World War II -- a Catastrophic Event

World War II -- a Catastrophic Event that Changed the World

What was the most crucial and important cause of World War II?

It would be fair to look to the Nazis and Hitler's fanaticism as the most crucial and important cause of World War II. And certainly historians and scholars have few doubts as to Hitler's accountability in the tragic, bloody and catastrophic slaughter in Europe. But what were the events and issues that allowed the Nazis to come to power? What propaganda did the Nazis use to seal their hold on Germany? Other causes need to be weighed in the matrix of WWII prior to making the judgment that the Nazi obsession for expansion and for building an Aryan race constituted the most crucial cause of the war.

Thesis: The main, the most crucial and important underlying cause of WWII was the Treaty of Versailles. This paper will detail the specific parts of the treaty that the Germans considered grossly unfair and which led to Hitler's effective use of propaganda to promote nationalism and his own demonic strategies.

Main Causes of WWII -- Treaty of Versailles: Meantime there were other important causes that led to the carnage of WWII. The Treaty of Versailles, a very harsh treaty that officially brought an end to WWII but paved the way for a lingering bitterness toward the allies by Germany. The treaty was "ruinous to Germany in many ways," according to Angelfire.com. Article 231 of the Treaty dumped all the financial reparation responsibilities on the backs of the Germans. This was an unreasonable demand as an end-of-war sanction, and what it actually produced was a "war-guilt clause" Angelfire.com reports. The enormous amount of money that it would have taken to rebuild all the structures (bridges, roads, buildings, rail lines, factories and more) damaged during the war was beyond what Germany could muster. The Treaty also called for the purging of the German air force, a huge cutback in German naval resources, and a "maximum allowance of 100,000 troops for the army in Germany.

Beyond those reparations, Germany was forced to give up territories to France, to Poland, and to change its form of government to a democracy. Moreover the Treaty was so brutally harsh on Germany it provided ample fuel for Hitler's promotion of aggressive nationalism through brilliantly conceived propaganda. According to Alan Sharp, writing in the journal Diplomacy and Statecraft, France insisted on reparations because by forcing Germany to pay costs of reconstruction it would "…also diminish Germany's ability to seek revenge" (Sharp, 2005, p. 434). The allies were driven by the notion that if Germany was not forced to pick up the tab for the wartime damage, the only available avenue to the allies should Germany refuse to live up to the treaty was more war, Sharp explains.

The Treaty's participants had many contentious moments during deliberations, and Sharp asserted that the "economics and technicalities of reparations probably defeated the ability of most politicians to understand them" (p. 434). On page 435 Sharp concluded his article by identifying the "deeper problem" from the Treaty: the "failure" of both Britain and France to "agree on a common strategy and then to abide by it." Not being able to agree on a strategy to punish Germany was one part of the problem, the other was that France and England could not agree on how to "enforce the Treaty, nor to redraft it" (Sharp. 435). These failures on the part of European allies contributed to the conditions "that created, ultimately, what neither wanted, a renewal of hostilities on a continental and world scale" (Sharp, 435).

According to John D. Clare the German people insisted they were not the cause of the war and they believed "France and Britain were trying to starve their children to death." Also the German people were outraged at having to give up about a tenth of its territory, and the "way the two German representatives were treated" upon being forced to sign the Treaty "made things worse." The German Chancellor at the time was Frederick Scheidemann, and he resigned instead of being obliged to sign the Treaty; according to John D. Clare Scheidemann said: "May the hand wither that signs this treaty" (www.johndclare.net).

Main Causes of WWII -- Adolph Hitler: Hitler made good use of "Article 48" in the Weimar Constitution as he come to power in Germany; to wit, in times of "crisis" the German president could legally suspend the power of the German parliament, which Hitler did (Angelfire.com). He then proceeded to identify the "Aryan" race as the only legitimate ethnicity in Germany, making Jews and Gypsies fair game for harassment, persecution, and ultimately death. Hitler was charismatic in his fiery speeches, but Angelfire.com insists that one of the "most vital aspects of the power behind the Third Reich" was propaganda, which became the ideal tactic to indoctrinate and control the German people. Recurrent themes of Hitler's propaganda included: a) hatred towards Jews and Gypsies; b) rage against the sanctions imposed in the Treaty of Versailles as the cause of all German's problems; c) promotion of aggressive nationalism; d) the promotion of the Ayan race as the pure, inevitably perfect society for Germany; and e) the promotion of the fear that communist Russia was a real threat to Germany.

World War II technological advances that influenced 20th Century Warfare

An article in the Website Bukisa breaks down the technological advancements that emerged in WWII to three categories: a) weapon advances; b) vehicle advance; and c) "strategic advances" (www.bukisa.com). In terms of weapons, soldiers fighting in WWII were using semi-automatic rifles and machine guns (contrasted with the bolt-action rifles used in WWI); these weapons caused far more injuries and casualties than earlier versions caused. Grenades were far more potent, armor-piercing bullets were developed; and anti-tank weapons were developed to offset the German "blitzkrieg" army of tanks that rumbled into Poland, France, and other nations Germany invaded and seized during the war. Torpedoes became more flexible and hence more effective because the technological advances allowed them to be fired even in shallow water, Bukisa reports (p. 1). And of course the V-1 and V-2 rockets developed by Germany and fired across the English Channel into England created a huge amount of damage, and opened the door to future rocket development.

In 1943 Hitler used the rockets that Wernher von Braun had helped develop to terrorize England, in particular, London, but in time von Braun realized that his own dream of sending a rocket to the moon (peaceful purposes) was being corrupted by Hitler, so von Braun surrendered to the Americans. With his knowledge, the United States subsequently developed rockets that led to the Cold War tensions, with both the Soviet Union and the U.S. expanding their stockpile of nuclear weapons. However, Von Braun became "one of the most important rocket developers and championships of space exploration…" in the U.S. through the 1970s (Bellis, 2007).