BAKED BEAN

Who or what was to blame for the outbreak of World War Two?

There were a number of underlying causes for World War Two’s outbreak in 1939, as with any big war there are whole tapestries of inter-locking reasons why everything happened the way it did, thousands of threads that sew into tragedies and victories and lead onto other wars and devastations. Undeniably, World War One and World War Two are very closely linked and the fact that the First World War ended so messily and left Germany in such a terrible state was a root cause of the outbreak of the Second World War.

On 28 July 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed and ended the state of war between Germany and The Allies- France, England and America. The treaty pushed all the blame on Germany for the war and the damage and loss that it caused, punishing them quite harshly by forcing them to pay billions in reparations, have their army severely restricted and their land taken away and shared around. They also set up a League of Nations which was formed to try and keep world peace, Germany wasn’t allowed to join which was pretty stupid because there wasn’t really any way they could maintain world peace without Germany so that plan was kind of doomed from the start. The Treaty of Versailles was very unfair because although Germany did cause a lot of trouble the War wasn’t entirely their fault, moreover, as Germany’s financial and political stability was completely broken it wasn’t just the people who made those decisions being affected, it was the entire country. Unfortunately, as all this was going on and serious payments were being paid, the roaring twenties had ended and the economy in America was crumbling and as it was hitting the USA it the trouble spread and everyone was sorely affected. This meant that Germany was facing such financial difficulty that in panic they began printing more and more money which of course wasn’t the best of ideas, the value of money dropped and soon became worthless. Resultantly, people who had been saving all their lives were left desolate and food and goods became unaffordable, society was very angry and endless strikes and riots pushed their poor Government- The Weimar Republic who banded together to try and solve the problems- to breaking point. The World was shunning Germany and everyone knew it, ignored by the other World Leaders, humiliated and rejected and vulnerable, no helping hand was offered and if it was then it was too little too late. Perhaps if the Allies had been a little kinder after the First World War and through the twenty years of struggle and strife that followed then all the terrible things that did happen wouldn’t have happened at all.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and leader of the Nazi party, or Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. He made excellent speeches and always appeared charismatic and charming, he promised to make changes and always act on what society was saying. In short he was exactly what the people of Germany at that time were desperate for. Through mass rallies, propaganda, radio and air craft signs, he slowly gained power, in July 1932 both the Nazi Party and the Communists were the most popular political parties in the Reichstag and together won 52% of the vote. On 30th January 1933 Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor (head of government) at this point popular support of the Nazis seemed to have decreased so President Hindenburg and a few fellow Chancellors decided he would be easier to control within government. However on 23rd March Hitler passed the Enabling Act which gave him “dictatorial powers” without the Reichstag’s support, thus he was able to rule for the next four years. I think that Hitler’s rise to power wasn’t really the main reason on its own but instead a result of other things, it may have been the epicentre of the war it wasn’t really the root cause. Hitler challenged each and every term of the Treaty of Versailles, invading both the Rhineland and Austria and making an alliance with Russia, rallying up .