In 1933, Hitler’s main aim in foreign policy was cancelling the treaty of Versailles, Discuss.

Little response was given by the foreign democracies and on many occasions they appeased his actions because they believed that what he was doing was just building up Germany so it could rejoice in its former glory once again. The reality for the most part was very much different. It can be argued that the democracies did this in order to avoid further problems and most notably to avoid another war. His actions paved the way of the beginning to an end of the regulations set by the TOV.

Not very long after this, the Rome-Berlin Axis (this happened because Hitler wanted to move Mussolini away from the western democracies) was signed which made Germany and Italy allies and partners of business. They shared views over General Franco's Spain and even assisted in the over throwing of the Republican government and lastly they shared the same views about communist Russia. On the 25th of November 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact was signed by Japan at first and later joined by Mussolini's Italy in November 1937 which meant that the axis was going as far as Tokyo. They all had the same goal that being communism and the fight against it as all 3 nations were very much against it spreading. This in a way shows the great kind of influence Hitler was beginning to portray both as leader of Germany and on the international level as well.

Secondly, another great aim of his foreign policy was that of 'lebensraum', most if not all the people of Europe had their own nations and it was decided that the German race had to be re-united in one main land which ultimately meant that these actions could begin a new war because it was against the rules set out by the TOV. To Hitler getting more land was very important and if not one of his most important long-term goals which had to be achieved. To begin, the TOV took great parts of Germany out and were given to many of the surrounding countries for example the Sudetenland. Many thousands of Germans were now living out side of the Reich and Hitler had the firm belief that something had to be done about it. It became clearly obvious as time went on that Hitler wanted Germany to become a dominating power in Europe and to accomplish this he needed to go back on the territorial terms set out by the TOV. The re-entering of the resourceful Rhineland and the remilitarisation of it in 1936 demonstrated his first actions and little did anyone do to stop him. It was in 1937 when Hitler conducted a secret meeting with his close cabinet members about further expansion to the east of Germany. His main wishes were the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovak Sudetenland. In 1938, he announced he wanted to annex Austria and attempted to make the Austrian chancellor at the time Kurt von Schuschnigg resign. However, he also attempted to avoid the unification from happening by holding a national plebiscite to ratify Austria's independence but this failed and he stepped down almost immediately from his position. This was a success for Hitler. The German government announced on March the 13th that Austria had become part of the Third Reich and it was led by an Austrian nazi Arthur von SeyssInquart.

Hitler next prepared to take over the Sudetenland and all of Czechoslovakia. It become very apparent now of the expansionist policies believed by Hitler and even though Czechoslovakia had appealed to Britain and France at the time to help defend its territories, they in return did nothing. In fact what they did was help Germany to annex with this country, which is demonstrated by the Munich conference of 1938 in which Britain and France gave Germany full authority to occupy the Sudetenland which officially again became part of the Reich in 1938. It was soon after the takeover that they also took over Bohemia and Moravia, which were close by. Neville Chamberlain was declared a national British hero for avoiding war even though 3 days after he got back to Britain Germany took over the rest of Czechoslovakia in October 1939. What he never realised was what the Nazi party were accumulating next and that was Poland. Poland was neither politically, culturally, linguistically the same as Germany but it had a great number of German poles living in it nonetheless, which accordingly to Hitler had the required German blood to be part of the Reich which was a key point in nazi policy when discussing the implications set up by the party with regards to the Aryan race as every body else who was not of German blood was considered less better than them and this came to be known as cultural 'ethnic cleansing' as Hitler liked to call it.

In 1939, Germany signed the ever-controversial Nazi-Soviet Pact, which went against his foreign ministry's wishes, in this pact it was agreed by Molotov (Russia) and Von Ribbentrop (Germany) that both countries would not fight each other for at least 10 years as Stalin was not in the position to wage war against the Nazis and it meant that the Germans did not have fight a war on two separate fronts. However, what made it contentious was the fact of the secret agreement between the two nations that they would both invade Poland and that each nation would get half each in the end, Hitler on the other hand did not want Russia as well to be in control of Latvia, Estonia and Finland but had to agree even if he wished other wise.

In 1934, when the non-aggression pact was signed by Poland and Germany, for Hitler this was just to be a temporary treaty as he never had the intention of keeping the relation going as the invasion of 1939 shows. In September 1939, Germany and Russia both invaded Poland that the Western democracies were most keen to protect from the wrath of nazi Germany. This was to prove the final straw for both France and Britain regarding Hitler's expansionist policy, it was during this time that both allies saw him as quite insane, a liar and very untruthful and if something was not to be done then he would later become un-stoppable.

In conclusion, the way that we interpret Hitler's foreign policy is questionable. It can be argued that life was made generally easier for Hitler because of the ongoing social and economic decline that was occurring in Europe but also with America's isolationist policy that they were practising. It did give way for Hitler to commence his many foreign policy goals and most if not all he did successfully and without any disruptions from the West. Most importantly the TOV was crumbled away into nothing and most of everything that was banned by it was reinstated by nazi party from 1935 on wards when Hitler declared that he would no longer accept it but one should also remember that TOV was at a temporary halt as well because Germany did not have the funds to pay back reparations and both Britain and France were coming to the belief that the treaty in fact was too harsh and should be revised. It can also be argued that Hitler was acting in the best interests of his people at the time who were not living decent lives and were becoming more impatient and distorted as the years went on and most importantly they had been humiliated enough by the TOV and had no choice but to sit back and watch as their home land was taken and deprived of almost everything since the signing by the Weimar government.

To the western democracies, Hitler's foreign policy was beginning to look more like a farce than ever before and something had to be done about it to ensure stability. His beliefs that Germany should be great again and be resourceful is one thing but planning to take over countries which are not his another and was a cause for great concern because Britain and France could no longer manage to appease many other of his desirable actions. He showed that he could no longer be trusted firstly by the breaking of treaties and not keeping to his promises which he ineptly made on many occasions like promising not to invade Czechoslovakia for one. His ludicrous policies of Aryan racial superiority worried other nations just as much as it worried some of his own people as well and further more showed he could not be trusted as his plans proved to show that mass murder may be involved in the long term. The League of Nations played a very insignificant role in stopping Hitler at any time and he took great advantage of this as he noticed that no one was stopping him so he continued as much as he could and Britain was going along with its policy of appeasement at the time as well. When one comes to discuss his foreign policy aims, it not only includes the TOV but also the various other aspects of his other policies in general as well.