'The Wilhelmine Germany was an entrenched authoritarian state'. How far do you agree with this judgement? Whether Wilhelmine Germany was an entrenched state is a subject of much debate among historians. Although many have argued that it was mainly the structure of the consititution in Wilhelmine Germany which gave the Kaiser complete authority over Germany. However structuralists have argued that mass political movements in Germany were on the rise and did in fact influence politics.
Although, she does admit even she was shocked when listening to the speech, as she explains “the line was not believable”. From this I can conclude that source one doesn’t wholly hold Churchill responsible for the 1945 election defeat, however the reliability of the source is questionable as it is bias towards the conservative party. Source two, an extract from Lord Butler’s memoirs, clearly shows opposition to not only Churchill but also the conservative party, Lord Butler for example describes Churchill’s speech as a “negative attack on the labour party” and believed that he should have instead focused on “post-war policies”. By describing Churchill’s use of the word “Gestapo” as a “strategic blunder” shows that Butler is blaming Churchill in having played a role in the defeat of the 1945 election. Although both members of the conservative party, Butler and Churchill were political enemies, this is evident when looking at the extract: “a poor third place to the concentrated exploitation of Churchill’s personality” – this is a personal attack on Churchill’s actions.
Mao was seen as an instrument of the Soviet Union’s bid to spread worldwide revolution. However, by 1958 relationships between the USSR and China began to deteriorate. One of the most dangerous points of tension during the whole of the cold war was the Taiwan Strait Crisis which occurred in both 1954-55 and 1958 between the USSR and China. The first Taiwan Strait Crisis ended when the Guomindang abandoned the Taschen Islands to the communists but held onto Quemoy and Matsu and at the same time the CCP took a more moderate line and negotiations was started. However, tension came to the
To what extent was the Soviet Union responsible for the division of Germany from 1945 to 1949? Post-war Germany found itself in the middle of international tensions after its division – between the Allied powers of Britain, France and the USA and the Soviet Union under Stalin. However, the German nation that hoped for a new beginning could not do so due to the distribution of her land between the victors of the Second World War, and historians have since debated over who was to blame for this occurring. It is clear that the Cold War climate that started to arise played a large part on the policies that both the Allied Powers and the USSR made, with both eventually pushing the divisions deeper into Germany’s culture, economy and politics. This idea is strengthened by the fact that the USSR brought in visions such as Cominform and Comencon, while the United States introduced ideas like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine.
The eventual collapse of the weimar Republic was brought upon by many factors and even though there is much disagreement among historians about the eventuall trigger, there is a general consencous on the factors leading to the downfall of German democracy. One of the views carried by historians is the Determinist view which basically states that the conditions under which the Republic was created far too extreme and the structure of the republic was serverely weakened, so much so that its downfall was inevitable. The other view was the Alternate view which while acknowledging the structual weaknesses of the Republic, states that the republic had the ability and reselience to recover, but instead lacked sufficient political leadership and a lack of determination to see through their troubles. One of the triggers of the collapse of the weiman republic was article 48 of the German constitution, which granted the president with emergency powers which allowed him to assume full control of the country. This trigger is held highly among determinist historians as one of the reasons the republic was doomed to fail from the start.
Through the Enabling Act, he could then step out and truly begin transforming Germany into one big Nazi-controlled country that would obey his every word. Secondly, due to the Enabling Act as mentioned before, Hitler abolished all other parties in a law known as “The Law Against the Formation of Parties” in July 1933. This meant that it was illegal to join or form another political party, and ex-party leaders would be sent to concentration camps, which meant they were as good as dead. Other groups like trade unions were abolished. This contributed to the Nazi’s being so successful in controlling society as there was no one else that could help the people.
“A political movement of the right, characterized by the use of systematic violence against political opponents and by the presence of a dominant charismatic leader, that emerged after World War I in a number of European countries primarily Italy and Germany.” (The West and the World, page 476.) Before you can attempt to differentiate the fascist forms of government in Germany and Italy, it is important to recognize how they were similar. Both had similar viewpoints in the sense that they believed their respective countries were special and needed the global respect that they deserved. Germany felt isolated because they had to admit they were wrong in World War I and had to pay retributions for their actions. Italy felt that they wanted to regain the glory they possessed during ancient Rome and wished to create a 20th century Italian Empire in the Mediterranean.
They pointed out that on his accession to office he possessed limited knowledge of foreign policy. Also, his rather abrupt and aggressive manner led to a rapid deterioration in US/Soviet relations. Many candidates also cited the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Pan as examples of how Truman could be held responsible for escalating tensions in the Cold War. To support this viewpoint, several mentioned revisionist interpretations of Cold War developments. Some, however, wrote an effective assessment of Truman’s role without considering other factors – which ignored the command ‘how far …?’which required Truman’s role to be evaluated against other factors.
Explain why Nazi ideology was anti-Communist The most important reason why Nazi ideology was anti-Communist was because Nazism was Nationalistic and believed in the superiority of the German race and therefore viewed other races as enemies. Communism was internationalist so Hitler felt that communists were threats to the German race. This view led to one of the points in the 25 point programme which stated that “Communism is evil” which is a clear statement that the Nazi ideology was anti-Communist. Another reason why Nazi ideology was anti-Communist was because of the myth that Germany had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the ‘November Criminals’. The ‘November Criminals’ was a term used by the nationalists to describe those who undermined the war effort in 1918 and this term was applied to Communist revolutionaries.
“"Fascism" was the ideology of the movement that, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, seized power in Italy in 1922 and held power until the Allied invasion of Italy in World War II” 18. “An attempt to provide fascism with a fully articulated theory was made by an Italian neo-Hegelian philosopher of some distinction, Giovanni Gentile, who was converted to fascism after Mussolini's coup.” 19. “But fascism equally opposed socialism, which preached class war and trade unionism and thus served only to divide the nation” 20. “Revolutionized society in such a way that the socialist critique was no longer relevant” 21. “Fascism's debts to the more extreme and fanatic elements of the nineteenth-century left wing” 22.