Rise of ultra-nationalism and WW II

1920s in Germany

• The new democracy is saddled with admitting responsibility, giving up reparations and territory, and suffering inflation.

• When Germany is unable to make payments, French occupy the Ruhr

• German state prints more money to pay its bills

German Marks needed to buyone US dollar:

• 1919 April--12• December--47• 1921 November--263• 1922 July--493 • December--7,000• 1923 January--17,000• July--53,000• August--4,621,000 • October--25,260,000,000 • November--2,193,600,000,000 • December--4,200,000,000,000

1930’s--Depression and increase of nationalism

• rise of militant nationalism--”fascism”--in Germany, Italy, and Japan

In Germany

• Depression hits especially hard• 1932 Hitler and Nazis claiming Germany

had been “stabbed in the back” in WWI and after, gains about 1/3 of electorate

• January 1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor• February—responding to mysterious

Reichstag fire, receives emergency powers, ending the democracy

Burning of the Reichstag 1933 and Kristallnacht 1938

German Expansion

• Under Hitler, Germany rebuilds military

• 1938 Germany annexes Austria, justified with bogus plebiscite

• Then invades Czechoslovakia

• France and England do nothing--for “peace in our time”

World War II begins

• Hitler-Stalin Pact allows partition of Poland between Soviet Union and Germany

• 1939 they invade, and Britain and France declare war

• 1940 Germany occupies France

• 1941 Germany attacks Soviet Union

• months later, Japan attacks at Pearl Harbor

In the East

• since 1910 Japan had colonized Korea

• 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria

• 1937 Japan invades China proper

“Asian holocaust”

• the rape of Nanking

• unit 731--American cover-up

• “comfort women”

• Induced famine in Vietnam and Indonesia

Continuing anti-Japanese sentiment in China

Axis powers--Germany, Italy, JapanAllies--Britain, France, then Soviet Union,

and United States

1945 Allies victorious in Europe, then Japan

• Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki