Causes Of World War 11

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Causes of WW 11 Who, or what was to blame in causing WW 11? The Versailles Treaties have been blamed for fillnig the Germans with bitterness and the desire for revenge. The League of Nations has been for failing to secure general disarmament and collective security. The Great Depression has been mentioned because without it Hitler would never have come to power. While these factors created tension, something more was needed to create the war. By the end of 1938 many of the German's grievances had been removed. Reparations had been canceled, Germany was rearming, Austria and Germany were reunited, the German people of Czechoslovakia had been recovered; Germany had become a great power again. So, what went wrong? Hitler was to blame is the common answer. By attacking Poland on all fronts, instead of occupying Danzig and the corridor, showed that Hitler was intent on conquering non German's, not simply to recover the German's lost as a result of the Versailles Treaty. Martin Gilbert ("The Appeasers," p.112), argues that Hitler's motive was to remove the stigma of Germay's defeat in WW 1. Hugh Trevor-Roper ("The failure of Appeasement", p.188) says that Hitler intended on a major right from the start because he hated communism and wanted to crush the USSR so the destruction of Poland was only the preliminary to his main goal. His non-aggression pact with the USSR was a fraud. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937 where Hitler told his generals that he would attack France by 1944 at the latest, are qoted as evidence for this view. Other historians claim that appeasement was equally to blame. Had France challenged Hitler earlier, in 1936 and sent a force into the Rhineland to confront Hitler's invading troops, Hitler would have backed off. Alan Bullock ("Hitler, a Biography," p. 171), states that Hitler's successes and the absence of
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