his101cd

HIS 102 – Western Civilization II
Lecture 9 -- Inter-War Turmoils

I. . The Russian Revolution

Origins of the Revolution

Lack of Russian Reforms

since the freeing of the serfs, the Russian government had swung back toward conservatism
throughout the late 19th century, Russian tsars had supressed any liberalist ideas and movements--often brutally (such as the crushing of the revolution in 1905)
The tsar during WWI was Nicholas II

he was totally dedicated to the idea of supreme royal power
even went so far as to try and lead the army himself (with disastrous results on the battlefield and at home)

World War I

The revolution was to a large degree the result of World War I
During World War I, Russia suffered the loss of roughly 10% of its population

In 1915 alone, the Russians suffered two million casualties (1916 saw nearly as many)

The Russian soldiers were poorly equipped--in 1915, for example, many soldiers were sent to the front without any weapons at all and told to take then from the dead they would find
Transportation broke down, and by 1917, the front was receiving only one half of its food needs (home front did not fare much better)

Revolutions of 1917

By 1917, the Russian people were ready for a change
The Tsarist government was at its weakest stage ever

Nicholas at the front
Tsarina Alexandra was losing her mind
Grigori Rasputin, "the mad monk," had become the main advisor at court

he was a self-proclaimed holy man, debauche, and cunning advisor
worked his way into court by promising to heal the hemophilia of one of the young princes
murdered by royalists in late 1916

The resulting turmoil led to two separate, but related revolutions in 1917

the revolt of the bourgeoisie (March, 1917)

the first was a moderate revolution of March, when the tzar abdicated
Prince Lvov led a new provisional government but this government was leaderless and could agree on very little other than liberal reforms

This moderate revolution was headed by the middle class who wanted more reforms like self government, but who enjoyed a privileged economic position they intended to maintain
the reforms were pure liberalism--equal laws, universal suffrage (even for women), freedom of religion and the press

but this system did not appeal to anyone outside the bourgeoisie
The Socialist Revolutionaries, May 1917

In May, the socialist Alexander Kerensky became the leader of the provisional government
He was more progressive, but also led a faction-ridden band which could agree on almost nothing
Kerensky made two major mistakes

he refused to confiscate the large estates and give the peasants the land, fearing that it would destroy army discipline as peasants deserted to go home and claim their acreage
Moreover, Kerensky tried to continue the war and honor Russia's commitment to her allies, in spite of the catastrophes the country was suffering

Kerensky correctly guessed that the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917 would mean the ultimate defeat of Germany
he argued that Russia, having suffered so much, should wait out the arrival of the Americans

But he did not understand the depth of the anger of the Russian people who wanted to get on with fixing their own country rather than fighting for reasons of state

The Bolsheviks

Kerensky did not have sufficient power to lead the government with his own people, so he turned to the Bolsheviks for help
The Bolsheviks had the discipline that Kerensky's followers lacked, but they did not have their own leader, Vladimir I. Lenin
Lenin

Lenin had become a revolutionary communist in 1887, following the execution of his brother as an anarchist
He spent many years in exile in Switzerland
While there he adopted Marxism as his ideals
he founded the Bolshevik party in 1903, and according to his followers, he was "the one indisputable leader"
1917

The Germans, hearing that Lenin would pull Russia out of the war, put him in a sealed coach in April, and returned him to Russia to start a revolution
Lenin's clumsy attempts to do so, however, were futile, and he had to flee to Finland, from which he returned in October, a wiser man, to conduct what we still call the Russian Revolution

The November Revolution

On November 9, Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government in Petrograd

The revolution was quick and almost bloodless
news quickly spread and many people across the nation were ecstatic

Once the revolution occurred, the Bolsheviks had to fight to survive

They had seized power illegally through revolution and for several years confronted an effective opposition
This made Russian leaders insecure about their hold on the country, up to the time of Gorbachev
The communist party was never a mass party--its early membership represented no more than one percent of the Russian population

Lenin did honor his promise to end the war when he signed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918

However, even after this extremely popular move, in the free elections Lenin held, the communists won only 25% of the vote
It was so embarrassing, that Lenin dispersed the assembly by force
Lenin's main difficulties came from the Social Revolutionaries who had backed the communists before, but who were actually more popular than the communists and disliked taking a back seat to them

One of the Social Revolutionaries attempted to assassinate Lenin in August, 1918

Civil War

the attempt on Lenin's life started a Civil War, with Red Russians (the Bolsheviks) against White Russians

The civil war would last for over two years
Lenin would not be firmly in control until 1921

The imperial family was slaughtered in July, 1918
within 18 months, the Cheka (Bolshevik secret police) alone had killed two and a half times more opponents than the old Russian empire had done in 80 years

In the middle of this civil war, the United States, Britain, France and Japan invaded from two sides, in the west at Archangel and Murmansk and in the east in Siberia

The British and French hoped to overthrow Lenin and get Russia back into the war, thus forcing the Germans to split their army again and take the pressure off the western front
The United States by contrast, said that we only wanted to get Russia back into the war, and that Lenin could stay

However, since Lenin's claim to fame was that he had brought Russia out of the war, it seemed obvious to the Russians that the U.S. meant to overthrow the communists just the way our allies did, even though President Wilson publicly said he did not
This left a heritage of suspicion between the communists and the Americans which lasted through the Cold War

By 1919, the invaders withdrew, having suffered through one Russian winter, and by 1920, Lenin's Red Army had defeated the White Russians--most of whom had fled the country

Creating the Marxist State

Lenin now set about creating a Russian state with the rather vague blueprint Marx had left him

In 1922, Lenin formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR--with Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia and Transcaucasia
The fact was that much of what would later become the Soviet Union was held nominally if at all

Lenin believed in a two stage revolution; the first would be a bourgeois revolution like Kerensky's and the second a proletariat revolution like his

He accepted that the overthrow of the system would be violent, rather than a peaceful evolution
He further rejected the idea of a mass party made up of workers

Lenin once remarked that if 200,000 nobles could rule Russia, 200,000 communists should be able to rule the Soviet Union
He therefore moved to eliminate all opposition parties and made the communist party into a tool for controlling the state

Lenin had no patience with the peasants whom he saw as hopelessly backward

In his eyes, the sickle was definitely the junior partner to the hammer
In this way, he was very unlike Mao in China, who based his revolution on the peasants and disdained the factory workers

unlike Mao, Lenin was missing the cadres of trained personnel, toughened in civil war, who could easily form a government when the fighting was over

Indeed, Lenin had not really thought through what would happen after the revolution, nor about how a government would be formed

Marx had been silent on these matters, assuming such a process would happen naturally
Lenin did, however, firmly believe that nationalism was on its way out
He found it incomprehensible that after hundreds of years of Russian rule, anyone in the Soviet Union would still care about their ethnic identity

Lenin immediately introduced orthodox communist views, like maximum income, collectivization, elimination of private property, etc., and was appalled to discover that all it produced was widespread famine and industrial dislocation

By 1921, Russia was producing only one-sixth of the manufactured goods she had in 1913, and steel production was down to 4% of 1914 levels
Five million people starved to death
Moreover, other groups took advantage to pull away from the USSR, such as Estonia, Finland and Poland

The New Economic Program (NEP)

Lenin opted for what he called the New Economic Program or NEP in 1921, to halt this slide into chaos
The NEP instituted a measure of capitalism into agricultural production peasants paid the state in kind, but what they produced over the state's requirements they could keep

The effects were dramatic--The cereal harvest went from 57 million tons in1922 to 73 million in 1928
While the output increased, however, the farms were not innovative

They still used strip planting and wooden plows, and one half of the harvest of 1928 was brought in using hand scythes

To deal with this backwardness, Stalin would later introduce collectivization of agriculture

under the NEP, the most important parts of the economy still remained under state control, like banking, heavy industry and public utilities

But the first to give up on orthodox communism as a loser was none other than Lenin himself

Struggle for leadership control

Lenin suffered a stroke in 1922 which incapacitated him, and he finally died in January, 1924

He had not provided for a successor

The two main contenders were Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky

Trotsky appeared to be the heir apparent--he had masterminded the 1917 revolution
Trotsky emphasized world revolution and belonged to the intelligentsia
Stalin emphasized "socialism in one nation," building up the Soviet Union, and was a shrewd manipulator of men and a master administrator who knew how to use the Communist party machinery to gain power

By 1927, Trotsky was out of the party now controlled by Stalin and sent to Siberia

he escaped, only to be assassinated by Stalin's agents in Mexico City in 1940

What happened to Trotsky encouraged caution on the part of Soviet leaders: if you guess wrong, you can die
Many backed Stalin against Trotsky, however, and even colluded in the latter's death, because they were entranced by Stalin's vision of making Russia a first class industrial power

Stalinism

Stalin differed from Lenin in many respects

He had spent almost no time abroad, unlike Lenin, and perhaps because of that he abandoned the emphasis on world revolution that had concerned Lenin in favor of building up the power of the Soviet Union
Purges

He ruthlessly consolidated his personal power in a series of purges, between 1935-38, when he killed around 6 million people

Of the Central Committee of 1934, 70% were shot, and of those attending the party Congress in 1934, only 3% were left alive in 1939
Most of Stalin's victims were Old Bolsheviks who knew how far he had strayed from Lenin's vision of an egalitarian communist society

The new people who replaced them had little knowledge of old Russia or the ideals of the original Bolsheviks, leading one historian to note that the history of Russia was written by its killers
The purges also resulted in a series of spectacular show trials, where denounced communists became the scapegoats when Stalin's economic policies went sour

In these purges, Stalin also decimated the officer corps on the eve of World War II; three-fifths of the marshals and three-fourths of the full generals were killed (35,000 officers total)
On the other hand, these purges and killings made way for many others to advance
They benefited from the programs and supported Stalin as a result

Five Year Plans

Stalin's economic program was made up of a series of Five Year Plans starting in 1928, which sought to industrialize Russia quickly
Stalin would create the industrial base Marx had said had to be there for the communist revolution to succeed, but Marx had argued it had to be there before the revolution and Stalin was creating it after

Many of the workers dragged into industry were unskilled or poorly trained, so while the industrial output increased, sometimes the products were of only mediocre quality

When Stalin failed to reach his targets, he executed the ones he claimed were responsible or covered up the failures
This could be done because of his iron grip on the news media

As a result, many in the west had no idea what was going on inside the USSR
Many foreigners thus hailed Russian advances, unaware of the mass starvation that dogged the country

For indeed, the Russian people suffered enormously as Russian food and raw materials were sent overseas to purchase the heavy equipment for industrialization

In 1932, for example, wages could buy only one-half of what they could in 1928
Most countries had financed their industrialization by borrowing money from abroad, butthis avenue was closed to Stalin because the Soviet Union had reneged on her World War I debts and no bank would lend her any more until the previous loans were paid up

Collective Agriculture

The most deadly of Stalin's programs was the collectivization of Soviet agriculture

It was done so that the state and not individual people would control the food supply and hence the loyalty of the people
It was also done to introduce new methods into backward Russian agriculture

Most historians argue that Russia could have raised production by relatively simple means, such as the use of the steel plow or better use of seed, but these avenues were never even tried

Collectivization caused great famine and many died

Stalin himself told Churchill during World War II that 10 million died when he collectivized agriculture, but the figure may be closer to 14 to 15 million, and this on top of the deaths from the purges
In 1932-1933, 3-4 million died in the Ukraine alone while the grain silos were full and the country was exporting grain

Collectivization was introduced in 1928 as the NEP was repealed, and by 1930, food production in Russia was similar to what it had been in the 14th century
Stalin had hoped to use agricultural products to pay for industrialization, but in fact Soviet agriculture became a black hole that sucked up money and failed to feed the population adequately ever again

Stalin succeeded in bringing the Soviet economy into the 20th century

the industrial base by 1938 was hailed as a miracle of production
but what was the cost in human suffering?

II. Post World War I Economic Collapse

Unlike the same period in the United States, for Europe the 1920s did not roar

It was instead a time of insecurity, a short-lived upswing and finally a collapse
The twenties did not provide for the steady growth of the prewar decade, and much of what prosperity there was was the result of an unproductive transfer of paper money from the United States to Germany and then to our former allies
Europe never regained her lost world trade

In the twenties, increasing numbers of people worked in the service industries, like sales and distribution, which were particularly prone to cutbacks
And Italy and Britain never shared the even the short-lived boom in any case

Most of these difficulties were caused to some degree by the war

It had cost $350 million that would have to be paid somehow

Europeans had decided to make Germany pay for the war through her reparations, but this proved impossible when the German currency collapsed

European trade had been in decline during the war because of the blockades and submarine attacks

This overseas market was lost to the Americans and Japanese
European internal trade had been disrupted too, and after the war, the break up of the Austrian-Hungarian empire produced a host of little countries, all of which imposed different taxes, tariffs and tolls, thus strangling internal European trade

The circulation of unbacked currency created inflation that wiped out middle class savings
The huge number of deaths the war caused robbed Europe both of producers and consumers
Moreover, workers did not want to give up the economic gains made during the war when labor was scarce

Reparations and inflation in Germany

France had all along intended to use German reparations to finance their own recovery
However, in 1921, when Germany tried to make a good faith payment on the $33 billion reparations she owed, she shattered her currency

The German mark which had traded at 4 to the dollar in 1914, now traded at 64 to the dollar
By November, 1923, it took 800 million marks to make one dollar
The middle class saw the value of their savings wiped out through inflation, and this, plus the defeat and trauma of the war, helped produce Nazism

Since the Weimar republic refused to pay any more, France invaded Germany's industrial Ruhr valley to get the money out by force in January, 1923

The United States and Britain did nothing to stop her, although they did protest weakly
France felt betrayed by her erstwhile allies, because the Americans had failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and Britain had refused a defensive treaty with France

France had thus determined to take care of herself, come what may
This invasion was clearly not provided for in the Treaty of Versailles, and German workers struck in passive resistance

To support the workers on strike, the German government began printing paper money, but this led to runaway inflation

Sometimes workers were paid twice a day so they could run to the stores to buy things before the prices went up
This raging inflation is what would convince other countries, especially the United States, not to unbalance their budgets when the Great Depression hit in the thirties

France got little economic benefit from her invasion, but the public was shocked at her strong-arm tactics in violation of the treaty
The Germans came to believe they were an outlaw nation for whom the laws of a civilized world did not apply

Ironically, the British had all along disagreed with the disastrous German reparations payments mandated by the treaty, but the government had been unable to do much because of public pressure for revenge
The United States finally led the way in reducing the reparations payments in the 1924 Dawes Plan, but the amount remained outlandish and the Germans began nursing a grudge

The world economy after World War I was decidedly unhealthy

European nations especially attempted to achieve economic self-sufficiency, whereby they would grow or manufacture everything they needed at home, even if it was more expensive, so as never to be dependent on foreign trade which submarines and blockades could disrupt
International trade was further hurt by high tariffs, especially those of the United States, which prevented European nations from trading with us and so earning the money to pay back the loans they had received during the war
American banks began lending Germany money privately to pay the reparations, money that Germany then paid to France and Britain, which they then used to buy goods in the United States

Everything went along very well until the stock market crash of 1929, after which American banks refused to lend any more and the house of sand was swept away

Throughout the 1920s farmers were in a period of depression

They were producing too much grain because of better farming methods, thus creating a glut on the world market that drove prices down
The situation was especially bad in Germany where small farmers were later among the most consistent supporters of the Nazis

The 1929 stock market crash in the United States caused a massive credit contraction worldwide, as investors lost 40% of their portfolios in one month

This was especially dangerous for American banks, many of which had invested in the market and so lost their collective shirts when the market collapsed
The resulting panic eventually became a depression throughout the world, creating massive strains on the European and American social and political fabric

Franklin Roosevelt solved America's problems within a democratic framework through the New Deal, but the rest of the world, and especially Europe, would not be so lucky

III. Totalitarian Governments (part 2) --The Rise of Mussolini and Hitler

Mussolinin and Italian Fascism

The second dictator was Mussolini
Fascism, unlike Lenin's communism, worked within the existing structure like the state bureaucracy, businesses and the army, and it almost always came to power legally

One reason for this was the host of problems plaguing post-World War I Italy

Italy felt cheated because she had not gotten what she had been promised in secret treaties written during the war but which Wilson ignored at Versailles
Thus, land Italy was to get from Austria never materialized
She came to feel that her war sacrifices had been in vain
The war also caused economic chaos, plunging the lira to one-third of its pre-war value

In the teeth of these problems, Italian governments came and went, seemingly unable to stop the downward slide

Moreover, Mussolini's fascists perpetrated violence in the civil sector; the black shirts beat up people they accused of being socialists, terrorizing the population
The Socialists were in fact the largest party in 1919 Italy, but Mussolini was supported by the industrialists and large landowners who feared the socialists would confiscate their property, especially after the Russian revolution of 1917
The raging factionalism among the socialists was shrewdly exploited by Mussolini

Mussolini gains power

Il Duce came to power after the October, 1922, March on Rome, when the king, Victor Emanuel III, invited Mussolini to form a government

Interestingly, the mere threat of violence was enough to persuade the king to capitulate
In the 1924 elections, the fascists won a massive victory, partly due to violence and fraud, but also because many were willing to give it a chance

Mussolini was underestimated because there were so many contradictions in his philosophy; most Italians were convinced he wouldn't last very long

Like Hitler, Mussolini was an ultra opportunist, but he came to power legally, as did Hitler, to be sure after months of terrorism
Mussolini was also successful because his opponents were weak, he was effective in his use of office, and he held great power over the masses

Mussolini immediately made peace with the Catholic church in the 1929 Lateran treaty

Catholicism became the state religion of Italy and the Vatican City was made independent
This treaty ended decades of squabbling between the Italian state and the papacy, and allowed devout Italians to support Il Duce without any religious qualms

It's hard to explain exactly what fascism meant, even today

Clearly it wanted to stop Bolshevism and make the world safe for the middle class and small businessmen

Mussolini however glorified war and was seduced by recreating the grandeur of the Roman empire
The state became the symbol of greatness, as Roman ruins were refitted and new imposing architecture built

There was nothing above the state, outside the state, or against the state, according to Il Duce
Like Hitler, Mussolini believed the natural place of women was as mothers, so he made abortion criminal, closed most jobs to women and encouraged large families for his imperialist dreams

There were some positive achievements during Mussolini's stay in power; slums were cleared, clinics established, and the Mafia was suppressed, but all this came at the price of plunging the wages of Italian workers to the lowest in Europe

Hitler and Nazi Germany

The last dictator to rise during the 1930s was Hitler
He benefited from the problems of the Weimar republic, established at the end of World War I
The Weimar Republic

The republic embraced most of the liberal ideas of the 19th century, like a bill of rights and universal suffrage, but it was associated with defeat and did not enjoy the confidence of many
Most Germans favored some sort of constitutional monarchy, especially school teachers, civil servants and judiciary figures

Officers in the smaller army were also suspicious of the Republic
Worse, a proportional system of representation encouraged factionalism
Governments could only rule through coalitions which were inherently unstable

Moreover, Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution allowed the president to enact decrees without the consent of parliament if disorders arose; Hitler would later use this provision to carry out his personal dictatorship of Germany without ever abolishing the Weimar Republic
At first, Germany suffered a series of economic difficulties, but between 1925 and 1929, she enjoyed a great deal of prosperity, becoming the second largest industrial power in the world

But this prosperity was based on the flimsy foundation of money lent from American banks, money which dried up following the stock market crash
Germany had had no real experience in democratic government, for while the kaiser had a parliament, he never listened to it.
Moreover, the army claimed German defeat in the war was due to pacifists and decadent democrats, many of whom they argued were Jews
The French invasion of the Ruhr had upset German nationalism and made her feel like an outlaw nation

Rise of Hitler and the Nazis

Hitler had tried rebellion in 1923, but his attempt was poorly led and he failed

He went to prison where he wrote Mein Kampf
When he emerged, Hitler formed the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazis for sort

The party called for the repudiation of the Versailles treaty, unification with Austria, exclusion of Jews from German citizenship, and state administration of giant cartels
Hitler always showed special concern for small enterprise, which was squeezed between big business and the proletariat
He also had enormous appeal to the young

In 1931, 40% of the Nazi party was under 30 years of age

Hitler's major support came from the lower middle class, the farmers and the young; big business did not finance the Nazis to any great degree

Economic difficulties after 1929 created fear in Germany which Hitler exploited
Unemployment stood at 6 million, more than the rest of Europe combined
43% of the German labor force was unemployed

The Nazis increased in size in the Reichstag until by 1932, there were 230 of them, the largest single party

Hitler in Power

After a series of complex maneuverings, Hitler became Chancellor in January, 1933

Note he came to power legally when he was asked to form a government
This is important, because it meant that those who wanted to support him anyway, the civil servants, courts , armed services and government agencies, could do so in good conscience because he was the state they had sworn to uphold

Hitler used the Reichstag fire in February to get an Enabling Act in March, 1933, which would allow him to rule by decree for four years

He had blamed the fire in the government building on the communists, convincing people the threat of revolution was quite real, but in fact we now know the Nazis had set it themselves so as to be able to blame the communists

Hitler never formally abolished the Weimar constitution

He never had to; he simply ruled through it
Hitler now moved quickly to consolidate his power

In the Night of the Long Knives, in June, 1934, he murdered his opponents in the Nazi party, including Karl Roehm, the head of the SA, who wanted his men put into the army with officer rank
Himmler was made the head of the SS

Hitler and the German economy

Hitler also moved to solve Germany's economic problems

He put people to work in armament factories and the army, and launched a public works program similar to the PWA of Roosevelt's New Deal
Unemployment went from 6 million in 1933 to only one million in 1936
Indeed, by the end of that year, there was actually a shortage of German workers

Hitler's success in ending the depression, a feat no other European leader could rival, made him extremely popular, and many who might otherwise have shied way from his racist rhetoric nonetheless supported him out of loyalty
Hitler's economic success, however, was not without a price

The 1938 budget was seven times higher than it had been before the Nazis came to power
74% of this budget was going to the military

Hitler and ethnic cleansing

Hitler's antisemitism was a product of 19th century racial theories, rather than a result of Christian antagonism to the Jews
In 1935, the Nuremburg laws robbed Jews of German citizenship and closed the professions to them
Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) in November, 1938, saw the windows of Jewish stores smashed and the forced labelling of Jews
The deportation of Jews began only in 1941, when the six killing camps were started, all of them in Poland
Before that, many Jews had emigrated

some 37,000 in 1933 alone
By 1938, 1.3 million German Jews had emigrated, most to neighboring countries, meaning that by the start of the war, there were only 200,000 Jews left in Germany

Jews were not the only targets of Hitler and the Nazis--they also targeted

Gypsies (Romneys)
Jehovah's Witnesses
People of color and mixed race
Slavs
Gays and Lesbians

IV. Toward World War II

Aggressive moves

In March, 1935, Hitler renounced the disarmament provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, reinstated conscription and began building up the German air force
In October, Italy attacked Ethiopia

The League proved ineffectual in this conflict
The British Mediterranean fleet could have stopped the operation by preventing Italian soldiers from using the Suez canal, but both Britain and France were afraid to alienate Mussolini
both countries still believed their primary duty was to end the depression at home

In March, 1936, while the Ethiopian campaign was still underway, Germany took advantage of the confusion to march into the Rhineland by force, eliminating the demilitarized zone provided for in the Treaty of Versailles

This removed one of the most important elements of French security and also gave Hitler a defensible frontier on the West, giving him a free hand to concentrate on Eastern Europe

The Axis Powers

Italy and Germany, now both outcasts, moved to support one another in the Rome/Berlin Axis
Japan associated herself with this Axis in 1937

Spanish Civil War

The Axis showed its strength in the Spanish Civil War that began in July, 1936, following elections in February which had brought a left wing Popular Front government to power in Spain

When this communist dominated government went forward with land reform, it alienated the Catholic Church and large landowners who found Franco to lead a move to overthrow it

The Spanish Civil War was a precursor to World War II, in that it caused widespread destruction of civilian life
The Battle of Guernica in 1937, was an example

The town was firebombed and then machine-gunned, killing or wounding 2700

The only country to consistently support the Republic was the Soviet Union, but not nearly as much as Hitler and Mussolini

together they supported Franco with troops, war matériel, and funds
In 1938, Stalin cut his losses and withdrew his support, giving Franco the victory in 1939

Meanwhile, Hitler began carrying out his plans to create the greater Germany he envisaged

He had long maintained that his virile Aryan nation needed growing room or lebensraum, which would be taken from the slavs fit only for servitude

This new Germany would be purified of Jews and other "undesirables"

In March, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria by force

Called the Anschluss, this operation carried out one of the planks of the Nazi platform

Hitler next turned on Czechoslovakia, which contained three and a quarter million Germans in its Sudetenland area to the north and west

These Germans resented their minority status and had voted to return to Germany
When the Czech government refused to dismember itself, Hitler moved his army to the border
At the Munich conference in September, 1938, Hitler demanded the annexation of the Sudetenland, and Britain and France agreed

Once again, a key to Czech security was gone, but Hitler pledged this was all he wanted, and the other powers accepted his assurances
Some people believe Hitler could have been stopped at this juncture; many German officers disagreed with Hitler and might, it is argued, have overthrown him if the democracies had had the stomach for a fight

Certainly a war begun now would not have been fought with the neutrality of the Soviet Union or with the resources of Eastern Europe which came to Germany through appeasement
In any case, in March, 1939, Hitler violated the promises made at Munich six months before, and absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia by force

Realizing the danger, Britain and France responded with a peacetime draft