Interwar Period
1919-1939
How did WWI impact the arts and literature of the 1920s?
POSTWAR UNCERTAINTY REFLECTED
IN THE ARTS & SCIENCES
Background
•
WWI Shattered Enlightenment ideas
that progress would continue &
reason would prevail
•
– Returning millions of brutalized,
incapacitated, shell-shocked veterans to
society
– Many veterans harbored hostility toward •
civilians who protested the war instead of•
patriotically supporting them
– No jobs for returning veterans in some
areas
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Questioning traditional beliefs
– War dissolved many middle-class
conventions
– More open discussions of sex & sexuality
– Marriage remained the context for
sexuality though
Government reactions
– Had to repel the appeal of communism
– Supported social programs – veterans’
pensions & housing; benefits for men out
of work
Found answers in new scientific
developments
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Enjoyed convenience of
technological improvements
– Toothpaste!
– Cosmetics!
– Deodorant!
Women demanded more rights
Young people adopted new values
– Freer relationships
– Equality ?
Unconventional styles in literature,
philosophy, and music reflected
uncertain times
Return to prosperity in 1920s
– Consumer culture formed
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Washing machines
Vacuum cleaners
Automobiles
Radios
– Purchased with installment buying
Revolution in Science
• Albert Einstein
– Ideas on space, time, energy, & matter
– Theorized speed of light as constant, while space
and time are not constant
– Theory of relativity
– Implications for how people viewed the world
• Uncertainty replaced Newton’s belief of a world
operating to absolute laws of motion & gravity
• Sigmund Freud
– Treated patients with psychological problems
– Constructed theories about the human mind –
much behavior is irrational from the unconscious
part of the mind
– Weakened faith in reason
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Literature of the 1920s
Question accepted ideas about reason & progress
Disillusioned by war
Expressed doubts about traditional beliefs
Created disturbing visions of the present & future
– TS Eliot – The Waste Land, “The Hollow Men”
– William Butler Yeats – “Sailing to Byzantium”
• Horrors of War
– Franz Kafka – The Trial; The Castle
– Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front
• Freudian Psychology
– James Joyce – Ulysses
– Virginia Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway
• Existentialism
– Jean Paul Sartre
– Influenced by Nietzsche from 1880s
Revolution in the Arts
•
Rebelled against tradition
Depict inner emotion & imagination rather than realistic
representations
Expressionist painters
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Cubism
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Surrealism
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Composers
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– Paul Klee
– Wassily Kandinsky
– Georges Braque
– Pablo Picasso
– Inspired by Freud
– Salvador Dali
– Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky used irregular rhythms & dissonances
– Arnold Schoenberg rejected traditional harmonies
– Jazz developed by musicians in New Orleans, Memphis, & Chicago; captured
freedom of the new age
Society Challenges Convention
• WWI disrupted traditional social patterns
• Individual freedom increased in 1920s
• Young people willing to break with past &
experiment with new values
Women’s Roles
– War allowed them to work & take head of
household position
– Right to vote gained in postwar period in US, GB,
Germany, Sweden, & Austria
– Abandoned restrictive clothing & hairstyles
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Shorter, looser garments
Bobbed hair
Wore makeup
Drove cars
Drank & smoked in public
– Most still followed traditional path of marriage &
family
– Birth control advocates
– Number of women in medicine, education,
journalism, & other professions increased
Technological Advancements Improve Life
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New drugs & medical treatments advanced in WWI
Automobiles
– Wartime innovations – electric starters, air-filled tires, more
powerful engines
– Cars now sleek & polished
– Headlights & chrome-plated bumpers
– Prices dropped  middle class can afford cars
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British production increased from 34,000 to 511,000 autos a year
from 1913 to 1937
Lifestyle changes
Airplanes
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Travel for pleasure
New businesses to serve tourists
Movement to suburbs & commuting to work
– First successful flights across the Atlantic from
Newfoundland to Ireland by British pilots in 1919
– Charles Lindbergh (US) completed 33-hour solo flight from
NYC to Paris in 1927
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Became cultural icon
National hero
Baby was stolen
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First only the rich could afford air travel
Everyone enjoyed exploits of the pioneers (Amelia Earhart,
Charles Lindbergh)
– Most of world’s passenger airlines formed in 1920s
Radio & Movies
• Push for radio development in WWI
– Marconi conducted first successful experiments with
radio in 1895
– Biggest commercial radio station –KDKA in Pittsburgh,
PA – began broadcasting in 1920
– Every major city had radio stations
• News
• Plays
• Live sporting events
– Most families owned a radio
• Motion Pictures major industry in the 1920s
– Many countries produced films
– Serious art form in Europe
– Hollywood district of Los Angeles focused on movies as
entertainment
• Produced 90% of all films
– Charlie Chaplin
• English-born
• Comic genius
• Portrayed lonely little tramp bewildered by life
– Sound added in late 1920s
CLASS WORK
•Brainstorm: WWI Essay – How did culture
change?
•Source of your choice
•The Sun Also Rises Excerpt
•Sigmund Freud Reading
•Eliot Yeats Poems
•Mrs. Dalloway Excerpt
•Great Gatsby Excerpt
•Henry Ford Reading
HOMEWORK
•Finish WWI Essay
Why did the economic depression in the United States spread
overseas?
GLOBAL DEPRESSION
Background
• European nations rebuilding war-torn
economies
• Aided by loans from the US
– Only US & Japan emerged better financially
than before WWI
– Americans confident in prosperity
• American economy had serious
weaknesses
• Great Depression will leave every major
European country nearly bankrupt
Post-WWI Europe
• Unstable new democracies
• Last absolute rulers overthrown by 1918
• Weak provisional government fell to Communist
dictatorship in Russia
• Most European nations had democratic governments
• Citizens had little experience with representative
government
– Large # political parties
– Created need for coalition governments
– Frequent changes in gov’t = hard to achieve long-term
goals
– Voters willing to sacrifice weak democratic gov’t for strong
authoritarian leadership…
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Weimar Republic
Germany’s new democratic government, est. 1919
Serious weaknesses
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No democratic tradition
Several major political parties & many minor ones
Millions blamed Weimar gov’t for defeat & humiliation of Versailles Treaty
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Printed more money to pay reparations
Example – bread cost less than 1 mark in 1918, but more than 160 in 1922 and 200B in1923
Questioned value of new democratic government
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Recovered from 1923 inflation due to international committee headed by Charles Dawes, an
American banker
Dawes Plan provided $200M loan to stabilize German currency
Set more realistic schedule for war reparations
Factories reached pre-war production levels by 1929
Inflation – printed money in wartime instead of raising taxes  currency lost value
Attempted economic stability
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Efforts at peace
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Foreign minister Gustav Stressemann & France’s minister Aristide Briand tried improving
relations
Met in Locarno, Switzerland with officials from Belgium, Italy, and Britain promising to never
make war between France and Germany
Also agreed to respect existing borders of France and Belgium
Led to Kellogg-Briand peace pact in 1928
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US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg arranged agreement with France’s Briand
Almost every country in the world signed
“to renounce war as an instrument of national policy”
No efforts to enforce provisions
League of Nations had no armed forces to enforce the treaty
Weimar Republic
Financial Collapse
• Recap: American prosperity largely sustained world economy
through 1920s
• Flawed economy
– Uneven distribution of wealth
– Overproduction
– Lessened consumer consumption
• Factories turning out nearly half of all world’s industrial goods
– Enormous profits
– 60% of Americans earned less than $2,000 a year = too poor to
buy goods they produced
– Factories reduced production & laid off workers
– More lose jobs  more can’t afford goods  decrease
production further  more people lose jobs…
– Farmers couldn’t repay war loans, forcing banks to close (no FDIC
yet)
Stock Market Crash
• Wall street in NYC financial capital of the world in 1929
• Many middle-income families purchased stocks on
margin
– Pay small down-payment & borrow rest from stock broker
– Can repay loan well if stock prices continue to increase
– If they fell, investors had no money to repay the loan
• 1929 – some investors saw prices as unnaturally high, so
started selling stocks
– Gradual lowering of stock prices became all-out
downward slide
– Panic
– All selling, nobody buying
– 16 million stocks sold Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1929 = market
collapse
Great Depression
• People couldn’t pay back
money owed on margin
purchases (credit)
• Stocks now worthless
• Unemployment rates rose as
industrial production, prices,
& wages decreased
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Production cut in half by 1932
Banks closed
Businesses failed
¼ American workers
unemployed by 1933
• BIG IMPACTS
– Commerce & industry fell
– Social order & gender roles
upset
– Birth rate sank
Global Depression
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American bankers demanded repayment of overseas loans
Investors withdrew money from Europe
Congress placed high tariff on imports – BAD IDEA
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Policy backfired
Hoped to keep US $$ spent on US-goods
Countries dependent on exports to US suffered
Other nations imposed high tariffs
World trade dropped 65%
Unemployment soared worldwide
Asia – farmers & urban workers hurt as value of exports fell
– Single cash-crop growers hardest hit
– Fueled anger & led to nationalist action
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Colonial farmers on strike
Colonial gov’t actions added to calls for independence, esp. in India
Anti-colonial leaders protested (Example: Ho Chi Minh v. France)
– Focus on strengthening military positions worldwide allowed totalitarian gov’t
to arise in Europe
•
Latin America – demand for sugar, beef, copper, etc. fell & prices
collapsed
Germany & Austria
• Hit very hard
• 6M Germans
out of work
by 1933 )1/3
of
workforce)
• Many others
underemployed
Responses
• Britain hit severely
– Voters elected multiparty coalition known as the National
Government
– Passed protective tariffs, increased taxes, & regulated currency
– Slow, steady recovery
– Avoided political extremes & preserved democracy
• France more self-sufficient
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Heavily agricultural & less dependent on foreign trade
1M unemployed by 1935, contributing to political instability
5 coalition governments rose & fell in 1933 alone
Popular Front coalition of moderates, socialists, & communists rose
in 1936
• Passed reforms to help workers
• Unemployment remained high
• But, retained democracy
Socialist Solutions
• Socialist governments in Scandinavia
– Denmark, Sweden, Norway
• Also met economic crisis successfully
• Built programs on existing tradition of
cooperative community action
• Sweden sponsored public works
projects that kept people employed
• Raised pensions for elderly
• Increased employment insurance,
subsidies for housing, & other welfare
benefits
• Paid for with taxes
• Democracy remained intact
Recovery in the United States
• Elected Franklin D Roosevelt in
1932
• Immediately began reform
programs in the New Deal
– Large public works projects = jobs
– Agencies formed to give financial
help to businesses & farms
– Public money spent on welfare and
relief programs
– Many programs deemed
unconstitutional & put down, but
many still exist today too
• Reformed economic system
• Leadership preserved faith in
democracy
Not Everyone Had It SO Bad
• Modernization continued
– Municipal & national governments built roads & sanitation
projects
– Water, electricity, & sewage pipes in homes for first time
– New factories produced synthetic fabrics, electrical
products, cars, stoves, etc.
– Eastern European industry developed with gov’t assistance
• Majority still had jobs
– People with steady employment benefitted from drop in
prices
– Managers & business leaders prospered
– But, towns with heavy industry could have half the
population out of work
Social Effects
• Upset gender relations
– Women found low-paying jobs
– Men stayed home or were beggars
– Loiterers in German parks became ripe for
Nazism, promising to restore male dignity
• Politicians attacked low birth rate
– Compulsory education reduced income
children earned
– Family planning centers opened
• Ignited racism
– Politicians used racism to arouse fear of
national decline
– Superior peoples ‘failing to breed’ & inferior
peoples would take over
– Violent in eastern Europe – rural population
growing
• Blamed Jewish bankers for Great Depression & farm
foreclosures
• Opened way for dictators who promised to eliminate
Jews & other ethnic minorities
CLASSWORK
• Begin Journal #12 – Explain why the
Great Depression spread from the
United States to become a global
phenomenon AND assess which
country suffered the worst conditions.
HOMEWORK
• Finish Journal #12
Why did fascism arise in Germany and Italy after WWI?
How did Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo rise to power?
RISE OF DICTATORS
Election Time!
• Read the current conditions of Nation
X
• Read the goals of each political party
• Who will you vote for?
– Orange Party
– Purple Party
– Yellow Party
• Cast your ballot when ready!
•
Results
Nation X was actually Germany of the 1930s
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MANY political parties  would need coalition gov’t
Biggest 3 represented by the parties on your ballot
Vast changes from 1932 election to 1933 election
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Hindenburg had appointed Hitler as chancellor
Hitler called for new elections & dissolving of Reichstag
Unleashed terror & propaganda against the Social Democrats,
Communists, & Centre Parties up to the election
Orange Party = Social Democrats (SPD)
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1932 Election – 20.43% vote
1933 Election – 18.25%
Lead by Otto Wels
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1932 Election – 16.86% vote
1933 Election – 12.32%
Led by Ernst Thalmann
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1932 Election – 33.09%
1933 Election – 43.91%
Led by Adolf Hitler
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Difficulty realizing how ‘bad guys’ come to power
Hitler was elected!
German people wanted a return to prosperity and greatness & Hitler promised that
Do you feel badly about electing him into power now that you know what happens later on?
Purple Party = Communist Party (KPD)
Yellow Party = National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)
So, what’s the point?
Emergence of Fascism
• Great Depression caused loss of faith in
democratic government
• Fascism – new militant political movement that
emphasized loyalty and obedience to the leader
No defined theory or program (unlike communism)
Extreme nationalism
Peaceful states doomed to be conquered
Loyal to authoritarian ruler who will guide & bring
order to the state
– Wear uniforms, have special salutes, hold rlalies
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• Fascist leaders promised to revive economy,
punish those responsible for hard times, & restore
national pride
Some Similarities to Communism
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Both ruled by dictators who allowed only one-party rule
Denied individual rights
State supreme
Neither practiced democracy
But, different
– Fascists didn’t seek classless society
– Fascists believed each class had a place and function
– Fascist arties made up of aristocrats and industrialists, war
veterans, and lower middle class
– Fascists were nationalists
– Communists were internationalists, hoping to unite workers
worldwide
Italy – Benito Mussolini
• Fueled by disappointment over failure to win territorial gains at
1919 Paris Peace Conference
• Rising inflation + unemployment = social unrest
– Wanted a leader to take action
• Mussolini promised to revive economy & rebuild armed forces
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First teacher, then newspaper editor & politician
Founded fascist party in 1919
Popularity increased as economy worsened
Criticized Italian government
Won support from middle class, aristocracy, & industrial leaders by
playing on fear of workers’ revolt
• Activities
– Groups wore black & attacked Communists and Socialists
– 30,000 marched on Rome in 1922  King Victor Emmanuel III put
Mussolini in charge
• Took power ‘legally’
Il Duce
• Mussolini now leader of Italy
• Abolished democracy
• Outlawed political parties
besides Fascists
• Secret police jailed
opponents
• Government censors of radio
& publications
• Outlawed strikes
• But, never had total control
achieved by Hitler or Stalin
Attack on Ethiopia
• Ethiopia was one of 3
independent African nations
• Bordered Italian Somaliland
• Invaded October 1935 after
border incident
• Emperor Haile Selassie
appealed to League of Nations
– Condemned attack
– Actually did nothing!
– Britain continued letting Italian
troops pass through Suez Canal
– All hoped to keep peace in
Europe by letting Italy have its
way in Africa
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Germany – Adolf Hitler
Background
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Born in Austria
Joined WWI effort & twice awarded Iron Cross for bravery
Settled in Munich after war
Joined right-wing political group: German Workers’ Party
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Overthrow Treaty of Versailles
Combat communism
Became National Socialist German Workers’ Party
(Nazi)
Adopted swastika
Set up private militia (storm troopers / brown shirts)
Quickly became leader of NSDAP
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Plotted to seize power in Munich
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Wrote Mein Kampf while in jail
– Attempt (Beer Hall Putsch) failed
– Arrested & imprisoned
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Established beliefs & goals for Germany
Asserted Aryans were master race
Non-Aryans were inferior: Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, etc.
Wanted to regain lands lost in Treaty of Versailles  lebensraum (living space)
Revived Nazi Party in 1924 after leaving prison
Mostly ignored until Great Depression
Becoming
Chancellor
• Nazis were largest political party by 1932
• Conservative leaders thought they could use & control Hitler
(leader of NSDAP)
– Prompted president Paul von Hindenberg to name him
chancellor (came to power legally)
• Called new elections once in office 1933
– 6 days prior, Reichstag building set ablaze & blamed on
communists
– Stirred fear of communists = not elected
– Allowed Hitler to gain supporters & suspend civil rights, impose
censorship, & deny meetings of political parties
– Used secret police against communists & socialists
– Nazis & allies won by slim majority
• All ages & classes
• Especially youth
– Believed Germany would be great if Hitler was leader
– Industrial working class & lower middle class
Totalitarian State
•
Enabling Act passed March 1933
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Banned political parties besides NSDAP
Imprisoned opponents in concentration camps
beginning 1933 (Communists, socialists,
homosexuals, Jews.. Anyone interfering with
Volksgemeinschaft)
Schutzstaffel – SS – created
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Laws banned strikes & dissolved labor unions
Government oversaw businesses and labor
– Suspended constitution for 4 years
– Allowed Nazis to take effect WITHOUT parliamentary
approval
– Hitler had unchecked power
– Led by Heinrich Himmler
– Intimidating police force & in charge of concentration
camps
– Night of Long Knives – June 30, 1934 = arrested &
murdered political enemies & civilians, including Ernst
Rohm, leader of the Storm Troopers (SA)
– Gestapo – Nazi secret police – shocked Germans into
obedience
– Millions put to work
– Constructed factories, built highways, manufactured
weapons, & served in military
– Unemployment dropped from 6M to 1.5M in 1936
Nazi Propaganda
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“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited; their
intelligence is small.”
Shaped public opinion using radio, press, literature,
paintings, & film
Elaborate displays of strength
– Parades
– Banners
– Uniforms
Burned books that didn’t conform
Churches forbidden to criticize government
Schoolchildren had to join Hitler Youth or League of
German girls
Anti-Semitism prevalent
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Less than 1% of German populace
Used as scapegoats for WWI troubles & Great Depression
Nuremberg Laws (1935) deprived Jews of most rights
Kristallnacht – November 1938 - signaled start of elimination of
the Jews
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Began in retaliation for a Jewish teenager’s killing of a German
official who’d harassed his parents
Attacked 200+ synagogues
20K imprisoned
Maintaining Hitler’s Regime
• Required economic & social programs to hold support
• Economic revival
– Built popular support
– Strengthened military industries
– Basis for German expansion
• Pump priming – stimulate economy through gov’t spending on
tanks, planes, Autobahn
• Unemployment declined drastically to point of labor shortage
– Women drafted as farm workers & domestics
• Set pay levels & work procedures
• 4-year plan aimed to prepare for war by 1940
• Controlled every day life
– Encouraged Aryans to marry & have children
• Loans for newlyweds
• Wife had to leave workforce
• Loans forgiven on birth of 4th child
– Severely censored radio programs
Appeased by League of Nations
• Violated Treaty of Versailles
– Remilitarized the Rhineland 1936 **turning point
– Rebuilt military 1925
• Left the League of Nations
– Anschluss of Austria 1938 for ‘unifying Aryan
race’
• Appeasement – leaders thought giving
concessions to Hitler would prevent a war…
– Annexed the Sudetenland – part of
Czechoslovakia occupied by ethnic Germans &
rich in industrial resources, 1938
• Chamberlain, Daladier, & Mussolini all agreed NOT to
intervene
• Czechs really had no say – annex or be invaded..
– Invaded Poland Sept. 1, 1939
Other European Dictators
• New democracies in Eastern Europe fell to
dictators for stability
• Hungary – Admiral Miklos Horthy, 1919
• Poland – Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, 1926
• Kings suspended constitutions & silenced foes in:
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Yugoslavia
Albania
Bulgaria
Romania
• Only one democracy remained by 1935 Czechoslovakia
CLASSWORK
• Pact of Steel Video [25 min]
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N
0rficY86bw
HOMEWORK
• Primary Source Analysis: Mussolini or
Hitler
• 1 paragraph please 
Japanese Expansion
• Became more democratic in 1920s, but had
problems
– Constitution limited power of PM and Cabinet
– Civilian leaders had little control over military
– Military leaders reported only to emperor
• Militarists took control
– Blamed government for Great Depression
– Military leaders gained support
– Wanted to restore traditional control of government
to military
– Made Emperor Hirohito symbol of state power
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Extreme nationalists
Solve problems through foreign expansion
Provide Japan with raw materials & markets for goods
Room for growing population
Eyes on Manchuria & China
– Hideki Tojo rose in military in campaigns in Second
Sino-Japanese War  became Prime Minister 
launched attack on Pearl Harbor 1941
Invasion of Manchuria
• Rich in iron & coal
• Seized in 1931 despite objections from
Japanese Parliament
– Installed puppet government
– Built mines & factories
• First direct challenge to League of
Nations
– Protested seizure of Manchuria
– Japan withdrew from League 1933
– No enforcement mechanism!
• Invasion of China 1937
– Beijing, northern cities, & capital
Nanking fell 1937
– Killed tens of thousands of captured
soldiers & civilians in Nanking
– China in middle of civil war (we come
back to this) – put this on pause
• Jiang Jieshi set up new capital at
Chongqing
• Guerillas led by Mao Zedong continued to
fight Japanese
•
Appeasement Proved Faulty
Appeasement – strategy of preventing a war by
making concessions for grievances (i.e. affront to
Germans in the Treaty of Versailles)
– Secured “peace in our time” at the Munich Pact
(Chamberlain)
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Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 anyway
Gave Hitler time to build his army
After invasion of Czechoslovakia, GB & France
promised aid to Poland, Romania, Greece, & Turkey
if Germany invaded
Response – Hitler & Mussolini’s Pact of Steel in May
1939 – pledge of offensive & defensive support
– Also made pact with Japan
– Japan, Germany, & Italy called Axis Powers
•
Stalin saw democracies were not going to support
eastern Europe (communist)
– USSR & Germany signed nonaggression agreement – the
Nazi-Soviet Pact or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Aug. 23, 1939
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If one country became involved in war, the other would remain
neutral
Secretly agreed to divide Poland and the Baltic states
Allowed Stalin time to rebuild officer corps (destroyed in the
purges)
Isolationism
• United States chose
isolationism – political ties to
other countries should be
avoided
• Easy due to geography
– How many countries border the
US?
– How many countries border
Germany?
• Argued entry to WWI was a
costly error
• Three Neutrality Acts passed
after 1935
– Banned loans and sale of arms
to nations at war
– Not really followed…
CLASSWORK
• Journal #13 – Analyze why dictators were able to rise to
power in the interwar period.
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Hitler
Mussolini
Tojo
Treaty of Versailles
League of Nations
Appeasement
Isolationism
HOMEWORK
• Study for Unit 6 Exam!
– Causes & effects of WWI
– Alliances of WWI
– Characteristics of WWI
– 1920s Prosperity & Culture
– Russian Revolution
– Great Depression
– Rise of Dictators