Interwar Instability
1918 to 1939
The Coming of War’s End

Soviet Union withdraws from war: Treaty of BrestLitovsk (March 1918)
§ Give up claims to Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine
§ Had to consolidate power in Civil War

USA enters war (April 1917)
§ President Wilson offers ideological justifications for
the war with his 14 Points
§ Huge influx of manpower for Allies on western front

Second Battle of the Marne (Spring-early Summer 1918)
breaks German spirit, but Ludendorff won’t declare
ceasefire
9 November Kaiser abdicates; 11 November Armistice is
declared

Paris Peace Conference (1919)
The “Big Four”
•David Lloyd George
of Britain
•Vittorio Orlando
of Italy
•Georges Clemenseau
of France
•Woodrow Wilson
of the United States
•Public optimism based on Wilson’s 14 Points, among them: selfdetermination of nationalities; open diplomacy; general disarmament;
and a League of Nations
•Importance of “The National Question” & its complications
•Specter of Communism: Soviet Union & Hungary (Bela Kun)
Interwar Instability
Outline
Paris Peace Conference
Realities of the Peace
Lingering Uncertainties
Weimar Germany & the Rise
of Nazism
Terms
“Little Entente”
Treaty of Rapallo
Weimar Republic
Hyperinflation
The Dawes Plan
Gustav Stresemann
The Locarno Pact
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Adolf Hitler
Emergency Decree
Enabling Act
Ernst Roehm
Sturmabteilung (SA)
Heinrich Himmler
Schützstafel (SS)
Josef Goebbels
Realities of the Paris Peace Conference

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Decisions usually made by Big Four & their “experts”
lead to resentment among the losers
Conflicting concerns of the victors
§ France need security, England needs reparations, USA needs
influence

Features of the Peace Treaties (June 1919)
§ Harsh treatment of Germany: demilitarized;
occupied; huge reparations; war guilt (Clause 231)
§ League of Nations set up (1920) with key states
missing & without sharp teeth
§ Map of Europe redrawn, creating new countries at
Austria’s & Russia’s expense
Europe, post-1919
Realities of the Congress of Versailles
Features of the Peace Treaties (June 1919)
Map of Europe redrawn at Austria’s & Russia’s expense
Harsh treatment of Germany: demilitarized; occupied;
huge reparations; war guilt (Clause 231)
League of Nations set up (1920) with key states missing
& without sharp teeth
Was this a “peace without victors”?
In its original sense, no.
Still, not even the “victors” found “peace” in the
settlement.
Civil War in the Soviet Union
•“White” Russians &
western allies try to
stop Bolsheviks from
consolidating power.
•Soviets try to extend
control by getting
regional allies
•By 1921, Soviets
withstand threat
and begin
establishing their
state.
Unmet National Recognition: Ireland 1916-21
Easter Rising: Destruction in Dublin
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Home Rule movement, 1870s-1914: hopes raised and dashed
The Irish Republican Brotherhood: underground alternative
1916 Easter Rising results in growing sympathy for republicans
Irish question ignored at Versailles
Guerrilla war, 1919-21, leads Lloyd George’s government to set up two
“Home Rule” governments
Lingering Discontents in Interwar Europe

Civil war in the Soviet Union
§ “White” Russians &
western allies try to stop
Bolsheviks from
consolidating power.
Communist government
uses Red Army (Trotsky) to
fight enemies.
§ By 1921, Soviets withstand
threat and begin
establishing their state. Use
of terror as an instrument
of political and social
control. Purges and camps.
§ Central economy
implemented: Five Year
Plans.
Demands for national recognition unmet
§ Colonial possessions: Middle East; Africa; South Asia
§ Ethnic demands within Europe
 Economic uncertainties
§ Pre-war conditions changed
§ workers’ concerns up
§ Periods of severe downturns: 1919-20; 1926; 1929-34
 Search for international stability
§ The “Little Entente” between Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, & Romania (1920)
§ Franco-Polish alliance to “contain” Germany (1921)

The “Little Entente”
France & new states seek
allies
 “Little Entente” to keep an
eye on Hungary and
possibly Germany (1920)
 France makes separate
alliance with Poland (1921)
 Growing suspicion among
Germans and Soviets, who
make their own agreement
at Rapallo (1922)

“The Little Entente”
Mussolini and the Blackshirts
Fascism
in Italy

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Fasci di Combattimento or The Fascists (“Bands of Combat”)
§ Tended to be veterans who opposed Versailles settlement
§ Organized into armed bands; wore distinctive black shirts
§ Tended to be anti-union, violently breaking up meetings
Led by Benito Mussolini: opportunist, self-promoter, nationalist
Gained support as centrist parties unable to halt economic downturn:
1919-21
The March on Rome, October 1922
Mussolini & 50,000
supporters march on Rome:
King Victor Emmanuel III
didn’t stop them & then
asks Mussolini to serve as
Prime Minister
Most thought he’d fail
Nov. 1922: King grants
him dictatorial power for a
year
Fascists secure control
through intimidation, laws,
propaganda, military
efforts, economic
corporatism & emphasis
on dynamism.
Factors for Mussolini’s Rise to Power

Feelings of betrayal after the 1919 peace settlement.
Italians felt they had been deprived of territory they
had been promised to them by the other Allies.

Italian government experiencing parliamentary chaos
and had no clear political program.

Fascism seemed to promise a way out of these
economic and political troubles Italy was facing in the
post-World War I era.

Played on middle and upper classes' fears about
inflation and concerns about their property rights.
Components of Fascism

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The State is paramount
§ “Fascism is for liberty… the liberty of the State and
of the individual within the State.”
§ “The keystone of Fascist doctrine is the conception
of the State, or its essence, of its tasks, of its ends.
For Fascism the State is an absolute before which
individuals and groups are relative.”
§ “The Fascist State has a consciousness of its own, a
will of its own, on this account is called and ethical
state.”
Corporatism
Nationalism
War as the natural state of society
Promotes foreign expansion: Ethiopia, Albania
Fascist Control Secured Through 5 Efforts
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The Lateran Accord, 1929:
Indemnity to Pope;
recognized authority of pope
in Rome; recognized
Catholicism as state religion
War as “natural” condition:
colonial campaigns in Lybiya
and Ethiopia
Organized Economy to
achieve self-sufficiency and
to promote the state:
Corporatism – vertical
orientation with state,
owners & workers together
Propaganda of DYNAMISM
Pius XI with Mussolini, 1932
Mussolini a Symbol of Italian Dynamism
Growing Relationship between Italy and Germany
Hitler in Rome, 8 May 1938
The Soviet Union: From Lenin to Stalin
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Limits to control, even after Civil War
§ 600,000 Bolsheviks out of 160 million population
§ Use of army & secret police (the Cheka, later NKVD,
much later KGB)
New Economic Policy (1921)
§ Allowed for some private ownership in small shops
§ Kulaks: peasants farming for profit
§ Results: more stable food supply & industrial capacity
back to pre-war level by 1927
Lenin dies (1924), sets up leadership struggle
§ Trotsky vs. Stalin
Stalin vs. Trotsky
Trotsky: middle-class, favored
rapid industrialization &
internationalizing revolution
 Stalin: peasant, “national”
revolution, continue NEP
 Stalin used position as General
Secretary to get support
 1927: Trotsky removed from
offices & exiled
 1929: Trotsky kicked out of
USSR; killed in 1940

Stalin’s Regime: Totalitarian Communism

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Economic Shift: from NEP to rapid industrialization
§ Gosplan and 5-year plans
§ Huge Growth: 400% (1928-1940)
§ Conditions horrible
Kulaks Eliminated in favor of Collective Farms
§ 400,000 families “removed”
§ Collectives = 1,000 acres; equipment from state; controlled food
supply; poor living conditions
§ Results:
 Ownership shift to State: 2% (1928) to 90% (1938)
 Production up 40%, but food shortages remained
Purges: control through terror, “kangaroo courts”
§ Millions exiled, executed
§ New men attached to Stalin come to power
Interwar Instabilities (cont.)
Outline
IV. Weimar Germany &
the Rise of Nazism
V. The Nazi Vision
VI. The Final Solution
VII. Fascism in Italy
Terms
Mein Kampf
Lebensraum
Nuremberg Laws
Kristallnacht
Einsatzgruppen
Wannsee Conference
The Fascists
Mussolini
March on Rome
The Lateran Accord
Corporatism
Seeking Stability in Weimar Germany
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Weimar’s built-in instability
§ Constitution: President and
Reichstag with Proportional
Representation & Article 48
§ Attempted revolutions from Left
and Right
Anger at Versailles Treaty Clauses:
reparations bill and guilt
French under Poincare invade the
Ruhr Valley, 1923-25
§ Germans hold general strike
§ Hyperinflation
Stability comes via the Dawes Plan,
Gustav Stresemann, the Locarno Pact
(1925), & Kellogg-Briand Pact (1929)
The Mask Falls
The Demise of Weimar
“Cabaret to Beauty” by Otto Dix (1922)
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Berlin a culturally decadent,
vibrant, lonely city
American money and culture
flowing in until 1929
Impact of Great Depression
§ Party coalitions unable to deal
with crisis
§ Unemployment grows from
2.25m (1930) to 6m (1932)
President, Field Marshall Paul
von Hindenburg started to rule
by decree and to rely on a small
circle of advisors
In early 1933, Hindenburg calls
on Adolf Hitler to become new
Chancellor
The Nazis & Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

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National Socialist German Workers’ Party (f. 1919): sought repudiation
of Versailles; unification of Austria and Germany; exclusion of Jews
from German citizenship; land reforms and encouragement of small
businesses
§ Party had paramilitary component: the S.A. under Ernst Roehm
§ Beerhall Putsch (1923)
Hitler had joined in 1920 & rose to leadership
What was the Nazi Vision?

Restructure Europe to benefit the racial hierarchy
§ Mein Kampf places Aryans at top: “He furnishes the
gigantic building-stones and also the plans for all
human progress.”
§ Unite “ethnic” Germans (Volksdeutsch) in a “Greater
Germany”
§ Lebensraum or “Living Space”: Must move eastward
and push out those already living there.
What was the Nazi Vision?

Restructure Europe to benefit the RACIAL HIERARCHY
§ Mein Kampf places Aryans at top: “He furnishes the gigantic
building-stones and also the plans for all human progress.”
§ Unite “ethnic” Germans in a “Greater Germany”
§ Lebensraum or “Living Space”
Jewish Girl Photographed at the Institute
for Racial Research (1936)
Nazi Identification Table:
“German Race Heads”
What Was the Nazi Vision?
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Youth culture & fitness programs central
Motherhood had special emphasis. Mein Kampf:
“Marriage also cannot be an end in itself, but has to serve
the one greater aim, the propagation and preservation of
the species and the race.”
What was the Nazi Vision?
Restructure Europe to benefit the racially superior
peoples
Mein Kampf places Aryans at top.
Übermenschen. Mixed races (like the USA)
incapable of world leadership.
Unite “ethnic” Germans (Volksdeutsch) in a
“Greater Germany”
Lebensraum or “Living Space”
Central theme of racial hierarchy & exclusivity in Mein
Kampf (1925) & Goebbels’s propaganda: “My neighbor
is one who is tied to me by his blood. If I love him,
then I must hate his enemies. He who thinks German
must despise the Jews.”
What was the Nazi Vision?
Nazi Racial Ideas
Aryans/Germans
“Semi-Aryans” (Scandinavians)
Himmler spoke of
the war in the east
as a “war of
extermination.”
Anglo-Saxons & other Europeans
“Untermenschen”
Vermin: Jews, Gypsies, Gays
Nazi Seizure of Power (1933)
Nazis play off difficulties of other parties with their own
certainties: racism, expansionism, & anti-bolshevism
 Party grows with young, lower-middle-classes & small
farmers: 37.3% (1932)
 Hindenburg’s invitation touches off quick series of events
§ Emergency Decree (Feb. 1933): suspend civil liberties;
round up communists
§ March Election & the Enabling Act: Rule by Decree
§ July 14, 1933: Nazi Party declared only legal party in the
state
§ June 30-July 2, Night of the Long Knives:
SA out & SS gains power
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Five Phases of Anti-Jewish Action
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Definition: 1933-35
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Expropriation: 1935-38
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Concentration: 1933-42
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Uncoordinated killing: 1939-42
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Annihilation: 1942-45
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About 600,000 Jews in
Germany
Nuremberg Laws (1935),
which defined who was and
wasn’t Jewish
Limited contacts between
“Germans” & “Jews”
5 October 1938 – All Jewish
passports must be stamped
with the letter “J.”
November 1939 – Jews in
Poland had to wear a white
badge with a Star of David on
their right arm.
1 September 1941 – Jews in
Germany & occupied Poland
were ordered to wear the
Yellow Star
“Know the True Enemy! Whenever You See
This Symbol…Jew”
Ober Ramstadt Fire
Expropriation
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Sites of Major Kristallnacht Incidents
Excluded from professions &
gov’t jobs
Set higher tax rates for Jews
“Aryanized” Jewish businesses &
property: Sept. 1937
Emigration: @300,000 leave
Culmination: Kristallnacht,
9-10 Nov. 1938
§ 267 Synagogues burned
§ 7,500 Stores & offices
destroyed
§ 91 Dead
§ 30,000 arrested and
deported to concentration
camps
§ All Jewish businesses closed
Interwar Instabilities (cont.)
Outline
IV. Weimar Germany &
the Rise of Nazism
V. The Nazi Vision
VI. The Final Solution
VII. Fascism in Italy
VIII. Communism in the
USSR
Terms
Einsatzgruppen
Wannsee Conference
The Fascists
Mussolini
March on Rome
The Lateran Accord
Corporatism
Cheka
New Economic Policy
Kulaks
Josef Stalin
Concentration
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The Warsaw Ghetto
Discomfort in smaller towns
Moved to cities voluntarily: by
1939, 2/3 of German Jews lived
in ten cities
April 1939, German Jews
forced to “relocate” into
ghettoes away from general
population
Sept. 1939, Polish Jews forced
into ghettoes
Sept. 1941 German Jews begin
“relocating” eastward
Ghetto conditions intentionally
horrid
§ Local councils & police
§ Limited & uncertain food
supply
§ Hard labor & physical abuse
A Dutch Family Gets Deported
Uncoordinated Killing
Executions and
mass grave in
Germanoccupied Soviet
Union

Einsatzgruppen are mobile killing squads of the SS, which move
eastward alongside of advancing troops

Rounded up political opponents and then Jews and then took them
out to secluded sites for mass killings

1.5 m killed
Annihilation
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Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942
Final Solution built off existing ideas
Dozens of camps, including 20 large ones & 6
specially designed for mass extermination
§
§
§
§
§
§
Chelmno
Belzec
Sorbibor
Treblinka
Lublin
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Use of Zyklon B (hydrogen cyoniade), could
kill up to 2,000 per day
 About 6 million Jews and others killed

Mass Killings: Wannsee Conference (20
January 1942) & The Final Solution
“Work Makes You Free”
Arrival & Selection
Faces from Auschwitz-Birkenau
The Impact of the Final Solution on the Jews of Europe
Ger/Aus
Poland
Baltics
Ukraine
Romania
Slovakia
Hungary
1939
240
3,300
253
1,500
600
90
630
1945
30
300
25
600
300
15
180
Number of Jews (in 1000s)
Living in Select Countries
Keys to Nazi Control
The Autobahn, 1937
Rally at Nuremberg, 1934
Police & SS Presence
Heinrich Himmler
Economic Recovery through
state-sponsored projects &
military spending
Public Relations chief Josef
Goebbels
Censorship, rallies, & radios