Transcript The Age of Anxiety

 Postwar Italy
 Italians frustrated over rejection of territorial
claims by Versailles Peace Conference.
 Serious economic and social problems.
 Huge national debt, runaway inflation, mass
unemployment.
 Fear of a social revolution.
 2 parliamentary elections and 4 premiers in 3
years.
 Benito Mussolini (1883-
1945)
 Socialist journalist--editor of
Avanti.
 Expelled from the socialist
party for advocating Italian
entry into WWI.
 Founded Il Popolo d’Italia,
official newspaper of the
Fascist movement.
 Enlisted in the army in 1915,
seriously wounded while
serving at the front.
 The Fascist Movement in Italy
 Mussolini: power over principle.
 Fascism: extreme nationalism, extreme militarism,
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anti-Marxist, anti-liberal democracy.
Vague promises of economic and social reform.
Emphasis on the leader cult.
Mussolini: Il Duce (the leader).
The Black Shirts (fascist party militia).
The March on Rome, 10/28/22.
10/30/22: Mussolini appointed premier of Italy.
 The Fascist Movement in Italy
 Press censorship.
 Local government officials replaced by podestas
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appointed by the central government.
Parliament granted Mussolini the right to rule by
decree.
Black Shirt militia incorporated into the regular army.
OVRA: the fascist secret police of Italy.
Italy became a 1-party state.
Fell short of true totalitarianism.
 Army, Church, wealthy upper classes avoided dominance.
 Germany, Hitler, and
Nazism
 Late 1920s: German
economic recovery.
 1925: Field Marshal Paul
von Hindenburg, WWI
hero, elected president
at 78.
 1930: world depression
struck Germany.
 1930 Reichstag election.
 Germany, Hitler, and
Nazism
 Emergence of Adolf
Hitler (1889-1945):
 Austrian
 Racial superiority of the
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Germanic peoples (Aryan
race).
Inferiority of Jews, Slavs,
and Blacks.
“Pan-Germanism”.
Hostile to Marxism.
Western Front in WWI.
 Development of the Nazi Party
 Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’
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Party (Nazi).
Fuhrer (absolute leader).
Party militia, the storm troopers, aka, the SA or Brown
Shirts.
Ernst Roehm, Rudolf Hess, and Hermann Goering.
The Beer Hall Putsch (Nov. 1923) and imprisonment.
Mein Kampf
Dr. Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler.
 Hitler’s Rise to Power
 March 1932: over 6 million Germans
unemployed.
 July 1932: Nazis earn 37% of vote and 230
Reichstag seats.
 Hitler schemed for chancellorship.
 Jan. 30, 1933: Hitler named chancellor by
Hindenburg.
 Creation of the Nazi
Dictatorship
 The Reichstag Fire.
 March 1933 elections.
 March 23, 1933: the
Enabling Act--dictatorial
authority for Hitler for 4
years.
 Consolidation of Nazi
power.
 Gestapo.
 Death of Hindenburg.
 Nazi Anti-Semitism
 Jews = about 1% of
German ‘33 population.
 The Nuremberg Laws of
1935.
 Definition of a Jew.
 Citizens?
 Kristallnacht
 1938, a German diplomat
in Paris.
 Nazi response--mob
violence.
 Yellow star of David.
 The Manchurian Crisis
 Sept. 1931: Japan
invaded Manchuria in
NE China.
 Failure of the League of
Nations in its first real
test.
 Opening round of
WWII.
 1937: Japan invaded
China.
 German Rearmament
 March 1935: Hitler reintroduced military
conscription and proclaimed the existence of a
German air force.
 Direct violations of Versailles Treaty.
 Remilitarization of the Rhineland
 March 1936: Hitler reposted troops in the
Rhineland.
 Direct violation of Versailles Treaty.
 Italian Aggression in
Ethiopia
 Oct. 1935: Italians
embark on war of
aggression vs Ethiopia.
 Emperor Haile Selassie
appealed to League of
Nations.
 Ineffective response by the
League caused its demise.
 May, 1936: Italians
completed the conquest of
Ethiopia.
 The Spanish Civil War
 Liberals and radicals
supported republic
established in 1931.
 Conservatives (landowners,
industrialists, army, Catholic
Church) opposed it.
 Nationalist Revolt: July, 1936,
Army rebels (Nationalists) led
by Gen. Francisco Franco
revolted against the
government.
 Franco’s win a victory for
fascism???
 The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis
 Italian & German support for Nationalist
cause in Spain drew the 2 closer.
 Oct. 1936, Germany and Italy formed the
Rome-Berlin Axis.
 Nov. 1936, Germany and Japan signed the AntiComintern Pact.
 Nov. 1937, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern
Pact, creating the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.
 Powerful bloc opposed to maintenance of international status
quo.
 The Czechoslovak Crisis
 Autonomy for Sudeten
Germans.
 Sept. 12, 1938, Hitler
threatened intervention.
 Chamberlain and the policy
of appeasement.
 Sept. 29, 1938: The Munich
Conference.
 GB & France: Sacrifice Czech.
Or risk war?
 Hitler’s destruction of
Czechoslovakia.
 Mussolini’s Conquest
of Albania
 Jealous of Hitler’s
gains.
 Apr. 7, 1939: invasion
of Albania.
 May, 1939: the Pact of
Steel.
 The Polish Crisis
 April, 1939: Hitler orders preparations for
attack on Poland.
 Hitler makes a series of impossible demands
on Poland.
 GB & France make a half-hearted try to form
an alliance with Soviet Union.
 Wanted Soviet assistance in case of war with
Germany and feared expansion of Soviet power and
Communism in Eastern Europe.
 Soviets suspicious of Western intentions.
 German-Soviet
Nonagression Pact
 Germans & Soviets talk as
Soviet - Western talks lag.
 Aug. 23, 1939: Hitler-Stalin
Nonagression Pact.
 Secret agreement: in event of
war between Germany and
Poland, Soviets would get
eastern Poland in return for
neutrality.
 Hitler relieved of the
potential for a 2 front war.
 Declarations of War
 Sept. 1, 1939: Germany
invaded Poland.
 Sept. 3, 1939: GB &
France fulfilled their
guarantees of Poland
and declared war on
Germany.
 WWII had officially
begun.