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Prior to 1921, before the reparation payments required of Germany were raised to $33 billion, the British economist John Maynard Keynes said, “The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable . . . . Nations are not authorized, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the misdoings of parents or rulers.” This economic punishment of Germany had disastrous consequences in the decades to come.


A. The peace settlement at the end of World War I created repeated border disputes among new nations and left many Germans determined to change the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

I. Uneasy Peace, Uncertain Security (pages 464–

466)


B. Though President Wilson and others hoped that the League of Nations could solve many of the new conflicts, the league was not able to maintain peace. One reason for this was that the United States never ratified the Treaty of Versailles and could not become a member of the League of Nations. Americans did not want to be involved in European affairs. Also, the league could not use military force and had to rely only on economic sanctions to stop aggression.


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C. The French demanded that the Treaty of Versailles be strictly enforced. The Germans said that due to economic problems they could no longer continue to pay back the $33 billion that was required. The French army occupied the Ruhr Valley, an industrial and mining center. The French planned to take the reparations by operating German industries themselves.


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D. In response, German workers went on strike. The government paid them by printing more money. This devalued the German currency and increased the inflation that had begun before the end of the war. The German mark became completely worthless. By the end of 1923, it took more than 4 trillion marks to equal one U.S. dollar.


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Economic downturns led to labor unrest in many countries.


E. The huge inflation meant that people suffered terribly. The economic problems led to political unrest in Germany. Other countries stepped in to help. The Dawes Plan began by reducing reparation payments and coordinating Germany’s payments with what the nation could afford. The plan also loaned Germany $200 million and led to heavy American investments, which lasted between 1924 and 1929.


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F. As Germany began to recover, the French and Germans became more cooperative. They signed the Treaty of Locarno in 1925, which guaranteed Germany’s western borders. It was seen by many as a beginning of lasting peace.

G. In 1926, Germany joined the League of Nations. In 1928, 63 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand pact, in which they pledged to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.


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H. While Germany had been forced to reduce its military, no other European nation was willing to take this step. The trust of European countries for each other did not go that far.


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A. The brief period of European prosperity ended in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression. During a depression there is very low economic activity and high unemployment.

II. The Great Depression (pages 466–467)


B. The Great Depression had two main causes. One was the downturn in the economies of nations during the second half of the 1920s. The second cause was the collapse of the U.S. stock market in 1929. Since 1924, Germany had been borrowing money from U.S. banks to make reparations payments. After the stock market crashed, American investors pulled their money out of Germany. This weakened banks in Germany and other European countries.



C. As trade and industrial production slowed, huge numbers of people lost their jobs. Though there had been depressions in Europe before, the Great Depression was far worse. Unemployed and homeless people filled the streets of many countries.

D. Governments did not know how to deal with the depression. They tried to lower wages and raise tariffs on foreign goods, which made things worse. Some governments, such as in the United States, became more involved in the economy. Communism became more popular in many places.



E. The Great Depression led many people to follow political leaders who proposed simple solutions in return for complete power. Democratic governments were challenged everywhere.



What were two causes of the Great Depression?

Two causes of the Great Depression were the downturn in many nation’s economies during the second half of the 1920s and the collapse of the U.S. stock market in 1929.



A. In 1919, many European states had democratic governments. In all states except Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain, women had gained the right to vote.

B. In Germany the Weimar Republic was created in 1918 but had many problems. Paul von Hindenburg was elected president but was not a strong leader. The Weimar Republic also faced serious economic problems. Runaway inflation caused people to lose their incomes and savings. Then in 1929, Germany suffered under the Great Depression. Millions of people had no jobs.

III. Democratic States After the War (pages 467–

469)



C. After World War I, France became the strongest power on the European continent. France was able to avoid serious effects of the Great Depression until 1932. However, when economic instability occurred, there was political chaos. A series of cabinets came and went. In 1936, Communists, Socialists, and Radicals formed the Popular Front government. The Popular Front began programs for workers including the right to negotiate with employers (collective bargaining), a minimum wage, and a 40–hour work week. However, the government was not able to solve the larger problems of the depression.


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D. Great Britain suffered severe unemployment in the early 1920s but rebounded somewhat between 1925 and 1929. As Britain’s economic problems continued during the Great Depression, governments changed from the Labour Party to the Conservatives.


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E. A British economist, John Maynard Keynes, argued in 1936 that unemployment came not from overproduction but from a decline in demand. He said that if people went back to work, demand would increase. Keynes proposed that the government should finance projects such as highway building to create jobs for the unemployed. Governments should finance projects even if it led to deficit spending, or going into debt. Most British politicians of the time ignored his ideas.


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F. The United States was terribly affected by the Great Depression. Industrial production fell by 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. By 1933, 15 million people were out of work. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president.

G. Roosevelt instituted a policy called the New Deal. Under the New Deal, the government created jobs by funding programs of public works. Roosevelt also pushed through the Social Security Act, which created a system of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.


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H. While the New Deal may have prevented a social revolution in the United States, it did not solve the problem of unemployment. It was not until World War II that American workers regained full employment.


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Joseph Stalin was neither a dynamic speaker nor a forceful writer. He was content to hold the dull bureaucratic job of general secretary, while others held more public positions in the Politburo. Stalin was an excellent organizer and for that his fellow Bolsheviks called him “Comrade Index-Card.” In time they learned that Stalin also held more power than anyone.


A. Between 1919 and 1939, all the major countries of Europe except France and Great Britain had adopted some form of dictatorial government.

B. A new form of dictatorship was the modern totalitarian state. Totalitarian governments aimed to control all aspects of their citizens’ lives. Totalitarian governments wanted to control the hearts and minds of everyone and used mass propaganda and modern communication to achieve their goals.

I. The Rise of Dictators (page 471)


C. A single leader and a single party led the new totalitarian states. There were no individual freedoms or limits to government power. Individuals were considered subservient to the collective will of the masses, which was controlled by the state. The state demanded that its citizens actively support any of its goals.

I. The Rise of Dictators (page 471)


II. Fascism in Italy (pages 471–473)

A. Benito Mussolini in Italy established the first European Fascist government in the early 1920s. Fascism glorifies the state above the individual. A strong central government and a single dictator run the state.

Benito Mussolini


B. Italy suffered severe economic problems after World War I. There was a great deal of social upheaval. Many Italians were afraid that there might be a Communist takeover as in Russia and Mussolini’s movement gained wide support. Mussolini formed groups of armed Fascists called Blackshirts, who attacked socialists and strikers and anyone who opposed the Fascists.



C. Mussolini appealed to nationalist pride among Italians. He demanded that Italy get more land from the peace treaties of World War I. In 1922, Mussolini had enough followers that he forced the Italian king to make him his prime minister. As prime minister, Mussolini created a Fascist dictatorship. He added extensive powers to the government and was given the power to pass laws by decree. The police were given authority to arrest anyone.



D. In 1926, the Fascists outlawed all opposition. They set up a secret police. At the end of 1926, Mussolini was the only ruler of Italy. He was called Il Duce.

E. Mussolini used the secret police to control the people. The Fascists also controlled mass-media outlets. They used the media to spread pro-Fascist propaganda. The Fascists created youth groups that focused on military activities. While the Italian Fascists tried to create a new nation of fit, disciplined, and war-loving people, they still maintained traditional values about the important place of women and families in society.



F. Mussolini never achieved the total control over Italy that Hitler and Stalin did in Germany and the Soviet Union. For example, Mussolini still recognized the sovereign independence of the Vatican in Rome and Catholicism as the state religion.

G. In all areas of Italian life, there was a large gap between Fascist policies and actual practice.




A. In the early 1920s, millions died in Russia during a great famine caused by a drought. Industrial output was reduced to 20 percent of that of 1913. The country and government were on the verge of collapse.

B. In 1921, Lenin created the New Economic Policy (NEP). He abandoned war communism in favor of a system of modified capitalism. Peasants could sell produce, and small businesses could be privately owned. The government still controlled heavy industries and banking.

III. A New Era in the Soviet Union (pages 473–476)


C. In 1922, the Communists created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union. The NEP saved the Soviet Union from economic ruin, but the Communists saw it only as a temporary measure.



D. In 1924, Lenin died and a bitter struggle for power in the Politburo ensued. The Politburo was a committee that controlled the policies of the Communist Party. One faction, led by Leon Trotsky, wanted to end the NEP and industrialize the nation at the expense of the peasants. They also wanted to spread communism to other countries. Another faction rejected worldwide communism and wanted to continue the NEP while building a socialist state.



E. Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were personal rivals in the Politburo. Stalin held the job of general secretary, and as such had appointed thousands of officials throughout Russia. Stalin used his position to gain complete control over the Communist Party. By 1929, he had removed all the Bolsheviks from power and became a powerful dictator. Trotsky was expelled and ended up in Mexico, where he was killed in 1940, probably on Stalin’s orders.


Joseph Stalin


F. The Stalinist Era began a time of radical changes in the Soviet Union. In 1928, Stalin ended the NEP and instituted the First Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plans set economic goals for five-year periods. The First Five-Year Plan emphasized industrialization and production of capital goods. The plan greatly increased the output of heavy machinery and production of oil and steel.



G. The Five-Year Plans took a heavy toll on the Russian people. Urban housing for millions of workers was terrible. Wages declined. The government dealt with these problems by using propaganda to boost morale.

H. Stalin also collectivized agriculture. Collectivization was a system in which the government took over ownership of private farms and had the peasants work them. Many peasants resisted collectivization by hoarding food and killing livestock. Stalin responded by increasing the number of farms in the program.



I. During the early 1930s, millions of Russians starved to death due to food shortages from collectivization. Those who resisted Stalin’s programs were sent to Siberian forced labor camps. Stalin conducted purges of Old Bolsheviks and others, many of whom were executed. The purges spared no part of society.

J. Stalin overturned social legislation passed in the early 1920s. These included laws protecting rights of women, such as divorce and being able to work outside the home.




A. Authoritarian states were similar to totalitarian states. They were concerned with preserving a social order, but unlike totalitarian states they did not try to create a new mass society that had complete control over the people.

IV.Authoritarian States in the West (pages 476–

477)


B. In most of the countries of eastern Europe, authoritarian governments replaced parliamentary governments. Parliamentary systems in eastern Europe failed in part because there was no tradition of democracy and most of the peasants were illiterate. Landowners and the churches feared that democracy would lead to revolution. They supported authoritarian governments to keep order. Czechoslovakia was the only country to keep a democratic government.


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C. In 1936, General Francisco Franco used the military forces to revolt against the democratic government in Spain. A civil war broke out. Germany and Italy supported Franco’s side. The Soviet Union and volunteers from other countries supported the republican government. Franco won the civil war after he captured Madrid in 1939. He then began an authoritarian dictatorship that lasted for many decades.


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In Mein Kampf, Hitler spelled out the ideas that directed his actions once he took power in Germany. In 1923, he essentially wrote for anyone to read what he planned to do. It was to his great advantage that other people did not take his extreme ideas seriously. If they had from the beginning, the course of history might have been very different.


A. Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, failed secondary school, and was rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. It was in Vienna that he developed his ideas. Racism, particularly against the Jewish people, was at the core of Hitler’s ideas. He was an extreme nationalist and understood the use of propaganda and terror.

I. Hitler and His Views (page 479)


B. Hitler served on the Western Front for four years during World War I. Then he entered politics in Germany. In 1919, he joined an extreme right-wing nationalist party in Munich. By 1921, Hitler controlled the party and renamed it the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party for short.

C. Within two years, the Nazi Party had grown to 55,000 people with 15,000 in the militia. In 1923, Hitler staged an uprising in Munich—called the Beer Hall Putsch—which was quickly crushed. Hitler was sent to prison.



D. While in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, in which he outlined his basic ideas and plans. His ideas combined German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism. He also embraced the notion that stronger nations should expand to obtain living space (Lebensraum) and that superior leaders should rule over the masses.



A. Hitler realized that the way to power was through legal means, not through violent overthrow of the government. When he got out of prison, he worked to expand the Nazi Party throughout Germany. By 1929, the Nazis had a national party organization, and by 1931 it was the largest political party in the Reichstag, or parliament.

II. Rise of Nazism (pages 479–480)


B. Germany’s economic problems helped the rise of the Nazi Party. Many people were in desperate situations, which made extreme political parties far more attractive. Hitler appealed to national pride and militarism to gain the support of the German people.

II. Rise of Nazism (pages 479–480)

Public displays of the swastika—a cross with its arms bent 90 degrees to either left or right—were everywhere.


A. After 1930, the Reichstag had little power. As Hitler’s power grew, more and more right-wing industrial leaders, aristocrats, military officers, and high-level bureaucrats wanted him to lead the country. In 1933, the Nazis pressured President Hindenburg to allow Hitler to become chancellor and create a new government.

III. Victory of Nazism (pages 480–481)




B. Within two months, Hitler had set up the government. The Nazis were in complete control. In March 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave the government the power to ignore the constitution and pass laws to deal with the nation’s problems. The act gave Hitler a legal basis for his actions. He had become a dictator, appointed by the Reichstag.



C. Once in power, the Nazis established control over all aspects of government. Jews were purged from the civil service, and trade unions were dissolved. Concentration camps were set up for Nazi opponents. All political parties except the Nazis were abolished. The Nazis had set up the basis for a totalitarian state. When Hindenburg died, the Nazis abolished the presidency and Hitler became Germany’s only leader. He was known to the German people as their Führer (leader).



A. Hitler had a goal in creating a total state. He wanted to develop an Aryan racial state to dominate Europe and possibly the world. Nazis wanted the Germans to create a new empire as the Romans had done. Hitler thought there had been two previous German empires (Reichs): the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918. Hitler called his empire the Third Reich.

IV.The Nazi State, 1933–1939 (pages 481–483)


B. Hitler demanded active involvement from the German people. The Nazis used economic policies, mass rallies, organizations, and terror to control the country and further their goals.


Young Germans were ingrained with the spirit of militarism.


C. While Hitler ruled absolutely over the Nazi Party, there were internal struggles within the party. To control the nation, the Nazis used the SS or “Guard Squadrons.” Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler, the SS controlled all the police forces. Terror and ideology drove the SS. Terror included repression, murder, and death camps. Himmler’s goal was to further the Aryan race.


The “SS,” or Schutzstaffeln, were elite Nazi troops who brutally repressed all opposition to Hitler.


D. Hitler put people back to work through public works projects and grants to private construction companies. He also embarked on a massive rearmament program to stimulate the economy. Unemployment dropped and the depression seemed to be ending.

E. The Nazis staged mass demonstrations and spectacles. Some of the largest were held in Nuremberg. The Nazis also controlled both the Catholic and Protestant churches as well as all schools.



F. Women played a special role in the Aryan state as the bearers of Aryan children. The Nazis said that women were to be wives and mothers, while men were to be warriors and political leaders. The Nazis also controlled the types of work that women could do and strongly encouraged them to stay home.


Girls and women were among Hitler’s most fanatical admirers.


G. Once in power, the Nazi Party enacted programs against Jewish people. In 1935, the Nazis passed the “Nuremberg laws,” which prevented Jews from being German citizens, forbade marriages between Jews and German citizens, and required Jews to wear yellow Stars of David and to carry identification cards saying they were Jewish.



H. On the night of November 9, 1938, Nazis burned Jewish synagogues and destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses. They killed at least 100 people and sent thirty thousand Jewish men to concentration camps. This night was called Kristallnacht (“night of shattered glass”). After Kristallnacht, Jews were barred from all public transportation, schools, and hospitals. They could not own, manage, or work in a retail store. Jews were encouraged to leave Germany.



In the 1930s, sports and politics grew closer together. Mussolini poured huge sums of money into the Italian soccer team, which won the World Cup twice during the 1930s. The 1936 Olympics were held in Germany and became a showcase for the power of the new Germany and the Nazi idea of the superior Aryan race. When the African American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals, the Nazis were humiliated.


A. In the late nineteenth century, inventions such as motion pictures and discoveries such as wireless radio waves changed mass communication.

B. In the early 1920s, radio broadcasting facilities were built in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The mass production of radios began. Radio production grew at a great rate throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

I. Mass Culture: Radio and Movies (page 487)


C. The first full-length motion pictures came out just before World War I. During the next decades, movies became an important part of mass entertainment. By the end of the 1930s, 40 percent of adults in industrialized nations were seeing one movie per week.

D. Radio and movies were used for political purposes. The Nazis realized the value of radio and broadcast Hitler’s speeches over the air. The impact was great. To increase the radio audience, the Nazis urged radio manufacturers to produce cheap radios and allow people to buy them using time payments.



E. The Nazis also used movies to spread propaganda. The Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, understood that movies were an excellent way to influence the masses. He created a special propaganda film division. One of the most famous Nazi films was directed by Leni Riefenstahl and called The Triumph of the Will. The documentary film showed the 1934 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg and conveyed the power of the Nazis.



A. After World War I, the eight-hour workday became common for many Europeans, and people began to have more free time.

B. Leisure activities, such as attending professional sports events and traveling, became very popular. People used trains, buses, and cars to reach their destinations.

II. Mass Leisure (page 488)


C. Totalitarian states used mass leisure to help control the people. For example, the Nazis had a program called “Strength through Joy,” which offered cultural activities, sporting events, and inexpensive vacations. These activities were intended to fill the leisure time of working people and to keep them happy.

II. Mass Leisure (page 488)


A. Many Europeans experienced profound despair following World War I. The horror of the war left them convinced that there was something profoundly wrong with human beings and Western values. The Great Depression and the rise of Fascist movements increased this feeling.

III. Artistic and Literary Trends (pages 488–490)


B. Political and social despair led to intellectual uncertainties. These uncertainties were expressed in the arts after World War I. Many people felt that the world made no sense and was absurd. Dada was a style of art that expressed the idea that life had no purpose. The dadaists created artworks to express the insanity of life. One technique they used was photomontage, which is making a picture by combining photographs. The first Dada show was held in Berlin in 1920.



C. Surrealism expressed a reality beyond the material world. Surrealist artists often depicted scenes from the unconscious, including fantasies and dreams. Salvador Dalí was a Spanish painter who used recognizable objects in fantastic ways to create strange and irrational images.

D. Many people disliked modern art. Germany was a center for modern art, which particularly offended the Nazis. Hitler condemned it as degenerate. The Nazis proposed a German art that would glorify the strength and heroism of the Aryan race.



E. In architecture, the German Bauhaus school wanted to unite function, technology, and craft. Their buildings favored clean, modern lines. Bauhaus was inspired by modernism.

F. In literature, there was great interest in the unconscious. The Irish writer James Joyce (Ulysses, 1922) and others used a stream of consciousness technique to record the innermost thoughts of their characters. The German writer Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha) was influenced by Freud’s psychology and Buddhism, and focused on the psychological confusion of modern life.



A. During the years following World War I, the long-held Newtonian views of physics became undermined. New theories based on the work of Albert Einstein showed that all phenomena could not be completely defined and predicted. In 1927, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg explained what he called the uncertainty principle.

IV.The Heroic Age of Physics (page 491)

German physicist Werner Heisenberg


B. According to Heisenberg, the behavior of subatomic particles was not predictable. This suggests that all physical laws are based on uncertainty, or randomness. Heisenberg’s ideas constituted a new world view, one that challenged the old certainties of Newtonian physics.

IV.The Heroic Age of Physics (page 491)


Chapter Summary

Between 1919 and 1939, the West experienced great economic and political challenges.


Benito Mussolini was the founder of the first Fascist movement. He was an unruly and rebellious child who was expelled from school once for stabbing a fellow pupil. Ultimately, he received a diploma and worked for a short time as an elementary school teacher.

Mussolini became a Socialist and gradually became well known in Italian Socialist circles. In 1912, he obtained the important position of editor of Avanti (Forward), the official Socialist daily newspaper.

After being expelled from the Socialist Party, he formed his own political movement, the Fascist movement. When the Fascists did poorly in the Italian election of November 1919, Mussolini said that fascism had “come to a dead end.” He then toyed with the idea of emigrating to the United States to become a journalist.

1883–1945Italian dictator

Benito Mussolini

Joseph Stalin established a strong personal dictatorship over the Soviet Union. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and came to Lenin’s attention after staging a daring bank robbery to get funds for the Bolshevik cause. His real last name was Dzhugashvili, but he adopted the name Stalin, which means “man of steel.”

Stalin was neither a dynamic speaker nor a forceful writer. He was a good organizer, however. His fellow Bolsheviks called him “Comrade Index-Card.”

Like Hitler, Stalin was one of the greatest mass murderers in human history. It is estimated that his policies and his deliberate executions led to the death of as many as 25 million people. At the time of his death in 1953, he was planning yet another purge of party members.

1879–1953Soviet dictator

Joseph Stalin

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