 si’s (Italian for “yes”) in 1934.
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As the 1930s unfolded, a catastrophic series of events in Asia and Europe sent the world hurtling toward disaster. In 1931–1932, some 10,000 Japanese troops had occupied Manchuria, a province in northeast China blessed with valuable deposits of iron ore and coal. At the time, China was fragmented by civil war between Communists led by Mao Zedong and Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese took advantage of China’s weakness to proclaim Manchuria’s independence, renaming it the “Republic of Manchukuo.” This was the first major step in Japan’s eventual effort to control all of China.
In 1935, Mussolini launched Italy’s reconquest of Ethiopia, a weak nation in eastern Africa that Italy had controlled until 1896 (Mussolini dismissed it as “a country without a trace of civilization”). When the League of Nations branded Mussolini as an aggressor and imposed economic sanctions on Italy, the Italian ruler expressed surprise that European leaders would prefer a “horde of barbarian Negroes” in Ethiopia over Italy, the “mother of civilization.”
ADOLF HITLER Hitler performs the Nazi salute at a rally. The majestic banners, triumphant music, powerful oratory, and expansive military parades were both hypnotic and alluring to the public.
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Anschluss and the Munich Pact (1938)
In 1935, Hitler, in flagrant violation of the Versailles Treaty, began rebuilding Germany’s armed forces. The next year, 1936, he sent 35,000 soldiers into the Rhineland, the demilitarized buffer zone between France and Germany. In a staged vote, 99 percent of the Germans living in the Rhineland approved Hitler’s action. The failure of France and Great Britain to counter his bold moves convinced Hitler that the western democracies were weak and frightened.
The year 1936 also witnessed the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which began when Spanish troops loyal to General Francisco Franco, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, revolted against the fragile new republican government. Hitler and Mussolini rushed troops (“volunteers”), warplanes, and massive amounts of military and financial aid to support Franco’s fascist insurgency.
Military buildup begins in Japan
(1934)
While peace in Europe was unraveling, the Japanese government fell under the control of aggressive militarists. In 1937, a government official announced that the “tide ha[d] turned against the liberalism and
democracy that once swept over the nation.” On July 7, 1937, Japanese and Chinese soldiers clashed at China’s Marco Polo Bridge, west of
Beijing. The incident quickly developed into a full-scale conflict, the Sino-Japanese War. From Beijing, the Japanese army swept northward toward Nanjing, home of the Nationalist Chinese government.
In 1937, Japan joined Germany and Italy in establishing the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo “Axis” alliance. Hitler and Mussolini vowed to create a “new order in Europe” that would end the domination of Great Britain and France, while the Japanese imperialists pursued their “divine right” to control all of east Asia by creating what they called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Germany annexes Austria (1938) and
takes control of Czechoslovakia (1938–
1939)
Hitler was equally aggressive. In March 1938, he forced the Anschluss (union) of Austria with Germany. German armies marched into Austria, followed by Hitler, whose triumphant return to his homeland delighted pro-German crowds waving Nazi flags and tossing flowers. When Mussolini congratulated Hitler for his daring move, the German dictator told his Italian partner that he would “never forget him for this. Never, never, never—whatever happens.”
A month later, after arresting over 70,000 opponents of the Nazis, German leaders announced that a remarkable 99.75 percent of Austrian voters had “approved” the German takeover. Again, no nation stepped up to oppose Hitler’s aggressive actions, and soon the new Nazi government in Austria began adopting Hitler’s policies of arresting or murdering opponents and imprisoning or exiling Jews, including the famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud.
Hitler’s appetite for conquest was voracious. He turned next to the Sudeten territory (or Sudetenland), a mountainous region in western Czechoslovakia along the German border where more than 3 million ethnic Germans lived. Paralyzed by fear of another world war, British and French leaders tried to “appease” Hitler, hoping that if they agreed to his demands for the Sudeten territory he would stop his aggressions.
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The Conquest of Poland
On September 30, 1938, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, the French prime minister, Édouard Daladier, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Hitler signed the notorious Munich Pact, which transferred the Sudetenland to Germany, leading the Czechoslovakian president to resign in protest.
Chamberlain claimed that the Munich treaty provided “peace for our time. Peace with honor.” Winston Churchill, a member of the British Parliament who would himself become prime minister in May 1940, strongly disagreed. In a speech to the House of Commons, Churchill claimed, “England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war.” The Munich Pact, he predicted, would not end Hitler’s aggression. “This is only the beginning of the reckoning.”
Churchill was right. Hitler never intended to honor the Munich Pact: “That piece of paper is of no further significance whatever.” Although Hitler had promised that the Sudetenland would be his last territorial demand, he violated his pledge in March 1939, when he sent German tanks and soldiers to conquer the remainder of Czechoslovakia. The European democracies, having shrunk their armies after the Great War, continued to cower in the face of Hitler’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unstoppable military forces.
After German troops seized all of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, Hitler called it “the greatest day of my life.” President Roosevelt was not amused. He decided that Hitler and Mussolini were “madmen” who “respect force and force alone.” Throughout late 1938 and 1939, he tried to convince Americans, as well as British and French leaders, that the growing menace of fascism must be stopped. He also persuaded Congress to increase military spending in anticipation of a possible war.
Later in 1939, the insatiable Hitler turned his sights to Poland, Germany’s eastern neighbor. In part, he wanted to regain German territory taken to form Poland after the Great War, but he also wanted to conquer Poland so as to give the German army a clear path to invade the Soviet Union. To ensure that the Soviets did not interfere with his plans, Hitler camouflaged his intentions on August 23, 1939, when he signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet premier, Josef Stalin.
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The Outbreak of War in Europe
The announcement of the treaty stunned a world that had understood fascism and communism to be eternal enemies. By the terms of the treaty, the two tyrants secretly agreed to divide northern and eastern Europe between them. Just nine days later, at dawn on September 1, 1939, 1.5 million German troops invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Hitler ordered his armies “to kill without mercy men, women, and children of the Polish race or language.”
This was the final straw for the western democracies. Having allowed Austria and Czechoslovakia to be conquered by Hitler’s war machine, the leaders of Great Britain and France now did an about- face. On September 3, 1939, they honored their commitment to defend Poland. Europe, the world’s smallest continent, was again embroiled in what would soon become another world war. The nations making up the British Empire and Commonwealth around the world—Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand—joined the war against Nazi Germany.
Sixteen days after German troops stormed across the Polish border, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Pressed from all sides by its old enemies, 700,000 poorly equipped Polish soldiers (many Poles fought on horseback) surrendered, having suffered 70,000 deaths and many more wounded.
On October 6, 1939, the Nazis and Soviets divided conquered Poland between them and then set about systematically destroying it. Hitler’s goal was to obliterate Polish civilization, especially the Jews, and Germanize the country. For his part, Stalin wanted to recapture Polish territory lost by Russia during the Great War. Over the next five years, the Nazis and Soviets arrested, deported, enslaved, or murdered millions of Poles.
In late November 1939, the Soviets invaded neighboring Finland, leading President Roosevelt to condemn Russia’s “wanton disregard for law.” Outnumbered 5 to 1, Finnish troops held off the Soviet invaders for three months but were forced to negotiate a surrender in March 1940 that gave the Soviet Union a tenth of Finland.
JOSEF STALIN The leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin rose to power in the mid-1920s after the death of Vladimir Lenin.
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After the quick German conquest of Poland, the war on the ground in Europe settled into a three- month stalemate during early 1940 as Hitler’s generals waited out the winter. Then, in the early spring, Germany suddenly attacked again. At dawn on April 9, without warning, Nazi armies invaded Denmark and landed along the Norwegian coast. German paratroopers, the first used in warfare, seized Norway’s airports. Denmark fell in a day, Norway within a few weeks. On May 10, German forces invaded the Low Countries—Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (Holland). Luxembourg fell the first day, the Netherlands four days later. Belgium lasted until May 28.
A few days later, German tanks roared into northern France. “The fight beginning today,” Hitler declared, “decides the fate of the German nation for the next thousand years!” Hitler’s brilliant blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) strategy centered on speed. Fast-moving columns of tanks, motorized artillery, and truck-borne infantry, all supported by warplanes and paratroopers, moved so quickly that they paralyzed their stunned opponents.
A British army sent to help the Belgians and the French fled along with French troops toward the coast, with the Germans in hot pursuit. On May 26, Great Britain organized a desperate weeklong evacuation of battle-weary British and French soldiers from the beaches at Dunkirk, on the northern French coast. Despite attacks from German warplanes, some 338,000 soldiers escaped to England on more than a thousand ships and small boats, barges, and ferries, leaving behind vast stockpiles of vehicles, weaponry, and ammunition. “Wars are not won by evacuations,” observed Prime Minister Churchill, “but there was a victory inside this deliverance.”
AGGRESSION IN EUROPE, 1935–1939
WINSTON CHURCHILL The prime minister of Great Britain, Churchill led the nation during the Second World War.
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■ Keeping in mind the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, explain why Hitler began his campaign of expansion by invading the Rhineland and the Sudetenland.
■ Why did the attack on Poland begin World War II, whereas Hitler’s previous invasions of his European neighbors did not?
While the miraculous evacuation at Dunkirk was unfolding, German forces decimated the remaining French armies. The crumbling French war effort prompted Italy’s dictator, Mussolini, to declare war on France and Great Britain, which he dismissed as “the reactionary democracies of the West.” Roosevelt characterized Mussolini’s action as a “stab in the back.”
On June 14, 1940, German soldiers marched unopposed through the streets of Paris. Eight days later, French leaders surrendered. The war was but ten months old, yet Germany ruled most of Europe. Great Britain now stood alone facing Hitler’s relentless military power. “The war is won,” an
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ecstatic Hitler bragged to Mussolini. “The rest is only a matter of time.” He spoke too soon.