Causes of WWII

[mstross96]

Since who was to blame for WWI went off topic

[MattII]

Hitler and his followers megalomania.

[The Oncoming Storm]

Yeah pretty much, with a dishonourable mention to all those within Germany and outside who had a chance to nip Nazism in the bud but didn't.

[Snake Featherston]

In Asia WWII stemmed from the Japanese Army's inability to rein in its generals and penchant to shoot anyone that questioned the infinite wisdom of said generals. In Europe WWII was the result of a Soviet alliance attempt with the UK and France misfiring and leading the USSR to opportunistically seek to reverse the verdicts of the Russian Civil War coinciding with Hitler's second and successful attempt to engineer a European war. The Soviets weren't passive here, they were active aggressors. Of course two years later Nazism finally decided to assert priority over Germany and shit hit fan in due course.

[DerGreif]

I quote myself, saw this thread too late:

The socialists revolutions in Germany did not occur because of the ToV. They occurred because people were starving, fed up with the war and the undemocratic system. In this volatile situation another ToV will not hinder Hitler entering the scene as a charismatic speaker of a minor anti-semitic national-socialist party. His success will be most likely limited as it was OTL until 1930 - that is 11 years after the ToV got into effect and the Great Depression hit Germany, the origins of which lie in the USA, which was heavily connected to the German economy. Surely were the reparation obligations contributing to Germany's failing state finances and were also a factor in the tightening relations between Germany's and US' economies, but the main problem was the Great Depression which would have hit Germany regardless of war reparations. If you look at how other European states were hit severely, which let to instability in even long-time quite stable democracies like France and the UK, than you will see that Germany would have sufferd, too. And in this climate the deflationary austerity policies of Brüning were - at least in the short-term - only inflating the crisis. And only in this scenario the NSDAP gained a siginficant portion of seats, that is 18.3 %. Before it was a marginal party with 2.6 %. They made another significant gain in July 1932, when the situation had worsened due to Brüning's policies. And they were already losing again in November of the same year after the economic situation started to getting better. But Germany's economy would have been hit that hard regardless of the reparation obligations as is seen by all those other states, which got the reparations and still suffered enough during the Great Depression to see serious ritoing and the rise of extremist parties.

Anyway Hitler could only gain control after the process of democracy was already unhinged by obstructive policies by the parties in the Reichstag, the constant use of emergency decrees by the government to circumvent the Reichstag, the conservative schemes to get Hitler as chancellor and finally the Enabling Act 1933, where democratic parties still could have prevented the passing of the law, which at least would have forced Hitler to use violence and defy the legal system openly. And anything of the above could have happened without the ToV in its OTL form.

To summarise:
* serious flaws in the constitution
* an incompetent judiciary
* a bad economic situation courtesy of the Great Depression
* a charismatic leader with a knack for propaganda
* underestimation of what Hitler could and would do if in power by various people
* policies which worsened the economic situation
* policies of almost all participating parties in the Reichstag and behind the scenes to undermine the democratic and constitutional process of legislation by using the serious flaws in the constitution
* spineless and dumb self-gutting by the remaining democratic parties (sans the SPD) in the Enabling Act

Kind regards,
G.

[Vnix]

you are also forgetting Versailles, that Treaty is the reason Hitler and other Rightwing people could even gain power

[Cook]

Originally Posted by Vnix

you are also forgetting Versailles, that Treaty is the reason Hitler and other Rightwing people could even gain power

What Nonsense. Democratic institutions were discredited by the Great Depression and extreme right wing governments came to power all across Europe in the 1920s and ‘30s, regardless of whether those countries had been defeated in World War One, had been counted amongst the victors, or hadn’t even been involved. It was an age of extremism.

[Clandango]

Originally Posted by Vnix

you are also forgetting Versailles, that Treaty is the reason Hitler and other Rightwing people could even gain power

More to do with the alliance between the Nazis and Communists to prevent things from being done in the Reichstag as well as having running street battles to discredit the government.

[Esopo]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

In Asia WWII stemmed from the Japanese Army's inability to rein in its generals and penchant to shoot anyone that questioned the infinite wisdom of said generals. In Europe WWII was the result of a Soviet alliance attempt with the UK and France misfiring and leading the USSR to opportunistically seek to reverse the verdicts of the Russian Civil War coinciding with Hitler's second and successful attempt to engineer a European war. The Soviets weren't passive here, they were active aggressors. Of course two years later Nazism finally decided to assert priority over Germany and shit hit fan in due course.

I wouldnt understimate the terror that the soviets had to be forced to fight another european coalition or even germany alone. Stalin's move against poland was the consequence of the clear hostility of western powers towards soviet union.

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by Esopo

I wouldnt understimate the terror that the soviets had to be forced to fight another european coalition or even germany alone. Stalin's move against poland was the consequence of the clear hostility of western powers towards soviet union.

More the possibility to get even on the little brush in the 20's and regain Russian territory, who was always Stalin imperative. BTW Stalin was a Paranoid psycopath (but a very clever one) at the core so he will have found hostility in everything and everywhere

[Richter von Manthofen]

Basically the result of WWI led to WWII...

Though a different WWI mighthave led to a different WWII too.

[wietze]

i think some historians argue that the franco-prussian war, ww1 & 2 are connected and should be seen as one conflict.

[DerGreif]

Originally Posted by Vnix

you are also forgetting Versailles, that Treaty is the reason Hitler and other Rightwing people could even gain power

I have not forgotten that one. I have left it out deliberately, because it is not a cause of ww2. It is - if anything at all - a very minor contribution to Hitler's rise to power. The major causes I have listed.

Extremist right wing groups were active in Germany before even the start of ww1. The nucleus of such right wing parties is found in the German Naval League, the German Army League and most importantly the Pan-German League. Add to that various anti-semitic splinter parties, the Reichspartie and hardcore nationalists from the right wing of the National Liberal Party and the German Conservative Party and voila: There you have an amalgamation of groups which laid the basis for the DNVP. The DAP also drew from that background, but was also influenced in its early stages by the anti-communist movement. And that was a direct result of the long war, not the peace treaty ending it. On the other hand the DAP supported social welfare for the Germanic race. This thinking would become less important under Hitler. He was quite eager to court the Big Money.

Furthermore, although the DNVP could gain between 10 and 20 % in elections before 1930 the DAP (later NSDAP) stalled until then, with 2.6 % in 1928. At this point the ToV was already in effect for 9 years. Hitler could only gain ground during the volatile situation between 1930 and July 1932. In November 1932 the NSDAP was already losing voters again, which neatly coincides with a reemerging economy. As Cook already pointed out, other states experienced a similar rise of extremist parties be it, nationalist or communist movements. This included states with a much longer democratic structure than Germany like France. If you look at the NPD and its followers today, you find quite similar patterns. Heck, you just have to look to Greece right now and see that during times of high unemployment and economic turmoil the far right can make significant gains.

That this ended in Hitler becoming chancellor was the fault of the anti-democratic elites, partisan bickering and obstructionist party policies in the Reichstag and some serious flaws in the constitution. Hindenburg was one of the most prominent to blame here, but von Papen, Schleicher and others are as responsible.

Looking at the bad economic situation, than the reparations were a minor contributing factor. Germany had already a quite large debt burden due to its war loans. And Germany's economy was connected to the other world economies not only through the American loans under the Daws and Young plan but also through its exports. And it tanks as much due to the loss of these exports as due to the fact that American capital was leaving the state. Anyway a different policy by Brüning could have relieved the situation in the short-run much better as what he did (austerity) in OTL.

It is actually quite easy to avoid the rise of Hitler as it happened in OTL with a few different decisions.

Just look at my favourite TL on this board to see how Hitler would not emerge as dictator: Holding Out for a Hero: Gustav Stresemann Survives Not only plausible but a very probable outcome.

To sum it up: Hitler and the Germans who brought him to power and kept him there are the cause of ww2.

Kind regards,
G.

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Several things:
- one reason for the revolutions to start was that the Imperial Navy wanted to sail into battle for time last time. Its no miracle that the common soldier was not happy with this plan and mutinied.
- another reason was that several soldiers returning home from Russian POW camps had become communists
- the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for the hyper-inflation in Germany in the first years after the war. In combination with the Great Depression ten years later the whole situation got worse. (A not so well known fact is that is that Germany still had to pay debts resulting from the Treaty of Versailles until 2010!)

The reasons for World War II are quite simple:
- Tha Nazi ideology (living space in the East, Annihilation of the Jews etc.)
- Revenge for the Treaty of Versailles
- And the simple need for an external enemy to keep the whole dictatorship stable. With out the war this nightmare would have ended much sooner.

Hitler did want to war to start the war sooner as possible. His generals however did knew that they were not ready, but they did not try to stop him after the Conference of Munich.

[Orry]

Originally Posted by mstross96

Since who was to blame for WWI went off topic

Dead white men......

Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley

[DerGreif]

Originally Posted by Barbarossa Rotbart

[...]
- the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for the hyper-inflation in Germany in the first years after the war. In combination with the Great Depression ten years later the whole situation got worse. (A not so well known fact is that is that Germany still had to pay debts resulting from the Treaty of Versailles until 2010!)

I have to disagree. The ToV contributed to the hyperinflation of 1922/23, but the inflation started with ww1 in 1914, nanely to finance the war. Reparation payments were only part of the mounting German debt, which was in large parts self-inflicted. And looking at the damage German troops did to Belgium and France, the former a truely neutral state, the latter being declared war upon by Germany, too, Germany had to pay reparations in a sensible and fair peace treaty. There is no way around that.

And to be clear hear: To let the currency inflate was a decision by the German government, a mistake the successor government rectified. So, the ToV (or to be more specifically the reparation payments), the inability of the German government to pay and the resulting Ruhr occupation contributed to the decision of the German government to let the currency hyperinflate. The inflation before that could hardly be influenced by the ToV at all.

Kind regards,
G.

[Esopo]

Originally Posted by lukedalton

More the possibility to get even on the little brush in the 20's and regain Russian territory, who was always Stalin imperative. BTW Stalin was a Paranoid psycopath (but a very clever one) at the core so he will have found hostility in everything and everywhere

Stalin was always extremely cautious in foreign policy.

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

@Der Greif:
Do you know why there wasn't a peace treaty after World War II?

[pompejus]

Originally Posted by wietze

i think some historians argue that the franco-prussian war, ww1 & 2 are connected and should be seen as one conflict.

You can do that. You can also make the same kind of link with all kind of different wars up to the fall of the Roman Empire and possibly even further. Every war, every revolution, every diplomatic action, everything is connected. That is how the butterfly theory works, change one thing and everything changes. You can blame WWII on Bismarck, but that means you have to blame it on Charlemagne too.

[Clandango]

Originally Posted by Barbarossa Rotbart

@Der Greif:
Do you know why there wasn't a peace treaty after World War II?

The Nazis killed of most everyone fit to govern.