jan 1, 1933 - Hilter-> Chancellor of Germany

Description:

Fascism: A system of government characterized by authoritarian rule, extreme nationalism, disdain for civil society, and a conviction that militarism and imperialism make great nations. Germany under Adolf Hitler and Italy under Benito Mussolini were fascist states.

National Socialist Party (Nazi): German political party led by Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933. The party’s ascent was fueled by huge World War I reparation payments, economic depression, fear of communism, labor unrest, and rising unemployment.

Axis Powers: Military alliance formed in 1936 among Germany, Italy, and Japan that fought the Allied powers during World War II.


The Great Depression disrupted economic life around the world and also weakened traditional political institutions. In response to the destabilization, an antidemocratic movement known as fascism emerged, promising to take stronger actions against the depression than traditional liberal political parties. By the 1930s, the template of fascism had spread from its roots in Benito Mussolini’s Italy to Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and Spain, under Francisco Franco. Authoritarianism spread to East Asia as well, with Hideki Tojo’s rise to power in Japan in 1940. As early as 1936, President Roosevelt warned that fascist nations had “sold their heritage of freedom” and urged Americans to work for “the survival of democracy” both at home and abroad. Although constrained by strong isolationist sentiment, FDR cautiously positioned the United States in opposition to the fascist powers.

World War II had its roots in the settlement of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles imposed punishing reparations on Germany, while Japan and Italy saw their desire for overseas empires thwarted by the peace settlement. These nationalist resentments and expansionist ambitions eventually fueled the rise of fascist regimes and undermined the new League of Nations, the multinational body tasked with maintaining the postwar international order.



Fascism, as typified in Germany by Hitler, combined a centralized, authoritarian state, a doctrine of Aryan racial supremacy, and fervent nationalism in a call for the spiritual reawakening of the German people. Fascist leaders worldwide disparaged democratic government, independent labor movements, and individual rights and celebrated militarism and imperialism. They opposed both the economic collectivism of the Soviet Union — where, in theory, the state managed the economy to ensure social equality — and the competitive capitalist economies of Western Europe and the United States.


The Nazi regime posed the gravest threat to the existing world order. Staggering war debt and reparation payments, economic depression, fear of communism, labor unrest, and rising unemployment in Germany fueled the ascent of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party. When Hitler became chancellor in 1933, the Reichstag (the German legislature) granted him dictatorial powers to deal with the economic crisis. Hitler promptly outlawed other political parties, arrested many of his political rivals, and declared himself führer (leader). Under Nazi control, the Reichstag invested all legislative power in Hitler’s hands.

Adolf Hitler reviews his personal guard alongside Heinrich Himmler, the head of Germany’s secret police. Dispensing with the usual title of Germany’s elected leader, which was “chancellor” (the equivalent of prime minister), Hitler had chosen the title of führer, symbolizing his absolute power in the national government and marking the triumph of fascism over democracy in Germany.


Hitler’s goal was nothing short of European domination and world power, as he had made clear in his 1925 book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The book outlined a plan to overturn the territorial settlements of the Versailles treaty, unite Germans living throughout central Europe in a greater fatherland, and annex large areas of Eastern Europe. The “inferior races” who lived in these regions — Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs — would be removed or subordinated to the German “master race.” A virulent anti-Semite, Hitler had long blamed Jews for Germany’s problems. Once in power, he began a sustained and brutal persecution of Jews, which expanded into a campaign of extermination in the early 1940s.

In 1935, Hitler began an open re-armament program, in violation of the Versailles treaty, without consequence. In 1936, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone under the terms of Versailles. Again, there was little international opposition, with France and Britain both shrugging. Later that year, Mussolini and Hitler formed the Rome-Berlin Axis, a political and military alliance between the two fascist nations. Also in 1936, Germany agreed to a military alliance with Japan in the event of a war against the Soviet Union. With this alliance now forming a Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis, the three nations became known as the Axis powers. France and Great Britain remained reluctant to oppose him, and in the absence of opposition, Hitler had seized the military advantage in Europe by 1937.

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