Interwar Instability: Europe looks left and

right

Keir Hardy (1856-1915) Sir Oswald Mosely

Pre-war London: Earl’s Court Limehouse Rallies of

the BUF

Political Confusion: 1918 franchise extended to all men over 21 and women over 30 series of minority governments and then coalitions - STRIKE

Economic Confusionthe British economy remained depressed throughout the 1920sended free trade and imposed tariffs; off the gold standardextensive social reform > nationalization of industriescreation of the welfare state

Interwar France

• search for securityfrom Germany, USSRfor economy

• economic instabilityoccupied Ruhr

Coalition:• political insecurity

Church• croix de feu Finance• Popular Front to 1938 Justice• Stavinsky Affair Army

The Rise of Fascism as viable politicsIn Italy:

• weak government Benito Mussolini

• economic and social turmoil Il Duce (1926)

In Germany: Adolf Hitler1921 Chair of the National Socialist German Workers’

Party (Nazis)autobiography Mein Kampf public discontent: war guilt clause

reparation payments lack of political consensus anti-Semitism

Consolidation of PowerIn each case: used existing political structures

subverted those structuresmobilized popular opinion

Nazis gained political power ‘legitimately’

Hitler appointed Chancellor: suppressed oppositionsuppressed constitutional

and civil rightsNazis made sole legal

partydestroyed trade unionspurged judiciary, civil

service

The Racial StateNationalism common roots: 19C us vs. them

and, racial superiority

Racial theory and eugenics policies – in Britain, i.e.

Germany went further: remade society

propagandasterilizationeuthanasia

HOW did they space for the race: lebensraum convince

anyone?

Der Giftpilz or The Poison Mushroom

- Julius Streicher (1936)

Spain: War Practice July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939

• Republicans• Popular Front• USSR, International

brigades

• Nationales• coup d’état 1936• Italy, Germany, Portugal• Dictatorship under

General Francisco Franco

Moving towards war

• Allies vs. Axis Powers

• “Revisionists:” wished to revise post-WWI peace treaties

• from a non-western perspective: with Mukden Incident in China (1931) Italy in Ethiopia (1935-6)

allies appease in Europe (1939)

or, US entering war (1941)

• Germany: anschluss; Sudetenland….non-Aggression Pact ….

Poland and France blitzkreig

In the meantime: could focus on ‘remaking’ a new European Society• Einsatzgruppen -- mobile killing squads killed

1.4 million • 1941 decided on “Final Solution”

resistance, but 1933-45 a Holocaust in Europe

‘Total War’ this time

Note links to the 19C: continuitycontrasts

Kinder transport