To What Extent Were Hitlers Policies the Cause of World War II?

null since the rest of Czechoslovakia was never a part of German territory and didn’t consist of German communities. So this policy had changed from one of German unification to one of aggressive German expansion, and although an ultimate success for Hitler and his government, these actions confirmed the west’s suspicions of Hitler’s motives and increased distrust for him among them. On the other hand it also served as a boost to Hitler’s popularity within Germany and the further solidification of his government within power. Historians also claim that it served to increase Hitler’s self-confidence and recklessness when gambling against the allies since he viewed them as unwilling to take any action against the German state.                                        Another such similar political gamble undertaken by Hitler was that of expansion of the German military presence which included the re-militarization of the Rhineland, the expansion of the German navy, the use of Germany’s air force in the Spanish civil war, the Rome-Berlin Axis Pact and the Anti-Comintern pact. The German military was since the days of the Kaiser a source of national pride for the German people; however the restrictions imposed on it by the treaty of Versailles like the banning of an air force and only allowing 100,000 ground troops after World War I were considered humiliating and a source of discontent for the Germans. This combined with the demilitarization of the Rhineland were symbols of the failed treaty of Versailles  and the unfair treatment to which Germans were subjected to by it, so naturally Hitler’s aim was to rid Germany of these constraints. The remilitarization had originally been planned for 1937 however a combination of the Franco-Soviet pact and the fall of the French government allowed Hitler to carry out this action a year earlier, and portray it as a self-defensive move against French attempts of German encirclement. French retaliation was non-existent mainly due to the coming elections and the financial situation of France. This event combined with the expansion of the German navy through the Anglo-German naval agreement in June 1935 allowing the German navy to expand to 35% of the British one, were all successful policies followed by Hitler and had the similar results as German expansion mentioned above. Continuing with German expansion Hitler next actions were to join the Anti-Comintern and Rom-Berlin pacts in 1936 which created the axis alliance against the allies. The effect these policies had were several, firstly the remilitarization created a rift in views between a previously united France and Britain. This was because the British saw the allowing of Germany to rebuild its armed forces as a form of appeasement and so failed to offer their support to France, whereas the French who took a much harder attitude against Germany saw the situation as an increase to the ever constant threat of German invasion along with a Britain that was unwilling to help French security. Secondly the pacts between the axis nations alienated them from their allied counterparts and so brought about an alliance system similar to that of Bismarck’s in which the opposing sides easily escalated minor issues and viewed one another with hostility. Lastly German involvement in the Spanish civil war presented two things. One was that it signaled German involvement on the world stage as an active power equal to that of Britain and France, and the second was that it displayed the ferocity of the new German war machine as a provocative act against the allies.                        Now leaving Hitler’s policies, there was a combination of other factors that contributed to the buildup of World War II, the most prominent of which is the policy of appeasement, and the League of Nations. The League of Nations was born out of the First World War and the treaty of Versailles, whose mission statement included upholding the rights of man, disarmament, collective security, settling disputes and improving global quality of life. From the beginning it was to a large extent a weak organization since firstly it only met 4 times a year making quick action an impossibility, secondly it lacked the key participation of its founder (U.S.A.) which rendered its sanctions useless since America was the largest trading partner, thirdly lack of a military force and the reluctance of the council members to implicate themselves in world affairs made the League ineffective. Stalin and the Axis powers saw the League’s weaknesses after they failed to take action in the Manchurian and Abyssinian crisis and so decided to leave it and pursue their national interest through private diplomacy. The reason the failure of the League could be listed as a possible cause of World War II is because as an institution it could have possibly stopped the rise of Hitler and uphold its aims of global security however due to each of the council members private interest’s action on global crises was rare and ineffective.                        Another indirect cause of World War II was the Treaty of Versailles. This was for several reasons since firstly the harsh terms that it imposed on Germany such as the reparation payments, accepting blame for World War one and the forbidden Anschluss with Austria created hatred towards the Allies by the German people as they felt that they were being punished and blamed for a war they hadn’t necessarily started. Also the failure to pay reparations with the following French subjugation of the Ruhr further fueled this hatred that then gave access to people like Hitler who spoke of reversing the treaty and giving rebirth to German glory to an audience and power. Secondly the treaty allowed Hitler to carry out his aggressive foreign policy of German expansion under the false pretense that he was acting to reverse the treaty of Versailles. This not only gave him an excuse for his actions, but also at first conveyed European public sympathy as they empathized with the German people and agreed that their treatment had been unfair.                                                                                        Finally the last major factor which enabled the outbreak of the war was the failed policy of appeasement. As Hitler began to re-arm in 1934 many politicians believed that it was Germany’s right as a sovereign state to begin its re-armament as they considered the Versailles restrictions on its military unfair. Despite France’s protests against appeasement, anti-war sentiment combined with the belief that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair was so strong in Britain, that Neville Chamberlain went to extraordinary lengths to achieve peace. The most famous example of appeasement was the Munich agreement in which Britain decided to go back on its treaty with Czechoslovakia and give Hitler the Sudetenland with the belief that he had secured ‘Peace for our Time’. However one year later, when Hitler broke the terms of the agreement, Chamberlain recognized the failure of appeasement and yet still wasn’t prepared to take the country to war, and so decided instead to guarantee Poland’s security. Appeasement was the worst possible policy when facing a man like Hitler because although Chamberlain saw each of his territorial claims as his last and sought to avoid war, he saw the policy as weakness, and with each submission the allies made to his territorial claims Hitler saw as increased fear and unwillingness to engage the German ‘superior’ state.                                                        Concluding, a variety of factors played a role in the outbreak of World War II. Although combinations of these were directly linked to Hitler’s policy of aggressive German expansion and the German economy’s dependency on war production, they were not the sole reason for the outbreak of war, since the rise of Hitler was allowed through factors such as the Great Depression. This is shown through sources since during the years of prosperity in the 1920’s Hitler gained less than 10% of the vote. Only after the depression had affected Germany did people begin to listen and vote for Hitler. Other factors like the effort of western leaders to strengthen Germany and direct its hostility towards Russia, the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles and the selfishness of each country in only looking after its own self-interest while sacrificing collective security also played a part, an example of this was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact where despite both nations being arch enemies of one another, in the desire of securing their own national interest, planned the destruction of others.