Rise of Fascism and Militarism in Europe and Japan

1919-1936

What is Fascism?

• A centralized, authoritarian government that is NOT communist whose policies glorify the state over the individual and are destructive to basic human rights.

• What does this MEAN? Create a 5 word definition!

What is Totalitarianism?

• A system where a one-party dictatorship attempts to regulate every aspect of the lives of its citizens.

• What kinds of governments and leaders were/are totalitarian?

What is militarism and ultranationalism?

• Militarism: glorification of the military• Ultranationalism: extreme nationalism• Examples of this throughout this period (1919-

1939)?

What was postwar Europe like?

• Punishments from Treaty of Versailles?• Italy’s anger that they “didn’t get enough”

compared to France and England?• Rise of Stalin and his “Five Year Plans” to

change the U.S.S.R.?• Japan doing what Japan had already BEEN

DOING?

It’s all about the ECONOMY…

• Reparations CRUSHING Germany, devaluing the German mark ($), England and France not getting payments they are expecting!

• Wages low in Europe: a 9 day GENERAL STRIKE in England involved 3 MILLION workers!

• Shaky recovery by mid-1930s• United States in 1920s? BOOMING economy

relying on SUPPLY-SIDE Economics

CRASH in the MARKETS

• Reasons for Stock Market Crash?– Overproduction– Underconsumption– Risky speculation– People buying too much on CREDIT– 10/29/1929: Market crashed in U.S., spiraled U.S.

into the Great Depression

Why would people let this happen?

• Why do good people do bad things?• People make choices, choices make history.• Systematic steps toward the Holocaust where

individuals can (and did) make change, but not ENOUGH tried to change it before it was TOO LATE.

• Stanley Millgram’s work in 1960s in U.S.?

Statement by Martin Niemoller, Held as a political prisoner at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

• First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.

• Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

• Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Catholic.

• Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

• Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

BE THIS GUY.

• August Landmesser

Benito Mussolini: “il Duce”

• Problems facing Italy• Rise of Blackshirts• Fascism• His “reforms?” • Desire for a “New

Rome”

Adolf Hitler

• Weimar Republic• Economic problems

lead to unrest• Nazism and Mein Kampf• Nuremberg Laws 1935• Kristallnacht

Nuremberg Laws, 1935

• Systematically took away rights of Jews, including their CITIZENSHIP, where they could live, work, and who they could marry

Kristallnacht, “Night of Broken Glass” November 9, 1938

• Why did Hitler want this to look like a SPONTANEOUS uprising against the Jews?

• Jewish homes, synagogues, property attacked, several killed

• It starts with INTIMIDATION…

Joseph Stalin

• Five Year Plan• Forced collectivization• Kulaks• Gulag• Secret Police• The Great Purge

Japan’s Militarism

• Changes after WWI• Economic Unrest• Attempts to quickly

modernize, militarize• 1931 Manchuria and

League’s reaction?• Influence of Japan’s

history on the attitudes of military/political leaders?

Japan actually the EARLIEST Threat!