World War Two Comes to Eastern Europe

  Clayton Wukich

 

I. World War II: “The Last Good War” Studs Turkel

 

A.  Two Causes

  1. Ambition of Nazi Germany and its allies (Axis)
  2. WWI didn’t settle rivalry between Germany and Western Democracies

      a.  Economic competition

      b.  Reparations

      c.  War guilt clause

 

B.  Rise of Fascism: Germany, Italy

  1. Corporatism
  2. Exaltation of violence
  3. Racism and anti-Semitism

a.      Jews and Slavs as “inferior” and “subhuman”

b.      Poland and Soviet Union seen as space for German expansion (Lebensraum)

  1. Fuehrerprinzip – belief in one strong leader

 

C.  German economic recovery

      1.   Re-militarization  

      2.   Armaments sales 

  1. Trading agreements with Eastern Europe
    1. Germany top importer/exporter in Eastern Europe
    2. Eastern Europe economic reliance on Germany

 

D.  Germany’s allies—revisionist states, regions, populations:

 

States wanting to regain territories lost after WW I 

  1. Bulgaria – Dobrudja, Macedonia, and other parts of Yugoslavia
  2. Hungary – parts of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania
  3. Austria
  4. Turkey

 

Revisionist Populations

  1. Croats wanted independence and aspired to Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Serbia
  2. Slovaks wanted independence from Czechoslovakia
  3. German populations “Volksdeutsch” in Austria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Baltic states, Poland—some wanted to be part of a German state

 

E.  Early alliances against revisionism

    1. 1920-21 Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia form alliance to restrain Hungarian revisionism.

b.   1934 Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, and Turkey form alliance to restrain Bulgarian revisionism.

 

E.  Fascist no-limit ideology of war

  1. Rise of the Third Reich
    1. 1933 Germany withdraws from the Conference on Disarmament
    2. 1936 German troops occupy Rhineland 
    3. 1936 Germans aid Franco against the Spanish Republic in civil war
    4. 1938 German-Austrian ‘Anschluss’

                  d.   1938 (September) Chamberlain appeases Hitler at Munich

    1. 1938 (October) Germans occupy Sudetenland.
    2. 1939 (March) Nazis occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia
    3. 1939 (September 1) Nazis invade Poland
    4. 1939 (September 3) Britain & France declare war on Germany
    5. 1939 Germany opens western front in France
    6. 1941 Germany invades Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa (June 22) & seizes Ukraine, Bielorussia as “breadbasket” for the Reich 

 

  1. Italian militarization
    1. 1935 Italy invades Ethiopia.
    2. 1939 Italy occupies Albania.
    3. 1940 Nazis warn Italy against invading Yugoslavia or Greece.
    4. 1940 Italy invades Greece (defeated within a month).

 

F.  Soviet Union

  1. Aids Republican side in Spanish Civil War
  2. Stalin, seeing Western appeasement signs Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939)
  3. Acc. to Pact, Soviet Union partitions Poland with Germany (Sept. 1, 1939); seizes Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia & N. Bukovina

 

Romania then competes with Hungary for Hitler’s favor in hope of regaining Transylvania & these territories

 

G.  Yugoslavia

  1. Yugoslav government signs non-aggression pact with Germany.
  2. Serb military and clergy overthrow pro-Axis government.
    1. Young King Peter II installed as king.
    2. Winston Churchill – Yugoslavia found its soul.
  3. Nazis invades Yugoslavia. 
    1. April 6, 1941
    2. Belgrade bombed.
    3. William L. Shirer – invasion was the worst military decision in Hitler’s career.  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
  4. Yugoslavia divided.
    1. Serbia – occupied by Germans and Italians
    2. Croatia – Fascist puppet state governed by the Croatian Ustasa
    3. Slovenia – absorbed into Reich
    4. Macedonia – absorbed into Bulgaria
  5. Resistance, Civil War and Genocide
    1. Chetniks – Serbian Monarchists in Serbia and Montenegro
    2. Partisans – Communists in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia (Tito)
    3. Ustashi – Fascists in Independent State of Croatia

      6.   Consequences  

 

H.  Allied Victory (1944-45) and Political Results

1.      Iron Curtain

a.      East Germany

b.      Yugoslavia

c.       Bulgaria

d.      Romania

e.      Poland

f.        Czechoslovakia

g.      Hungary

h.      Albania

 

 

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