The Futile Search for a New Stability:
Europe Between the Wars,
1919 - 1939

 Shortcomings of Versailles Treaty and
German dissatisfaction
 Weaknesses of the League of Nations
 French search for security: GB/US isolationism and the “ Little Entente ”
 Allied Reparations Commission , April 1921
$33 billion
 Paid in annual installments of billion gold marks
 Germany unable to pay in 1922
 French occupation of the Ruhr Valley

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German mark falls to 4.2 trillion to $1, end of
November 1923
Dawes Plan – $200 million loan & sympathy for
Germany
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Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929) and German cooperation
Treaty of Locarno , 1925 guarantees Germany’s western borders with France and Belgium. East?
 Germany joins League of Nations
 Kellogg-Briand Pact : NO MORE WAR!
 (Unsuccessful) push for disarmament
 Improved relations with Soviet Russia
 London Naval Conference (1930)

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Problems in domestic economies
International financial crisis
Crash of the American stock market, October 1929
 Withdrawal of US investments in Germany
 Affects European markets
 Social repercussions
 25% unemployment
 Women still employed; male frustration
 Appeal of Marxism and backlash
 Powerlessness of governments and the appeal of simple dictatorial solutions

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Loss of overseas markets and unemployment
Liberals under Lloyd George falter while Labour Party gains
LabourLiberal Coalition’s short reign under MacDonald
Conservatives under Baldwin 1925-1929
Depression ousts Baldwin and Labour takes helm
Labour Party failed to solve problems; coalition “National
Government” takes over 1931
Coalition claimed credit for prosperity
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) - economist
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Keynes says the government should create jobs
Government should spend even if in debt – to stimulate economy
Ignored by government

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Was the strongest power in Europe
Poincare and the National Bloc – Ruhr Valley fiasco
Cartel of the Left: socialists and radicals
Poincare’s return and the Depression
Government volatility: could not solve financial problems
Popular Front of socialists, radicals and communists
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Reaction to threat of fascism
Leon Blum
French “New Deal”
 Takes World War II to end the depression
Raymond Poincare (L) Leon
Blum and his Popular Front (R)

(cont)
 The Scandinavian States
 Socialist parties
 Expanded social services
 High taxes and large bureaucracies
 The United States
 Herbert Hoover, (1929-1933)
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Great Depression: Stock Market crash/15 million unemployed
No unemployment or poor relief
 Franklin D. Roosevelt, (1933-1945)
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New Deal
Public Works

 GB and France tried to maintain their colonial empires, but Depression opened door to change in Middle East,
India and Africa
 The Middle East
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Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq gain independence while
Euros maintain control of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and
Palestine
Colonel Mustafa Kemal
– “Ataturk”
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Republic of Turkey, 1923: westernized!
Secular republic: Islamic control of politics ends; women given rights
 India
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Mahatma (“great soul”) Gandhi
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Push for Indian independence and improved conditions for poor peaceful policy of civil disobedience
GB grants internal self-government in 1935, but not independence

 After World War I, Africa became more politically active
 Protest
 British Nigeria in 1929: women’s protest over high taxes
 Brits kill 50 women
 Did prompt reform – too little too late: these areas wanted independence!
 African leaders speak up – many were educated in US or GB
 W. E. B. Du Bois: make all Africans aware of their cultural heritage
 Marcus Garvey: unity for all Africans!
 Jomo Kenyatta: Facing Mount Kenya argues that
British rule is destroying African culture/tradition

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By 1939 only major states to remain democratic are France and
Great Britain
Wasn’t WWI fought to make the world “safe for democracy?”
Postwar societies were divided
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Class: unions strengthened during war; middle class lost ground
Gender: women booted from workplace; many single women; women encouraged to go home and have kids (abortion, birth control outlawed)
Great Depression exacerbated these divisions
The modern totalitarian state
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Active commitment of citizens
Mass propaganda techniques
High speed communication
Led by single leader and single party
Individual freedom was subordinate to collective will

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Former socialist editor of Avanti booted by socialists for his pro-WWI stance
 Fascio di Combattimento (League of Combat), 1919: radical, authoritarian, nationalist rhetoric
 Growth of the socialists/left wing
 Squadristi, armed Fascists
 Fascist movement gains support from industrialists, MC
 Mussolini makes a deal with PM Giovanni Giolitti
 Italians angry over failure to receive territory after World
War I (Dalamatia, Fiume)
 March on Rome, 1922: Armed Black Shirts
 Mussolini appointed PM by V.E. III, October 29, 1922

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Acerbo Law 7/1923
Fascist majority in parliament 4/1924
Assassination of Giacomo Matteotti
All parties outlawed, 1926 – Fascist dictatorship established, use of OVRA
Mussolini’s view of a Fascist state 
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Young Fascists
Family is the pillar of the state: women’s role
Never achieves the degree of totalitarianism like
Germany or Soviet Union
 Lateran Accords, February 1929: Vatican City

Elderly Hindenburg; woman burning marks to heat stove; what Germany lost
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Weimar Germany and the Rise of the Nazis
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No leaders: Ebert and Stresemann die in 1920s
Elderly Monarchist Paul von Hindenberg elected president, 1925
Left and right dissatisfied
Great Depression

 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
 Vienna
 von Schonerer, Lueger, von
Liebenfels, Wagner
 Social Darwinism
 Munich
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WWI experience
German Workers’ Party
National Socialist German Workers’
Party (NSDAP), 1921
Sturmabteilung (SA), Storm Troops
Munich Beer Hall Putsch, November
1923

 Hitler imprisoned
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Mein Kampf , (My Struggle)
Lebensraum (living space)
Anticommunism
Anti-Semitism
Social Darwinism
 Fuhrerprinzip
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Party of young men
Depression’s impact
 Hindenburg rules by decree, 1930
Mein Kampf , signed first edition

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 Nazi party largest in the Reichstag after 1932 election
Support from right-wing elites
Becomes chancellor, January 30,
1933
 Reichstag fire , February 27, 1933: blames Commies!
Successes in 1933 election
Enabling Act , March 23, 1933
Purging of Ernst Rohm and SA leaders
 Gleichschaltung , coordination of all institutions under Nazi control
 President Paul von Hindenburg dies,
August 2, 1934
 Hitler becomes Fuhrer of the THIRD
REICH

Propaganda aimed at young people
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Parliamentary republic dismantled
Mass demonstrations and spectacles to create collective fellowship
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Constant rivalry gives Hitler power
Economics and the drop in unemployment
Heinrich Himmler and the SS
Churches, schools, and universities brought under Nazi control
 Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) and Bund deutscher Mädel (League of German
Maidens)
 Influence of Nazi ideas on working women

Translation: 60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money too.
 T-4 Program and Rassenhygiene
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Tiergartenstraße 4: Address of
General Foundation for Welfare and
Institutional Care where program was developed
“life not worthy of life”
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Euthanasia, mandatory sterilization
Those with Huntington’s Disease, schizophrenia, mental retardation, epilepsy, alcoholism, physical deformities targeted

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Boycotts and early restrictions
Nuremberg laws , September 1935
Kristallnacht , November 9-10, 1938
Emigration encouraged

 End of Red-White Civil War, 1921
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Impact of Red Terror
Impact of “War Communism”
 Famine, hording
Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP)
 Modified capitalism
 Limited free market economy
 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established, 1922
 Revived economy
 Elaborate bureaucracy grows in number and wealth
 Lenin suffers strokes, (1922-1924)
 Death 1/21/24
 Power struggle in Politburo

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Party Division
 Leon Trotsky
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Former war commissar
Dynamic spokesman of the left
Continue revolution on international scale
Abandon NEP
Trotsky! My ice pick knows the way to Mexico, too!
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Joseph Stalin
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General party secretary eventual supporter of the right
“Socialism in one country”
“Comrade Card-Index”
Stalin had power to appoint party leaders as GPS
Used his position to put his supporters in charge and took over Communist Party.
Trotsky expelled from party – eventually murdered in Mexico

 First Five Year Plan, 1928
 Emphasis on industry
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Real wages declined
Use of propaganda: Stakhanov cult
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Rapid collectivization of agriculture
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Famine of 1932-1933; 10 million peasants died
Liquidation of the Kulaks (prosperous farmers) who had attained private land through Stolypin’s reforms.
Political control
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Stalin dictatorship established, 1929
Blood purges: army officers, party members, 1936-1938
8 million arrested
Many sent to Siberian labor camps
 Emphasis on FAMILY
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Abortion outlawed; divorced dads had to support kids
Having a large family was a patriotic duty
Reality was that women still had to work long hrs. in factories

Alexei Stakhanov: shockworker supreme; “Flowers for Stalin”

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Conservative authoritarian governments
Eastern Europe
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Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia adopted parliamentary systems
Romania and Bulgaria gained new parliamentary constitutions
Greece became a republic
Hungary parliamentary in form; controlled by landed aristocrats
Problems
 Little or no tradition of liberalism and parliamentary form
 Rural and agrarian society
 Ethnic conflicts
Authoritarianism takes hold…
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Coup d’etat in Bulgaria,1923
 Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, military dictatorship in Poland, 1926
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King Alexander I abolishes constitution in Yugoslavia, 1929
Julius Gombos, PM of Hungary embraced fascist politics
Corneliu Codreanu established fascist movement, Legion of the Archangel Michael, in
Romania, triggers King Carol II to end parliamentary rule, 1938
General John Metaxas imposes dictatorship in Greece, 1936
All but Czechoslovakia succumbed to authoritarianism!

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Spain
 Economy rocked by WWI
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Parliamentary monarchy unable to deal: King Alfonso XIII encourages military coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera, 1923
Depression triggers collapse of Primo de Rivera’s regime 1/1930
 Alfonso XIII leaves Spain, 1931
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New Spanish Republic established under democrats and socialists
Antifascist coalition Popular Front takes control, 1936
 Military refuses to accept: revolt ensues to begin Spanish Civil War
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General Francisco Franco leads right-wing military rebels, and gets assistance from Italy and Germany (Resnais’ Guernica 1 and 2 )
Left wing aligns with Popular Front, getting assistance from Soviet Union
US, France, GB stay out officially, though many fought for Republicans
Franco eventually triumphs, 1939: 400k died
Franco ruled until 1975 as a conservative authoritarian ruler, not a fascist
 Portugal
 Antonio Salazar establishes military dictatorship,1932-68

 The Roaring Twenties
 The Charleston
 Berlin, the entertainment center of Europe ( Cabaret )
 Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
 Jazz Age

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Nellie Melba, June 16, 1920 – radio broadcast
BBC, 1926
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 Stars became subjects of adoration
 Marlene Dietrich
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Movies
 Quo Vadis – 1st successful full-length feature film
 Birth of a Nation D. W. Griffith (KKK)
Used for political purposes
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Nazis encourage cheap radios
Triumph of the Will , 1934 (Riefenstahl)
Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 , 1943 (Eisenstein)

For Hitler’s translated speech, click here.

 Professional sporting events
 Travel
 National recreation agencies
 Kraft durch Freude in Germany
 Dopolavoro in Italy

 Prewar avant-garde culture becomes acceptable
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Political, economic, and social insecurities
Radical changes in women’s styles
Theodor van de Velde
 Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique (women say,
“thanks!”)
 Nightmares and New Visions: Art and Music
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Abstract painting; fascination with the absurd
Dadaism - Tristan Tzara (1896-1945)
Surrealism - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
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Functional Architecture
 Bauhaus School in Germany
Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951)

Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dali

Bauhaus building (below) and cradle (right)

My eyepatch is ubersexy.
 The Search for the
Unconscious
 James Joyce (1882-1941),
Ulysses
 Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)
 Impact of Freud
 Carl Jung (1856-1961)
 The “Heroic Age of Physics”
 Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), atom could be split
 Werner Heisenberg (1901-
1976), “uncertainty principle”

 What were the causes of the Great Depression?
 What did France feel it needed for security after the
Great War? How does this affect Germany?
 What were the characteristics of Nazi Germany?
 What were the characteristics of Stalin’s Soviet
Union?
 Describe the art trends of this period? What were the lasting affects of these trends?

 Great Depression
 John Maynard Keynes
 Francisco Franco
 Benito Mussolini
 Weimer Republic
 Adolph Hitler
 Joseph Stalin
 Dadaism