Question 2

To what extent were Hitler’s Aggressive Policies Responsible for the Second World War?

Introductory note

You are expected to explain in what ways Hitler’s policies contributed to the coming of the war. You also need to examine how his policies were ‘aggressive’. Remember to refer not just to the European war in 1939, but also to its extension into a world war in 1941.

Answer Plan

First

Examine Hitler’s objectives which can be divided into two parts:

a)    The overthrow of the constraints imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. This had been largely achieved by 1937 through:

• Rearmament and conscription
• The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (March 1936)
• This enabled Hitler to build defences in the west
• Ending the unity of the First World War victors during the Abyssinian crisis by creating the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936

War was now possible because Germany was in a position to fight one. The Western Powers’ failure/inability to act could be seen as a ‘passive’ cause of war because Hitler formed the belief that they lacked the conviction to resist him. Remember to distinguish this from Hitler’s ‘active’ responsibility. Thus it could be said that his first set of objectives was not aggressive in the sense of involving threats against other powers.

b)    Hitler also wanted lebensraum (living space) which entailed the conquest of Eastern Europe and the USSR as far as the Ural Mountains. This was     aggressive. When Germany began to expand beyond its borders during 1938-9 it seemed that the intention was to bring the Germans of Europe within the Third Reich. This involved the Anschluss or union of Austria and Germany, and the annexation of the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia) in 1938; and the Danzig/Poland crisis of 1939.

Second

We now need to consider the shift from appeasement as the policy of the democracies because this is a second precondition for war. The Munich Settlement of September 1938 marked the high point of appeasement, but the annexation of the ‘rump’ of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 proved a turning point. Britain was prepared to acquiesce in the absorption of German populated areas into the Reich, but when it became clear that Hitler had designs on non-German nations, she was prepared to risk war by issuing guarantees to Poland. Thus when Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and France went to war against Germany. Thus it was the West that took the final step.

Third

Hitler was determined to settle the Polish issue by force, gambling that the non-aggression pact with the Soviets would deter Britain and France from honouring their guarantee to Poland. The issue here was not only Danzig and the German minority living in Poland, but the question of German hegemony in Eastern Europe. It had long been British policy not to permit the dominance of Europe by any one power.

Fourth

Hitler went on to conquer Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries and France, and in June 1941 he invaded the USSR; clearly more aggressive than the events of 1938-9. In December 1941, a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the USA, thus making the war global.