The 1920s & 1930s
AP World History
League of Nations
Created to maintain world peace
Forty-two members, twenty-six outside Europe
Dominated by UK, France -- used to isolate Germany
No power to enforce decisions, but could make suggestions, impose
sanctions
Powers left out
US never joined, Germany not invited for some time
USSR ignored; colonies not included
Mandate system
New Nations of Eastern Europe
Created by Treaty of Versailles @ end of World War I
Often by force, out of Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.
Each state a kaleidoscope of different ethnic groups
State building
Tried to emulate Western Europe, but no wealth or stability
Trying to build nations from scratch
Little industry, mostly agrarian
Few cities, small middle classes or intellectuals
Rise of the United States
World War I
Put US in position of leadership
Became largest industrialized nation, largest center of banking
Lent the Allies trillions
Left war w/ 2nd largest navy in world, largest army
Treaty of Versailles rejected by the Senate
US doesn’t join the League of Nations (Wilson is sad)
US moves toward isolationism
Roaring Twenties
Post-War Economic Troubles
World War I = expensive
Countries spent $180 billion on armaments, boats, warfare
Europe’s cost to rebuild = another $150 billion
Capitalism used to finance the recovery -- Americans lend
Europeans lots of money
France had loaned tons of money to Russia, but new Bolshevik
government won’t honor debts
Germany has to pay reparations from Versailles
→ Germany borrows $$$ from America and uses it to repay debts to
France and Britain
Post-War Economic Troubles (2)
Germany is in debt, suffers from massive inflation
Global market gets tougher
Colonies have hard time affording European manufactured goods, so
less demand for European goods
Nationalism → tariffs and trade barriers
Agricultural overproduction → food prices drop
Result: harder for European countries to make money to repay war
loans
By 1929: Central Powers can’t pay reparations to Allies, and
Problems in the US in the 1920s
U.S. remains physically untouched by WW1
1920s = farms and factories producing more goods than
could be sold
many Americans do not have enough money to buy these products
Europeans make their own products again -- less foreign demand
People buying excessively on credit
Buying stocks “on margin”
Unequal income distribution in U.S.
U.S. Stock Market Crash
October 1929 -- the stock market crashed in U.S.
Stock prices plummeted, peoples’ fortunes wiped out
Banks and businesses close as people lose their savings
World trade drops 62% in a couple years
People lose their jobs → unemployment
Unemployment means less money to spend, makes recovery harder
Kicks off the Great Depression
Worldwide phenomenon -- spread from America to Europe
Effects of the Depression
Emergence of:
Vacant factories
Soup kitchens & bread lines,
Shantytowns
U.S. and Germany hit hardest -- about one-third of available
work-force unemployed
Factories stop producing
A deeper, more prolonged slump than before
Effects of Depression: Western
Europe and the United States
New government-led welfare programs to try and fix it
In the U.S., the New Deal under President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
Flounders for the first few years of the Great Depression
Government programs based on social welfare
Greatly increases size of government, restores public confidence
Goals: restart economic growth, prevent future problems
Relief programs to aid poor, unemployed, elderly
Effects of Depression Elsewhere
The Soviet Union: mostly unaffected
Centralized, command economy
Little ties to the West
Latin America & other colonial regions
Colonies usually dependent on 1-2 products = hit especially hard by
the Great Depression
Suffered as demand from Europe & U.S. dropped
Ex. Chile dependent on copper exports → value drops 80%
Governments become more involved in economy
Effects of Depression: Fascism
Fascist movements in parts of Europe
Main idea: destroy the will of the individual, in favor of “the people”
Want a unified society (but not one w/o classes, like Communists)
Focused on a national identity rooted in extreme nationalism,
Intolerance & racism, strong sense of racial identity
Popular especially in places where democracy is not very
well-established (usually right after WW1)
Examples: Germany, Italy
Fascism in Germany
Immediately following WW1, revolt in Germany as the
emperor abdicates the throne
Workers’ councils (like the Russian soviets) form in Berlin
Conservative middle class in Germany
→ Instead of a socialist system, creates a conservative
democratic republic, the Weimar Republic
Economic crisis in Germany
By 1932: over six million unemployed
Hyperinflation
The Cost of a Loaf of Bread in Germany
November 1918
1 mark
November 1922
163 marks
September 1923
1,500,000 marks
November 1923
200,000,000,000
marks
Fascism in Germany
National Socialist Party (Nazis) rise in 1920s
Attack parliamentary democracy (the system used in the rest of
Western Europe) as corrupt and weak
Call for a strong leader & a state greater than the sum of individual
interests
Supported by business leaders -- attacks unions & socialists
Adolf Hitler = leader of Nazis
Inspires extreme nationalism, “renewed greatness” for Germany
Social Darwinism -- convinced Aryans are most highly evolved race
Nazis in Power
Built a totalitarian state
Exercised direct control over many aspects of German life
Eliminated opposition groups through terror, secret police,
concentration camps
Jews = scapegoats for modern problems, persecuted
Foreign policy
Withdrew Germany from League of Nations
Germany militarizes (violating Treat yof Versailles)
Recaptures Rhineland, annexes Austria