Background Behind WWII – Great History

Hitler’s Pre-War Expansions

Hitler turned closer to home with his home country of Austria. On the 12th of March, he announced his plans to unify Austria with Germany. According to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Alois Josef Johann von Schuschnigg, who was hoping to soothe tensions with Hitler about the Anschluss, Hitler was already good to go on the annexation of Austria when they met in February of 1938.

What is all this nonsense about your independence? Whether Austria is independent or not is not the question. There’s only one thing to discuss. Do you want the Anschluss brought about with bloodshed or without?
Hitler speaking with Schuschnigg

On March 9th, Schuschnigg announced he would hold a referendum on the Anschluss for the 13th. He predicted it would result in a split of around two thirds against the Anschluss. Outraged, Hitler began mobilising for an Austrian invasion the next day and the Chancellor was forced into calling it off and resigning. Only 2 days later, Panzers rolled across the Austrian border unopposed, due to the collapse of the Austrian government.

A referendum was later held that April in which 99.7% of the Austrian people voted in favour of the Anschluss. However the vote was not secret and it is believed that many people were scared to vote against it for fear of being killed. Reminder, this is after the Night of the Long Knives; people knew what Hitler was capable of. After the referendum, anti-semitism was rife in Austria, and around 200 Austrian Jews committed suicide in the weeks following the annexation, fearing a worse fate if they didn’t. It is estimated that, if the election was secret and fair, around 70% would’ve voted against German Annexation. He has the nation of Czechoslovakia surrounded from all 3 sides and he began to look towards the Sudetenland

The country was naturally in an already pretty weak spot. It was bordering a once former and now slowly growing major power, who was very open about wanting to expand its territories. One of its few allies was France, who weren’t exactly enthusiastic about starting another war after losing almost 2 million people in the First World War. Another ally was the USSR, who they did not share a land border with, meaning they would either have to cross through Romania or Poland to assist, both of whom were adamantly against Communism. Czechoslovakia now stood alone as Hitler declared he wanted the Sudetenland, a mountainous region on the German border, that the Czechoslovakian government had just spent quite a sizeable amount of money on forts to defend from their expansionist neighbours. With both their alliances being highly inconvenient, they turned to the UK government for war support. They came back with a less than stellar response.

However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbour, we cannot, in all circumstances, undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me. But if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it should be resisted. And that such a domination like the people who believe in liberty, would not be worth living. But war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that a call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.
Chamberlain’s statement on Czechoslovakia

With central European tensions rising and war on the horizon, France and Britain decided to host a peace conference with Germany, with Italy as a mediator. Czechoslovakian officials were not invited. At the conference, Germany was given everything that they wanted, just as long as they promised to not take any more land, not just in Czechoslovakia, but across Europe.

Satisfied, Chamberlain returned home, waving the contract off of a plane, declaring “peace in our time”. Because of the summit, Hitler was selected for Time magazine’s Man of the Year award in 1938.

The cover of the January 2nd 1939 issue of Time Magazine, in which Hitler was declared Man of the Year

The Czechoslovakians had now lost their major forts and Hungary, seeing an opportunity, took lower parts of Slovakia. A now even weaker Czechoslovakia, with no more allies, was powerless to stop Hitler from backing an independence bid for Slovakia, effectively setting it up as a puppet state, before Hungary took a little bit more of the tip of Slovakia. With the majority of their defences, industry and population gone, Czechoslovakia had no choice but to bow down to German oppression and was turned into a protectorate.

Memel is a much shorter story for a much smaller piece of land. Hitler simply sent an ultimatum to Lithuania, who had around 20,000 men, compared to Germany’s bordering a million men and Lithuania was forced into conceding Memelland, a former territory of Imperial Germany.

Hitler Building Alliances

During this time, Hitler formed a pact with Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Dictator of Italy. His march on Rome inspired Hitler’s Munich Putsch in 1933.

Mussolini (left) and Hitler (right) surrounded by an adoring crowd

They also wanted Spain to join the pact but were currently in the middle of a civil war, between Manuel Anzaña’s Republicans and Francisco Franco’s Nationalists, the latter of which piqued Hitler’s interest. He sent multiple bombing raids and armoured troops to Franco to help with the war effort. One of the most famous raids was that of Guernica.

Guernica was an old town in North Spain with, at the time, a population of 7,000 people. At around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 26th of April 1936, a Luftwaffe Dornier Do 17 flew above the quaint town and dropped 50 kg worth of bombs onto the town. For an hour and a half, Italian and German planes flew over and bombed the town, killing between 170 and 300 people. This event was painted by Pablo Picasso in one of his most well-known works, simply titled Guernica. Picasso was in Paris at the time of the German Occupation of France. When a German Officer came into his apartment, he spotted a photograph of Guernica. The officer asked Pablo, “Did you do that?” to which Pablo replied, “No, you did.”

*Guernica,* Pablo Picasso’s painting inspired by the bombing

Hitler’s attempts to get Spain into his pocket failed, although the Nationalists won, so he decided to turn his eyes to the east.

By 1938, Japan had colonised Korea, multiple islands in the Pacific, Manchuria, a puppet state of China controlled by the Soviet Union, other parts of China and Taiwan. They had control over most of eastern Asia and started the rape of Nanking, in which 40,000 to 300,000 people were killed and 20,000 to 80,000 peopled raped. Hitler formed an alliance with the Japanese Empire.

A child crying in the aftermath of the Rape on Nanking

Hitler in Power

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! … Don’t forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!
Adolf Hitler, reporting to a British Correspondent, 1934

Hitler employed his “Work and Bread” tactic once he became Führer. It started with when he would make it appear that unemployment had gone down. He did this by counting women who made families as employed. He fired Jewish shopkeepers and replaced them with non-Jewish shopkeepers. He then didn’t count the Jews as unemployed. If the Jewish business owners refused to cooperate, they would be boycotted.

Hitler built the Autobahn, which took only 3 years to build 1000 kilometres. He also made the Volkswagen Beetle, a cheap and affordable car for the working class. Unemployment went down to 400,000 during Hitler’s time in office and things seemed to be looking up for Germany. Little did the German people know, Hitler was preparing them for war.

He denounced the Treaty of Versailles and rearmed his army, by building tanks, planes and warships for the German Army and reintroduced conscription. Hermann Goering would become the head of the new Luftwaffe, a name that has stuck with the German Air Force to this day.

Young boys were made to join a Nazified version of the Scouts, the Hitler Youth. They did exercise, sports and learned not to trust Jews.

Hitler meeting a group of Hitler Youth members

Jews suffered from relentless persecution and segregation under the time of the Nazi’s being in power. Jewish Lawyers and judges were sacked in March 1933. They were banned from sports clubs and the teachers were sacked by April. Race Studies was introduced in schools in September. Jewish businesses boycotted by painting the Star of David or the word “Juden”, the German word for Jew, on shop windows and soldiers turned people away. Jews had their German Citizenship revoked. They weren’t allowed to vote and marry non-Jews. By 1936, Jews weren’t allowed electrical equipment. In 1938, Jewish doctors were sacked, had to have something to identify them as a Jew in their name, Jewish children were banned from non-Jewish schools, Synagogues and businesses were attacked. The discrimination escalated further and further until the straw broke the camel’s back.

Ernst Vom Rath, a German diplomat, was killed by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew who killed Rath for deporting his parents, along with thousands of other Polish Jews to a slum of a refugee camp near the Polish Border, as the Polish government were not admitting Jews without valid passports who had lived in Germany for more than five years. Many Polish Jews wanted to return to Poland due to Hitler’s antisemitic laws, but were denied entry. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Gestapo, forced thousands upon thousands of Polish Jews to illegally cross the border. Due to the increased influx of immigrants, faster than they could build homes, the Polish Government denied Polish Jews from entering the country, and the Jews remained trapped between two countries who did not want them. Enraged by the Nazi government’s actions, an angered Grynszpan killed Vom Rath. On the night of November 9th, 1938, members of the SS and SA, along with the Hitler Youth and the general public, attacked Jewish businesses, burnt down synagogues and arrested Jews in an attempt to force them out of the country. Over 30,000 Jews were sent to the concentration camps, where many would die. Herschel was arrested and sent to the concentration camps. He was never seen again. His parents, who had survived the war, requested that his date of death be put as May 8th, 1945, the day Germany surrendered and the European war ended. This night of November 9th 1938 is known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass.

A Jewish business having been attacked as a cause of Kristallnacht, German for Night of Broken Glass

Jewish and non-Jewish children weren’t allowed to play together, and Jews were banned from swimming pools. They were evicted from homes in April 1939 and by September weren’t allowed outside between 8pm and 6am. All of this lead up to the Final Solution in 1942, referred to as the Holocaust or the Shoah, in which 6 million Jews were killed by shootings and, more infamously, Zyklon B gas. Those who survived returned home to find their houses taken and Jews still suffer persecution to this day.

Children who were prisoners at Concentration camps during the Holocaust

Jehovah’s Witnesses, unlike the Jews, were given a choice to join them and stop being a Jehovah’s Witness or go to a concentration camp. Over a third of German Jehovah’s Witnesses were killed in concentration camps.

Under Nazi policy, women were not allowed to do much of anything, either. They were required to wear traditional German dresses instead of trousers and high heels. They weren’t allowed to work and if they were working, they were fired and encouraged to start a family. Women were given 25% of a year’s wage for every child they had. They were awarded medals for how many children they had, the highest being a gold medal for 8 children. They were even paired up with SS officers to have the “perfect” Aryan children, since all SS officers were pure Aryan.

They were imposed an ideology where they were only to focus on three things, Kinder, Kirche, Kuche or Children, Church, Cooking in English. They were banned from juries in court trials, considered to be too emotional to judge such a decision.

Hitler Gaining Power

After the election, the enabling act was established wherein Hitler could make decisions without consulting the Reichstag. By April, he had taken over town councils, local governments and the police force. The Gestapo was established, the secret police used to intimidate political opponents without using the thuggish tactics of the SA.

The memorial for all those murdered at Dachau Concentration Camp, which i have had the privilege of seeing in person. Unfortunately, to many, Dachau is now just viewed as a tourist attraction

Around this same time, Dachau concentration camp was established. Concentration camps and Death camps are different. The Death Camps are the famous ones like Auschwitz, where they would make them do hard labour and then gas them with Zyklon B. These weren’t established until the Wannsee Conference in 1942. Concentration camps were established in 1933 for political opponents, which sometimes resulted in execution. Dachau, the first camp, was headed by the SS and the guards were the SA troops.

By May, he had banned trade unions, believing them to be Communist and the heads of the unions were arrested, taking away the people’s rights. On the 14th of July, he banned the other parties that weren’t his own and in October he made Germany leave the League of Nations, a junior version of the UN set up by former US President, Woodrow Wilson, although the USA was not a member. Next June, the infamous Night of the Long Knives occurred.

On the 30th of June 1934, Hitler invited Ernst Rohm, a friend of his and head of the SA, and many other SA generals to Hotel Lederer in Bad Weissee. Once they were all gathered there Hitler and many SS officers stormed the building and arrested the officials. Hitler gave Rohm the option of him killing himself or he would be executed. Rohm chose to be executed and was shot on the 1st of July in Stadelheim Prison.

David Low’s cartoon depicting the Night of the Long Knives, published in *The Evening Standard*

This carried on until July the 2nd, killing many, including former German Chancellor, Kurt Von Schleicher, anti-Nazi journalist Fritz Gerlich, Competitor for Chairman of the Nazi Party Gregor Stasser, the man who refused to cooperate in the Munich Putsch Otto Von Kahr, cases of mistaken identity like Willi Schmid and many more. Once the purge was done with, Hitler claimed that Rohm had been trying to overthrow the government, which justified the killings to the public. He also claimed that there were only 61 deaths, when in reality it could’ve been anywhere between 85 and 1000.

On the 1st of August, a law was made that if the President were to die, his powers would be merged with that of the Chancellor. President Hindenburg died the next day, giving Hitler full control of Germany and its people. When greeting himself to his new army, Hitler made them swear an oath to him and not the country. The Nazi age had begun.

The Reichstag Fire

In the late hours of Monday, the 27th of February 1933, a young theology student, Hans Floter, is on a leisurely stroll near the southwest of the German Government building, the Reichstag. Suddenly, he hears a smash of glass, and Hans turns to see a man clambering through the window with a flaming object in his hand. He runs to the nearest police officer, Karl Buwert, who reports it to the fire department as the building is set on fire by the intruder. Firefighters are dispatched.

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and Chancellor of Germany, is having dinner with Joseph Goebbels, the current Gauleiter, regional leader, of Berlin, when they receive a phone call about the fire. Goebbels answers but writes it off as “a tall tale” and doesn’t inform Hitler. He receives another phone call not too long after, and only then does he tell Hitler of the fire.

Berlin citizens watching the Reichstag Burn

They rush over to the scene and meet Hermann Goering, current President of the Reichstag and Interior Minister of Prussia, who cries “This is Communist outrage! One of the Communist culprits has been arrested.”

The Communist Culprit in question is 24-year-old Marinus van de Lubbe, a Dutch Council Communist, arrested by Buwert, only 24 minutes after the break in. He is put on trial, found guilty and executed on January 10th, 1934, 3 days before his 25th Birthday. In 2008, almost 75 years after the fire, he is pardoned by the German Government.

Hitler says that the fire is “a sign from God” saying that it was the beginning of the German Communist Revolution, similar to that of the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia. The fire is put out by 11:30, 2 and a half hours after the fire started. Two other communists are arrested in the following weeks, one of which is killed in prison.

At the Nuremberg trials in 1945 General Franz Halder claimed that “On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer’s birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: ‘The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.’ And saying this he slapped his thigh” When Goering heard this, he denied all claims. The fire took place exactly 1 week before the election where they won by 43.9% of the vote and 288 seats. Van De Lubbe was arrested and executed without trial.

The Second Rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis

In 1929, the Wall Street Crash happened in the USA and America needed more money. One of their ideas was to ask for loans they made to other countries back.

An unemployment line in Chicago IL, caused by the Great Depression

Because of the war debts, Gustav Stresemann, the chancellor who passed away just weeks before the depression, had asked the USA for a lot of money to pay them off. Now they wanted it back.

Germany was in another financial crisis, with people starving to death, living on the streets and unemployment lines went around blocks. Hitler used the people’s suffering to his advantage.

People began mistrusting the Weimar government all over again and started going to either the far-left communists or the far-right fascists, the latter of which also included the Nazis. Hitler promised 2 simple things “Work and Bread”. The percentage of votes rose from 2.3% in 1928 to 18.3% in 1930 with 107 seats in the Reichstag.

During this time, his half-niece, Geli, was living in his flat in Munich, who many believe he had a sexual relationship with. In 1931, she killed herself with Hitler’s gun.

Hitler’s half-niece, Geli, who committed suicide in 1931. She was only 13

Hitler ran against the then President, Paul Von Hindenburg, in 1932, he lost but afterwards the vote percentage rose to 37.3% and 230 seats in the Reichstag. After this, he began coming closer with Eva Braun and they eventually became lovers. He was 23 years her senior.

At this point, Hermann Goering was elected as the 16th President of the Reichstag. When Chancellor Franz von Papen tried to stop the Nazi party’s rise, Goering simply turned away and called a vote of no confidence in Papen’s government, thus kicking out Papen as Chancellor. He was then replaced by Kurt Von Schleicher, a recommendation which he made to Hindenburg. Eventually, the Nazi party got too powerful for Schleicher to control so influential politicians wrote to Hindenburg, asking if Hitler could become the Chancellor of Germany, noticing all his charisma and speaking skills, thinking that would make him a good politician.

After 2 parliamentary elections, in which Hitler got up to 230 and 196 seats respectively, Hindenburg finally caved in and, on the 30th of January 1933, appointed Hitler as his next and final chancellor, the latter of which he did not know. Hitler requested the dissolving of the Reichstag from Hindenburg and to schedule the elections for early March.

Hitler (left) being appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg (right) in January 1933

The Munich Putsch and the Aftermath

In 1923, Hitler attempted to overthrow the Government, believing that they were handling the financial crisis caused by hyperinflation terribly.

In layman’s terms, hyperinflation was caused when the German Weimar Government was trying to pay off their war debts so printed more money to pay them. A lot of shop and factory owners noticed that the people had more money to spare so increased their prices. Seeing this, the Weimar Government printed even more money, so the shopkeepers raised their prices even more. It carried on in a circle like this until a wheelbarrow full of money couldn’t buy you a loaf of bread and 1 US dollar was worth 4.21 trillion marks by 1923.

This Coup was colloquially known as the Munich Putsch or Beer Hall Putsch. On the evening of November the 8th, 1923, Hitler, assisted by Eric Ludendorff, former German war hero, and some Stormtroopers stormed Bürgerbräukeller, a popular beer hall in Munich, firing a shot into the air and yelled “The national revolution has broken out! The hall is surrounded by six hundred men. Nobody is allowed to leave.”

He retreated to a back room with Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Hans Ritter von Seisser, Otto von Lossow and a handgun. Hitler had to deal with a crisis elsewhere and during this time, Ludendorff let Kahr, Seisser and Lossow go. The hall was held hostage for many hours and by the morning, Hitler had become impatient.

Ludendorff called for them to march and so they did. 2000 of Hitler’s supporters including Ludendorff, Hitler, Goering and Rohm marched down the street towards the ministry of defence. 130 soldiers greeted them. They stood still at the end of the street for a moment and then began marching again. The soldiers raised their rifles, took aim and fired. Almost 2 dozen men were killed, 4 of which were soldiers. The man to Hitler’s left was taken out. Since they were linking arms, the force of him falling popped Hitler’s arm out of its socket. He staggered away, assisted by other people. Ludendorff continued to march and was arrested. Hitler later made up the story that he saved a child from the crossfires.

Hitler was eventually tracked down to the house of Ernst Hanfstaengl, a close friend of his and future employee of Former US President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the 11th of November for high treason. He was brought before a tribunal in February and the trial turned into a speech for Hitler, where he essentially said why the Nazi party was so great and why others should vote for them in the next election.

For a crime of high treason, you can be sentenced to life in prison. Hitler was only sentenced to 5 years of which he only served nine months in Landsburg Prison, in a cell that was more of a small flat with jail bars on the windows.

He had friendly treatment from guards, received fan mail and had frequent visits from party members. During this time, he wrote his book, Mein Kampf, which in English translates to My Struggle, in which he talks about his life, ideologies, political views and much more mentioning how he thought Jews were “germs” and society’s “international poisoners” and the only solution was extermination. 228,000 copies were sold from 1925 to 1932 and over a million during the year he came to power, 1933.

He was released from prison and established the SS headed by Heinrich Himmler in 1925. Heinrich was the least physically intimidating Nazi, but he had a way with words, which coerced the opposition into doing Hitler’s bidding. He learnt that the economy had improved, the main source of the Nazi’s rise being the failing economy. However, another financial crisis 4 years later would change everything.

Hitler Joins the German Worker’s Party

Since the war was over, there was nothing for Hitler to fight against or fight for, since France, Britain and the USA had all burdened Germany with the terms of the Treaty, and he believed his country was betrayed from the home front. He was hired as an intelligence officer to infiltrate the German Workers Party.

At one of the party meetings, the Party Chairman, Anton Drexler, noticed Hitler’s charisma when speaking so gave him a pamphlet named “My Political Awakening”. This pamphlet contained much antisemitic, nationalist, anti-communist and anti-capitalist material, which could’ve possibly embedded themselves in Hitler’s brain.

After fully joining the party in 1920, he renamed it to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or Nazi for short, and redesigned the logo to be a black swastika, a symbol commonly found in Hinduism meaning spirituality and divinity and a pattern which you can find around the world including buildings in London, with a white circle and red background.

The new party logo which Hitler designed

In June 1921, there was a mutiny in the party, which kicked out Drexler and Hitler became the party chairman, where he spoke at beer halls, a type of large German pub. Early followers included Hermann Goering, a former flying ace, Ernst Rohm, a WW1 veteran and was later found out to be homosexual, and Rudolf Hess, another WW1 veteran and met Hitler at one of his speeches in 1920. Rohm later became the head of the Nazi’s Paramilitary force, the Stormtroopers or SA.

The German Armistice

By November 1918, German morale was at an all time low. Despite Russia backing out of the war, they were now losing on the Western Front. The Kaiser had abdicated and had moved to the Netherlands, with a new democratic German government taking his place. Erich Ludendorff had resigned and was replaced by Wilhelm Groener. All of Germany’s allies had all either suffered defeat or surrendered. Everyone wanted the war to end but Germany wanted it more than anyone else.

The German government eventually requested that the allies meet to discuss the armistice. They met in Ferdinand Foch’s train carriage, located in the forest of Compiègne. Foch was French General and would be one of the main representatives of the allies.

A carriage of the same design on display in a museum. The original carriage was destroyed by the SS in 1940

They handed the Germans the terms of unconditional surrender without negotiation. They commanded that the German army leave the territories that they had occupied, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine. They also requested a demilitarisation of the Rhineland, an area of Germany that bordered France. They also had to surrender much of their munitions and other army supplies. The Germans had no choice to agree to these harsh terms and the Armistice was signed at around 5am local time on November 11th, 1918, with the Armistice not taking effect until 11am.

During those 6 hours, another 3,000 men died for nothing. The last soldier of the war to die was German, who died not long after the Armistice took affect.