In 1938 Germany annexed Austria and set its sights on the Sudetenland, a large, ethnically German area of Czechoslovakia. Huge rallies like this one in Nuremberg displayed the sheer number of armed and ready troop and instilled a fierce loyalty to (or fearful silence about) Hitler and the National Socialist Party in Germany. Once in power, Hitler worked toward the twin goals of unification and expansion. The untermenschen (“lesser” humans) would have to go. In his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, Hitler advocated for the unification of Europe’s German peoples under one nation and that nation’s need for lebensraum, or living space, particularly in Eastern Europe, to supply Germans with the land and resources needed for future prosperity. Britain and France stood by warily and began to rebuild their militaries, anxious in the face of a renewed Germany but still unwilling to draw Europe into another bloody war. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Hitler and Mussolini-the fascist Italian leader who had risen to power in the 1920s-intervened for the Spanish fascists, toppling the communist Spanish Republican Party. He reoccupied regions lost during the war and re-militarized the Rhineland, along the border with France. Hitler repudiated the punitive damages and strict military limitations of the Treaty of Versailles. Championing German racial supremacy, fascist government, and military expansionism, Adolph Hitler rose to power and, after aborted attempts to take power in Germany, became Chancellor in 1933 and the Nazis conquered German institutions. Germany’s Weimer Republic collapsed with the economy and out of the ashes emerged Adolph Hitler’s National Socialists-the Nazis. Unless this trend can be reversed by the Allies, or unless deliveries of supplies to Germany are curtailed by transportation difficulties, the Allied blockade may be largely ineffective under present conditions of military activity.Across the globe in Europe, the continent’s major powers were still struggling with the after-effects of the First World War when the global economic crisis spiraled much of the continent into chaos. The Allies have not yet exerted the full economic and diplomatic pressure of which they are capable thus far, Germany seems to have been the more successful in commercial negotiations. Germany has already concluded war-time trade agreements with Hungary, Manchukuo, Russia, and Rumania, and others are being negotiated. But so long as there is only a “quiet war” German resources are apparently sufficient to last indefinitely-unless supplies from neighboring neutral countries can be almost completely cut off. The anticipated strategy of England and France was to wage a defensive battle while Germany exhausted man-power and resources in a furious assault it was assumed that unless Germany could win a decisive victory in a comparatively short time, the Allies with their ability to obtain reserves of men and supplies from overseas must eventually prevail. The pre-war calculations of experts have been completely upset by the absence of large-scale military operations on the western front. If the Maginot and Siegfried lines are as impregnable as is generally supposed, the outcome of the war may depend on Germany's ability to nullify the British naval blockade by obtaining steel from Sweden, and sufficient supplies of oil, foodstuffs and other essentials from Italy, the Balkans, and Russia. Despite Winston Churchill's appeal to the neutrals to become belligerents, the economic resources of the Scandinavian and South European countries are more important than their possible military participation. Productive Capacity of European Countriesīehind The Scenes of the war in Europe a vital struggle is taking place for trade with the nations which are still neutral. The Military Importance of Economic Power
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