Nazi Germany's Foreign Policy: Moves to Abolish the Treaty of Versailles (1933-1936)

The Nazi revolutionaries themselves made mistakes that led them to become radical and take the path of counter-revolution.

Summary

Thus, Hitler's idea of advancing to the East (Drang nach Osten) to serve his Lebensraum ambitions was inherited from the Holy Roman Empire, but Adolf Hitler was called a Drang nach Osten. Besides, Hitler also inherited from the German Empire the legacy of a Greater Germanic enterprise of the Aryans, including all German-speaking peoples, all European territories that had once belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. But Bismarck's Greater Germanic policy did not include Austria, which Hitler considered unfinished, and that he had a mission to complete.

In addition to gathering all the German-speaking peoples living in isolation in Europe, Hitler also expanded the space for Germans to live. His plan to conquer Lebensraum was closely related to his racist views and his belief in Darwinism. Racism itself was not an aspect of the general expansionist policy, nor was it what the term Lebensraum implied. However, under Hitler, the term denoted a special kind of expansionism, a racist one.

For Hitler, Hitler's Germany was supposed to be the logical continuation of what had gone before - or at least of all its former glories. To do that, Hitler believed it was necessary to destroy France - the eternal enemy. Because France was an obstacle on Bismarck's path to creating a Greater German state. At the same time, avoid fighting on two fronts at the same time and avoid direct conflict with the British Empire - the cause of the defeat of World War I and the collapse of the Second Empire.

The ideas Hitler derived centuries ago from a crowd of educated but unbalanced minds of philosophers, historians and teachers,

This has terrible consequences not only for Germany but also for most of humanity.

Although Hitler committed unimaginable crimes against Germany and humanity, Hitler was not born with the nature of a devil. People are not born with a pure evil or pure good nature. Human nature is a function of the times. Whether people become good or bad depends on the process of worldview. That impact will form in people the factors of the times and life experiences for themselves. The case of Adolf Hitler is not an exception.

CHAPTER 2: NAZI GERMANY'S FOREIGN POLICY: MOVES TO ABOLISH THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1933-1936)‌

In international relations from 1933 to 1936, Hitler's sole concern was how Germany could become a great power in order to realize its long-term geopolitical goal of dominating Western Europe and expanding its territory to the East. One of the first steps towards this goal was to nullify the Treaty of Versailles. During his first years in power, Hitler focused his foreign policy on gradually abolishing the Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler withdrew from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations on the grounds that France would not agree to equal arms for Germany. At the same time, he emphasized that Germany was ready to disarm if other countries did the same and that he only wanted peace. This was one of Hitler's " peace-loving " tactics. Hitler always took bold actions, while giving a series of peace-loving speeches because he knew they wanted to hear them. Moreover, such actions could limit foreign control over Germany.

Hitler then signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland (1934). This alarmed the Germans who were trying to regain the Polish Corridor and to gain the neutrality of Britain and France towards Poland. This was a success in Hitler's foreign policy if it was to build a stronger Germany. Britain saw the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935 as an opportunity to limit the Nazi navy. However, the agreement was a step towards abolishing the Treaty of Versailles. Meanwhile, the increasingly isolated United States and the rise of the Japanese Empire in the Far East made Britain fearful.

After winning the Sarre region through a referendum, Hitler sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland in March 1936. This was a reckless and daring attack, Hitler broke through the remnants of the Versailles Treaty. This great victory abolished the buffer zone status between Germany and France. The failure of the Versailles Treaty was not only Hitler's wish but also the wish of many German people. Until the end of 1936, although not yet buried, the Treaty

This treaty was destroyed, together with Italy and Japan forming the Rome-Berlin Axis.

- Tokyo directly threatened France and Britain and increasingly weakened the League of Nations to enhance Germany's international position.

2.1. Disarmament Plan

Within the framework of the Versailles-Washington system, the League of Nations Disarmament Committee was established in 1926 and worked continuously until 1931 to prepare for the 1932 Disarmament Conference. The conference opened on February 2, 1932 under the chairmanship of Arthur Henderson, 62 countries sent representatives to attend, Bruning was the German representative, Mac Donald represented Britain, Tardieu represented France, Grandi represented Italy, the Soviet Union and the United States were not members of the League of Nations, but participated in this committee. The committee did not stipulate the numbers to be reduced, but only built the framework: how to carry out disarmament? How to ensure control? What types of weapons need to be reduced? However, the positions and disarmament plans of the countries were very different. First of all, the German delegate put forward and firmly defended the demand that Germany must have “equality” in armed forces like all other powers. Specifically, Germany demanded an army of 200,000 people (the Versailles Treaty stipulated no more than 100,000 people) with a 6-year military service period and the right to possess heavy weapons.

But France opposed this German demand and proposed the creation of an international army and the establishment of a control regime for heavy offensive weapons within the framework of the League of Nations. France could agree to accept part of Germany's rearmament on the condition of concluding new military alliances and additional guarantees. However, the British delegation rejected the demand for additional guarantees for France's security, since the Locarno Treaty already provided them. The British side argued that the balance of power in Europe should be restored by recognizing the equality of arms of Germany. Italy supported this British view.

Then, on June 22, 1932, US President Hoover proposed a new, more specific plan: On the ground, the number of troops would be reduced by 1/3, completely eliminating tanks and

heavy artillery. At sea, reduce the tonnage and number of battleships by 1/3, submarines by 1/3, aircraft carriers by 1/4. In the air force, all bombers will be eliminated. France also did not accept this plan and thought that it was necessary to be loyal to the security principle. Britain was concerned about the provisions on the navy. Japan strongly objected because this would in fact increase the power of the United States. Japan demanded to create new armament capabilities for itself. On its side, the Soviet delegation demanded an immediate end to the war that Japan was initiating in the Far East (ie China). The Soviet Union proposed a plan for general and complete disarmament on February 18, 1932 and a plan for partial disarmament, but was still rejected by the capitalist powers. Therefore, disagreements continued to exist.

Then, on March 16, 1933, British Prime Minister MacDonald proposed a disarmament plan. According to this, Germany would be equal to France, Italy, and Poland in having an army of 200,000 men each. A special conference would be held in 1935 to discuss the disarmament plan. Military aircraft would be eliminated and bombing would be banned. A permanent disarmament committee would monitor the implementation of the plan. A period of five years was necessary for Germany to enjoy real equality.

Germany objected because on 11 May 1933 the joint commission decided that the SA and SS fighters would be considered an army, Germany was concerned about that and complained that in addition to the 200,000 troops in the French homeland, colonial troops were also maintained. Nazi historian Freytagh Loring Hoven said that France and its allies had 1,250,000 troops while Germany had only 200,000 troops [16,135].

In his peace speech to the Geneva Disarmament Conference on May 17, 1933, in the Reichstag, Hitler declared in secretive words: “All the problems of the present era must be solved rationally and in a peaceful manner. One cannot continue to deny the dignity of a great nation, but at some point it must be returned. How long will this kind of unjust treatment that a great nation is suffering continue?” [12,134]?

He asked for nothing more than the full enjoyment of rights. Germany was absolutely ready to give up all offensive weapons if other nations would also destroy their offensive arsenals. Germany was also ready to sign any serious non-aggression pact, because Hitler believed that Germany had no intention of attacking anyone, but only wanted to live in security.

On the same day, Hitler announced his acceptance of the Mac Donald project because it meant that the Versailles Treaty would be revised in Germany's favor. But Germany's repression of the Jews in Silesia had moved public opinion and the governments of France, Britain, and the United States, so the attitudes of these three countries became more rigid. France and Britain had reached an agreement on arms control, that is, security must be established before disarmament. France made everyone accept the idea by arguing that the transition period should be 8 years instead of 5 years as planned, the first 4 years being a challenging period and Germany would only rearm in the following 4 years. Therefore, on September 15, Von Neurath expressed his dissatisfaction with the "turnaround of the democratic countries" [16,135]. This opinion was contrary to Germany's argument that control should only be established after disarmament had been carried out. At the 14th session of the League of Nations, which opened on September 26 in Geneva, the Italian representatives (Barons Aloysi and Suvitch) proposed an intermediate solution: to begin with disarmament and then to carry out controls, but to carry out controls before completing disarmament. France and Britain rejected this proposal.

The conference took place in a very tense atmosphere. On October 14, 1933, Hitler announced that Germany would no longer participate in the Disarmament Conference. After 5 days, on October 19, 1933, Germany announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations to avoid being bound by this organization. Hitler justified this action because Germany did not accept being considered a "second-zone nation" [16,135].

On December 18, 1933, Germany sent France a Memorandum, in which Germany would establish an army of 300,000 men, with equal weapons as other countries, and annex the Sarre region to Germany. France opposed this proposal of Germany. Britain acted as an intermediary to try to achieve a balance between the 200,000 troops of the Mac Donald plan and

300,000 German plan. Minister of Justice Eden made a trip to Paris on February 17, 1934, and to Berlin on February 21. There, Hitler accepted MacDonald's new plan on the condition that his proposals of January 19 for air power were accepted, meaning half that of France, or one-third that of France and its allies combined. Italy accepted this plan. Ultimately the solution depended on France, but the French government was divided and had little faith in the value of Hitler's promises. Prime Minister Doumergue and Minister of War Pétain disagreed with Hitler's proposal. They believed that Hitler's regime was about to collapse and that it would be easier to negotiate with Hitler's successors. According to this concept, on April 17, 1934, the French government announced: " France solemnly refuses to legalize Germany's rearmament, it is Germany that has made the negotiations useless and from now on France will ensure its own security by its own means" [16,137] .

It was this statement that Britain and the United States held France responsible for the collapse when the French Chief of the General Staff declared to François Poncet: “Let us see how long it will take Germany to catch up with the 20 billion we have invested in our weapons” [16,137] . It is known that Hitler spent a large amount of money on rearmament.

German military spending

Stage	Million marks
1933 - 34	750
1934 - 35	4093
1935 - 36	5492
1936 - 37	10271
1937 - 38	10963
1938 - 39	17247

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Figure 2.1

(Source: http://assets.pearsonglobalschools.com : The causes of world war II in Europe, Hitler's war)

Obviously, with his first diplomatic gambit, Hitler disintegrated the French alliance system, helped to ease the humiliation of defeat and restore faith in the great future of Germany when the principle of equality was accepted. This had

That is, from now on, Nazi Germany would rearm itself in defiance of the Western democracies.

2.2. German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

2.2.1. Historical context

Poland had been erased from the map of Europe before World War I. At the Versailles Conference, France fought hard for Poland's revival, not so much to correct the injustices done to its people as to create a buffer state between France's long-time rival Germany and the encirclement of the Soviet Union, an indispensable link in the Eastern European encirclement that France had spared no effort to build to isolate Germany in the post-war period.

If Poland was important to France, in the eyes of the Germans, Poland appeared as an enemy both hateful and disgusting. The most damning crime of the authors of the Treaty of Versailles was to separate East Prussia from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor, making Danzig a free city under the administration of the Warsaw government. This gave rise to a constant state of tension between Germany and Poland. Even in the Weimar Republic, no German politician or military leader would admit to these territorial changes.

Von Seeckt, the father of the Reichswehr (Imperial Defense Force), declared in 1922: “Poland’s existence is unacceptable, because it is incompatible with the essential conditions for German existence. Poland must disappear and will disappear, due to its internal weaknesses and to the actions of the Soviet Union with our help. Erasing it from the map of Europe is one of the main goals of German policy. We can achieve this by means and with the help of the Soviet Union, and with the disappearance of Poland comes the collapse of one of the strongest pillars of the Versailles Treaty, French hegemony” [12,137].

This antipathy was not unfelt by the Poles. Therefore, the news of Hitler's rise to power shocked Polish public opinion. Warsaw's natural reaction was to probe Paris for a possible deterrent against Germany. Polish President -

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