As well as wanting to re-establish his empire, Hitler aimed to re-militarise Germany, and in doing so, expand the workforce so that there was less unemployment He stated his main aims in a book called “Mein Kampf” which translates wholly to “My Fight” and it reads that he also wanted to expand the German territory and to reclaim lost colonies for “Lebenstraum” (living space). Under the treaty, Austria was not allowed to form an alliance with Germany but as Hitler disregarded the treaty he felt that these laws should be broken and were not fair to begin with. He felt that the Soviet Union (then communist) were plotting against him and wanted to take over Germany, so he vowed to stem the flow of communism.
He achieved the attack against communism when he joined up with General Franco (forming an anti-communism alliance with Spain), who was a strong fascist, on the 26th July 1936 and by doing this he showed the world what he was capable of and set their status on the world stage- it also gave them a chance to use their new weapons. This was an obvious defiance of the Treaty of Versailles because Germany was not permitted to gather forces outside of its own borders, which it blatantly did.
Another way he disregarded the treaty was when he re-militarised the Rhineland in 1936; by doing so he broke the Locarno treaty, which stated that he had to abide within the rules laid out by the Treaty of Versailles (and this declared that Germany couldn’t gather troops on the bordered it shared with France such as the Rhineland). It was because of this law that, when he broke the treaty and marched troops into there, he was taking a big gamble; if any of the major powers such as Britain or France challenged him then he would be powerless and have to stop- this was because his army was not as strong or as powerful as he would like to imagine, they were not well equipped and therefore couldn’t deal with having to fight the powers who’s armies were bigger (if he had been forced to back down then he would have faced great humiliation and would have lost the support of the German troops who’s generals were already unsure about him).
Luckily for Hitler, Britain already thought that the Germans had a right to station troops within their own borders to protect themselves- and in their defence, France had signed a treaty with the USSR against German attack which the Germans argued was threatening. France, in a way, was too misguided about Germany – not realising that the German army was on the verge of teetering into collapse at their one command, they automatically assumed that Hitler’s army was greatly powerful; also they were in an election and the prospective candidates did not want to have the responsibility of plunging France into another war when it had only just finished fighting the last one (with catastrophic damage having been caused). Little did they know of Germany’s small army and weak force, if they had applied a little pressure then Germany would have had to give in and Hitler’s reign would be at an end.
His Anschluss with Austria was fuelled by the want of a bigger army, a large Nazi population and an abundance of industrial materials: all of which Austria possessed. Also, his alliances with Italy and Japan (Anti-communistic) made him feel that he was stronger, and therefore caused him to take bolder actions. Even though an alliance was forbidden, Germany still pressurised the economically fragile Austrian government to form a union; still, many Austrians felt that they belonged allied to Germany as they were before (they considered the Germans to be closely linked to them as a majority of the Austrian population had been German before and were Nazi) Even so, the plebiscite that was held was fixed as the Nazis intimidated the citizens and the leader of Austria Schuschnigg causing the result of the vote to be 99.7% in Germany’s favour which could imply that it was rigged.
After all these escapades, Germany’s status on the world stage was dramatically boosted, and by this time almost every other nation thought that Germany was tremendously powerful. After marching into the Rhineland and Austria to re-arm, Hitler and the Germans seemed more commanding than they actually were – and they were not as heavily armed as the other nations will have seen them to be. This will have also have made them seem intimidating to any others, and Hitler will have looked like Germany’s saviour in a sense, and almost like a miracle worker, to be able to make Germany seem so metaphorically large.
All in all, Hitler challenged and exploited the Treaty of Versailles in several different ways, including forming his allegiance with Austria, which was clearly stated to be forbidden by the treaty. Also by remilitarising the Rhineland he challenged the Treaty of Versailles as the area was to be kept un-armed. Even though Germany was not allowed to deploy troops outside of its own borders, it still did, in helping out with the Spanish Civil war and Hitler’s fight against communism. Hitler showed open defiance to the Treaty of Versailles, and through his strong willed mind and his firm actions, he indirectly declared the treaty void.
