James Jordan
Response H
The decade leading up to the second World War saw the rise of a new political ideology: fascism. In the aftermath of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles had forced Germany into accepting the blame for the conflict and left the nation responsible for paying reparations. Furthermore Germany was subject to humiliating limitations on their economy and military. These two conditions are primary reasons for the escalation of war in 1939.
Fascism, as defined by Mussolini, is a state centered political ideology that celebrates war and rejects any notion of world peace or pacifism. Under such regimes, personal freedoms are sacrificed as members of the state are expected to live solely to benefit the state itself.[1] To what degree is fascism responsible for the second World War? Considering that fascism by nature perpetuates conflict, it is a great deal responsible for the war. The Axis powers, those whom history has come to a consensus as the aggressors, resorted to revolutionary autocratic systems of government likely to try and create some form of economic stability in their nations. Fascism used nationalism and racism to attempt to create unified homogeneous societies and it was successful, particularly in Nazi Germany with the use of pseudoscience and propaganda.
In Germany, it was Hitler who would seize power and institute a fascist government, the Nazi party. Different opinions exist on the way in which Hitler carried out orders under his rule. Some would say he was a plotter, that he schemed a multiple step plan for world domination. Others would say he was merely an opportunist, that when he saw a moment to strike where he'd go unpunished that he would simply take it. In the reading, Bullock argues that Hitler was in fact both a fanatical schemer and a sly opportunist.[2] Either way Hitler's aggression in Czechoslovakia and Poland,