During a depression, political trends become extremist and so the Nazis flourished; Hitler offered both a scapegoat and himself as a strong leader to look up to. The depression gave Hitler the edge he needed to gain ninety-five[1] seats in the Reichstag and ultimately progress from the leader of a minority party to the Dictator of the Third Reich. The Depression also drew attention to the weaknesses of the Weimar Constitution; as poverty and unemployment increased, respect for the democratic system drastically decreased. The German population did not want to be governed by a democracy as it was such a governing body that signed the Treaty of Versailles. Hatred for this document was still rife in Germany and so Hitler, who openly detested the Treaty, became the obvious choice.
Many people believe another fault of the League of Nations that contributed to war was; how they appeased Hitler by letting him have Czechoslovakia. They did this because they thought it would reduce chances of war, yet Hitler soon broke the agreement they had made and war started. Although many people would argue that the above cause was the fault of the League of Nations, I disagree because, if Hitler had not been so aggressively demanding, they would not have needed to appease him. However, the League of Nations is not completely without fault, Italy was disappointed by the League of Nations as she was denied territory promised by Britain and France. This lead Mussolini and Italy to join forces with Germany, making them bear resentment and wanting war.
His self-belief persuaded people to believe in him. However, I do not think it was solely the brilliance of Hitler's leadership which brought the Nazis to Power. The Treaty of Versailles, which was a peace settlement in which the Germans had no choice and were forced to sign after WW1, was an important reason why the Nazis came to power. The German general public were so angry over the Treaty and found it hard to accept the terms of it because it became a symbol of Germany's humiliation and defeat. This made the new Weimar government, who signed the Treaty, extremely unpopular and there was a lot of opposition to the government.
This therefore could contradict the idea that the Soviet Union started the Cold War. Furthermore, the soviets refused to allow free elections and set up communist governments in Eastern Europe. After losing 28 million people after the war, devastating the nations stability and infrastructure Russia believed Germany had to pay severely so they would not be a future threat. However, the USA and Britain wanted to be less severe because they believed they learned their lesson in 1919. They spread propaganda
The USSR and the United States were friends during World War II only because both countries did not approve of Nazi Germany's ideology. While they were friends, both the USSR and the United States still did not agree with each other in terms of government, but both thought that it was more important to work together fighting against Germany. However, after World War 2, the USA adopted Capitalism and became and became a democracy, whereas Russia adopted Communism. This again created an inevitable clash between the governments of these two countries. When President Roosevelt died, Truman was installed as the new President of the USA.
Instead of the government taking forceful action against the attempted take over they pleaded for the german people to go on a general strike and the kapp putsch no longer took place showing another win for the Weimar republic. However this then cause chaos in the 1920’s when the Ruhr crisis happened. Due to them not paying one of the reparation fees the French took an invasion on the Ruhr which is the rich land of germany. Due to this
When Communism became something real and physical, America felt their economy was even more endangered, concerned that it would spread to them and destroy what they had. Communism and Capitalism are opposite concepts, and so the Americans greatly feared Communism, something that put, what they considered to be, an excellent society in jeopardy. A drastic change was too large for them to cope with, and was one they saw as negative, fearful it would result in the deconstruction of a stable society. There will always be an inevitable conflict when Communism and Capitalism are pitched against each other, and so the Americans felt threatened by this. The West felt threatened by Communism too because it caused Russia to pull out of the war, thus losing them a good ally.
Their relations were worsen during Potsdam conference. Truman were the new USA president, he is very different from Roosevelt, he was much more anti-communist and suspicious of Stalin, he saw USSR's action in Eastern Europe a preparation of taking over the rest of the world. In Potsdam conference, USSR and USA had disagreement on the future of Germany, USSR want to impose heavy reparation on Germany as fear a strong Germany would post a threat to USSR in future, however USA want Germany to rebuild as Truman did not want to repeat the mistake in Treaty of Versailles again. Stalin was determined to protect USSR interest, so he was dissatisfied as the part of Germany he was controlling was pooper and less industry. Stalin was also obsessed with the security of USSR so the successful test of atomic bomb in USA
It also severely restricted Germany’s military power. The treaty, to Germany, was something that was not only unfair, but also humiliating. This caused Germany to bear resentment against the winning powers and caused some to thirst for revenge. America’s policy of isolationism also played a major part in starting World War II. Their refusal to join the League of Nations severely weakened it, and effectively destroyed the League of Nation’s ability to follow through with its threats and stop wars.
Examples of the new currencies, left; is the Deutschmark issued by the Western allies, right; the currency the Soviets issued. There are many reasons why the Soviets did this beside anger. One is that they were angry that communist countries, like themselves couldn’t benefit from the Marshall Plan. (The Marshall Plan sent