...Front. His experiences in the fighting affected his thinking about war thereafter. After World War I, Hitler came to control the National Socialist German Workers Party, which he hoped to lead to power in Germany. When a coup attempt in 1923 failed, he turned, after release from jail, to the buildup of the party to seize power by means that were at least outwardly legal. He hoped to carry out a program calling for the restructuring of Germany on a racist basis so that it could win a series of wars to expand the German people's living space until they dominated and exclusively inhabited the globe. He believed that Germany should fight wars for vast tracts of land to enable its people to settle on them, raising large families that would replace casualties and provide soldiers for the next war of expansion. The first would be a small and easy war against Czechoslovakia, to be followed by the really difficult one against France and Britain. A third war would follow against the Soviet Union, which he assumed would be simple and quick and would provide raw materials, especially oil, for the fourth war against the United States. That war would be simple once Germany had the long-range planes and superbattleships to fight a power thought inherently weak but far distant and possessing a large navy. Once Hitler had come to power in 1933, German military preparations were made for these wars. The emphasis in the short term was on weapons for the war against the western powers, and for the...
Words: 1570 - Pages: 7
...have many colonies (Germany, Italy) ii) Rivalries as nations competed for colonies iii) Sometimes armed conflict in colonial lands for control over resources b) Nationalism i) Pride in one’s nation, want one’s nation to be the best and most powerful ii) Fostered conflict as nations competed to be the best iii) Justified imperialism, militarism iv) Caused disruptions in multi-ethnic nations (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire); rebellions, revolts against foreign rule c) Militarism i) Build up of a country’s military; keeping a large standing army ii) Nations expanded their militaries as a show of power iii) Arms race: each nation needed to have a standing army because their neighbors had standing armies d) Alliances i) Bismarck: German chancellor behind alliance system in Europe ii) Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy allied; France, Great Britain, Russia allied 2) Events a) Assassination of Archduke Frantz Ferdinand: Serbian terrorists kill the Austrian duke and his wife as they honeymooned in Sarajevo i) Austria demands Serbian submission ii) Russia offers to back Serbians in defying Austrians iii) Austria and Germany declare war on Serbia and Russia (along with Russia’s allies) b) Schlieffen Plan i) Germany knows Russia will take longer to mobilize, so plans to attack France first and then loop back through Germany to meet Russian troops ii) Germany begins invasion by first cutting through Netherlands and Belgium iii) Great Britain outraged at Germany’s attack...
Words: 3465 - Pages: 14
...In the Soviet Union, Stalin used a lot of propaganda to get his point across to his people. In source one it is an example of one of the famous pieces of propaganda quoting “to fly higher than all, farther than fall, faster than all.” In this quote he refers to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The two superpowers had a competition at all times, especially when it came to communist and democracy belief. Stalin believed using these poster he could be recruiting people for military. However due to the Soviet Union being a military based government, he played a role in securing his people and making sure that they had strong enough military means to fight. The Soviet Union believed that they were dominant to and everyone...
Words: 860 - Pages: 4
...Forest in a small wooded area near Gneizdovo village, a short distance from Smolensk, Russia. The grave contained thousands of Polish corpses, and the deaths were at the hands of the Soviets. In August of 1939, German forces formed a nonaggression pact known as the German-Soviet Pact with the Soviet Union. This pact stated that Poland would be split between Germany and the Soviet Union. By doing so, Germany could invade Poland without the fear of the Soviet army intervening. On September 1, Germany began their attack on Poland. They defeated Poland troops within a matter of weeks. Once they had defeated the front line, they took their invasion farther into Poland. They broke through more Polish defenses and started their attack on Warsaw. Warsaw surrendered on September 27, 1939. During their invasion, France and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 in an effort to protect Poland. Despite their pact, the Soviet Union then invaded eastern Poland on September 27, 1939, the same day Warsaw surrendered to the Germans. “The demarcation line for the partition of German- and Soviet-occupied Poland was along the Bug River.” That line was crossed, but the Germans remained in control of the cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Radom, and Lublin. Once they had occupied much of Poland, Soviet Union troops began setting up camps and taking Polish prisoners of war. These prisoners included policemen, army officials, and many professors, doctors, lawyers, and writers. A group known...
Words: 1188 - Pages: 5
...was another gifted military commander who was able to take Germany from a small nation in poverty to a world power that rivaled the United States and the Soviet Union. A blemish on both Napoleon and Hitler’s military resumes is that both of them failed to conquer Russia as their invasions failed. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was similar yet different to Hitler’s invasion of Russia. Napoleon invasion of Russia was similar to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union for many reasons. One reason that the invasion was similar was that both Napoleon and Hitler failed in their attempts. When Napoleon invaded Russia he had brought as many as 650,000 soldiers to overwhelm the Russians. However, during the invasion “The French Army barely existed as a fighting force. Napoleon watched as his army slowly died… What remained of his defeated army straggled towards safety.” Hitler also suffered a defeat when he attempted to invade the Soviet Union during World War 2. “The tremendous strain of that winter campaign, on armies which had not been prepared for it, had other serious effects. Before the winter ended, many German divisions were reduced to barely a third of their original strength, and they were never fully built up again.” This clearly shows that Hitler’s German army was defeated and decimated as well be the Soviets. Another similarity between the two invasions is that the deciding factor was the bitter Russian winter. When Napoleon invaded Russia the Russian winter...
Words: 834 - Pages: 4
...The Cold War Overview * Arms Race * Communism * Glossary and Terms * Space RaceMajor Events * Berlin Airlift * Suez Crisis * Red Scare * Berlin Wall * Bay of Pigs * Cuban Missile Crisis * Collapse of the Soviet UnionWars * Korean War * Vietnam War * Chinese Civil War * Yom Kippur War * Soviet Afghanistan War | People of the Cold War Western Leaders * Harry Truman (US) * Dwight Eisenhower (US) * John F. Kennedy (US) * Lyndon B. Johnson (US) * Richard Nixon (US) * Ronald Reagan (US) * Margaret Thatcher (UK)Communist Leaders * Joseph Stalin (USSR) * Leonid Brezhnev (USSR) * Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR) * Mao Zedong (China) * Fidel Castro (Cuba) | http://www.ducksters.com/history/cold_war/summary.php The Cold War Communism Communism is a type of government and philosophy. Its goal is to form a society where everything is shared equally. All people are treated equally and there is little private ownership. In a communist government, the government owns and controls most everything including property, means of production, education, transportation, and agriculture. History of Communism Karl Marx is considered the Father of Communism. Marx was a German philosopher and economist who wrote about his ideas in a book called the Communist Manifesto in 1848. His communist theories have also become known as Marxism. Marx described ten important aspects of a communist government: * No private property * A single central bank...
Words: 5022 - Pages: 21
...seizing majority of Europe, President Roosevelt agreed to support Britain in the war in order to promote the “Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom for want, and freedom for fear” (Schultz, 2012). With the booming of Pearl Harbor on December 7, President Roosevelt requested that Congress declare war. The beginning of World War II took place right after war was declared by the Congress and with Hitler also declaring war on the United States. The Military Experience At the Casablanca Conference held in Casablanca, Morocco in January 1943; the decision was made to invade Italy. The Allies had their first war conference to discuss the invasion. This launched the Italian Campaign which placed Allied soldiers on the mainland in Europe. The Italian Campaign consisted of five objectives: to “capitalize on the collapse of Italian resistance, make immediate use of ready Allied strength, engage German forces that might otherwise be used in Russia and northern France, secure airfields from which to intensify the bombing of Germany and the Balkans, and gain complete control of the...
Words: 1363 - Pages: 6
...J. Michael Kays The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were fairly similar, not just in the types of governments the two nations had, but the two individual dictators as well. Though their ideals were completely different, Hitler and Stalin had their countries and its people in their iron fists. Tensions rose in the summer of 1939, Hitler wanted to reclaim Poland for Germany but knew the British and French would protect Polish independence and that the Stalin would feel uneasy about this aggressive German state next to Soviet borders. Though Stalin's forces were weak from his military purges of commanders, Hitler didn't want to fight this war on two fronts such as what happened in World War I. As tensions kept rising all the major powers were fishing for potential allies, Hitler was cautious in his actions and hinted to Stalin that the two of them could divide Poland which caught Stalin's attention (1. German-Soviet). Before the start of World War II in September of 1939 Hitler sent a foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Moscow on the 22nd of August (1. German-Soviet). In the Kremlin Ribbentrop spoke with Stalin and his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, where they discussed the proposal of a non-aggression pact. Hitler at first stated the pact would last 100 years though Stalin thought ten would suffice, the agreement also stated that "neither country would aid any third party that attacked either signatory" (1. German-Soviet). It was reported sometime later...
Words: 2493 - Pages: 10
...Name Class Date Professor A History of World War 2 World War 2 was a very interest time period, and there were a lot of different factors that helped to contribute to the war. Many different nations got involved in this war, with each of them choosing a different side, this led to many rivalries. It also caused hard feelings between many nations, because before the war they may have had a close friendship between the countries, but after the war started that friendship ceased to exist because of the strain of war. There were many important details in World War 2, that helped to create what it became, and I’m going to discuss some of those details. Within World War 2, many different things occurred, such as concentration camps, and those issues are very important to many today, even though this event happened so many years ago. That is why I’m going to discuss the historical key points during World War 2, and explain why they were important. The beginning of World War 2 did not happen immediately as some might think, but it took time to develop. It all began when Hitler withdrew himself from the League of Nations in the year 1933, he did not believe the League would come after him because of their previous actions with Japan. That is why he left them and began to arm his country heavily with weapons and other things; in the meanwhile he was forming deals with many different nations for various things. The power of the League took another hit when Mussolini was able to...
Words: 2730 - Pages: 11
...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...
Words: 5075 - Pages: 21
...The Truman Doctrine focused on the containment of communism by providing assistance to countries resisting communism in Europe while the Eisenhower Doctrine was focused upon providing both military and economic assistance to nations resisting communism in the Middle East and by increasing the flow of trade from the United States into Latin America. The Kennedy Doctrine was based on these same objectives but was more concerned with the spread of communism and Soviet influence in Latin America following the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power under Eisenhower during the 1950s. Some of the most notable events that stemmed from tenets of JFK’s foreign policy initiatives in regard to Latin America and the spread of communism were: The Bay of Pigs Invasion, April 17, 1961, Increase of U.S. involvement in Vietnam War, 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis, October, 1962, and Ratification of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, July, 1963. The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US...
Words: 2302 - Pages: 10
...countries and the Soviet Union from encroaching on free nations and Shore up support among western nations for those countries fighting Communist expansion, was an important step into defeating communism. However, two major failures occurred when we lost China to communism and when the Soviet Union acquired a Nuclear Bomb. The successful communist revolution in China created fear over the increasing communist threat. Led to purges in the state department of officials who “failed” to predict the fall of the KMT or were suspected of Communist sympathies. “But Beijing was certain to want much in return, Truman insisted, and making concessions to the Chinese would only make them increasingly aggressive”(Maximalist P.60). In the fall of...
Words: 1406 - Pages: 6
...countries are unfortunate to have the good leader become weak and powerless. Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin are two of the greatest leader of China and Soviet Union all over the world. A great leader can influence a country for a long period of time and the impact can ever last for generations, for instance Mao’s impact on China which lasts for years until now. As the leader of the World Communist Party and the leader of Communist Party in China, Stalin and Mao share very similar thought and concept about the path of developing and Communist revolution, however, there is more divergence between them. Some scholars believe that they are both partners and competitors and this can be proved through many evidences. Although Mao and Stalin were two legend leaders of the Communist Party, it could not be denied that there are merits and demerits through their entire life. In the beginning, Mao was not as infusive as Stalin in the world in many aspects and he made important and strategic decisions with listening to the Stalin’s advices. There are few records or letters recording the communications between Mao and Stalin, however the left ones show that they once had very close and frequent communication with each other. Some scholars also believe that Stalin and Mao were not so satisfied with each other and Mao sometimes disagreed with Stalin’s decisions very much but forced to accept because of some certain realistic factors for example the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation after that...
Words: 2423 - Pages: 10
...including the roots of anti-Semitism and intolerance of those considered inferior in Germany also an explanation of The Final Solution. My paper talks about the aftermath of World War II in Germany. After World War I, the German government was facing thousands of difficult problems as society search for someone to blame for the defeat in the First World War. Extremists from all sides sent threats to revolts. The extreme inflation causes thousands of Germans to have faith in the German government. Hitler gains control of the Nazi party in the 1920s and organization, which is anti-Semitic. Hitler gains popular political credibility by placing the responsibility on the Jews for Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Hitler also blames Jews for Germany’s economic problems. What is less understood are the political conditions associated with the rise of Hitler and fascism? Hitler informs the Germans that they belong to a superior race, which is meant to rule the world, better known as the Aryan race. Hitler had already started his political career in 1919, and had been influenced by this kind of Pan-German thinking. The great Depression causes the unemployment rate to rise; thousands of desperate people began to trust Adolf Hitler and the German government again....
Words: 3132 - Pages: 13
...World War II Research Report The Soviet Union Danny Buck History 114 Dr. Murphy November 24, 2014 World War II Research Report The Soviet Union Totalitarianism came about in Russia during the time of Stalin. Before doing research I had thought that it would have started with Lenin, but it did not. “Why did Russia, in its enlarged incarnation as the Soviet Union under Stalin, become one of the three most repressive and brutal totalitarian states of the 20th century (the other two being Nazi Germany and China under Mao)? The urge to modernize rapidly is often put forward to explain the character of the Soviet Union. But what equally needs to be explained is the very backwardness that created such an urge. And the Russian intelligentsia had long been preoccupied both with modernization and resistance to it.” (Hollander, 2006). It was a brutal way of life where the people existed to serve the state. The Rise of Totalitarianism In the late 1910’s the czar was over thrown and he and his family were murdered. Lenin came to power and communism took over the country, but it was not totally repressive until Stalin came into power. Stalin’s goal was to modernize the Soviet Union. He wanted to industrialize the Soviet Union and increase the production of products. He thought that if he could make the Soviet Union a manufacturing giant that it could be a super power. He also wanted to maintain complete and absolute control and to not allow any interference from anyone...
Words: 3575 - Pages: 15
