Germany :: essays research papers

And in the midst of the Japan crisis there is Germany. Germany had no idea that they were really losing WWI. They finally found out by reading it in the paper and this caused great psychological shock. Their leaders had lied to them. Germany thought they had lost in an unfair fight. Nazi’s said that the Jews had stabbed them in the back. And they were humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1923 the currency was so inflated that it wiped out the savings of the middle class of Germany. They did recover some prosperity during 1923-1929 but the economy had not completely recovered. By the 1930s their economy had stabilized due to American loans. The Great Depression had really hit Germany hard. This is what gave Hitler is chance to move. He promised to restore jobs to Germans, which he did to some degree. Hitler was a Nazi. Nazi’s denounced communism, rejected democracy, believed in the right of the individual, and anti-seminitism (Jews were to blame for all the Germany’s problems). Germany had no universal knowledge. They said that there was only a German science and a German math. And that Physics was a Jewish discipline. Germany lost some of it’s leading physicists because of this view, and even today in 1999 they have never regained their stature in science. Hitler wanted to reunite all the German people. He wanted to restore Vokdeutsch. So he took over the Rhineland and Austria. Then he stepped into Sudetenland and that’s when problems began. He said that they were German and that it should be his land. Well, Chamberlain basically gives Sudetenland to Hitler because he thought it was a way to avoid war with him. But Hitler wants a war really bad. But March 15, 1939 Hitler takes over ALL of Czechoslovakia. This is a clear sign of aggression. But he didn’t want to fight a two front war, so on Aug 23, 1939 he signed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin of Russia. This amazed the world because this was his biggest enemy. Well, this freed Hitler’s hands to make war in the east. And on Sept 1, 1939 German army invades Poland. Poland quickly falls to Hitler’s blitzkriegs. Well, Britain and France had given Poland sovereignty so they go to war with Germany. Well, Russia then moves in to Poland and basically splits it down the middle with Germany.