jun 25, 1934 - Hitler Disobeys the Treaty of Versailles
Description:
The first way Hitler broke the Treaty was over Germany’s armed forces. In 1934, he destroyed the League of Nations Disarmament Conference by demanding equality of arms with France and Britain – this broke the Treaty because it had set up the League with the stated aim of achieving disarmament. At first, Hitler broke the Treaty’s terms by building up his army in secret, drilling volunteers with spades instead of rifles. Then, in 1935, he openly held a huge rearmament rally. The other nations let him get away with it – Britain even made a naval agreement with Germany, accepting that Germany had a right to have a navy of 35% of the British navy (i.e. this broke the Treaty, which said that Germany could only have 6 battleships). After 1936, Hitler reintroduced conscription, and began to pump huge sums into Germany’s armed forces. Germans were told ‘guns not butter’. By 1939, Germany had 95 warships, 8,250 airplanes and an army of nearly 1 mile. men (many more than the 0 planes and 100,000 men stated in the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler even war-tested his armed forces in the Spanish Civil War; in 1936 he told his generals to get ready for war in 4 years’ time.
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Thomas King Timeline
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