Germany 1918-1939

Because Germany were not paying their Reparations, French and Belgian troops marched into the Ruhr, which was the main industrial area of Germany. This meant that Germany could not pay back Reparations at all.

After the Treaty of Sevres was put into place, it was rejected by Turkey so the Treaty of Lausanne was drawn up.
This wasn't as harsh on Turkey and they were able to recover some of their lost land.

Because Germany could no longer pay the Reparations, they just printed more and more money but, because the amount of gold they had in the bank stayed the same, this just meant that prices soared dramatically. Workers were soon being paid twice a day because money was being inflated throughout the day. Money became useless. Soon, a loaf of bread was 100,000 DM.

This was started by the Nazi Party in Munich, Bavaria. But it failed because the Government and Police stepped in. Hitler was shot and imprisoned, for a much shorter amount of time than what he was supposed to be because the Judge was sympathetic to him, and he wrote Mein Kampf whilst in jail.

America gave Germany to help them with paying back their Reparations as a loan.

The SS were Hitler's personal bodyguard.

This was between Germany and France to fix the border between the 2 countries.

This was a pact signed by many nations, including the USA, France, the UK, Germany and Italy, to not announce or get into a war unless it is in self-defence. However, there were no sanctions put into place if someone did declare war.

This was a plan made by the Allies to help make the Reparations that Germany had to repay easier to handle.

After the Wall Street Crash, the USA demanded all money back, including the loan they lent Germany, causing Germany to fall back to how they had been after the Treaty of Versailles.

The first Concentration Camps, ran at first by the SA and later by the SS, were used for the political prisoners, and later this was also extended for use by minority groups.

It is was said that Dutch Communist, van der Lubbe, started the Reichstag Fire. He was found guilty and was executed.
Before it was said that it was him, Hitler, Goebbels and Goerring stated that it was a Communist doing. So, they had all of the Communists in the area arrested-around 4000 people were arrested that night.
However, it is thought that the Reichstag Fire could have been a set-up by the Nazis in order to frame the Communists and to get more support for themselves, however it is not certain.

This gave Hitler absolute power to pass his laws.

Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister, persuaded the German people to dispose of books that did not go along with the Nazi ideology's or were written by non-German people, such as Jews.

Hitler ordered the Austrian Nazis to create havoc in Austria. This turned into an attempted overthrow of the government, but the attempted coup failed because the Austrian military intervened to back up the government.
At this point, Italy had an alliance with Austria to protect them if they were at risk of invasion. So to honour this, Mussolini prevented Hitler from entering and taking over Austria.

On the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler needed to choose between the Army and the SA. He chose to keep the Army on side as they were more powerful. So, on the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler killed off the leaders of the SA, and they were then led by Lutze.

This oath was an oath of allegiance to Hitler.
The German Armed Forces had to swear an oath about how they would have complete obedience to Hitler and be willing to risk their lives at any time.
The German people had to swear an oath saying that they would be obedient to Hitler, that they would respect the laws and fulfill their duties properly.

The Saar was an industrial are that had been taken from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. A plebiscite was to be held after 15 years to see if it should be returned to Germany.
When the plebiscite took place, it was found that over 90% of the population wanted to reunite with Germany.
Hitler regarded this as a great triumph because it was the first of the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles to be reversed.

The Nuremburg Laws were a set of laws that excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." and deprived Jews of most political rights.
The Nuremberg Laws defined a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents.
In 1937 and 1938, the government set out to impoverish Jews by requiring them to register their property and then by "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses, meaning Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law.
Like everyone in Germany, Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names, to make it easier for Police to see who were Jews (Israel for males, Sara for females).

This was between Germany and Japan, and later included Italy.
It was an anti-communist pact, against any communist country, but was aimed specifically at the USSR.

This was a pact between Hitler and Mussolini.

This was when Germany and Austria joined together.
A month after German troops marched into Austria, a plebiscite was held and 99.7% agreed with the decision to join with Germany, possibly through terror or the fact they actually believed they should be joined together.

Hitler wanted to take over the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia because it had, he stated, previously been part of Germany (which it had) and so wanted it back. So, he got the Sudetenland Germans to create havoc and so marched in to 'take control' and 'restore order'.

This was when all shops and businesses owned by Jews were plundered and destroyed. It was done by the SA and the Hitler Youth and was apparently spontaneous.

Not happy with just having part of Czechoslovakia, Hitler wanted it all. So, he continued marching on into the rest of Czechoslovakia.

This was a pact between the USSR and Germany to ensure that they wouldn't invade each other.
The USSR wanted the pact because they knew that they were not ready to fight a war with Germany and so they were just buying time.
Germany wanted the pact because they were scared of the USSR, because they knew that given the size and the possible-strength they could have, they knew that Russia could be a very powerful ally.

Hitler, after having got away with so much for so long, decided to take things a step further and take back the land of Poland for Germany. However, Poland was an ally of France and Britain, and we had said that if they got invaded we would help them. So, we gave Germany an ultimatum-if they don't pull out of Poland by 3 September, we would declare war on them.

After Hitler refused to pull out of Poland, Britain and France declared war. So, the Second World War began.