World War Looms

Chapter 24

Essential Questions

1. Why did totalitarian rulers come to power between World War I and World War II?

2. What do these leaders show us about government and power?

3. Could leaders like this rise today? Do some already exist?

1930s Europe

• Totalitarian governments start as a response to the bad economic times

• Totalitarian: a government that has complete control over its citizens (citizens have no civil rights)

Joseph Stalin – Soviet Union

• He worked to change Russia from a rural country to an industrial world power

• In his attempt to eliminate all people who stood in his way, Stalin killed between 8-13 million Russians

Benito Mussolini – Italy• Fascist leader in Italy

who promised to help Italians avoid economic collapse and communism

• Fascism: a form of totalitarian government that stresses nationalism and placing the interest of the nation over the interest of the individual

Adolf Hitler – Germany

Adolf Hitler - Germany

• Strong public speaker• Promised to get Germany out of the post WWI

depression it had been in • Called himself “Der Fuhrer” (“The Leader”)• Mein Kampf (My Struggle) – The name of his

book• Was a member of the Nazi party (German

Fascism)

Hitler’s 3 Goals of Nazism1. He wanted to unite all German speaking people

in one great German empire

2. He wanted to enforce racial purification – Aryans (blond, blue eyed, Germans) were the “master

race” – Jews, Slavs, nonwhites were all considered “Inferior

races”

3. He wanted to expand German borders to give Germans more room to live

The Great Depression Led to the Rise of Hitler

• Hitler promised the German people he would help them out of depression

• By 1933, 6 million German men were out of work so Hitler made them into soldiers (called Brown Shirts or Storm Troopers)

• German people turned to Hitler as a last hope and he was appointed Chancellor (leader of the German government)

• He took apart the old government and replaced it with The Third Reich (The Third German Empire)

Militarists – Japan

• Totalitarian Military group in Japan who took over the government and went against the League of Nations to take over part of China called Manchuria

• When the League of Nations said they could not do that, they just quit the league and did it anyway

Francisco Franco – Spain• Franco – led a fascist

group in a Spanish Civil War

• Abraham Lincoln Battalion: a group of Americans who voluntarily went to Spain to try to stop the Fascist takeover

• Franco won and started a new totalitarian government in Spain

American Reaction

• Isolationism: We did not want to get involved in another European War (Like WWI)

• Neutrality Acts: a series of laws that kept America out of the conflict– FDR wanted to get around these acts when

Japan attacked China because he believed supporting China would stop Japan from continuing to take over lands

Essential Questions

1. Why did totalitarian rulers come to power between World War I and World War II?

2. What do these leaders show us about government and power?

3. Could leaders like this rise today? Do some already exist?

War in Europe

24-2

Essential Questions

• Hitler began to take over part of Europe while the world did little to stop him. Why do you think this was?

• What role did the location of these countries play in Hitler’s strategy?

• How did Hitler get the support of the people he ruled? Did he have support from all his people?

Austria and Czechoslovakia

• One of Hitler’s plans was to unite all German lands – this included Austria and Czechoslovakia

• March 12, 1938 – German troops take Austria unopposed

• Hitler immediately put troops on the Czech border

Austria and Czechoslovakia• Neville Chamberlain – British Prime Minister

who tried to stop Hitler from waging war on Europe

• Munich Agreement: an agreement between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler that said that the Sudetenland would be his last conquest

• Appeasement: giving up principles to stop someone from doing any worse

Chamberlain and Hitler

Hitler Takes Austria

Nazi Troops March into Austria

Nazi Troops March

into Czech.

German Offensive Begins

• Winston Churchill: Took over for Chamberlain (and was against appeasement)

• March 1939: Hitler broke the Munich Agreement and took over the rest of Czechoslovakia

• Hitler would make up newspaper articles about how the Czech people wanted to be taken over by Germany.

• When he had Czech. he started articles about how the Polish wanted to be taken over.

Hitler and the Soviet Union

• Hitler and Stalin sign Nonaggression Pact: an agreement that neither will invade the other

• Secret Pact: they also secretly agreed to take over Poland and split it between them

Invasion of Poland

• September 1, 1939: Germany invaded Poland

• Blitzkrieg: “lighting war”– Germans war strategy of taking an enemy by

surprise and quickly destroying all opposition

• This was also against the Munich Agreement and it caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany

War in Europe

• Both sides set up troops along the border of France and Germany

• Maginot Line: the French and British Troops

• Siegfried Line: German troops

• Both sides basically sat on these lines for months not engaging in combat

Essential Questions

• Hitler began to take over part of Europe while the world did little to stop him. Why do you think this was?

• What role did the location of these countries play in Hitler’s strategy?

• How did Hitler get the support of the people he ruled? Did he have support from all his people?