Paper 2 #2

Darius Hickey

11/19/09

Period E

Failures of the League of Nations and attempts at collective security were in fact the main causes of World War II. To what extent do you agree?

The claim that the failures of the League of Nations were in some way responsible for the outbreak of WWII can be largely dismissed. Alternatively it can be asserted that both poor economic conditions and the creation and rise of Fascism were to blame for the beginning of WWII.

Germany had suffered major economic problems prior to WWII as a result of the inclusion of massive reparations in the Treaty of Versailles. Having to pay both Britain and France a combined total of 6.6 billion pounds, all while having the most economically prosperous areas of Germany under French control proved to be a strain too large for Germany to handle. Steps were taken to reduce Germany’s debt, such as the Young Plan, which  reduced the total debt from 6.6 billion, to 2 billion pounds. While the Young Plan did help quite a bit, the most important plan enacted was the Dawes Plan in 1924. The Dawes Plan aimed to remove foreign troops from the Ruhr, along with ensuring a loan of 800 million marks to Germany from the United States. 

The passing of the Dawes Plan ushered in a period of economic prosperity in Germany for 5 years, until the United States, and subsequent World stock market collapse in 1929. The collapse of the stock market caused German inflation rates to sky-rocket. Overnight many Germans lost their entire life-savings, and unemployment and food shortages were common. Hitler used the sense of desperation in people as a way to gain power and influence. 

When Fascism was created in Italy in 1922 under the regime of Benito Mussolini, it served as a combination of totalitarianism and militarism. Fascist ideas soon reached Germany, and combined with promises of a return to former German glory, soon became the fundamental ideology behind Nazism. The glorification of the military caused a rush of weapons and soldiers to be formed in both Germany and Italy. With both countries armed and willing to go to war, it can be seen that war was in fact inevitable. Regardless of any sort of international interference, either positive or negative, from the League of Nations, Germany was hellbent on war, and its subsequent territorial gain. 

Some may argue that it was the failure of the League of Nations’ attempts at keeping peace that led to the outbreak of war, however when both Italy and Germany withdrew from the League in 1933, along with countries such as the United States and Russia not even being members of the League, it can be seen that the League of Nations and its members had not either demonstrated or believed in its own peace-keeping abilities, and as such didn’t even serve as a legitimate anti-war organization. 

HW 4

Dawes Plan (1924): 

A) U.S. loan to Germany for 800 million gold marks

B) Germany's Gustav Stressman makes deal with Dawes

C) France withdraws troop from the Ruhr.

D) German economy starts to recover.

E) Starts period of prosperity 1924-1929

Locarno Treaty: The idea that collective security will work

A) Series of agreements between France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium

B) Germany, France, and Belgium promise to respect each other's borders.

Germany refused to guarantee the Polish border

France promises to help Poland and Czechoslovakia if Germany attacks; Great Britain didn't make the same promise.

Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928

A) 65 nations renounce war as an instrument of National Policy

B) Useless agreement because there was no power to enforce it; no mention of sanctions.

HW 3

The source is especially valuable because it gives both the tactics of Hitler and Stalin, which it valuable because during the war, neither size would have been able to gain access to this information. The source is limited in the sense that because so much time has passed, and the source isn't first hand, much information could have been lost. The general historical account was the Russian winter, so much of the tactical plans by both armies may have been lost.

HW 2

1.) Hitler's blitzkrieg managed to destroy the better part of the Soviet air force within the first 5 days.
2.) The great Purge was a mass rounding up and execution of high ranking Soviet military leaders, under the guise of them being "foreign agents".
3.) More officers and commanders were lost during the Great Purge than during 4 years of Nazi fighting.
4.) Stalin needed complete control over the Soviet Union and the Great Purge served as a way to get the Soviet people's attention away from the incoming Nazi troops
5+6.) Stalin was convinced that Britain was encouraging Hitler to attack the Soviet Union, so Stalin sought anything to make a peace treaty with Hitler, allowing Germany to move West, biding the USSR more time to mobilize troops.
7.) Stalin agreed to split Poland with Hitler, taking the Eastern half, while Hitler got the Western part.
8.) Stalin suffered from a nervous breakdown when Hitler attacked because he was so caught off guard.
9.) Hitler greatly under estimated the Russian winter and did not supply his troops correctly
10.) Stalin and all of the USSR was victorious merely because of the vast size of the Russian territory.

HW 23

A.) The ship is most likely headed to either Italy or the Canary Islands. All the people on board were members of the Nazi party and had elected to take the trip. It cost about 2 weeks wages, or about 28 marks to travel. The Nazis needed to make people feel as if the war was going well, so more leisure ships were built. The picture is meant to entice others into signing up to travel.
B.) The joke implies that the Volkswagen factories were making weapons instead of cars. The German people trusted the government, but were not completely blind as to what was really happening.

A.) Propaganda is the use of images in order to change one's opinion. A rally is a mass gathering of people, usually to hear someone speak. Censorship is the banning of certain media based on the message it carries.
B.) The second joke would be the only one allowed seeing as the other portray Hitler as being power-hungry or savage. The second joke describes Hitler's gain in lebensraum, which was to be encouraged.
C.) Goebbels banned anything that was even remotely anti-Nazi, ranging from books, to newspaper articles. Newspaper writers had to be approved by the local Nazi governemt before being allowed into publication.

HW 13

3 Conditions: Reparations; Treaty of Versailles; Anti-Semitism

     The reparations were put into place shortly after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The reparations and the hyperinflation that followed caused the value of the deutschmark to decrease to almost nothing. Children would make toys out of the bills, they were worth so little. Soon, Germany wasn't able to pay back its reparations.
     The Treaty of Versailles included a clause that removed most of Germany's armed forces, causing many career soldiers to lose their jobs. This created dissent and many of the soldiers and their families blamed the Weimar Republic.
     Anti-Semitism was on the rise because a few of the officials who signed the treaty were Jewish and extreme nationalists blamed Jews for all the problems facing Germany.

HW 22

A.) The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage encouraged couples to have large families by allowing them to keep a loan of 1000 reichmarks, which was about 9 months pay at the time.
B.) The doctor wants to marry the ideal Nazi woman. Someone who was healthy, young, and pure.
The doctor wanted to marry the young woman not only for the financial gain, but because though the propaganda he was told that this was the only type of woman he should marry. As long as the future wife didn't have money, she would be completely reliant upon the doctor. The doctor had a very good chance at finding a wife this way due to how wide spread the propaganda was. The ad would not be allowed in a modern paper due to it's intense misogyny.
C.) The Nazi ideal was that Germans would worship the state as a deity in and of itself. The Bible was banned because Hitler had realized that the church was one of the few things powerful enough to over through the Reich, despite Hitler's own thoughts that he was doing God's work.