Did Appeasement Or Adolf Hitler Cause WW2 History Essay

No doubt there are many suppositions about the cause of the Second World War and every assumption has some arguments to its advantage. To understand the reasons we have to look deep into the pre-war period including subsequent years after the Great War. The areas to look at are the problems within the Germany after the First World War and how European Alliance dealt with them. In my opinion not only the one piece of power such as Hitler’s will furthered the war, but the combination of effects of the Appeasement, the Treaty of Versailles and finally will of Adolf Hitler created a suitable conditions for it. However, all of those factors play roles to various extents in that ‘war play’. According to this it is possible draw up a layout that shows what affected what and why, and explain it in details to create a clear image.

First of all, let’s begin with the problematic will of Adolf Hitler. Although many people still believe that it had caused the Second World War, there are some arguments against it. On the other hand that was the reason of mass rise of nation in Germany against the operating government. For some reason that nobody exactly knows why, Hitler hated Jewish and actually at first it was his only desire to destroy all of them. He presented other major facts linked with that though, to create a tide of discontent among people. He was a great speaker with very strong skills but unfortunately with very mad ideas. He put the idea of ‘Germany for Germans’ in the first place to disguise his plans and also found a pretext to depict Jewish in an unfavourable light because Jewish had their very portion in the German economy. That was a stimulus to win more people to his side who would follow and support him in the future. His speech was too impressive not to believe in. The whole matter boiled down to Jewish.

At the beginning of his rise, Hitler was giving his speeches to 40 people in a little place, being invited there by the head of the Socialist Party. His audience was growing day by day. Psychopathic leader was leading his people behind him with confident despite the insane ideas he had. As I mentioned before he was a very gifted speaker and probably that was his only skill that had lead him through the difficulties he faced. That was the reason people invested money in him and motivated him. Upper classes in Germany needed someone who could be easily manipulated by them, and someone who was able to inspire the nation. Hitler was an ideal choice for their purpose. Although soon he went out of control and represented danger not only for Jews, but also for people who surrounded him. He was becoming an absolute dictator. Jews suffered from the violence introduced by the ideas of Hitler. The SA army was continuously destroying Jewish business in the cities and discouraged people to buy anything from them. According to his memorandum named ‘Mein Kampf’ written during his stay in the prison, Jews had a plan for world domination. By 1924, after his release from the prison Adolf Hitler became the leader of the biggest mass party in Germany. He was appointed the chancellor in 1933 and later the president of Germany. Devotion to his will enhanced his significance and advanced him through his career ladder. On the other hand, while convincing Germans in the truth of his words about loss of national resources and financial problems because of Jews, he secretly imported oil from the outside, benefiting foreign investors.

Secondly, speaking about Hitler and his speeches I want to proceed to the impact of the Treaty of Versailles and describe how and why had that played a role in the situation. After the announcement of the conditions of the treaty concerning Germany that included points about its being guilty, demilitarization and obligation to pay all the countries that suffered damage during the war, he asserted that all their enemies want is to destroy the German economy and German nation. Hence it followed that he found Jewish guilty, being in charge of most communist movement. That opened him a new window of opportunities to attract even more people to the Nazi Party.

Finally, the fact that Britain and France ignored the increasing menace of war that is called the Appeasement played a key role in the growth of threat caused by unpunished actions of Hitler. The first question that one may possibly come up with is ‘Why did the British let Germany begin the mess and was it an intentional step or not?’. Obviously, the heart of the genesis appeasement was morality. Reports got from the German civilians during the blockade organized by French caused a reaction of sorrow and compassion on the British side. People were starving and it seemed extremely immoral to keep them in the blockade in such circumstances. That was the birth of compassion that came to appeasement later on. Just at the beginning of the whole story even Churchill along with Lloyd George was believed to support the idea promoting injustice of Versailles Treaty. In point of fact British surmised the aggressive response of Germany in the future. Later in his work named Fontainebleau Memorandum Lloyd George warned: ‘You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armament to a mere police force and her navy to that fifth-rate; all the same in the end if she feels that she has been unjustly treated in the peace of 1919 she will find means of exacting retribution from her conquerors’.

Germany that was allowed to have no more than 100.000 people, weak navy and no air force in its army according to the Versailles Treaty, was allowed to have 35% of British navy after 1936. That happened after Hitler announced about the size of German army that included about 300.000 people in the army, aircrafts, navy and heavy artillery that wasn’t known before, because it broke the rules of the treaty. In the mean time, all France wanted was to maintain the dominance of its military over Germany, so French also ignored the further developments. The British and French reaction to this breach of enacted law about the army can indisputably be considered as an appeasement. Supposedly, the second credible step of the appeasement is the neutral position of Britain and France concerning the invasion of Austria by Hitler in 1938. France and Britain ignored this disturbing situation as well as ignoring the violence and savageness applied by the SA army, later the SS army and also doing nothing about the German troops brought to Rhineland by Hitler that was strictly banned by the rules of the treaty.

All the given facts help to create the image. The will of Hitler with his persistence appears to be the first point on the list of importance by sequence. His will was to destroy Jews and Eastern-Europeans whom he considered as sub-humans. His will lead him to give speeches and raise nation, but the sedition to kill Jewish was insane enough to address his meetings only under this reason. That is why he needed to prove his purpose using the Treaty of Versailles. Nation saw the injustice and was motivated by Hitler to stand against their “sworn enemies”. That makes the Treaty of Versailles a component part of the first point of the cause of the Second World War or otherwise as the third point of it. After all the Appeasement is the factor that most significantly affected the brewing war situation. Even though Hitler had a strong will, probably he could not progress that much alone if was stopped by the major member countries of the European Alliance.

It is hard to define the real cause of the Second World War but I can say with certainly that nothing in history happens without a reason or without a consequence. In my opinion, the two unjust things about the war was the discrimination of Jewish and Eastern-Europeans by Hitler and keeping the idea of total extermination of those people all through the war, and application of force and violence against the people. In conclusion, I want to state the quote from the biographical film about Adolf Hitler: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke (1729-97).

INTO History 1

World War II

Peter Neville

Hitler and Appeasement: The British attempt to prevent the Second World War

London, 2006

John Simkin

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/

Web resource

Biographical film

Hitler: The Rise Of Evil

2003