German Rearmament and the Road to War (Oxford AQA GCSE History Textbook)

1933: Hitler leaves the League of Nations Disarmament Conference

During the period 1932 to 1934 the LoN held a Disarmament Conference. Hitler said he would disarm, as long as every other nation would too. If other nations would not do this, then he wanted to be allowed to have an army equal in size to that of France.

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1933: Hitler leaves the League of Nations Disarmament Conference: How did France react and what did Hitler do?

France refused to cooperate. This gave Hitler the excuse to storm out of the conference while claiming that it was the French, and not him, who were being unreasonable. Germany then left the LoN and so was no longer expected to keep its Covenant and work

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1933: Hitler leaves the League of Nations Disarmament Conference: What did leaving the League mean for Hitler

Germany was no longer expected to keep its Covenant and work to avoid war

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1934: The Dollfuss Affair: Why did Hitler want Austria? (The past)

Hitler was born in Austria, and Germany had been ruled by Austria for around 600 years. Many Austrians and Germans felt that the two countries should be one and were outraged when Anschluss was forbidden in the ToV.

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1934: The Dollfuss Affair: Why did Hitler want Austria? (Hitler's aims)

Hitler's foreign policy including uniting Volkdeutsche and overturning the ToV, so it made sense that he would try to unite with Austria

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1934: The Dollfuss Affair: How did Dollfuss respond?

Aware of Hitler's intentions, the Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss, banned the Nazi Party in Austria. In 1934 Hitler responded by telling Austrian Nazis to create havoc in the country. They murdered Dollfuss.

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1934: The Dollfuss Affair: Why did it fail?

However, Hitler's plot ultimately failed because the Austrian army supported the government and because Mussolini moved his troops onto the Austria border, promising to stop Hitler's Anschluss

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1934: The Dollfuss Affair: What did Hitler realise?

Hitler realised that his army was not yet strong enough to engage in war, so he backed down and claimed that the Austrian Nazi Party had acted alone

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1935: 13 January: The Saar Plebiscite

The Saar was a rich industrial area, which had been given to the League of Nations for 15 years under the ToV. This agreement was due to expire in 1935

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1935: 13 January: The Saar Plebiscite: What was held to decide who should govern the area?

A plebiscite (when the people, not politicians, vote on a matter) was held to decide who should govern the area - France or Germany. 90% of the population voted to rejoin Germany

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1935: 13 January: The Saar Plebiscite: How was this good for Hitler?

Hitler was able to sue this victory as propaganda to show that German-speaking people wanted to unite under the Nazis. he also gained rich coalfields which could be used to power his industry and build weapons ready for the future

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1935: April: The Stresa Front

The Stresa Front was an agreement between Britain, France and Italy that stated that they would guarantee the terms of the Locarno Treaty, protect Austria Independence and work together to stop Hitler from breaking any more terms of the ToV

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1935: April: The Stresa Front: Was Hitler concerned by this?

No, Hitler was not concerned by this agreement

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1935: June: Anglo-German Naval Agreement

For some time people in Britain had felt that the Treaty of Versailles had been too harsh on Germany. In June 1935 Britain signed an agreement with Germany saying that Hitler could build his navy to 35% of the British one.

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1935: June: Anglo-German Naval Agreement: What did Germany offer Britian that was too good to resist?

When Germany offered to restrict the growth of its navy and respect Britain's naval supremacy it was too good an offer for Britain to decline. Britain also allowed Germany to build 45% of the number of British submarines

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1935: June: Anglo-German Naval Agreement: What did Hitler see this as?

Hitler saw this as Britain admitting that the ToV was unfair, and that they could, therefore, ignore it. The military terms of the ToV were officially dead, and significantly, Britain hadn't consulted France and Italy before signing this agreement

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German Rearmament and the Road to War (Oxford AQA GCSE History Textbook)

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