HIEU 202 FINAL
League of Nations
-the Versailles Treaty established a League of Nations to arbitrate international
disputes
-without American participation, the league was little more than a debating
society
-with regard to European affairs the US embraces "isolationism" even as it
involved itself entreaty negotiations and pursued its own interests in Latin
America
The Washington Naval Treaty
-in the aftermath of the Great War, world leaders looked to "collective security" to
resolve conflict between nations
-in 1921 delegates from the US, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan met in
Washington DC to negotiate limitations on naval armaments:
---Limit the size of their navies
---limit the size and armament of battleships and cruisers
-the teary did not limit new ship types and technologies:
---submarines
---aviation
The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
-when Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks (communism) seized power in Russia as a
result of the October Revolution of 1918, he called for world revolution
-September 1918 the Allies sent troops to Russia to aid the "white" faction in their
civil war against the Bolsheviks
-in 1922, the Bolsheviks won the Russian civil war establishing the USSR
-in 1924, Lenin died of a stroke and after a power struggle Joseph Stalin became a
dictator of the Soviet Union (Stalin=man of steel)
-Stalin proceeded to turn the USSR into the most totalitarian state the world had
yet seen:
---state control of virtually everything
---a cult of personality based of propaganda
---forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture
---prison camps (gulags)
-Stalin ruled the Soviet Union until his death in 1953
---as estimated 20 million people died at his hands
Germany: The Weimar Republic
-after the revolution in 1918 German leaders attempted to establish a democracy
under the Weimar constitution
-the development of German democracy and economic recovery were stunted by:
---agitation violence from political extremists
---continued international hostility (France determine Germany will never rise
again)
-the German economy was also crippled by the reparations payments by the
Versailles Treaty
-the army: "stabbed in the back" myth
the Ruhr Crisis (1923-1924)
-in January 1923 Germany declared bankruptcy and defaulted on the reparations
payments
-while the British were willing to negotiate the French demanded payment
-the French govt sent troops to occupy the Ruhr River valley in northern Germany,
the nations industrial heart
-the Germans respond with a nation-wide strike (weren't gong to pay until France
left the country)
-the German economy spun out of control
The Dawes Plan
-the British and French could not pay their own debts to the US
-american banker Charles Dawes mediated the dispute
---the reparations were reduced from $34 billion to $2 billion
---a schedule of installment payments were arranged
---Dawes arranged for Germany to borrow money from the US
-Dawes plan had significant effects on Germany in the mid-late 1920's:
---allowed economy to stabilize and prosper
---society became more stable
---political extremists were forced to the fringes
The Treaty of Locarno
-in 1925 the nations of Western Europe including Germany negotiated the Treaty
of Locarno
-the signatures agreed to recognize each others borders
-the treaty also paved the way for Germany to join the League of Nations
The Kellogg-Briand Act
-in 1928 delegates from 62 nations met in Paris and negotiated the Kellogg-Briand
act
-the agreement prohibited the use of war as an instrument of national policy
European Society in the Roaring Twenties
-as prosperity returned, many europeans enjoyed the Roaring 20's
-Europeans embraced much of American mass culture:
---jazz music
---radios
---motion pictures
---modern advertising
the Crash of 1929
-the toxic mix of factors led to the crash of the New York Stock exchange on
October 29, 1929:
---agricultural overproduction (farmers were growing and growing and they
shipped the foods, but it was too much and they weren't making money caused a
domino effect)
---bank failures
---federal reserve policies which tightened the money supply
---slowdown of manufacturing
-the US congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930:
---the debate over the tariff triggered the run on the stock market in the fall of
1929
---in four days the New York stock exchange lost 1/ 3 of its value
---its passage brought international trade to a virtual halt (June 1930)
the Rise of Fascism
-Fascism emerged as an alternative to the other two political-economic systems in
the western world
---capitalist democracy
---communism
-fascism originated in Italy
-former Marxist, Benito Mussolini formed the fascist party as an elite of men
hardened by war and difficult times who would establish an authoritarian state
-in 1922 Mussolini engineered a coup d'etat and established himself as dictator of
Italy
---ll Duce ="the leader"
-the ideology Fascism was but on five propositions:
---glorification of the nation
---regaining past national greatness
---a state-controlled economy (this system favors big business)
---opposition to individualism
---a cult of leadership
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
-Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in Braunau, Austria
-at 18, he went to Vienna and applied to study at the Academy of Fine Art (got
denied twice because he couldn't draw the human figure)
-after being rejected twice, he became a drifter ( he was homeless)
-during this period of his life he was exposed to the political anti-Semitism of
Mayor Karl Lueger
---the first modern politician to exploit the Jews as scapegoats
-when ww1 broke our he was living in Germany and he joined the German army
-during the war Hitler distinguished himself as a soldier winning the iron cross
-after the war, he volunteered to serve as an informant for the government of the
southern German province in Bavaria
-in 1919 he was ordered to infiltrate a radical group in Munich called "German
Workers Party"
-sympathizing with their militarism and nationalism he joined the party and
quickly emerged as its charismatic leader
-the party became known as the "National Socialist German Workers Party" (Nazi)
-in 1923 he led a failed attempt to seize power and was imprisoned for a year
-in prison he wrote his political testament "Mein Kampf" (My struggle)
National Socialism
-nazism included the tenets of Fascism while adding others:
---National socialism- as socialist system in one country
---autarky- economic self-sufficiency
---master race theory-Germans were "aryan" a "pure peace"
---anti-semitism- the Jews were seen as an inferior race and the enemy within
---Lebensraum="living space+- the Germans had the right to conquer a race-based
empire in Eastern Europe
Hitlers Rise to Power
-after his release from prison, Hitler sought to achieve power by constitutional
means
-the Great Depression place Hitler in a position to appeal to the German people:
---bad economic situation
---opposition to communism
---"righting the wrongs" of the Versailles Treaty
-on January 30, 1933 with the Nazis the largest party in the German Parliament
(the Reichstag) Hitler was appointed chancellor of a coalition government
The Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act
-on February 27, 1933 a fire gutted the Reichstag building
-a dutch man pleaded guilty, but Hitler blamed the communists
-Under article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, Hitler declared state of emergency
---banned the German communist party
---civil liberties suspended
-on March 24, 1933 the Reichstag passed the "law to remedy the distress of the
people and the Reich"
-this "enabling act" granted Hitler the power to govern
The Night of the Long Knives
-Ernest Röhm was the head of the SA (sturmabteilung or stormtroopers)
-On June 30, 1934 Hitler instigated a purge aimed at Röhm and the SA leadership
-over 100 men were executed
-the victims included:
---former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher
---Nazi party co-founder Gregor Strasser
The SS
-the murders were carried out by Schutzstaffel (SS)
-originally formed as Hitlers personal bodyguard, the organization would become
the Nazi party private army
-its chief Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler became the second-most powerful man
in the Third Reich
-The SS would be the instrument of the holocaust
The Nuremberg Laws
-in 1935 the Reich ministry of justice issued two decrees aimed at German Jews
---law for the protection of German blood and honor
---Reich citizenship law
-These "Nuremberg Laws"
---forbade marriage and sexual intercourse between Germans and the Jews
---took away civil rights of Jews
Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938)
-in response to the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jew, the nazis went
on rampage against German Jews:
---Jewish stores and businesses were smashed and looted
---1,200 synagogues were burned
---30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps
The March to War 1936-1939
-as Hitler rearmed Germany in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, the rest of Europe
did nothing
-in March 1936, Hitler made his first move by remilitarizing the Rhineland
-when France and Britain did nothing, Hitler was emboldened
-Mussolini also convinced the west was weak, joined Hitler in an alliance called
the Rome-Berlin Axis
-in March 1938, Germany annexed Austria
Much Pact of 1938
-Hitlers next target was Czechoslovakia
---he hoped to precipitate a war by claimed the Sudetenland, a border are with a
German population
-British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier
offered to negotiate
-at the Munich Conference in September 1938 without consulting the Czechs
Chamberlain and Daldier agreed to let Hitler occupy the Sudetenland
---Hitler promised not to take any more territory
-Chamberlain pronounced the Munich Pact to be "peace in our time"
-six months later, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia
Blitzkrieg
-in the spring of 1940 Germany launched a massive attack on western Europe
-they successfully invaded Denmark and Norway
-Using tactics based on the coordinated use of tanks and aircraft (known as
blitzkrieg or "lighting war") the Germans overran Holland, Belgium, and France in
6 weeks
-the British army had to be evacuated from France
-france surrendered leaving Britain alone to face Hitler
-these stunning victories left Hitler master over much of Europe
-Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria became German allies
Winston Churchill 1847-1965
-when Germany attacked France, the British prime minister who had previously
negotiated with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, was forced out
-he was succeeded by the civilian head of the navy Winston Churchill
-Churchill had warned of the Nazi threat of years and now he rallied the British
people to resist Hitler
The Battle of Britain
-after conquering France, the Germans were poised to invade Britain
-the German navy was too small to make the invasion a sure thing
-Hitler ordered the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) to bomb British into
surrender
-throughout the fall of 1940 the Royal Air Force defended Britain
-Although the British thwarted Hitlers plans of conquest London and other cities
were heavily bombed causing great damage and loss of life
the Atlantic Charter
-July 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill met to issue joint declaration on the purposes
of the war against Fascism
-the "Atlantic charter" also solidified Anglo-American cooperation
-American military and naval commanders began secretly meeting with their
British counterparts to plan strategy
-the US navy began escorting convoys to Britain and adopted a "shoot on sight"
policy toward German submarines
Operation Barbossa
-June 1941 Hitler turned on his Russian ally and launched an invasion of the Soviet
Union
-Stalin was caught by surprise despite ample warning
-despite horrendous losses, the Soviets stopped the Germans outside the gates of
Moscow in December
The Battle of the Atlantic
-the first battle the allies had to win was control of the Atlantic shipping lanes in
order to keep Britain in the war
-German U-boats wreaked havoc with allied shipping, sinking millions of tons of
ships
-they scored their highest point of success in early 1942 off the coast of the US
-by mid 1943 the allies had defeated the U-boats
El Alamein
In North Africa the British defeated the Germans at El Alamein in Egypt and drove
them across North Africa into Tunisia
Operation Torch
Nov 1942 the Americans landed on the coast of Morocco
-by May 1943 the allies had cleared North Africa of axis troops capturing 275,000
prisoners
Stalingrad
In January 1943, a German army was destroyed at Stalingrad
D-Day
On June 6, 1944, 160,000 American, British, and Canadian troops landed along a
50-mile stretch of the heavily-fortified coastline of Normandy, France to attack the
Germans
-more than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-day invasion
in the face of fierce German resistance and the allies gained a foothold in
Normandy
The Holocaust
-throughout the war rumors circulated throughout the world that the Nazis were
committing genocide against the Jewish and Slavic populations of Europe
-the Allied governments issued statements condemning war crimes and atrocities
-no one in power could imagine the scale of horrors being committed in Eastern
Europe
-when the allied forces drive into Germany in 1945, the discovered the
concentration camps and death camps
-some 6 million jews and 4 million slavs, gypsies, and other peoples regarded by
the nazis as "subhuman" were shot, gassed, and worked to death in camps such as
Aushwitz and Dachua
The Nuremberg Trials
-in an unprecedented step, the allies agreed to try the top Nazi leaders for war
crimes and for crimes against humanity
-conducted by a joint US-British-Soviet military tribunal and trial began in
November
the Yalta conference
-Stalin, Churchill, and FDR met for the last time in southern Russia
-the preceding underscored the differences between the Allies:
---the British wanted to maintain their empire
---the Soviets wished to obtain more territory and to strengthen their conquests
---Americans wanted to:
-----ensure the soviets entry into pacific war
-----reach an understanding of Germany and the fate of Eastern Europe nations
-Stalin agreed to allow free elections in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the other
nations of Eastern Europe
The Truman Doctrine
-By early 1947, the situation in Europe was increasingly unstable:
---Britain was virtually bankrupt
---civil war raged in Greece between communist and anti-communist forces
---communist parties were increasingly active in Italy and France
-on March 12, 1947 President Truman called for $400 million in aid for Greece and
Turkey
-he also committed the US to support nations opposed to communism
-this policy became known as the "Truman Doctrine"
-became the basis of American policy toward Soviet expansion also known as
"containment"
The Marshall Plan
-after ww2 much of Europe was in ruins and suffering from famine
---communist ideals of state-run economies had a powerful pull with many
Europeans
-in June 1947, Secretary of State George C Marshall proposed the plan that bears
his name:
---counter further soviet expansion
---rebuild Europe
---create business opportunities for Americans
-by September 1947, 16 nations signed up for $20 bullion in aid
-Stalin forbade the communist nations to accept Marshall Plan aid
The Berlin Blockade and Airlift
-in 1945 Germany was divided into occupation zones between Americans, British,
French, and Russians
---Berlin deep within Soviet zone was similarly divided
-in early 1948 the western allies secretly decided to merge their zones into a
"Federal Republic of Germany"
-Stalin launched the "Berlin Blockade" in June 1948
---cut off food, coal, and electricity
-the allies responded with a massive airlift of supples
-in May of 1949 Stalin lifted the blockade
---the Soviets turned their zone into the German Democratic Republic
NATO and Warsaw pact
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in 1949 as defensive alliance
against the Soviet Union
-the Warsaw Pact was established in 1955 by the Kremlin to combat the western
alliance
-until 1990, 100 Soviet divisions deployed in Eastern Europe
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)
-Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953
-in 1955 after a power struggle Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet
Union
-while maintaining the communist police state Khrushchev sought to mitigate its
more extreme effects by releasing many of Stalins political prisoners and
improving material conditions
-he also made a secret speech to communist party leadership denouncing Stalin
-he ruthlessly maintained the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe
The Berlin Wall (1961)
-in Berlin people could come and go freely between the occupation zones
---many skilled workers and technicians fled impoverished East Germany for the
West
-in August 1961 Khrushchev ordered soviet and East German troops to seal off the
soviet sector by stringing the barbed wire then building a wall
-many Berliners tried to escape
---fifty died the first year the wall was in place
The European Common Market
-1952: France, West Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg
established the European coal and steel community
-1957: "the six" signed the Treaty of Rome:
---created the European Economic Community
---gradually eliminate customs duties and other trade barriers
---implement policies of economic cooperation
-the common market expanded:
---1973: Britain, Ireland, Denmark
---1981: Greece
---1986: Spain and Portugal
Fall of the Soviet Union
-In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the US
-Reagan broke with the policy of containment and set out to win the Cold War
---a massive military build-up which the increasingly impoverished Soviet bloc
countries could not match
---deploying short-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe
---sharp rhetoric condemning the Soviet system
-----the "evil empire" speech on March 8,1983
-in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary General of the USSR
-he sought to reform the Soviet system:
---Glasnost: "openness" or opening the USSR to outside influences
--- Perestroika- an economic policy allowing a measure of market of competition
-throughout the 1980's economic and social conditions worsened behind the iron
curtain
---Poland was shaken by anti-communist labor strike
-in 1989 the populace of East Germany demanded free travel to the west
---Hungary opened its borders to the East Germans effectively breaking away from
the Warsaw Pact
-on November 9, 1989 the East German government lifted travel restrictions
---a Berlin crowd began dismantling the wall
-the Warsaw Pact nations broke away from the Soviet Union
-In June 1991 Boris Yeltsin won election as President of the Russian Soviet
Republic (the largest of the USSR states
-in December a congress led by Yeltsin dissolved the Soviet Union and sent
Gorbachev into retirement
the European Union (1999-?)
-the single European act (1987)
---set 1992 as the deadline for achieving a single market
-The Maastricht Treaty (1991)- January 1, 1999, Established:
---a common currency
---common foreign and defense policy
---a parliament
-the European Union was formalized in 2002
-Recent crisis have clouded the EU's future:
---financial crisis in Greece and other Southern European countries
---"Brexit"
---mass migration from the Middle East
