THE FIRST RESPONSES TO GERMAN REARMAMENT, 1935-1937:

Was their a Wilsonian basis for Hitler’s early demands?

July 1933: Hitler signs Reich Concordat with the VaticanJanuary 1934: German-Polish Nonaggression PactMarch 1935: Germany restores universal conscriptionApril-May 1935: Pierre Laval forges the “Stresa Front” of Great Britain, France, and Italy and signs treaty with USSRJune 1935: Anglo-German Naval AgreementOctober 1935: Italy invades EthiopiaDecember 1935: Hoare-Laval Plan to “appease” Mussolini March 1936: German remilitarization of the RhinelandJune 1936: Popular Front election victory in FranceJuly 1936: Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (Britain & France agree on “Nonintervention” in August)November 1936: Rome-Berlin “Axis” & Anti-Comintern Pact

“THE ACCUSED”In October 1933 Germany walked

out of the Geneva

Disarmament Conference,

blaming France for its failure.

France sought a joint protest with Britain and the

USA, but they too blamed “French militarism” for the failure of disarmament.

CHURCHILL BROKE WITH TORY LEADERS IN 1931, WHEN THEY ENDORSED HOME RULE FOR INDIA

Labourite pacifist Ramsay

MacDonald, Prime Minister,

1924, 1929-1935

Conservative Stanley Baldwin,

PM 1924-29, 1935-37,

President of the Privy Council,

1931-35

Winston Churchill, out of office since 1929 (with Charlie Chaplin in 1931)

Cardinal Pacelli is flanked by the German officials Franz von Papen and Rudolf Buttmann at the

signing of the Reich Concordat in the Vatican, July 20, 1933

Hitler pledged to respect the complete autonomy of all purely “religious” organizations,

if the clergy abstained from any involvement in “politics”.

Marshal Pilsudski receives Joseph Goebbels after Germany signed a Nonaggression Pact with Poland in

January 1934

Hitler’s first meeting with Mussolini in June 1934 did NOT lead to an alliance

Hitler blundered in July 1934 by

approving a Nazi Putsch in Austria

The murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. Mussolini mobilized the Italian

army to prevent German intervention.

Government troops surround the biggest radio station in Vienna, seized by Austrian Nazis

In the Saar plebiscite of January 13, 1935, 91% of the people voted Yes

for reunification with Germany.BELOW: League of Nations

peacekeepers monitor the vote.

“German Mother, Home to You”

Germany restored universal conscription in March 1935

New draftees report in November

How they looked after a few

months

New Luftwaffe bombers and Wehrmacht

tanks on display for the

Nazi Party “Congress of Freedom” in Nuremberg, September

1935

“The Stresa Front”Pierre Laval, Mussolini, Ramsay MacDonald, and Premier Pierre Flandin pledge to resist German

expansionism,April 11, 1935

The Franco-Soviet Pact of Mutual Assistance,signed on May 2. 1935

Article 1: In the event that France or the U.S.S.R. are subjected to the threat or the danger of aggression on the part of a European state, the U.S.S.R. and France engage themselves reciprocally to proceed to an immediate mutual consultation on measures to take in order to observe the provisions of Article 10 of the League of Nations Pact.Article 2: In the event that, in the circumstances described in Article 15, paragraph 7, of the League of Nations Pact, France or the U.S.S.R. may be the subject of unprovoked aggression on the part of a European state, in spite of the genuinely pacific intentions of the two countries, the U.S.S.R. and France will immediately lend each other reciprocal aid and assistance.

[But Laval refused to authorize any military contention or even contacts between the French and Soviet general staffs.]

“CRUISERS THAT ONLY SHOOT EASTWARD”

(John Heartfield).Great Britain

undermined the Stresa Front with the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June

1935, in which Germany pledged to build no more than 35% of British naval

tonnage.

In October 1935 Italian armies converged on Addis Ababa

from Eritrea in the north and

Italian Somalia in the south

Italian troops prepare an assault on Makale, Ethiopia,

November 1935

Emperor Haile Selasse visits the

front after an Italian air raid in 1935

The people of Rome celebrate the conquest of Ethiopia

THE HOARE-LAVAL PLAN OF DECEMBER 1935

German troops cross the Rhine in March 1936

“Against the Lackeys of Stalin. Vote Nationalist” (1934)

“The Parliamentary Regime is Collapsing!

Amend the Constitution”

(rightist commentary on the Stavisky Affair,

1934)

THE ELECTORAL TRIUMPH OF THE ANTI-FASCIST“POPULAR FRONT” IN FRANCE, JUNE 1936

Alliance Party Share of votes

Seats in Chamber

POPULAR FRONT:5,628,321 votes (57.17%)

Socialist 19.86% 149

Communist 15.26% 72

Radical Republican (Liberal)

14.45% 110

Miscellaneous Left

7.60% 20

NATIONAL FRONT:4,202.298 votes (42.68%)

Center/Right (Democratic Alliance, Independents,etc)

25.76% 82

Conservatives, Republican Federation

16.92% 100

Leon Blum and the PCF leader Maurice Thorez at a mass rally in July 1936. They agreed to disarm the rightist paramilitary leagues but remained divided

over arms spending.

TOTAL DEFENSE SPENDINGIN MILLIONS OF 1952 DOLLARS

YEAR Japan* ItalyGer-many

USSR**

U.K. France USA

1930 218 266 162 722 512 498 699

1933 356 351 452 707 333 524 570

1934 384 455 709 3,479 540 707 803

1935 900 966 1,607 5,517 646 867 806

1936 440 1,149 2,332 2,933 892 995 932

1937 1,621 1,235 3,298 3,446 1,245 890 1,032

1938 2,489 746 7,415 5,429 1,863 919 1,131

* Japan’s total is hard to measure because of major charges to Manchukuo and other overseas dependencies.** Stalin’s command economy and slave labor camps make the Soviet total the most difficult to calculate.

NATIONAL INCOME IN 1937 (in billions of U.S. dollars)

AND THE PERCENTAGE SPENT ON DEFENSE

CountryNational Income

Percentage on Defense

USA 68 1.5%

British Empire 22 5.7%

France 10 9.1%

Germany 17 23.5%

Italy 6 14.5%

USSR 19 26.4%

Japan 4 28.2%

OUTBREAK OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, JULY 1936:The initial army uprising succeeded only in the red zone

THE NARROW VICTORY OF THE POPULAR FRONT IN SPAIN. Feb. 1936

Nov 1933(seats)

Feb 1936(seats)

Total votes (1936)

Communist 1 49

4.8 millionSocialist 60 85

Left Repub. 40 172

Centrists 102 49

4.0 millionChristian Democrats

110 94

Militant Right

102 49

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR AND THE POLICY OF “NONINTERVENTION”

1931-34: Growing popularity of the Right in Spain’s 2nd Republic sparks “anti-fascist” insurrection by the Socialists; 30,000 insurgents are imprisoned.

February 1936: New Popular Front government amnesties the socialist insurgents.

July 17/18, 1936: Assassination of a monarchist politician provokes rebellion by the army & rightist parties.

1936/37: Italy and Germany assist the Spanish army; Great Britain and France adopt a policy of nonintervention.

Feb-March 1939: Nationalists capture Madrid & Barcelona.

“Direct Action” by the anarcho-syndicalists:Shooting breaks out in April 1936 during the funeral of a Civil Guard officer accused of an assassination

attempt on President Azaña

May Day parade, 1936, on the Paseo del Prado in Madrid

Anarchist militiamen with a cannon captured from the Army in Barcelona, July 1936

Soldiers from the Montana barracks in Madrid proclaim their

loyalty to the Republic, July 1936

German transport planes arrive in Morocco to airlift Francisco Franco and the Army of Africa to Spain, July 1936

Franco lifts the siege of Toledo, 29 September 1936

Luis Companys (President of Catalonia) greets the captain of the Soviet supply ship RION in Barcelona, September 1936:

Only the USSR provided arms to the Republic

Luftwaffe pilots of the Condor Legion dine in style beside a Heinkel He-45 fighter-bomber

Pablo Picasso,“Guernica”

(1937)

“The Generalissimo”(Socialist Labor Federation caricature of Franco, 1937)

George Orwell towers over his comrades as a Republican volunteer, Huesca, 1937

The Spanish Earth premiered in New York in August 1937 with narration by Ernest Hemingway; 2,800 Americans fought

for the Spanish Republic, and 1,000 died.

Picasso, “Cat and Bird” (1939)