Essay

Germany on WW2 and Cold War

No one wanted war. Yet, when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, other European countries felt they had to act. The result was six long years of World War II. Everything started because of a one man’s twisted mind “Adolf Hitler”.

As previously introduced, Adolf Hitler, wanted more land especially in the east, to expand Germany according to the Nazi policy of lebensraum. Hitler used the harsh limitations that were set against Germany in the Versailles Treaty as a pretext for Germany's right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived. Germany successfully used this reasoning to envelop two entire countries without starting a war at first.

Hitler’s first aggressive move was taking control over Austria, this action was known as the Anschluss. After this continence, there was a conference where the French and the British gave Germany a large portion of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. Hitler then took the rest of Czechoslovakia by March 1939. One of the reasons of why Germany was allowed to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without a fight was because Great Britain and France did not want to repeat the bloodshed of World War I. They believed, wrongly as it turned out, they could avoid another world war by appeasing Hitler with a few concessions (such as Austria and Czechoslovakia). At this time, Great Britain and France did not understand that Hitler's goal of land acquisition was much, much larger than any country. Hitler was expanding territory and at the same time was spreading his Nazi’s ideas, but on the other side, he was confident that he could again move east, this time acquiring Poland without having to fight Britain or France. This was to eliminate the possibility of a Soviet Union fight, if Poland was attacked. Because of this reason, Hitler made a pact with the Soviet Union known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

After all this movements, Hitler finally decides to attack Poland in September the 1^st of 1939. This invasion was really fast that got the name of the “Blitzkrieg” attack, in English meaning “lightning war”. Through this action, France and Great Britain Finally noticed that Hitler was reaching a very dark objective, and if he accomplished that goal, the world was going to be very hardly affected, so on September 3, with Germany's forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

After ending the World War II there were disagreements and that is what shaped the Cold War. Germany was weakened by USSR in order to promote communism while the west side allies (USA, UK, France) wanted to reassert democracy and rebuild the German industry as a fortification against communists ideologies. After 1947 Germany was divided into East and West sectors, the division was formalized when the Berlin Wall was made in 1961. Rapid militarization proceed on both sides of the East and West, Germany became the front line in the Cold War. East Germany was disintegrated and the reunification of East and West Germany took place in 1990.

Bibliography:

Spielvogel, Jackson. World History Modern Times. M.Ed. Dinah Zike. Glencoe/ McGraw-Gill, 2008

"Cold War." GCSE Modern World History. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war1_Germany.htm>.

Timeline

1919 ->Hitler joined German Workers’ Party

April 1921 -> Germany has to repair damages of the war

1921-> Renamed it Nazi Party

1921- Became leader of the Nazi Party

1922 -> Germany defaults on War Reparations

November 8 & 9 1923 -> Beer Hall Putsch

1923 -> Germany declares a general strike hyperinflation.

1923- He was imprisoned and while being in there he made the book “My Struggle”

 1927 -> Germany Stock market crash. Outflow of short-term capital. Discount rate increase.

1927- The nazi party started gaining seats in the Reichstag.

1929 -> Collapse of Frankfurter Allgemeine Verischerungs AG and runs on savings banks

1930 -> Young Plan (further rescheduling reparations payments but giving priority to the payment of debts to the United States) agreed.

1931 -> Banking crisis. Runs on banks. Bank holiday. Credit crunch. President Herbert Hoover announces a one year moratorium on reparations and war debts-and the provision of a $ 150 million credit to the Reichsbank.

1932 -> Nazi party gets 800,000 members/becomes largest party in Reichstag

March 23,1933 -> Enabling Act, gave Hitler power to ignore the constitution for four years

1933- Hitler came to power as the Councelor o Germany, he transmorm de Weimar Republic into the Third Reich also he made the single party dictatorship based on totalitarianism.

1st November, 1936: Hitler and Mussolini agree to have a military alliance. 

Essay

Introduction

World War 2 was undoubtedly the most costly war in the history of mankind.   Fifty million people lost their lives.  Germany with their Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler,  was the country most responsible for starting the war.  After five years of war, Germany had paid the price for starting the conflict as they lay virtually destroyed.  They had won early battles but, in the end, World War II had been a disaster for Germany.  The war had been a fight to the finish and they came up short. 

World War 2 Causes

·         After Germany was defeated in World War I, they were forced via the Treaty of Versailles to pay heavy reparations to the victors.  Their economy could not take the pressure and it fell apart.  Severe inflation and depression followed.  As a result of the Treaty of Versailles (the official end of World War 1) and the economic disasters that followed, the German people became very resentful towards the victors of World War 1, namely France and Great Britain.  Additionally, virtually all of Germany's leaders fought in World War 1 and many were wounded and they all felt betrayed.  They were eager for rev

German Leaders

·         Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Speer (the good Nazi?), and other German Leaders Of World War 2 . were a group of ruthless but talented men who might have won it all except for a few strategic errors and the fact that they faced three of the most determined and capable leaders in history - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin - who were in the war to win.

·         Adolf Hitler, a wounded veteran of the World War 1, blamed the economic problems on the allies who had forced the peace terms on Germany.   Hitler joined an obscure right wing political group - the Nazi party - and, with little competition, rose rapidly in it.  He was able to attract some extremely dedicated, capable, and ruthless followers.

Conclusion

Germany was the aggressor. It launched one unprovoked attack after another against all its neighbors except Switzerland and always brought with it one of the cruelest tyrannies in human history. Germany enslaved virtually all of Europe and attempted to exerminate whole populations. They murdered, simply murdered, six million Jews and at least five million Slaves. There were millions, probably tens of millions more deaths that were directly attributable to their rule, through starvation and other causes. In the end, Germany was completely defeated, their cities smashed, the country in ruins, dependent for its people's very survival on the charity of those it had tried to exterminate. They had also blamed everything on the Jews because Germany was in debt at the time. In the past war (World War 1) they lost and they had to pay for all the things they wrecked so they blamed the Jews and started World War 2 by putting the Jews in concentration and extermination camps and brutally murdering them by gassing them, or shooting them or by working them to death on grossly insufficient.  Without Germany there would have been no World War II in Western Front.  Germany had attacked Europe, USSR, Roumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moscow, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France and many more. Germans were called Nazi's and USSR ,Russian's, were called the Red Army in WW2. Germany signed too a friendly treatment with USSR and both the countries promised that they would not attack on each other and would attack on Poland from east and west. But Germany did not kept the promise and attacked on USSR.

Bibliography

·         World War 2 | Germany in World War 2. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://germanyinworldwar2.com/>.

·         "Nazi Germany - World War 2 on History." History - Shows, Schedules, and Resources. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://www.history.co.uk/explore-history/ww2/nazi-germany.html>.

·         "World War II in Europe Timeline." The History Place. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm>.

·         "Nazi Germany - World War 2 on History." History - Shows, Schedules, and Resources. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://www.history.co.uk/explore-history/ww2/nazi-germany.html>.

Benz, Wolfgang. "Alemania 1815-1945". Colección Jornadas. México D.F. 2002.

Team Members

Diego Livas García A01175740

Eduardo Quintanilla A01175821

Mauricio Cavazos A01175876

Joshua Ocampo A01175786

Sergio Garcia A01175829

Gerardo Llamas A01175835

Maps

Germany Before WWI

Germany After WWI

Germany's location

In Russian Revolution

Germany didn’t have a strong participation other than the fact that in other for Russia to get out of WW1 to deal with its internal revolution, it had to make and sign a deal with Germany, where Russia in other to finish off the war, had to give out Territory to Germany. Such Territories include Poland and Finland with others. After that since the deal was made Germany left alone Russia and stated to worry with The WW1 leaving Russia to deal with its issues.  At the time, Germany was very concerned in the war, making plans and strategies that would help its status. Although they had one less problem to worry about with Russia at the end Germany lost the war.