The twentieth-century world, Year 10: Hitler's aims, the Rhineland and the Anschluss (Inter-war years option)

Lebensraum

提示He set it out in 'Mein Kampf' in the 1920s.

为什么The word means 'living space'. His other stated aims were to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and to unite all German speakers in one country.

Mussolini moved Italian troops to the Austrian border

提示At this point Italy saw Germany as a rival, not a friend.

为什么Hitler backed down and denied any part in the murder. Four years later, with Mussolini on his side, he would try again and succeed.

About 90 per cent voted to return to Germany

提示The region had been run by the League of Nations for fifteen years.

为什么The vote was held under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and was entirely legal. Nazi propaganda presented it as a triumph for Hitler.

Conscription

提示The army was to grow far beyond 100,000 men.

为什么He announced that the army would grow to more than 500,000 men, and revealed that Germany already had an air force. Rearmament had been going on in secret since 1933.

Britain, France and Italy

提示They met in a town on Lake Maggiore.

为什么They condemned German rearmament and promised to stand together, but agreed on no action. The front fell apart within months, over the naval agreement and then Abyssinia.

Build a navy up to 35 per cent of the size of Britain's

提示It was signed in London without consulting France or Italy.

为什么Britain hoped to limit German naval growth by agreement. In doing so it accepted that Germany could break the naval terms of the Treaty of Versailles, two months after condemning German rearmament at Stresa.

March 1936

提示While Britain and France were distracted by the Abyssinian crisis.

为什么France would not act without Britain, and many people in Britain felt that Germany was only moving troops within its own country.

The Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno treaties

提示One was imposed on Germany in 1919; the other Germany had signed freely in 1925.

为什么It was a gamble: the German army was still much smaller and weaker than the French. Britain and France condemned the move, but neither acted. Hitler concluded that they would not fight.

The Rome-Berlin Axis

提示He pictured a line between the two capitals around which Europe would turn.

为什么The two dictators had been pushed together by the Abyssinian crisis and by fighting on the same side in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939 the link became a full military alliance, the Pact of Steel.

The Anti-Comintern Pact

提示Aimed, in effect, at the Soviet Union.

为什么It was named for its opposition to the Communist International, the Soviet-led body known as the Comintern. It linked the three powers that had each defied the League of Nations: in Manchuria, in Abyssinia and in the Rhineland.

Anschluss

提示The Treaty of Versailles had forbidden it.

为什么German troops crossed the border on 12 March without a shot being fired. A vote held by the Nazis a month later, with no free campaign, reported over 99 per cent in favour. Britain and France protested and did nothing.

Kurt Schuschnigg

提示He was replaced by the Austrian Nazi Seyss-Inquart.

为什么Hitler feared that Austrians would vote to stay independent. He threatened invasion, and Schuschnigg gave way to avoid bloodshed. The new Nazi chancellor then invited German troops in.