"he did begin strategic planning to build long-range submarines that could blockade Japan. In 1936, Germany remilitarized the Rhineland in defiance of the Versailles Treaty. Without the support of Britain or Italy, France declined to intervene to prevent the remilitarization. In March 1938, Germany peacefully annexed Austria. That same year, Germany demanded the annexation of German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia. In a last desperate effort to keep the peace, Britain and France agreed to German demands with the September 1938 Munich Agreement. Roosevelt supported Britain and France, and insisted on American neutrality in Europe. In March 1939, Hitler flouted the Munich"
"claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, resulting in condemnation by the League of Nations and widespread diplomatic isolation. In 1936, Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war. These hopes faded when Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by ordering"
"and proclaimed Victor Emmanuel III the Emperor of Ethiopia. In July the League abandoned sanctions. This episode, in which sanctions were incomplete and appeared to be easily given up, seriously discredited the League. Under the Versailles Settlement, the Rhineland was demilitarized. Germany accepted this arrangement under the Locarno Treaties of 1925. Hitler claimed that it threatened Germany and on 7 March 1936 he sent German forces into the Rhineland. He gambled on Britain not getting involved but was unsure how France would react. The action was opposed by many of his advisers. His officers had orders to withdraw if they"
"forces of the German Reich had entered and occupied the Rhineland, a region bordering the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France, which had been designated in the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 as a demilitarized zone established to provide a buffer between Germany and those neighboring countries. In order to justify its remilitarization — which was also a violation of the 1925 Locarno Pact, — a ""post hoc"" plebiscite (or referendum) was quickly called by Hitler for 29 March to ""ask the German people"" to both ratify the Rhineland’s occupation by the German Army, and to approve a single party list"
"to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year. Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to appeasement. In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome–Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China"
"promised during his ""peace speeches"" to obey Locarno as opposed to Versailles. Hitler would have remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1935 when he announced that Germany would no longer obey either Parts V or VI of Versailles, which had disarmed Germany, but since the Rhineland was covered by Locarno, its demilitarized status continued. Furthermore, given that under Locarno, Britain and Italy were obliged to defend Germany if France should invade, from the German viewpoint, it made sense to continue to abide by Locarno, given the fear that France might march when Germany repudiated the disarmament clauses of Versailles in March"
"the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war. Adolf Hitler used these issues as a pretext for waging wars of aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland. On 7 March 1936, Hitler sent a small expeditionary force into the demilitarized Rhineland. This was a clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles (1919, official end of World War I), and as such, France and Britain were within their rights, via the Treaty, to oust the German forces. British public opinion blocked any use of military force, thus preventing French action, as they were internally divided and would not act without British"
"engagement with France, Britain and (later) the Soviet Union (Stalin-Hitler Pact of August 1939). One by one, Hitler successfully repudiated the terms the Versailles treaty, using skilful diplomacy to avoid triggering war. After starting open re-armament in 1935, he carried out the re-occupation of the Rhineland in 1936, and then the diplomatic annexation of Austria (Anschluss) and of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 (Munich Agreement, September 1938). This risky political strategy proved initially successful, consolidating internal support for the Nazi regime and greatly strengthening Germany's strategic position. But the March 1939 annexation of rump Czechoslovakia, in violation of the Munich"
"violation of the Treaty of Versailles, German troops marched into the Rhineland and other regions along the Rhine. German territory west of the Rhine had been off-limits to the German military. In 1945, the Rhineland was the scene of major fighting as the Allied invaders overwhelmed the German defenders. In 1946, the Rhineland was divided into the newly founded states of Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Rhineland-Palatinate. North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the prime German industrial areas, containing significant mineral deposits, (coal, lead, lignite, magnesium, oil, and uranium) and water transport. In Rhineland-Palatinate agriculture is more important, including the vineyards in"
"Hitler, promoted the nationalist stab-in-the-back legend stating that Germany had been betrayed by Jews and Communists. The party promised to rebuild Germany as a major power and create a Greater Germany that would include Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Sudetenland, and other German-populated territories in Europe. The Nazis also aimed to occupy and colonize non-German territories in Poland, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union, as part of the Nazi policy of seeking ""Lebensraum"" (""living space"") in eastern Europe. Germany renounced the Versailles treaty and remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936. Germany had already resumed conscription and announced the existence of a German"
"in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans. From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in its condemnation by the League of Nations and its widespread diplomatic isolation. In 1936, Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the"
"the Nazi ""interlopers in diplomacy"". During January 1936, the German Chancellor and ""Führer"" Adolf Hitler decided to reoccupy the Rhineland. Originally Hitler had planned to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1937, but chose in early 1936 to move re-militarization forward by a year for several reasons, namely: the ratification by the French National Assembly of the Franco-Soviet pact of 1935 allowed him to present his coup both at home and abroad as a defensive move against Franco-Soviet ""encirclement""; the expectation that France would be better armed in 1937; the government in Paris had just fallen and a caretaker government was in"
"to the National Socialist regime. Given the intense devotion of the Wehrmacht to the National Socialist regime and its corrupt senior officers who never got quite enough in the way of bribes from Hitler, it is very unlikely that the Wehrmacht would have turned on their Fuhrer if the Wehrmacht were forced out of the Rhineland in 1936. Hitler himself later said: On 7 March 1936 Hitler announced before the ""Reichstag"" that the Rhineland had been remilitarized, and to blunt the danger of war, Hitler offered to return to the League of Nations, to sign an air pact to outlaw"
"Rhineland. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to the lead negotiators of the treaty, going to Sir Austen Chamberlain in 1925 and jointly to Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann in 1926. Historian Sally Marks says: Hitler repudiated Locarno by sending troops into the demilitarized Rhineland on 7 March 1936. In Poland, the public humiliation received by Polish diplomats was one of the contributing factors to the fall of the Grabski cabinet. Locarno contributed to the worsening of the atmosphere between Poland and France, weakening the French-Polish alliance. Józef Beck ridiculed the treaties saying, ""Germany was officially asked to attack the"
"the alliance would have no military value to France. With the growing threat of German reoccupation of the demilitarized Rhineland, on 17 February 1936 Maurin wrote, ""It could be contrary to French interests to use our right to occupy the demilitarized zone... We would actually risk being considered the aggressor and thus finding ourselves alone facing Germany. Such an operation could not be considered without the full support of the British government."" After the remilitarization of the Rhineland by German forces on 7 March 1936 Maurin said at the cabinet meeting late that morning that a partial, temporary demonstration of"
"the German Armed Forces. It was impossible to rebuild the armed forces without breaking the Versailles Treaty, but this could not be done safely without a way to defend Germany in case of a response from the Western Allies of France and the United Kingdom. Hitler rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to strengthen the Armed Forces. He reinstituted Military drafting in March 1935, took control of the Rhineland in 1936, and sent the Condor Legion to Spain to fight along General Franco and be trained in the art of modern warfare. Germany began to exert diplomatic pressure with military"
"Rhine. In 1920, under massive French pressure, the Saar was separated from the Rhine Province and administered by the League of Nations until a plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to Germany. At the same time, in 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium (see German-Speaking Community of Belgium). Shortly after, France completely occupied the Rhineland, strictly controlling all important industrial areas. The Germans responded with passive resistance and hyperinflation; the French gained very little of the reparations they wanted. French troops did not leave the Rhineland until 1925. On 7 March 1936, in"
"Treaties were signed, a significant step in restoring Germany's position in Europe. The right was infuriated because the Treaty accepted the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, though it mandated the withdrawal of the Allied troops occupying the Rhineland. The president always was lobbied intensely by visitors and letter writers. Hindenburg countered demands to restore the monarchy by arguing that restoring a Hohenzollern would block progress in revising Versailles. He accepted the republic as the mechanism for restoring Germany's position in Europe, though Hindenburg was no ""Vernunftrepublikaner"" (republican by reason) because democracy was incompatible with the militaristic ""volksgemeinschaft"" (national community) that"
"Germany; the Anglo-French occupation of the Rhineland should be ended; and Britain and France should disarm as Germany had done. The Treaties were signed in October 1925 at Locarno. Germany officially recognized the post-World War I western border for the first time, and was guaranteed peace with France, and promised admission to the League of Nations and evacuation of the last Allied occupation troops from the Rhineland. Stresemann was not willing to conclude a similar treaty with Poland: ""There will be no Locarno of the east"" he said. Moreover, he never excluded the use of force to regain the eastern"
"in Europe, viewing the Treaty of Versailles as an unjust and vindictive peace treaty, and argued the French were the principle trouble-makers in Europe by seeking to uphold the Versailles treaty. Hertzog argued that if Adolf Hitler had a belligerent foreign policy, it was only because of the Treaty of Versailles was intolerably harsh towards Germany and if the international system was revised to take account of Germany's ""legitimate"" complaints against Versailles, then Hitler would become a moderate and reasonable statesman. When Germany remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936, Hertzog informed the British government that there was no possibility of"
"Occupation of the Rhineland The Occupation of the Rhineland from 1 December 1918 until 30 June 1930 was a consequence of the collapse of the Imperial German Army in 1918. Despite Germany proving victorious on the eastern front following the Russian Revolution, the military high command had failed to prevent the continuing erosion of morale, both domestically and in the army. Despite transferring veteran troops from the eastern front to fight on the western front, the spring offensive was a failure and following the outbreak of the German Revolution the Germany's provisional government was obliged to agree to the terms"
"the Rhineland was remilitarized in March 1936. Also, of importance was the idea of a Greater Germany, supporters hoped to unite the German people under one nation state, which included all territories where Germans lived, regardless of whether they happened to be a minority in a particular territory. After the Treaty of Versailles, a unification between Germany and a newly formed German-Austria, a successor rump state of Austria-Hungary, was prohibited by the Allies despite the majority of Austrian Germans supporting such a union. In Asia, the Empire of Japan harbored expansionist desires towards Manchuria and the Republic of China. Militarism"
"him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations (1933), rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm (1935), won back the Saar (1935), remilitarized the Rhineland (1936), formed an alliance (""axis"") with Mussolini's Italy (1936), sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), seized Austria (1938), took over Czechoslovakia after the British and French ""appeasement"" of the Munich Agreement of 1938, formed a peace pact with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in August 1939, and finally invaded Poland"
"an agreement including both French and Belgian soldiers in the occupation of the Rhineland. It also stated, that in the event of German rearmament, both countries would mobilise their reserves. The second article discussed greater integration of frontier defenses, while the third article announced greater co-operation between General Staffs. The treaty was formally abrogated in 1936 and Belgium returned to pursuing a policy of neutrality. The Belgian government preferred to construct fortifications and gain assurances of neutrality from surrounding countries, including Nazi Germany, than risk getting entangled in another war through an alliance structure. The agreement was initially met with"
"1920 Treaty of Versailles as a de-militarized zone established to provide a buffer between Germany and those neighboring countries. In order to justify its remilitarization—which was also a violation of the 1925 Locarno Pact—a ""post hoc"" plebiscite (or referendum) was quickly called by Hitler for March 29 to ""ask the German people"" to both ratify the Rhineland’s occupation by the German Army, and to approve a single party list composed exclusively of Nazi candidates to sit in the new Reichstag. The ""Hindenburg"" and the ""Graf Zeppelin"" were designated by the government as a key part of the process. As a"
"their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine, Northern Schleswig, and Memel. The Saarland temporarily became a protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor, which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city. Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in the ""Anschluss"" of 1938. The Munich Agreement"
"as a bulwark against the threat posed by the new Soviet Union. By the 1930s, Lloyd George's position on the treaty has changed. In 1938, he published his memoir titled ""The Truth About the Peace Treaties"", in which he repudiated the terms of the treaty that bore his signature. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, following the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936, stated that he was ""pleased"" that the treaty was ""vanishing"", expressing his hope that the French had been taught a ""severe lesson"". The signing of the treaty was met with roars of approval, singing, and dancing from a"
"could order its troops to anywhere within its borders, and claimed all he wanted was ""equality"" for Germany. Even then, Hitler claimed that he would have been willing to accept the continued demilitarization of the Rhineland as Stresemann had promised at Locarno in 1925 as the price for peace, had it not been for the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1935, which he maintained was threatening to Germany and had left him with no other choice than to remilitarize the Rhineland. With his eye on public opinion abroad, Hitler made a point of stressing that the remilitarization was not intended to threaten"
"of Nazi Germany. The British, according to France, had no legal right to absolve Germany of its obligation to respect the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty. On January 6, 1936, Mussolini told German Ambassador Ulrich von Hassell that he would not object to Germany taking Austria as a satellite state if Austria maintained its formal independence. On 22 February, Mussolini then agreed to Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland and stated that Italy would not honour the Locarno Treaty if that occurred. In Italy and France, the Stresa Conference is considered the last tentative to stop Hitler and to block"
"claimed that the German army, ""undefeated in the field"", had been ""stabbed in the back"" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists, later dubbed the ""November criminals"". The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty—especially Article 231, which declared Germany responsible for the war—as a humiliation. The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains. On 14 March"
"Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war. These hopes faded when Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by ordering the invasion and partition of Czechoslovakia between Germany and a client state of Slovakia in 1939. At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain. In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means. The Polish government did not trust Hitler's promises and refused to accept Germany's demands. The invasion"
"1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. There followed occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944 and then again occupation by the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991. This policy of non-recognition has given rise to the principle of legal continuity of the Baltic states, which holds that ""de jure"", or as a matter of law, the Baltic states had remained independent states under illegal occupation throughout the period from 1940 to 1991. In its reassessment of Soviet history that began during perestroika in 1989, the Soviet Union condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Germany and itself. However, the Soviet Union never formally"
"children, the offspring of German mothers and African soldiers brought in during the French occupation, lived in the Rhineland. In ""Mein Kampf"", Hitler described the children of marriages to African occupation troops as a contamination of the white race ""by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe"" who were ""bastardising the European continent at its core"". According to Hitler, ""Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardising the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate"". Japan signed the"