West European Studies

After the Great War there were many changes throughout Europe, especially in the development of fundamental forms of government, including Communism and Fascism.  This revival of the authoritarian governments throughout Europe presented an era in which the individual was subjugated to the state and its needs.  By 1938, the nation of Czechoslovakia was the only country in Eastern Europe not bound by totalitarianism.

In Western Europe, France, Britain, Scandinavia, and Switzerland were liberal democracies.  The dictatorships of Eastern Europe rejected these liberal ideas in favor of a government that exercised complete control over its people.  At the end of World War I, the Czar and his family were murdered, and were replaced by the Bolshevik government.  The Bolsheviks were Communists who took their lead from Vladimir Lenin.  Lenin put together a government dependent on the party for progress and growth (Kreis, 2009).

Lenin became a model for Joseph Stalin, in Russia, Adolph Hitler, in Germany, and for Benito Mussolini in Italy.  These totalitarian governments took complete control in their nations with the state controlling technology and communication (Kreis, 2009).

Germany had political and military goals that could be traced back to World War I.  Hitlers emergence into the political realm began in 1921 as chairman of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or the Nazis.  Two years later Hitler attempted to overthrow the German Weimar Republic, but failed.  He was jailed.  During the course of his period in jail, Hitler decided that the only effective means of taking over the German government was through the ballot box (Bentley, Ziegler, 2008).  It was during this period in jail that Hitler wrote the book Mein Kampf, which featured the theme of racial superiority and Jewish inferiority (Kreis, 2009).

After leaving jail, Hitler and his Nazi Party began to have strong appeal to the poor and downtrodden in Germany.  Many people were disillusioned and criticized democracy for the misfortunes of the German state.  Many were still angry over having to accept the humiliating peace treaty at Versailles where German was forced to accept responsibility for the Great War.  Many individuals lost all their savings during the Great Depression which hit Germany hard.  Hitler promised these Germans that he could create a new, and respected German state and end the misfortune (Bentley, 2008).

As the Nazi Party grew in numbers, they slowly gained members in the German Parliament.  German President Paul Von Hindenburg offered Hitler the post of chancellor, and by 1933 to 1035, he centralized the nations party, took control of the police, removed enemies from power, and purged members of the judiciary who opposed the Nazi goals (Bentley, 2008).

The Great Depression had great impact on the German state.  The electorate was angry with high unemployment rates.  In 1929, unemployment was 1.3 million in Germany.  The number of unemployed jumped to five million in 1930.  Forty-three percent of the population, at that time, was without work (Kreis, 2009).  Hitler offered the people of German economic growth, and political and military restitution.  He promised the people that he would provide both work and food, and he followed-through on his promise.  By 1937 there were only one million out of work Germans.  Hitler turned that figure around creating a labor shortage by the next year.  At the same time, the German standard of living grew by 20 percent (Kreis, 2009).

Fascists governments across Europe created a sound economy in the midst of a world-wide depression.  Between the two great wars, fascism grew throughout Europe with large political parties in both Germany and Italy.  There were a good many fascists in Britain, but they accomplished little legislatively.  However, people such as Benito Mussolini, of Italy, created a totalitarian state of absolute rule.  Nevertheless, such absolute rule helped to create quick jobs for the people of the fascists states, and the public was supportive of their actions. It was clear the authoritative methods allowed the Germans to overcome quickly many of the symptoms of economic crisis and turned the nation toward recovery (Boyanowski, 2001).

After Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938, leaders of the allies met with Germany, and its allies.  Hitler told everyone present that unless the British supported the German plan to take over the Sudetenland, he would invade Czechoslovakia.  Britain agreed to the German terms. Hitler said, We have assured all our immediate neighbors of the integrity of their territory as far as Germany is concerned.  That is no hollow phase it is our sacred willthe Sudetenland is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe (Statements by leading Nazis, 1938).

After the Munich Agreement in 1938, many people felt that allied supporters were not hard enough on Hitlers position.  Others believed Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had prevented war.  Chamberlain told the public  Ever since I assumed my present office, my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicious and those animosities which have long poisoned the air.  The quest of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous.  Now that we have gotten past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress on the road to sanity (Parliamentary Debate 1938).

One of the major factors that led to the start of the Second World War was the Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919, which formally ended WWI.  The treaty was a compromise that attempted to meet the interests of those involved in negotiation (Sharp, 2005).  The individuals who drafted the treaty believed it formed the basis for Europe to live in friendship and peace.  However, the Treaty of Versailles did either, and paved the way for the start of World War II (Lu, 2002).

Scholar George Kennan said the Treaty of Versailles was a very silly, humiliating and punitive peace imposed on Germany (Lu, 2002).  After the treaty, the following helped to bring about the second war  the vindictiveness of the peace terms, the economic miseries, the exclusion of Russia and Germany from the peace talks, and the attempt to get reparations from an exhausted people (Lu, 2002).

According to Royall, (1930), the treaty imposed the guilt for the war squarely on the back of Germany.  The reparation commission met in April of 1920.  It stated that the total liability of Germany was 33,000,000,000 (Royall 1930).  By the end of the first war, all belligerents of Europe stood depleted economically.  Germany believed the Treaty of Versailles, brought about the social, physical, political, economic, and moral death of the nation and its people (Lu, 2002)

The motivations behind Hitlers move towards war included the reversal of the controversial Treaty of Versailles. The Germans wanted their country to return to its grandeur and be a great power in the world.  With the Nazis in charge, the main motivations of the party included anti-Semitism, race, and Lebensraum especially in Eastern Europe (Bartov, 2001).

The anti-Semitism that swept through Europe has long been an issue within Europe.  Some scholars say its roots go back to the Crusades, and others mention a 1010 massacre of Jews by the French and Germans.  Nevertheless, a racist variant on anti-Semitism drove the Germans into policies aimed at total elimination of the Jews (Gustenfled, 2005).

The Final Solution moved from an idea Hitler had to implement after the war to active implementation during World War II.  Hitler saw the Jews as mostly responsible for the 1918 debacle, and wanted them eliminated from society.  He was inspired by Lanz von Liebenfels, a monk, who believed in the inferiority of the Jews and supremacy of the German race. Until 1941 the Germans actively encouraged that Jews leave the nation.  But after the Wannsee Conference, it was agreed that all Jews in Germany and occupied areas would be sent to ghettos where they would be held until they were sent to labor camps or to the gas chamber.

Hitler spoke to a group of supporters in Berlin in 1942.  He made the statement  And we say that the war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews (Statement of leading Nazis 1943).

The areas of Romania, Croatia and Slovakia agreed to Germanys demands.  (Jersak, 2003). There was little or no bias against Jews in Bulgaria.  Although laws restricting Jewish rights were enacted in Bulgaria prior to the war, most of the nations Jewish population survived.  The Commissariat for Jewish issues met with Germans to come up with a plan to rid Bulgaria of its Jews.  Bulgaria was to transport 20,000 Jews to the Nazis.  These Jews were to come from occupied areas of Macedonia and Thrace.  Officials drew up plans to murder the non-nationals first.  More than 11,000 Jews from Thrace and Macedonia were sent to their deaths.  Romania did not want Jews returned to its territory. Only half of the Jews from Romania survived the war (Brown-Fleming, 2006). Croatia wanted the Jews deported, as did Slovakia (Jersak, 2003).

The problem of the Jews was not as easy for the Germans to deal with in other occupied territories. Italy treated Jews and non-Jews equally and did not follow Germanys lead.  In occupied France, Germany also had its hands full trying to achieve complicity in the policy.  In addition, Hungary refused to include Hungarian Jews in the policy.  Germany said that Hungary must follow the program and negotiations ensued.  To gain its way, Germany took military control of Hungary.  The Hungarian Jews were immediately sent to gas chambers (Jersak, 2003).

The leaders of the Axis powers included Adolph Hitler, of Germany, and Benito Mussolini of Italy.  Later Emperor Hirohito of Japan would join the Axis powers after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The allies were led by Neville Chamberlain and later Winston Churchill, of Britain. France was led by Charles De Gaulle.  Franklin Roosevelt was the American President who declared war on the Axis powers in 1941.  After being attacked by Germany, the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, entered the war.  Both the United States and Soviet Union entered the war after provocation by members of the Axis powers.

In 1939, the Germans invaded Poland and within only a few weeks, crushed the military of the small state.  This major action taken by the Germans helped to initiate war in Europe.

In general, the entire world changed with the advent of new technology during the second was of the 20th century.  Much change occurred in the area of rocketry.  This technology was largely the idea of German scientists who would flee their home nation and come to the United States before the war.  These men were responsible for the development of cruise and ballistic missiles as well as the development of atomic weaponry (Mindell, 2010).  Aside from weaponry, there was much contribution in the area of radar, and medical advancements.  All of these inventions helped to bring the world into a rapidly advancing technological society.  One of the most important advances of the war was the use of the blitzkrieg.  In the time between the Polish defeat in 1939 and the invasion of the country of Norway, the battle was quiet.  Propaganda was used to blare messages along the German and French border when the armies were posed for attack.  The Germans needed iron from the nation of Sweden.  Therefore, the Germans attacked Sweden and secured its flank running in the north.  It then invaded the countries of Norway and Denmark.  Then, in May of 1940, the Germans unleashed its blitzkrieg.  The Germans moved with lightening speed to take the nations of Belgium and the Netherlands.  The blitzkrieg was an open and fast warfare style (Blitzkrieg, 1940).

In the implementation of the blitzkrieg, the Germans used the first aircrafts and long range weaponry.  The blitzkrieg would hit at a single position in the enemy line and push through it.  The blitzkrieg was very effective in the implementation of the battle.

Adolph Hitler never hid the fact that he wanted complete control of all means of communication within the nation.  Through the use of effective propaganda, Hitler was popularized the Nazi Party and demonize the allies and Jews.  Under Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, leadership assured a troubled public that Hitler opposed war, while at the same time preparing the population for conflict (Coupe, 1998).  German propaganda was aimed at reaching people of all ages.

Three main conferences were held at the end of the war to decide what steps to take after German defeat.  In the Tehran Agreement, the American President, British Prime Minister, and the Premier of the Soviet Union met to discuss how to destroy remaining German military forces.  The men drafted the following declaration in 1943, No power on earth can prevent our destroying the German armies by land, their U-Boats by sea and their war plants from the air (The Tehran Conference, 1997).

At the Yalta Conference in 1945 the allied leaders decided on the fate of Europe after the war.  The leaders established the border of Poland, and how to partition Germany as well as Berlin.  In addition, Franklin Roosevelt wanted the creation of a United Nations (United States History, 2001).  The decisions that were drafted at Yalta resulted in the carving up of the modern world.

At the Potsdam conference, allied leaders agreed on the issues of the occupation and reconstruction of the nation of Germany.  Also, included in the Potsdam Declaration was the message to Japan to surrender its forces, or be destroyed (United States History 2001).

In WWI, Germany lost 1,800,000 individuals.  In WWII, it lost 7,060,000.  Civilian deaths in WWII were two million, not counting Jews lost in concentration camps (United States History, 2001)

The United Nations was established after World War II in 1945.  The idea of the UN is to open dialog between nations and work to prevent war on a global basis.  Whether the United Nations is effective today is a much debated issue.

In conclusion, the nation of Germany has gone through many changes since the end of WWII.  After the war, it was divided into different quadrants, one for each of the allied powers.  The East German quadrant was under the thumb of the Soviet Union.  However, many changes have occurred since the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s.  Today, Berlin is open to travel with no limitation.  East Germany is no more.  For that matter, the Soviet Union has also collapsed indicating that communism in its purist form is not effective in its governmental form.