War against opposition and Jews
No, this war did not start suddenly. Hitler (Adolf Hitler) made no secret of his conquest plans - even if sometimes the "Führer", as he himself put it, "launched a pacifist record." As Klaus Hesse, an employee of the Topography of Terror information and exhibition center in Berlin, explains, Hitler had been preparing for war since he came to power in 1933: “All his actions were aimed at revising the Versailles Peace Treaty, resuming the hegemony of the Great Germany" in Europe, the creation of an industrial potential that would allow the country to wage a long war."
War against opposition and Jews
The peace treaty concluded on June 28, 1919 at Versailles placed on Germany and its allies full responsibility for unleashing the First World War and obliged the country to pay reparations, disarmament and reduce the size of the German army. Germany had to give up a number of territories in favor of France, Belgium and Poland. From Hitler's point of view, this was an act of national humiliation to be "corrected" as soon as possible. The National Socialists willingly spread the legend about the "stab in the back", that there was supposedly some kind of conspiracy. According to this myth, all the blame for the defeat of the Germans in the First World War was placed on the "internal enemy": the Jews and the Social Democrats.
Within days of coming to power in 1933, the Nazis staged the first all-German (supposedly spontaneous) boycott of Jewish-owned shops. This action was followed by the adoption of the law "On the restoration of the status of a civil servant" (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) - a normative act prohibiting, in particular, citizens of Jewish origin from being in public service.
Even before the start of open robberies, the state put pressure on Jewish entrepreneurs. And even from the exodus of Jews from Germany, the Nazis sought to profit by obliging each person leaving to pay 25 percent of the value of their property to the treasury. During the first two years of Nazi domination, this provided the treasury of the "Third Reich" with an inflow of 153 million Reichsmarks.
Most Germans saw in Hitler (at least until 1939) if not the messiah, then certainly the savior of the nation. For many, the dictatorship provided an improvement in their financial situation. Unemployment has declined, the level of consumption - on the rise. "Hitler was too experienced a populist not to understand that the people needed not only guns, but also butter," says Klaus Hesse. There was oil. But the main goal was still guns.
In 1936, the entire sports world gathered in Berlin for the Olympics. And Hitler continued to implement his militaristic plans: in four years, according to his calculations, the Wehrmacht had to prepare for a war in the east. A classified document called "Instructions for a four-year plan" ("Denkschrift zum Vierjahresplan") contained specific instructions. One of the main points was the creation of autarky - a closed German economy, independent of world processes, aimed at the production of weapons.
September 1938: War postponed but not cancelled.
In 1938, Hitler carried out the Anschluss, incorporating his homeland, Austria, into Germany. Soon he threatened to invade Czechoslovakia, allegedly preoccupied with the problem of discrimination against the Sudeten Germans. British and French politicians were afraid of a war that could engulf all of Europe, and tried to pursue a policy of appeasement, hoping that Hitler would calm down by receiving part of the territory of Czechoslovakia. The "Munich Agreement", drawn up on September 29, 1938 and signed by British Prime Minister Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Daladier, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and Hitler, annexed the Sudetenland to Germany.
“Chamberlain allowed Hitler to significantly increase the territory of the “Reich” without even starting a war,” says British historian Anthony Beevor. What would have happened if Churchill, an opponent of the policy of appeasement, had already occupied the prime minister's chair then? Beevor does not undertake to answer this question unambiguously.
In Germany itself in 1938, many were already afraid of war. "It was clear that Germany's transformation from the loser of World War I to the new European superpower would inevitably lead to conflict," says historian Klaus Hesse. Meanwhile, the "Munich Agreement" (also known as the "Munich Pact") was hailed by Nazi propaganda as proof of the peacefulness of the regime.
Last chance to stop the war?
The tragedy of September 1938 is that, at that moment, history seemed to have taken a different path. Hitler at this point was virtually alone in his intentions to start a war. Military and high-ranking officials critical of the "Fuhrer" tried to "make friends" with former social democratic politicians and discussed a plan to create a new government. The secret detachment was ready to storm the Reich Chancellery if Hitler declared war.
A year later, in September 1939, there was no question of any putsch. Most Germans supported the invasion of Poland, especially since Hitler secured Stalin's support before this by concluding the so-called "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact." The war began victoriously for the Wehrmacht. But that was only the beginning...
Tens of millions of people will die as a result of the Second World War unleashed by Hitler. Six million Jews will be killed by the National Socialists. The Second World War was and remains in the eyes of the British historian Anthony Beevor - and, of course, not only him - "the greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind."
