What were the causes of World War 2?

Historians say that there are many causes for the Second World War. They disagree about which causes were most important. In this essay I plan to discuss the causes, and then conclude with my opinion of the most important cause of World War.

Some historians say that Hitler’s words and actions were the cause of the war, others say it was Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement.

Historians say that Hitler’s first step towards causing the war was the Rearmament of Germany. Hitler introduced conscription to every able man and opened munitions factories. At first Hitler did it in secret but soon he decided to do it openly. This was against the Treaty Of Versailles. Even though the French knew that this was breaking The Treaty they did nothing to stop it. Britain actually felt sympathetic towards Germany and signed an Anglo-German Naval Treaty. This allowed Germany to have a navy 35% the size of the Royal Navy in Britain.

Hitler, now feeling confident that he had broken The Treaty once and was successful, went on the Remilitarize the Rhineland. On the 7th of March 1936, Hitler marched in 30,000 troops. France had 250,000 troops mobilized but did nothing to stop Hitler because Britain did not support her. To prove that remilitarization was popular with the people Hitler held a vote (plebiscite), which showed that 98.8% were in favour of the remilitarization. Many historians say that this vote was fixed through means of biased questioning.

In 1936 Hitler used his new weapons to support Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Hitler sent one of his legions to bomb Guernica on 26th April 1937. Guernica was demolished and Franco went on to conquer the Basque areas of Spain. Many historians said that Hitler had used Spain as a practice ground, and as a warning to anyone else who may want to attack him.

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In 1936 Hitler used his new weapons to support Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Hitler sent one of his legions to bomb Guernica on 26th April 1937. Guernica was demolished and Franco went on to conquer the Basque areas of Spain. Many historians said that Hitler had used Spain as a practice ground, and as a warning to anyone else who may want to attack him.

In 1938 Neville Chamberlain followed the policy of appeasement. He let Hitler take over the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia; this was called the Munich Agreement. The agreement was that Britain would allow Germany to take over the Sudetenland without a vote of any kind and that Britain and Germany would never go to war.. Some historians say that Chamberlain appeased Hitler to prevent another was like the bloody war he had witnessed, World War One. Others say that Hitler was appeased because Britain needed time to re-arm, and prepare for war because she had disarmed after World War One. At the time nearly everyone agreed with Chamberlains policy of appeasing, since he believed that all Hitler was trying to do was unite all German speakers and that Hitler didn’t want war. Only a few people, like Churchill disagreed with Chamberlains policy because of what was written in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf. In the book Hitler had written that Germany must regain all lands ‘in the East… by the power of the sword’.

The Anschluss of Germany and Austria took place in 1938. The Treaty Of Versailles also forbade this but again Britain and France decided to ignore it and not take any action. In the beginning the Austrian Chancellor wanted Austria to be independent, but Austrian Fascists wanted to unite with Germany. The Chancellor was unable to gain support from France so he decided to meet with Hitler in Berlin. Hitler persuaded The Chancellor to accept one of Hitler’s henchmen as Minister of the Interior. Under this ministers leadership rioting in Vienna increased and caused The Austrian Chancellor to resign. Hitler was then able to march freely in to Austria with the help of The minister of the Interior.

In 1939 Hitler took over more German speaking territory, like Memel in Lithuania. Chamberlain could still appease Hitler so he was happy, however soon after Hitler threatened to bomb Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, and the Czechs surrendered. This was when Chamberlain realized that appeasement had failed and promised peace in Poland. He knew that as soon as Hitler decided to invade Poland that France and Britain would both be ready to fight Hitler back.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact helped Hitler to actually invade Poland because he realized that if he invaded Poland, Britain would defiantly attack him but he was more worried about Russia attacking him from the other side. He knew that if this happened he would be weak and would either not be able to gain Poland or fight against Russia properly. The agreement of the pact was that if either country went to war the other would remain neutral.

The U.S.A ‘s isolation policy contributed to the start of World War 2, because Hitler knew that America was the only single country that could stop him but knew that America would do nothing to stop him.

The failure of The League of Nations contributed to the causes of World War 2 because Hitler saw Mussolini, and Italian dictator, getting away with aggression in Africa and this could have helped assure Hitler that he would be able to get away with anything he wanted to do.

Out of all the above stated reasons I think the most important reason was the Isolation Policy of America. I think that this was the cause of all the problems. America not being part of the League of Nations caused The League to fail since America was the only single country powerful enough to run The League properly. The downfall of The League caused Mussolini to get away with the invasion in Africa, which could have helped prove to Hitler that The League was too weak to stop him. This sort of thinking would have caused him to break the rules of The Treaty of Versailles, in which Chamberlain desperately tried to prevent war by appeasing Hitler, but I think that Hitler just took this as a sign of weakness from Britain’s side instead of an agreement to prevent war.

By Amirah