What were the causes of the Second World War?

Authors Avatar

Alana Godfrey

10jsa

What were the causes of the Second World War?

        There are a lot of causes for the Second World War. It cannot be justified by saying that it was only due to one thing. The causes I will be explaining are the Treaty of Versailles, the depression, Hitler's foreign policy, America, the failures of the League of Nations, appeasement and Russia.

        The treaty of Versailles is a cause of the Second World War because of a few reasons. It was too harsh on Germany, so they naturally wanted revenge. Some of the things in the treaty which Germany didn’t like were mainly the ones which involved land being taken away, demilitarisation and the reparations. The land which was taken away from Germany included the Sudentenland and the Polish Corridor. These two were the main ones which the Germans objected to. This is because the Polish Corridor was where Germanys only port was and the Sudentenland was where the rich, mountainous, industrial land was. The demilitarisation was for the Rhineland and the army had to be restricted to 100,000 men. Also there weren’t allowed to be any warships or tanks. The reparations, which were finalised in 1921, stood at £6.6 billion. After the Wall Street crash the effects of the having to pay reparations and the back payment of the Dawes plan, which was an agreement between America and Germany to help Germany pay back the reparations. These payments for the Dawes plan were short term and so could be called back at short notice. This is when Germany was in bad trouble. The treaty was seen by the Germans as a Diktat, because they had no say in the treaty whatsoever. The land which was taken away was one of the reasons Hitler got back into power. He used the excuse that they needed more lebensraum to get the land back. This was working towards his goals.  

Join now!

        Germany suffered greatly from the effects of the depression. Because of the reparations and the back payments of the Dawes plan they ended up with no money. There was starvation and to try and solve this. The government printed more money. This was a bad idea because the money became worthless, hyperinflation. Because there was no money in Germany, the public were desperate and the only way out that they could see was Hitler. He promised to tear up the Treaty of Versailles which meant that Germany wouldn’t have to pay any more reparations. He offered hope to them, in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay