The Interwar Era and World War II

Sophia Maline and Ryan Miller

Period 4

Geography: Europe in 1919 (Treaty of Versailles)

Political:Goals of Treaty of Versailles

  • Big Three
  • US: wanted moderate peace, self-determination, Wilson obsessed with League of Nations, "14 Points" speech
  • Britain: moderate peace
  • France: old-fashioned revenge, harsh reparations, future security

Terms of Treaty of Versailles

  • Germany's colonies were given to Great Britain, France, and Japan
  • Alsace and Lorraine given back to France
  • Germany had to limit its army to 100,000 men and agree to build no military fortifications
  • Germany was responsible for the war and had to pay reparations equal to civilian damages caused by the war
  • Clause 241: "Guilt clause"

Impacts of Treaty of Versailles

  • US refused to ratify Treaty of Versailles and never joined League of Nations (isolationism)
  • Weak international organization without US support
  • US and Britain didn't ratify defensive alliance between GB and F
  • France stood alone and isolated
  • French foreign policy focused on making alliances with small "buffer" states
  • Tension between France and Germany

Intellectual: The Age of Anxiety

  • Pre-war attitudes: belief in progress, the power of reason, human goodness, rights of the individual
  • Post-war attitudes: disillusionment with traditional beliefs, fear of human potential, viewed humans as violent/irrational animals, general pessimism

Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche

  • West overemphasized rationality and stifled passion;
  • "God is dead;"
  • Christianity is "slave morality"

Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein

  • Logical empiricism; if you cannot prove by scientific experiment or demonstrate by logic of math, then it is useless and waste of time
  • Rejected traditional concerns of philosophy (religion, happiness); limited scope of philosophy

Philosophy: Jean-Paul Sartre

  • Existentialism - often atheists, give meaning to life through consciously choosing own actions and accept responsibility, humans exist and seek to define themselves
  • No God to help define humans
  • "Man is condemned to be free"

New Physics

  • Albert Einstein - theory of special relativity, idea that space and time are malleable rather than absolute, everything is relative to observer, only speed of light is absolute
  • Werner Heisenberg - uncertainty principle, unable to simultaneously know both velocity and position of electron, world of quantum physics defied traditional views of science
  • Replaced Newton's rational laws with complex, uncertain universe

Psychology: Sigmund Freud

  • Human behavior is irrational
  • Id (primitive, irrational unconscious), ego (conscious, rational mind), and superego (moral values imposed by society)
  • Humans driven by instinctive sexual desires of aggression and pleasure
  • Encouraged sexual experimentation, especially in middle class women
  • Undermined traditional optimism about rational, progressive nature of human mind

Religion: Revival of Christianity

  • Loss of faith in human reason and progress caused renewed interest in Christian view of the world
  • Religion was one meaningful answer to terror and anxiety

Art: Literature

  • Limited, confused viewpoint of single individual, rather than omniscient narrator
  • Focused on complexity and irrationality of human mind
  • Stream of consciousness

Art: Architecture

  • Functionalism - form follows function, aesthetics arise from practical design, purpose to better society
  • Use of modern materials (steel, glass, plastic)
  • Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Bauhaus school, Walter Gropius, taught new generation of architects to design for the betterment of society

Art: Impressionism

  • Super-realism
  • Photography made realistic painting obsolete
  • Sought to capture the momentary overall feeling of light falling on the scene
  • Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Art: Expressionism

  • Post-Impressionism
  • Sought to depict worlds other than that of fact
  • Focus on complicated psychological view of reality and emotional intensity
  • Fascination with form as opposed to light
  • Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Art: Dadaism

  • Attacked all accepted standards of art and behavior
  • Irrationality and intuition
  • Nonsensical
  • Dadaism would evolve into surrealism
  • L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp

Art: Les Fauves (Fauvism)

  • Led by Henri Matisse
  • Means "wild beasts" in French
  • Primary concern was arrangement of color, line, and form
  • Criticism of tradition constraints of art
  • Characterized by bold color and form
  • Le Bonheur de Vivre by Henry Matisse

Art: Cubism

  • Led by Pablo Picasso
  • Believed all forms could be reduced to basic geometric shapes (sphere, cube, etc)
  • Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Art: Surrealism

  • Painted fantastic worlds of wild dreams and complex symbols
  • Refused to paint ordinary scenes
  • The Persistence of Memory bySalvador Dali

Social: Feminist Movement

  • During the war, large numbers of women left the home and worked in industry, offices and even on front as nurses and doctors
  • Women had a growing sense of independence
  • Most women would earn the right to vote
  • Emily Pankhurst founded Women's Social and Political Union (1898) – used violence to bring attention to women’s lack of rights in Great Britain

Economy: The German Question

  • France saw harsh reparations as vital to the European economy and in keeping Germany weak
  • British economist John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919): argued that harsh reparations would impoverish Germany and the rest of Europe
  • Britain and US agreed with this interpretation of the treaty as too harsh, often lenient toward Germany
  • Dawes Plan (1924) - Germany's yearly reparations reduced, depended on level of economic prosperityGermany received largeloans from US, usedloans to pay reparations to Britain and France,Britain and France paidoff war debts to US

The Great Depression

  • 1929, US stock market collapsed
  • American investors began recalling their overseas loans
  • Difficult for Europeans to borrow money, public pulled money out of banks, intensified economic crisis
  • Dawes Plan collapsed as Germany could no longer secure American loans
  • Economic depression, high unemployment, low production

Impact of the Great Depression

  • Rise of the modern welfare state (New Deal in US, Labour party in Britain)
  • Economic depression undermined faith in democracy and capitalism
  • Allowed strong, anti-democratic leaders to rise to power on promises of national unity and prosperity

Totalitarianism

  • Traditional conservative dictators concerned with preserving the status quo
  • New, radical authoritarianism sought to manage every aspect of their citizens' lives
  • Everything subordinate to the state
  • Fascism, communism, and Nazism

Soviet Union

  • Bolsheviks won Civil War by 1921 but the economy was in disintegrating
  • New Economic Policy(1921) - reestablished limited economic freedom in attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry; however, heavy industry, railroads, and banks remained nationalized
  • Lenin died in 1924 without a successor; this leads to competition between Trotsky and Stalin

Stalin's Soviet Union

  • Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country" was more appealing to the majority than Trotsky's "permanent revolution"
  • Five Year plans - mobilize and transform Soviet society along socialist lines, boost industrial and agricultural production
  • Collectivization - forcible consolidation of peasant farms into state-controlled farms
  • Peasants slaughtered livestock and burned land in protest, 10 million people died from collectivization, peasants no longer a threat

Stalinist Terror

  • Wave of police terror in mid-1930s to reinvigorate Socialism
  • No specific target, most victims were not actually threats to the state
  • Great Purges - executed or imprisoned large numbers of loyal, old Bolshevik leaders
  • Replaced by new generation that had been born into communist society, proved capable leaders and organizers

Italy: Mussolini

  • Italy only joins Allies during War to gain territory and gets nothing
  • Workers and peasants feel cheated after WWI because to win support during the war, the gov had promised social and land reform which it did not deliver after the war
  • Mussolini's program was a radical combination of nationalist and socialist demands including territorial expansion, benefits for workers and land reform for peasants
  • Mussolini attacked socialist party which won him support from conservatives and middle class

Mussolini's Fascism

  • Fascist party won overwhelming majority
  • Captured and executed non-fascist leaders in Italian Parliament
  • Ruled by decree
  • Abolished freedom of the press, fixed elections, disbanded independent labor unions, put fascists in charge of education system
  • "Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
  • Never fully realized totalitarian rule
  • Allowed military and big business conservatives to largely regulate themselves
  • No terror purges as in Stalin's Russia
  • Lateran Agreement (1929) - Mussolini recognized the Vatican as an independent state and gave the church heavy financial support in return for Catholic support of the fascist regime

Hitler's Road to Power

  • Great Depression in Germany - unemployment increased to 43% and industrial output fell by 50% in three years
  • Hitler promised economic and national salvation
  • Rejected free market, advocated government programs to bring recovery instead
  • Gained support from key leaders in the military and big business who thought they could use Hitler as a puppet for their own benefit
  • Accepted Hitler's demand to be chancellor
  • Fire in the Reichstag (German Parliament building) in the middle of elections
  • Hitler blamed Communist party
  • Convinced German president Hindenberg to sign dictatorial acts that abolished freedom of speech, assembly, and most personal liberties
  • Enabling Act (1933) - gave Hitler absolute dictatorial power for four years
  • Eliminated SA (German secret police), impelling SS (army) officers swear allegiance
  • Hitler's three main goals expounded in Mein Kampf: anti-Semitism, lebensraum ("living space"), and Fuhrer (leader-dictator with supreme power)
  • Nazism focused on extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

  • Jews were seen as manipulativemoney lenders and business people even in hard economic times
  • Hitler irrationally blamed them for Germany’s economic misfortunes
  • Nazism’s racist foundation provided desperate German citizens with a scapegoat for their misery which gained Hitler popularity
  • Nuremburg Laws - denied German Jews citizenship
  • Kristallnacht - organized wave of violence against German Jews, destroyed property then made Jews pay for damage
  • "Final Solution" - Jews were systematically rounded up and sent to forced labor and extermination camps → upwards of 6 million Jewish people were murdered

Nazi Aggression

  • Germany withdrew from League of Nations in 1933
  • Established draft and rejected disarmament clauses of Treaty of Versailles in 1935
  • Appeasement - other European nations unwilling to go to war again, conceded to Hitler
  • Blitzkrieg - "lightning war," quick infantry strikes heavily support by aircraft that overwhelmed enemy

Nazi-Soviet Relations

  • Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939) - both nations promised to remain neutral if either nations became involved in a war
  • Hitler invaded Russia in 1941
  • Arrived at Moscow in the winter (BAD IDEA)
  • Russia did not collapse
  • Evacuated much of western Russia, increased war production, new generation of talented military leaders
  • Russian nationalism unified people

Allied Response

  • Grand Alliance - Britain, US, Russia
  • "Arsenal of democracy" - before entering war, US supplied Britain and Russia with armaments
  • "Europe first" - US agreed to focus on defeating Hitler before retaliating to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
  • Allies demanded unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan

End of the War

  • Allied forces pushed into Germany
  • Hitler committed suicide in a bunker
  • Nazi command surrendered on May 7

Technological Advances

  • Atomic Bomb - Manhattan Project developed three atomic bombs
  • US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender
  • Nuclear power has since been adapted for civilian uses such as electricity production
  • Movie and radio – well suited for political propaganda especially gov. controlled radios

Interwar Period and World War II Timeline

1919 – Treaty of Versailles signed

1919-1920 – US rejects the Treaty of Versailles

1921 – Germany is billed $33 billion in reparations

1922 – Mussolini seizes power in Italy

1924 – Dawes Plan, Adolf Hitler dictates Mein Kampf

1924-1929 – Spectacular German economic recovery occurs, circular flow of international funds enables sizable reparations payments

1926 – Germany joins the League of Nations

1928 – Kellogg-Briand Pact renounces war as an instrument of international affairs

1929 – U.S. stock market crashes and triggers worldwide financial crisis

1929-1939 – Great Depression rages

January 1933 – Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany

March 1933 – Reichstag passes the Enabling Act

October 1933 – Germany withdraws from the League of Nations

1935 – Nuremburg laws deprive Jews of all rights of citizenship

March 1936 – German armies move unopposed into demilitarized Rhineland

March 1938 – Germany annexes Austria

September 1938 – Munich Conference: Britain and France agree to German seizure of Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia

March 1939 – Germany occupies the rest of Czechoslovakia, appeasement ends in Britain

August 1939 – Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact is signed

September 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland

September 3, 1939 – Britain and France declare war on Germany

December 7, 1941 – Japan attacks U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor

December 8, 1941 – U.S. declares war on Japan

December 11, 1941 – Hitler declares war on U.S.

June 6, 1944 – D-Day invasion is largest naval invasion in history

March 1945 – American troops cross the Rhine River and enter Germany, Russia liberates eastern European countries

May 7, 1945 – Nazi commanders surrender to Allied forces

FRQ 1: How did new theories in physics and psychology from 1900 to 1939 challenge existing ideas about the individual and society?

Physics:

-Previously, Newton described the universe in absolute, definite principles; the future is predictable

-Einstein’s theory on special relativity: the only absolute principle is speed of light and time and space are relative to the observer

-Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: cannot determine both velocity and position of particle only one

-Impact on Europe:

- Universe is uncertain, unpredictable, and complex

- Universe lack absolute objective reality; everything is subjective and there is no real fact or absolute truth

Psychology:

-Previously, people believed that humans are inherently good

-Freud contradicts all previous notions with his theories on id, ego, and superego

-all actions are motivated by subconscious which contains irrational, animalistic instincts

-the human unconscious is irrational and therefore unpredictable

-Impact on Europe:

-Interpreted as first requirement for mental health is uninhibited sex life which encouraged sexual experimentation especially in middle class women

-undermined previous ideals about rationality and progressive nature of human mind

FRQ 2: Analyze how the Balkans crises from 1903 to 1914 and the crises in central and eastern Europe from 1935 to 1939 threatened Europe’s balance of power.

Balkans:

-Balance of power before WWI relied on Metternich’s congress system, which used diplomatic relations to maintain conservative power and stability in Europe (“concert of Europe”)

-Nationalism threatened to break up the multiethnic Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires

-Ethnic minorities in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted self-determination and independence from the larger empires

-First Balkan War (1912) – Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria attacked Ottoman Empire

-Second Balkan War (1913) – destroyed Ottoman Empire

-Serbian nationalists assassinated Austrian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo

-Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, initiating World War I

Central and eastern Europe:

-Hitler announced German rearmament in 1935, making clear his aggressive intentions

-Until then, security in Europe had relied on a militarily and economically weak Germany that could be dominated by Britain and France

-Germany moved into the demilitarized Rhineland on the border with France

-Invasion of Czechoslovakia led to British and French declarations of war on Germany