Chapter 27 The Futile Search for a New

Chapter 27 The Futile Search for a New Stability: Europe Between the Wars, 1919 - 1939

An Uncertain Peace: The Search for Security �Shortcomings of Versailles Treaty and German dissatisfaction �Weaknesses of the League of Nations �French search for security: GB/US isolationism and the “Little Entente” �Allied Reparations Commission, April 1921: $33 billion �Paid in annual installments of billion gold marks �Germany unable to pay in 1922 �French occupation of the Ruhr Valley

© 2003 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning™ is a trademark used herein under license. The Little Entente

The Hopeful Years: 1924 -29 �German mark falls to 4. 2 trillion to $1, end of November 1923 �Dawes Plan – $200 million loan & sympathy for Germany �Gustav Stresemann (1878 -1929) and German cooperation �Treaty of Locarno, 1925 guarantees Germany’s western borders with France and Belgium. East? �Germany joins League of Nations �Kellogg-Briand Pact: NO MORE WAR! �(Unsuccessful) push for disarmament �Improved relations with Soviet Russia �London Naval Conference (1930)

The Great Depression �Problems in domestic economies �International financial crisis �Crash of the American stock market, October 1929 �Withdrawal of US investments in Germany �Affects European markets �Social repercussions � 25% unemployment �Women still employed; male frustration �Appeal of Marxism and backlash �Powerlessness of governments and the appeal of simple dictatorial solutions

The Democratic States: Great Britain �Loss of overseas markets and unemployment �Liberals under Lloyd George falter while Labour Party gains �Labour-Liberal Coalition’s short reign under Mac. Donald �Conservatives under Baldwin 1925 -1929 �Depression ousts Baldwin and Labour takes helm �Labour Party failed to solve problems; coalition “National Government” takes over 1931 �Coalition claimed credit for prosperity �John Maynard Keynes (1883 -1946) - economist �Keynes says the government should create jobs �Government should spend even if in debt – to stimulate economy �Ignored by government

The Democratic States: France �Was the strongest power in Europe �Poincare and the National Bloc – Ruhr Valley fiasco �Cartel of the Left: socialists and radicals �Poincare’s return and the Depression �Government volatility: could not solve financial problems �Popular Front of socialists, radicals and communists � Reaction to threat of fascism � Leon Blum � French “New Deal” �Takes World War II to end the depression Raymond Poincare (L) Leon Blum and his Popular Front (R)

The Democratic States (cont) �The Scandinavian States �Socialist parties �Expanded social services �High taxes and large bureaucracies �The United States �Herbert Hoover, (1929 -1933) � Great Depression: Stock Market crash/15 million unemployed � No unemployment or poor relief �Franklin D. Roosevelt, (1933 -1945) � New Deal � Public Works

The Colonial Empires: Middle East and India �GB and France tried to maintain their colonial empires, but Depression opened door to change in Middle East, India and Africa �The Middle East � Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq gain independence while Euros maintain control of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine �Colonel Mustafa Kemal – “Ataturk” � Republic of Turkey, 1923: westernized! � Secular republic: Islamic control of politics ends; women given rights �India � Mahatma (“great soul”) Gandhi � Push for Indian independence and improved conditions for poor � peaceful policy of civil disobedience � GB grants internal self-government in 1935, but not independence

The Colonial Empires: Africa �After World War I, Africa became more politically active �Protest �British Nigeria in 1929: women’s protest over high taxes �Brits kill 50 women �Did prompt reform – too little too late: these areas wanted independence! �African leaders speak up – many were educated in US or GB �W. E. B. Du Bois: make all Africans aware of their cultural heritage �Marcus Garvey: unity for all Africans! �Jomo Kenyatta: Facing Mount Kenya argues that British rule is destroying African culture/tradition

Retreat from Democracy: The Authoritarian and Totalitarian States �By 1939 only major states to remain democratic are France and Great Britain �Wasn’t WWI fought to make the world “safe for democracy? ” �Postwar societies were divided � Class: unions strengthened during war; middle class lost ground � Gender: women booted from workplace; many single women; women encouraged to go home and have kids (abortion, birth control outlawed) � Great Depression exacerbated these divisions �The modern totalitarian state � Active commitment of citizens � Mass propaganda techniques � High speed communication � Led by single leader and single party � Individual freedom was subordinate to collective will

Rise of Fascist Italy: Benito Mussolini (1883 -1945) �Former socialist editor of Avanti booted by socialists for his pro. WWI stance �Fascio di Combattimento (League of Combat), 1919: radical, authoritarian, nationalist rhetoric �Growth of the socialists/left wing �Squadristi, armed Fascists �Fascist movement gains support from industrialists, MC �Mussolini makes a deal with PM Giovanni Giolitti �Italians angry over failure to receive territory after World War I (Dalamatia, Fiume) �March on Rome, 1922: Armed Black Shirts �Mussolini appointed PM by V. E. III, October 29, 1922

Mussolini and the Italian Fascist State �Acerbo Law 7/1923 �Fascist majority in parliament 4/1924 �Assassination of Giacomo Matteotti �All parties outlawed, 1926 – Fascist dictatorship established, use of OVRA �Mussolini’s view of a Fascist state �Young Fascists �Family is the pillar of the state: women’s role �Never achieves the degree of totalitarianism like Germany or Soviet Union �Lateran Accords, February 1929: Vatican City

Post WWI Germany �Weimar Germany and the Rise of the Nazis � No leaders: Ebert and Stresemann die in 1920 s � Elderly Monarchist Paul von Hindenberg elected president, 1925 � Left and right dissatisfied � Great Depression Elderly Hindenburg; woman burning marks to heat stove; what Germany lost

Hitler’s Rise to Power �Adolf Hitler (1889 -1945) �Vienna �von Schonerer, Lueger, von Liebenfels, Wagner �Social Darwinism �Munich � WWI experience � German Workers’ Party � National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), 1921 � Sturmabteilung (SA), Storm Troops � Munich Beer Hall Putsch, November 1923

Hitler’s Rise to Power �Hitler imprisoned � Mein Kampf, (My Struggle) � Lebensraum (living space) � Anticommunism � Anti-Semitism � Social Darwinism Mein Kampf, signed first edition �Fuhrerprinzip �Party of young men �Depression’s impact �Hindenburg rules by decree, 1930

Hitler and Nazi Germany �Nazi party largest in the Reichstag after 1932 election �Support from right-wing elites �Becomes chancellor, January 30, 1933 �Reichstag fire, February 27, 1933: blames Commies! �Successes in 1933 election �Enabling Act, March 23, 1933 �Purging of Ernst Rohm and SA leaders (night of the long knives) �Gleichschaltung, coordination of all institutions under Nazi control �President Paul von Hindenburg dies, August 2, 1934 �Hitler becomes Fuhrer of the THIRD REICH

The Nazi State (1933 -1939) �Parliamentary republic dismantled �Mass demonstrations and spectacles to create collective fellowship �Constant rivalry gives Hitler power �Economics and the drop in unemployment �Heinrich Himmler and the SS �Churches, schools, and universities brought under Nazi control �Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) and Bund deutscher Mädel (League of German Maidens) �Influence of Nazi ideas on working women Propaganda aimed at young people

The Nazi State: Aryan Racial State �T-4 Program and Rassenhygiene �Tiergartenstraße 4: Address of Translation: 60, 000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money too. General Foundation for Welfare and Institutional Care where program was developed �“life not worthy of life” �Euthanasia, mandatory sterilization �Those with Huntington’s Disease, schizophrenia, mental retardation, epilepsy, alcoholism, physical deformities targeted

The Nazi State: Anti-Semitism �Boycotts and early restrictions �Nuremberg laws, September 1935 �Kristallnacht, November 9 -10, 1938 �Emigration encouraged

The Soviet Union �End of Red-White Civil War, 1921 �Impact of Red Terror �Impact of “War Communism” �Famine, hording �Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) �Modified capitalism �Limited free market economy �Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established, 1922 �Revived economy �Elaborate bureaucracy grows in number and wealth �Lenin suffers strokes, (1922 -1924) �Death 1/21/24 �Power struggle in Politburo

The Soviet Union �Party Division �Leon Trotsky � Former war commissar � Dynamic spokesman of the left � Continue revolution on international scale � Abandon NEP Trotsky! My ice �Joseph Stalin pick knows the � General party secretary way to Mexico, � eventual supporter of the right too! � “Socialism in one country” � “Comrade Card-Index” �Stalin had power to appoint party leaders as GPS �Used his position to put his supporters in charge and took over Communist Party. �Trotsky expelled from party – eventually murdered in Mexico

Stalin Era, (1929 -1939) �First Five Year Plan, 1928 �Emphasis on industry �Real wages declined �Use of propaganda: Stakhanov cult �Rapid collectivization of agriculture �Famine of 1932 -1933; 10 million peasants died �Liquidation of the Kulaks (prosperous farmers) who had attained private land through Stolypin’s reforms. �Political control �Stalin dictatorship established, 1929 �Blood purges: army officers, party members, 1936 -1938 � 8 million arrested �Many sent to Siberian labor camps �Emphasis on FAMILY �Abortion outlawed; divorced dads had to support kids �Having a large family was a patriotic duty �Reality was that women still had to work long hrs. in factories

Socialist Realism Alexei Stakhanov: shockworker supreme; “Flowers for Stalin”

Authoritarianism in Eastern Europe � Conservative authoritarian governments � Eastern Europe � Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia adopted parliamentary systems � Romania and Bulgaria gained new parliamentary constitutions � Greece became a republic � Hungary parliamentary in form; controlled by landed aristocrats � Problems � Little or no tradition of liberalism and parliamentary form � Rural and agrarian society � Ethnic conflicts • Authoritarianism takes hold… � Coup d’etat in Bulgaria, 1923 � Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, military dictatorship in Poland, 1926 � King Alexander I abolishes constitution in Yugoslavia, 1929 � Julius Gombos, PM of Hungary embraced fascist politics � Corneliu Codreanu established fascist movement, Legion of the Archangel Michael, in Romania, triggers King Carol II to end parliamentary rule, 1938 � General John Metaxas imposes dictatorship in Greece, 1936 � All but Czechoslovakia succumbed to authoritarianism!

Authoritarianism in Iberian Peninsula �Spain �Economy rocked by WWI �Parliamentary monarchy unable to deal: King Alfonso XIII encourages military coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera, 1923 �Depression triggers collapse of Primo de Rivera’s regime 1/1930 �Alfonso XIII leaves Spain, 1931 �New Spanish Republic established under democrats and socialists �Antifascist coalition Popular Front takes control, 1936 �Military refuses to accept: revolt ensues to begin Spanish Civil War General Francisco Franco leads right-wing military rebels, and gets assistance from Italy and Germany (Resnais’ Guernica 1 and 2) � Left wing aligns with Popular Front, getting assistance from Soviet Union � US, France, GB stay out officially, though many fought for Republicans � Franco eventually triumphs, 1939: 400 k died � Franco ruled until 1975 as a conservative authoritarian ruler, not a fascist � �Portugal �Antonio Salazar establishes military dictatorship, 1932 -68

Expansion of Mass Culture and Mass Leisure �The Roaring Twenties �The Charleston �Berlin, the entertainment center of Europe (Cabaret) �Josephine Baker (1906 -1975) �Jazz Age

Radio and Movies: Mass forms of Communication & Entertainment �Radio � Nellie Melba, June 16, 1920 – radio broadcast � BBC, 1926 �Movies � Quo Vadis – 1 st successful full-length feature film � Birth of a Nation D. W. Griffith (KKK) �Stars became subjects of adoration � Marlene Dietrich �Used for political purposes � Nazis encourage cheap radios � Triumph of the Will, 1934 (Riefenstahl) � Ivan the Terrible, Part 1, 1943 (Eisenstein)

From D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation…

Dietrich’s Androgynous Appeal

From Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will For Hitler’s translated speech, click here.

Mass Leisure �Professional sporting events �Travel �National recreation agencies �Kraft durch Freude in Germany �Dopolavoro in Italy

Cultural & Intellectual Trends in the Interwar Years �Prewar avant-garde culture becomes acceptable �Political, economic, and social insecurities �Radical changes in women’s styles �Theodor van de Velde � Ideal Marriage: It is Physiology and Technique (women say, “thanks!”) �Nightmares and New Visions: Art and Music � Abstract painting; fascination with the absurd � Dadaism - Tristan Tzara (1896 -1945) � Surrealism - Salvador Dali (1904 -1989) �Functional Architecture � Bauhaus School in Germany �Arnold Schönberg (1874 -1951)

Art – Dadaism, Surrealism Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dali

Bauhaus School Bauhaus building (below) and cradle (right)

Literature & Physics Between the Wars �The Search for the Unconscious My eyepatch is ubersex y. �James Joyce (1882 -1941), Ulysses �Hermann Hesse (1877 -1962) �Impact of Freud �Carl Jung (1856 -1961) �The “Heroic Age of Physics” �Ernest Rutherford (1871 -1937), atom could be split �Werner Heisenberg (1901 -1976), “uncertainty principle”

Discussion Questions �What were the causes of the Great Depression? �What did France feel it needed for security after the Great War? How does this affect Germany? �What were the characteristics of Nazi Germany? �What were the characteristics of Stalin’s Soviet Union? �Describe the art trends of this period? What were the lasting affects of these trends?

Web Links �Great Depression �John Maynard Keynes �Francisco Franco �Benito Mussolini �Weimer Republic �Adolph Hitler �Joseph Stalin �Dadaism