AP EH CH. 27---THE DEEPENING OF THE EUROPEAN CRISIS: WW II

I. PRELUDE TO WAR (1933-1939) ---the efforts at collective security in the 1920s---the League of Nations, the attempts at disarmament, the pacts and the treaties---all proved meaningless in view of the growth of Nazi Germany and its deliberate scrapping of the postwar settlement in the 1930s ---World War II was largely made possible by the failure of Britain and France to oppose strongly flagrant German violations of the Treaty of Versailles A. The Role of Hitler 1. WW II in Europe had its beginnings in the ideas of Adolf Hitler, who believed that only Aryans were capable of building a great civilization 2. Hitler was a firm believer in the doctrine of Lebensraum which stated that a nation’s power depended on the amount and kind of land it occupied 3. Hitler thought that the Russian Revolution created conditions for Germany’s acquisition of land to its “racially inferior Slavic” east (Mein Kampf spelled out Hitler’s desire to expand eastward and to prepare for the inevitable war with the “Bolshevik Jew-led” Soviet Union) 4. Hitler always returned to his basic ideological plans for racial supremacy and empire as keys to the blueprint for achieving his goals 5. Hitler’s desire to create an Aryan empire led to slave labor and even mass extermination on a scale that would have been incomprehensible to previous generations of Germans (or anybody else outside of Uncle Joe’s reach) B. The “Diplomatic Revolution” (1933-1936) 1. between 1933 and 1936, Hitler and Nazi Germany achieved a diplomatic revolution in Europe 2. For Hitler, it was most important that Germany build a large army and seek to expand its territory a. Obstacles to Hitler 1. Treaty of Versailles created a demilitarized zone on