CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 26
THE FUTILE SEARCH FOR A NEW STABILITY:
EUROPE BETWEEN THE WARS, 1919-1939
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. An Uncertain Peace: The Search for Security
A. The French Policy of Coercion (1919-1924)
B. The Hopeful Years (1924-1929)
1. The Spirit of Locarno
2. Coexistence with Soviet Russia
C. The Great Depression
1. Causes
2. Unemployment
3. Social and Political Repercussions
II. The Democratic States
A. Great Britain
B. France
C. The Scandinavian Example
D. The United States
E. European States and the World: The Colonial Empire
1. The Middle East
2. India
3. Africa
III. Retreat from Democracy: The Authoritarian and Totalitarian States; areas of democracy / authoritarian regimes, differences between dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, origins in total war, control of citizens, propaganda and communication systems, rejection of liberal values, political spectrum
A. Fascist Italy
1. Impact of World War I
2. The Birth of Fascism; Mussolini, league of Combat, inefficiency of gov’t, shift in politics, squadristi “black shirts,” Giolitti (remember Transformism? Yeah, that’s gonna get ugly here) creating conditions of disorder, base of support, March on Rome
3. Mussolini and the Italian Fascist State; consolidating power, new laws, “Il Duce” fascist successes and failures, Youth organizations, women, the Lateran Accords,
B. Hitler and Nazi Germany
1. Weimar Germany; problems in leadership and economy
2. The Emergence of Adolph Hitler; four major influences – Schonerer, Lueger, Liebenfels, Wagner, Hitler’s ideology, time in WWI
3. The Rise of the Nazis; Tactics, Beerhall Putsch
4. The Nazi Seizure of Power; Mein kampf, lebensraum, Fuhrerprinzip, reorganization of the party, targeting middle and lower middle class rural voters, Bruning and Hindengurg, “Hitler over Germany” promises, support of right-wing elites, becoming chancellor, auxiliary police force, Reichstag fire/decrees, Enabling act, “coordination” threats to Hitler’s power, abolishment of the office of president
5. The Nazi State (1933-1939); necessity of people’s involvement, mass demonstrations, administrative chaos, economic policies, German labor front, the SS, terror and ideology, social institutions, anti-semetic policies, Nuremberg laws, Kristallnacht, women
C. The Soviet Union; war communism and gov’t expansion, industrial and economic problems
1. The New Economic Policy; how it works, creation of the USSR, revival of economy
2. The Struggle for Power; divisions in the Politiburo, Trotsky and Stalin, powers of “Comrad Card-Index” Death of Trotsky
3. The Stalinist Era (1929-1939); five-year plan, triumph of industry, social and political costs, collectivization of agriculture, engineered famine, Stalin’s way of maintaining power, rolling back permissive legislation, effects on the birthrate
D. Authoritarianism in Eastern Europe; changes in eastern Europe, problems that gave rise to authoritarian gov’ts, examples of eastern European authoritarian states (Do you not wish your name was Engelbert Dollfuss? That would be awesome) Reasons for lack of authoritarianism in Czechoslovakia
E. Dictatorship in the Iberian Peninsula; problems in Spain and Portugal, Alfonso XIII, Primo de Rivera, Political turmoil, Popular Front, Franco
1. The Spanish Civil War; Foreign aid, brutality
2. The Franco Regime; traditional, conservative policies
3. Portugal; overthrow of monarchy, Salazar
IV. The Expansion of Mass Culture and Mass Leisure
A. Radio and Movies
B. Mass Leisure
1. Sports
2. Tourism
3. Organized Mass Leisure in Italy and Germany
V. Cultural and Intellectual Trends in the Interwar Years
A. Nightmares and New Visions: Art and Music
1. The Dada Movement
2. Surrealism
3. Functionalism in Modern Architecture
4. A Popular Audience
5. Art in Totalitarian Regimes
6. A New Style in Music
B. The Search for the Unconscious in Literature
C. The Unconscious in Psychology: Carl Jung
D. The “Heroic Age of Physics”
VI. Conclusion
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR THE PRIMARY SOURCES (BOXED DOCUMENTS)
1. “The Great Depression: Unemployed and Homeless in Germany”: Discuss the plight of the homeless in Germany in 1932. To what does the writer compare to the impact and effects of the depression? How did the growing misery of many ordinary Germans promote the rise of extremist political parties like the Nazis and facilitate seizure of political power in Germany by racist and anti-democratic forces? Would Hitler have come to power if prosperity had continued in Weimar Germany? (page 754)
2. “The Struggles of a Democracy: Unemployment and Slums in Great Britain”: What economic and social problems are described in these documents? What might be the psychological or emotional impact on someone who has held a job for decades and now is out of work with no prospect of gaining employment again? What do these pieces tell you about the quality of life and politics in Great Britain during the inter-war years? (page 755)
3. “The Voice of Italian Fascism”: Based on this article, for Mussolini, what were the basic principles of Italian Fascism? What movements and ideologies does Mussolini vehemently oppose, and why? Why might such principles and claims that he espouses in this document appeal to a broad public in the aftermath of World War One? (page 761)
4. “Adolf Hitler’s Hatred of the Jews”: What was Hitler's attitude toward the Jews? What fueled his irrational hatred of Jews? What role might nineteenth century German nationalism have played in fueling anti-Semitism? Why do you think that such crazed views became acceptable (or at least tolerable) to large numbers of ordinary Germans in the aftermath of World War One? (page 763)
5. “Propaganda and Mass Meetings in Nazi Germany”: How did Hitler envision the role of propaganda and mass meetings in the totalitarian state? How did the stage- management of Nazi spectacles possibly contribute to the acceptance of corrupt and inhuman Nazi ideology by many ordinary Germans, such as the teacher quoted? What role does propaganda and mass meetings play in today’s society, and not merely in the realm of politics? (page 767)
6. “The Formation of Collective Farms”: What is a collective farm and how was it created? What was the reason that Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture? What traditions of Russian life and character did this novel unit of agricultural production attack? What social and economic costs were involved in the formation of the collectives? Were the collective farms successful? Why or why not? (page 772)
7. “Mass Leisure: Strength through Joy”: Based on these documents, what were the attitudes of ordinary Germans toward the Nazi regime's “Strength through Joy” programs? What do the content and tone of these reports tell you about the nature of public support for Nazism? Did all Germans approve of and participate in the Nazis’ programs? What groups or ranks in society did the Nazis apparently single out for special efforts at indoctrination and recruitment? Was Nazism most successful in capitalizing on the fears, hatreds, and self-serving ambitions of the lower middle classes, the petty German bourgeoisie? (page 775)
8. “Hesse and the Unconscious”: How might the German Nazis have capitalized on the psychic uncertainties and confusion among ordinary people that Hesse describes here afflicting a central character in one of the author's most popular novels? What are the political dangers inherent in a populace comprised of too many people vulnerable to the problems of Hesse's literary character? Why was Hesse popular among young Germans in the aftermath of World War I and young Americans in the counter-culture of the 1960s? (page 779)
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The treaties ending World War I did not assure peace as the League of Nations had little power. France, fearing Germany, formed the Little Entente with the militarily weak states of Eastern Europe. Occupying the Ruhr when Germany failed to pay reparations, France gained little other than a disastrous fall in the German mark. By 1924, the Dawes Plan established a realistic reparations schedule. The Treaty of Locarno made permanent Germany’s western borders, but not the east. Germany joined the League, and in 1928, sixty-three nations signed the Kellogg-Briand pact, renouncing war, but it lacked any enforcement provisions.
European prosperity, largely the result of American loans and investments, ended with the Great Depression. The economist John Maynard Keynes favored increased government spending and deficit financing rather than deflation and balanced budgets, but had little support. Britain’s unemployment remained at 10 percent during the 1920s and rose rapidly in the depression. France was governed, or ungoverned, by frequent coalition governments; its far-right was attracted to fascism and many on the left by Soviet Marxism. The United States’ New Deal was more successful in providing relief than in recovery, and unemployment remained high until World War II.
Totalitarian governments, which required the active commitment of their citizens, came power in Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union. Italian fascism resulted from Italy’s losses in the Great War, economic failure, and incompetent politicians. In 1919, Benito Mussolini organized the Fascio di Combattimento. Threatening “to march on Rome,” he was chosen prime minister in 1922. Legal due process was abandoned and rival parties were outlawed, but totalitarianism in Italy was never as effective as in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
In Germany, the depression brought the political extremes to the forefront. Adolph Hitler headed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis). A powerful orator, Hitler published his beliefs in Mein Kampf, and created a private army of storm troopers (SA), but it was not until the depression that the Nazis received wide support. Hitler became chancellor in 1933, and a compliant Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving him dictatorial power. In his quest to dominate Europe, Hitler rearmed Germany, abolished labor unions, and created a new terrorist police force, the SS. The Nuremberg laws excluded Jews from citizenship, and in the 1938 Kristallnacht, Jewish businesses and synagogues were burned and Jews beaten and killed. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin assumed leadership in the Soviet Union. In 1928, he announced his first five-year plan to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial society by emphasizing oil and coal production and steel manufacturing. Giant collective farms were created, and in the process 10 million lives were lost. Stalin’s opponents were sent to Siberia, sentenced to labor camps, or liquidated. With the exception of Czechoslovakia, authoritarian governments appeared in eastern Europe as well as in Portugal and Spain. In the Spanish Civil War, the fascist states aided Francisco Franco and the Soviet Union backed the Popular Front.
Radio and movies become widely popular, as did professional sports. Automobiles and trains made travel accessible to all. Issues of sexuality became more public and psychology became more popular. In art, Dada focused upon the absurd and Surrealism upon the unconscious. The unconscious “stream of consciousness” technique was used in the novels of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The Bauhaus movement emphasized the functional in architecture. It was also the “the heroic age of physics.” The discovery of subatomic particles indicated that splitting the atom could release massive energies, and Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” had implications far beyond the study of physics.
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