The Rise of Totalitarian Regimes and World War II
ITEM 9 – The period between the two world wars was characterized by the initial generation of democratic systems. The peace treaties led to the emergence of new states in Europe. Most of them established parliamentary governments, with democracy becoming the majority rule. However, there were ideological currents that challenged democracy. Part of the former combatants of war criticized the parliamentary system. Leagues were established for veterans, especially in Germany, France, and Italy. Opposite to these nationalist and authoritarian ideologies stood the extreme left, which advocated the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship. Democratic regimes faced early crises. After Mussolini’s accession to power in Italy, there was a proliferation of dictatorships, including Primo de Rivera in Spain and General Carmona in Portugal. The most significant was that of Nazi Germany. The Western democracies encountered great difficulties. In France, the war had a major cost in human resources. Economically, it recovered quickly and was little affected by the crisis of 1929. The democratic regime emerged strengthened by the victory of the Allies in the Great War. Political instability and the effects of the economic crisis facilitated the rise of anti-parliamentary groups. The disorders caused by the extreme right led to the creation of the Popular Front, which won elections in 1936. In the UK, the backwardness of the industry resulted in a considerable increase in unemployment. The general respect towards the democratic system was evident in parliament, where the extremists were not significant. Ireland had seen heavy fighting between the Nationalists. In the elections of 1919, the Irish members refused to participate in the British parliament and built an Irish parliament. Given this, in 1922, the United Kingdom ultimately conceded the Free State of Ireland. In America, the period between 1929 and 1933 was characterized by political conservatism, international isolation, and spectacular economic development. At this time, the U.S. launched a political and social shift, progressive in nature, which resulted in the triumph of President Roosevelt in 1932. Germany experienced an attempted establishment of a democratic regime, the so-called Weimar Republic, which faced double opposition: first from Spartacus, who promoted a Bolshevik-type revolution, which was crushed, and its top leaders killed. On the other hand, the right also opposed the republic. The Weimar Republic had a small political base and had to face very serious problems, such as the unpopularity of the Treaty of Versailles and hyperinflation. The political crisis joined the economic crisis, and the following year, the leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, became chancellor. Conservatives soon found that the Nazis were not going to leave power. A series of conventions laid the foundations for a temporary peace. However, it was difficult, because the reparations Germany had to pay were enormous, leading to the emergence of two plans: the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, which reduced the reparations. The relaxed atmosphere facilitated the signing of important agreements. The first was the Treaty of Rapallo, signed by Germany and Russia. The Briand-Kellogg Pact stipulated the renunciation of war and was signed by 60 treaties.
Fascism arose in Italy as the most prominent anti-parliamentary ideology. This period in Europe saw three major political events: the crisis of democracy, the rise of the Fascists, and the political consolidation created by Mussolini in 1919. Fascism became a major factor in the European political landscape. Italy was left disappointed by the Great War, and its expansion hopes were not met. This moral crisis was joined by a serious political, economic, and social crisis because successive governments were unable to resolve the problems affecting the country. In 1929, Mussolini’s Black Shirts emerged, whose first manifestations were a mixture of social progression and military expansionism. The example of the Russian Revolution frightened the middle and upper classes. The government saw in the Black Shirts a tool to stop the labor movement and restore public order. In 1921, the Fascists became the National Fascist Party, adopting a radical political agenda. The growing strength of Mussolini’s fascist party prompted the assault on power that took place through the March on Rome in October 1922. The government attempted to oppose the fascists but was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel II. Consequently, the government resigned, and the monarch appointed Mussolini as prime minister. Until 1924, Mussolini maintained democratic legality while transforming the state into a dictatorship. He achieved full powers of parliament and built the structure of the fascist state, which he defined as a totalitarian state, where fascist organizations were controlled across the government. Those who disagreed with fascism suffered persecution from the political police and ended up in prison or exile. Fascism sought social acceptance through comprehensive measures, including the establishment of people’s councils and encouraged industry with the development of domestic production. Socially, fascism was defined as corporatism, a theoretical doctrine that sought consensus between employers and employees, where the state acted as an arbitrator in disputes. An early success was the signing of the Treaties of Lateran with the Holy See in 1929, which ended the dispute between Italy and the Vatican that had begun in 1870 with the occupation of the Papal States. Nazism is inseparable from Hitler. The Nazi party was founded in 1920 and was part of the extreme nationalist right, with Hitler becoming its leader in 1921. In 1923, the Nazis, along with a small group of soldiers, attempted a coup against the Bavarian government, which ended in failure. This coup attempt, known as the Munich Putsch, resulted in Hitler being sentenced to five years in prison, where he wrote the book *Mein Kampf*, summarizing his main political ideas. During the 1920s, Hitler eliminated any internal opposition within the party and consolidated his unlimited authority. In less than two years, Hitler transformed a democratic regime into a dictatorship. On January 10, 1933, he was appointed chancellor by the president of the republic. The new government called for a general election, and during the election campaign, the Reichstag building was burned. This incident, for which a Communist Dutchman was blamed, served as an excuse to launch a violent campaign against the opposition, especially against the Communist Party. The elections brought victory to the Nazis and their allies, and on March 23, the Parliament passed the act that gave Hitler full power, making the Nazi Party the only authorized party in June. The next step was to eliminate the Nazi leaders who advocated the improvement of living conditions for workers in the so-called Night of the Long Knives. Upon the death of the president of the republic in 1934, Hitler combined the functions of Chancellor and President, concentrating absolute power. In 1933, he built the first concentration camps. Anti-Semitism was immediately reflected in the persecution of the Jews. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 prohibited marriages between Aryans and Jews. In late 1938, the assassination in Paris of a German Jew served as a pretext for a prosecution known as the Night of Broken Glass, during which synagogues and many Jewish-owned buildings were burned, and the 300,000 Jews who remained in Germany became victims of the Holocaust during World War II.
Economically, the Nazis managed to achieve some temporary successes. The economic recovery was carried out through self-sufficiency and was based on major public works and the growth of the arms industry, despite being prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. The immediate effect was the reduction of unemployment. Cultural and artistic life came under strict monitoring and censorship; education was restructured to ensure that the new German youth would be Aryan and nationalist. A system of submission and persecution had befallen Germany.
ITEM 10 – Between 1933 and 1939, a series of actions taken by Japan, Germany, and Italy led the world into World War II. The aggressive policies of the Nazis and fascists were based on their desire to change the situation established in 1919. France and the UK adopted a policy of appeasement, hesitant to confront Nazi Germany, believing they were building a lasting peace with the 1925 Locarno Pact, in which Germany agreed to the borders of the Versailles Treaty. However, the accession of Hitler to power changed the international landscape. The first event was the invasion of China by Japan, which started in 1931, and in 1933, Japan left the League of Nations. Hitler breached the terms of the Versailles Treaty, which limited the military capabilities of Germany, and in 1933, he withdrew from the League of Nations. Fascist Italy conquered Ethiopia in 1936, and both states were consolidated by a treaty of friendship, called the Rome-Berlin Axis. Germany signed another pact with Japan, the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the USSR. In 1935, Germany entered Austria and incorporated it into the Reich, a process known as the Anschluss. The Western democracies proposed a conference to address the issue, the Munich Conference, where they accepted the inclusion of the Sudetenland. France and the UK realized that only the use of force would stop Hitler. Germany signed an offensive-defensive alliance and a non-aggression pact with Italy, where Hitler offered Stalin part of Poland. On September 1, the German army began the invasion of Poland, prompting France and Britain to declare war on Germany. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, which was divided between the Germans and the Russians. In 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway in a surprise attack. France had built a fortified defense at its border with Germany, known as the Maginot Line, but the Germans attacked through Belgium and Luxembourg, neutral nations. The French and British forces were unable to cope with the invasion and retreated. France was divided into two: the northern part, including Paris, under German control, and the southern part, in the hands of the government of Pétain. The UK stood as the only barrier to German victory, with the German Luftwaffe bombing the UK in an attempt to sow panic. British aviation ultimately defeated the German air force, and with the possibility of Great Britain thwarted, Hitler turned his arms towards the east. Despite the non-aggression pact, the German forces invaded the USSR. The Germans reached Leningrad and approached the gates of Moscow. The Soviet defense and the arrival of a harsh winter brought the German army to the brink of collapse, forcing Hitler’s forces to retreat. In December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, the main U.S. base in the central Pacific, damaging part of the American fleet. The attack on Pearl Harbor caused the U.S. to enter the war against the Axis powers. Between 1942 and 1943, the tide of the war began to change. Hitler attempted to achieve final victory on the Eastern Front, launching a major offensive in the south of the USSR. In late 1942, two battles changed the course of the war: the Battle of El Alamein, where British troops defeated Marshal General Rommel near the Egyptian border, and the Germans withdrew from Italy. The Germans launched their attack against the USSR, where they were ultimately defeated. In May, the Germans and Italians surrendered in Tunisia, leading to the Allies invading southern Italy, which caused the fall of the fascist regime, the arrest of Mussolini, and the division of the country: a pro-Allied government was formed in the south, while in the north, a fascist government headed by Mussolini, released by the SS, remained. To open a large western front, in June, the Allies carried out the Normandy landings. The Germans had to defend two fronts: one in France and one in the USSR. The terrible Battle of Berlin ended with the Nazi resistance; Hitler committed suicide, and his successor was Admiral Dönitz. Days before, Mussolini was arrested and executed. To avoid huge losses, the government decided to use the atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima City was razed. On September 2, World War II ended. The Allies held a conference to define the new map of Europe. The Yalta Conference was the most important, where the future of Germany was agreed upon. The Second World War provided a major boost to technological developments: large-scale production of penicillin, nuclear energy, and the invention of the atomic bomb, among others. The imposition of this new order was accompanied by the use of cruel and inhumane methods. Ethnic persecution stands out among the monstrosities carried out by the Nazis. Racism aimed at preserving the purity of the Aryan race sought to avoid mixing with other races, particularly Jews. In 1941, Hitler ordered the so-called final solution, which was the genocide of the Jewish population. German successes during the first half of the war led to the emergence of groups that supported Nazi ideas. The spatial effects were minor. In Europe, the most prominent was the transfer of the western borders of the Soviet Union. Austria regained its independence in 1955. Germany was divided into four zones. The UN Charter adopted in San Francisco included objectives such as the cooperation of member countries to solve international problems and the equal rights of all peoples. The United Nations has a complex structure, with the most important body being the General Assembly, composed of representatives from all countries, which elects the members of the UN. The General Secretary is the executive body that enforces the decisions of the General Assembly. The Security Council, composed of representatives from fifteen countries, addresses security problems. The Economic and Social Council, composed of 54 members, proposes policies for economic development. The International Court of Justice is responsible for resolving international legal disputes.