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The Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of the Versailles
What it is: The Treaty of Versialles forced Germany to pay massive reparations, shear lands and deprived it of all its colonies.
Why it led to WWII: The unfair conditions of the Treaty gave rise to German nationalism which was then exploited by Adolf Hitler. -
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Timespan
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Great Depression
What happened: Following the Wall Street stock market crash in Oct. 1929, great depression began to spread across U.S. and forced U.S. to end new loans to Germany. As a country dependent on loans from U.S. and foreign trade, Germany was plunged into the crisis of economic depression when all the loans became due and Germany's world market dried up.
Why it led to WWII:Great depression in Germany slowly led people to lose confidence in the Social Democratic Party, giving rise to the Nazi party. -
Huge success in federal election
Before German federal election in 1930, Nazis waged a whirl wind campaign. Hitler traveled all across the country to deliver dozens of speeches, making many people believe in his promise of a better German future.They finally received 18 percent of the votes with the seat number increasing from 12 to 107.With no cooperation with the democratic government, Nazis made the Parliament ineffective and made people to turn to decisive Hitler from indecisive democracy. -
Hitler Appointed as the Chancellor
One of the first speeches of Hitler as the chancellor
Hitler was appointed as the chancellor of the parliament by the old Paul von Hindenburg after Schleicher resigned.
This was a big step for Hitler, Hitler now could clear off all other parties' opposition and consolidate the power of the Nazis, preparing for his further takeover of the presidency after Hindenburg died. -
Passing of Enabling Act
By threating to arrest anyone who opposed, Hitler made passed the Enabling Act, officially named "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich", allowing him to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag.
Democracy was ended, Now Hitler was able to carry out his plan for exterminating Jews and building a new Germany which led to War World II. -
Hitler Becoming Führer
Hitler's closing speech as the Fuhrer in 1934 Nuremburg RallyAfter the death of the president Hindenburg, the Reichstag announced Adolf Hitler as both the president and chancellor of the Germany and as what's called Führer followed by a plebiscite on Aug. 19 in which Hitler was accepted by the people as the Führer of the Germany with a 90 percent "yes" vote.
Now after years of hard work, Hitler had achieved his absolute power in Germany and was ready now to unravel his plan. -
Rearmament of Germany and No Response from France or Britain
Hitler gambled by announcing his plan to build a new army of 550,000 men, reintroducing military conscription, which was against the terms of the Treaty of the Versailles. But France and Britain, with their inner problems, did nothing.
Hitler now began to rearm his army, while the Western democracies didn't stop him and did nothing. But when Hitler became ready, it would just be too late for them to stop him. -
March into the Demilitarized Rhineland
Violating the Treaty of the Versailles, Hitler odered his armies to march into the demilitarized Rhineland close to the border of France, while France and Britain again did nothing.
Hitler's success in the big gamble of marching into Rhineland made him more daring, making him to further decide to invade other areas. -
Second Sino-Japanese War
On Sep. 22 1937, Japanese started their invasion into China by bombing many cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou.
A war had started in the Far East -
Hitler becoming the Commander of the Armed Forces
After dumping two generals, Blomberg and Fritsch who're opposing to his invasion plan for Lebensraum, Hitler announced himself as the commander-in-chief of the whole armed forces and replaced many other senior generals.
With the full control of the armed forces in hand, Hitler was ready to start his invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia. -
Anschluss
After the failure of bluff, the German Armed Forces invaded Austria at dawn of Saturday Mar 12th 1938, and they were welcomed like heroes into Austria. The next day, Austria government approved Anschluss or union with Germany followed by a plebiscite of German and Austrian people in which most people said “Ja".
Now with Austria in hand, Hitler was ready to invade Czechoslovakia. -
Signing of the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
Just after 1 am on Sept. 30th, leaders of Germany, Italy, France and Britain signed the Munich Agreement that allowed German Armed Forces to occupy Sudetenland, west of Czechoslovakia.
With the Western democracies appeasing him, Hitler thought their enemies were weak and that he could do anything, even conquer the world. -
Annexation of the Czeslovakia
German Army rolled into the rest of Czeslovakia, soon after that Czeslovakia ceased to exist.
This caused a strong reaction in Britain that declared to stand up against the dictator. Then Britain allied with French and Poland, while Germany allied with Italy. And the second world war was about to break. -
German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
Nazi-Soviet Non-agression Pact
Enemies Germany and Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the nonaggression pact in which they claimed not to take any military action against each other for the next ten years.
Germany could now the Poland and Western democracies without fearing to be stabbed in the back by the Soviet Union. -
Invasion of Poland
With invasion of Poland, Hitler started the war for Lebensraum he had long planned. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
After U.S. imposed a full embargo on all the trade with Japanese including the oil shipments, Japanese Navy attacked the Pear Harbor destroying most of fleet in the anchor.
The angered U.S. soon declared war on Japan and later became involved in the war in Europe.
