The Interwar Years

1. The Interwar Years Main Idea: World War I left millions of people dead and the map of Europe transformed. With Europe in chaos a new generation of strong leaders promised power and glory. By the end of the 1930s these leaders’ aggressive actions had the world on the brink of another devastating war.

2. Post-World War Issues • Europe was facing many problems following World War I: • Finding jobs for returning vets • Rebuilding war damaged lands • Huge debts • Economic problems fed social unrest & made radical ideas more popular • Europe lacked strong leaders

3. The Great Depression • At the end of WWI, the United States was the world’s leading economic power, but by the end of the 1920s the U.S. economy was crashing. • During WWI, America farms and farmers supplied much of the world with food and supplies needed to fight the war. • Much of the economic growth following the war occurred in industry. • However, there were many weaknesses in the American economy. • There was a large uneven distribution of wealth between the rich and poor. • Many Americans were buying consumer goods and stock in businesses on credit, or an arrangement in which a purchaser borrows money from a bank or other lender and agrees to pay it back over time. • By the end of the 1920s consumers were reaching the limit of their credit and could no longer afford to buy the products or stock that had kept the U.S. economy expanding.

4. The Great Depression • By the fall of 1929 consumer spending had slowed and the profits of businesses had fallen severely. • On Thursday October 24 investors began selling their shares, others also began selling their shares. • As everyone sold their shares the stock market began to decline. • A group of bankers came together and bought the majority of these stocks to help prevent a decline. • Stock market officially crashed on Tuesday October 29, they called the day Black Tuesday. • With the stock market crash investors, businesses who depended on investors, and the lenders all were in deep financial trouble. • The economic downturn that followed became known as the Great Depression.

5. The Great Depression • As a result of the Great Depression many people became unemployed, businesses and investors failed to pay back loans, and banks began to close. • U.S. President Hoover believed that the government should have a limited role in helping the economy to recover. • In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President and enacted the New Deal program in an attempt to fight the Great Depression. • The New Deal established public works programs to give people jobs, provided other welfare relief programs, and also passed reforms to protect the stock market and the banking system. • Increased government spending was supported by the theories of John Maynard Keynes who believed that governments could limit or even prevent economic downturns by spending money even if it meant an unbalanced budget. • He believed that increased government spending would help increase economic output.

6. Worldwide Depression • In 1929 American businesses were responsible for much of the world’s industrial output and were the world’s leading lender of money. • Many areas were already having economic difficulties and struggling to recover from the effects of WWI before the stock market crashed. • Many of the former Allied Powers were deeply in debt to the United States. • Steep reparations after the war led to severe inflation in Germany making German money worthless and crippling the German economy. • America also had passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that placed heavy taxes on imported goods in an attempt to encourage Americans to buy goods and products made in the United States. • The new tariff led countries around the world to increase their own tariffs on American goods. • As world trade came to a standstill the prices for trade goods dropped.

7. Rise of dictators • The political and social unrest that followed World War I helped totalitarian, or when the government has complete control over the country, dictators rise to power in Europe. • There were three main totalitarian governments: Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and Stalin in the Soviet Union – all of them had common features. • Characteristics of Totalitarian Governments: • Political • The state is more important than individuals • The government is controlled by a single political party • A powerful dictator united the people and symbolizes the government. • Social • The government controls all aspects of daily life. • Secret police use terror and violence to enforce government policies. • Citizens are denied basic rights and liberties. • Economic • The government controls businesses and directs the national economy. • Labor and business are used to fulfill the objectives of the state.

8. Mussolini’s Italy • Benito Mussolini became known as Il Duce, or “the leader” and wanted to build a great and glorious Italian empire. • In 1919 he founded the National Fascist Party that encouraged unity and strength for the country. • Fascism is an authoritarian form of government that places the good of the nation above all else, including individual needs and rights. • Mussolini wanted to rule Italy – he led the March on Rome which convinced Italy’s king to put him at the head of Italy’s government. • Once in power he moved to establish a dictatorship. • He used violence, threats, and political skill to outlaw all opposition and take unlimited power. • Mussolini sought to expand his Italian empire and invaded Ethiopia.

9. Stalin’s Soviet Union • Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin died in 1924 and Joseph Stalin became the new leader of the Soviet Union. • Stalin took a very different approach to communism – he turned government into a totalitarian state. • Stalin’s plan to strengthen the Soviet Union through the modernization of the Soviet economy through his Five Year Plan, there were other five year plans as well. • Under this plan the government was responsible for major decisions about the production of goods. • The Five Year Plan led to increases in Soviet industrial output. • Stalin also wanted to increase Soviet farm output by making the millions of small Soviet farms into larger modernized farms. • He took land that had been given to peasants after the Russian Revolution. • Any peasants that resisted were executed or thrown into the gulag a system of hard labor camps in Siberia.

10. Stalin’s Soviet Union • By the mid-1930s Stalin had absolute power, but was paranoid that people were plotting against him. • He began a campaign known as the Great Purge or the Great Terror in which he got rid of people or things he considered undesirable. • During the Great Purge Stalin sent thousands of Communist leaders, military officers, and ordinary citizens to the gulag or executed them. • Stalin’s regime dominated Soviet life. • Children were encouraged to join youth organizations where they were taught the attitudes and beliefs that Soviet leaders wanted them to have. • Religion was discouraged and churches were closed. • Portraits of Stalin were hung everywhere and streets and cities were renamed to honor him.

11. Hitler’s Germany • After WWI Germany formed a new republican government called the Weimar Republic. • The republic was very unpopular with the Germans who blamed the government for the humiliating Treaty of Versailles and for the economic problems that overwhelmed Germany after the war. • Following WWI, Adolf Hitler joined a group of right-wing extremists and soon joined the Nationalist Social Party, or the Nazi Party. • Hitler realized he had a talent for public speaking and leadership and rose quickly within the leadership of the Nazi Party. • He helped to lead an attempt to overthrow the German government but the attempt failed and he ended up in jail. • While he was in jail he wrote the book Mein Kampfthat described his major political ideas including nationalism and the racial superiority of the German, or Aryan, race.

12. Hitler’s Germany • The economic effects of the Great Depression made the German people desperate for a strong leader who would improve their lives. • Hitler promised to improve their lives and rebuild the German military. • He said that German’s were the “master race.” • Through Hitler’s nationalist rhetoric the Nazi party gained many new supporters. • In 1933 Hitler was appointed to the position of chancellor the most powerful post in the German government. • Once in power Hitler arrested anyone who opposed him and bullied the German legislature into giving him dictatorial powers. • He slowly built a totalitarian regime through propaganda that glorified Hitler as Fuhrer, or leader. • Nazi youth organizations shaped the minds of young Germans who pledged complete loyalty to Hitler and Germany.

13. Hitler’s Germany • Hitler began to rebuild the German military and improve the German economy. • Strict wage controls and massive government spending on public works programs helped reduce unemployment. • A key component of the Nazi system was strong anti-Semitic beliefs, or beliefs that were hostile and prejudiced towards Jews. • Hitler blamed Jews for many of Germany’s problems, including its defeat in World War I. • Anti-Semitism had a long history in mainly Christian Europe. • Nazi anti-Semitism combined religious hostility with false beliefs that Jews were a separate race. • Hitler’s Nazi government passed many laws aimed at excluding Jews from mainstream German life called the Nuremberg Laws. • The laws created a separate legal status for Jews – eliminating their citizenship and many civil and property rights. • The laws defined a Jew as Jewish based on ancestry not religious beliefs. • On the nights of November 9 and 10 the Nazi government encouraged anti-Jewish riots across Germany and Austria – the night became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. • 100 Jews were killed and thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues were damaged or destroyed.