Elias Mohammad
Dr. Nelson
HIS 132- 4238
14 November 2018
The True Causes of WWII
Over the course of the past few centuries, the world has seen many gruesome and horrifying wars, but there is none like World War II, which was the largest and most violent war between 1939 and 1945 (FairBairn 350). How the war started is a question that has had many opinions and views because of the large amount of causes. Many have interpreted and stated that the failed peace efforts after World War I such as the Treaty of Versailles, an evil but genius mastermind named Adolf Hitler, and the fascism that spread all over Europe are some of the most important causes of the war itself. However, the unknown and unpopular reasons for WWII were the fall of the Prussian military during WWI, then its rebirth with Hitler at the top of command, and the pacifist neighboring countries believing that Hitler will not start another war are the strongest underlying reasons for the start of World War 2. Without these events coming into play, there is a strong chance that WWII would have never happened or would have occurred at a much smaller scale.
For centuries before the start of WWII, Germany was split into over 300 different sections. Prussia, one of these small sections, was located in eastern Germany, with Berlin its capital city (Webb 25). Prussia’s history is key to the understanding of why and how it affected WWII. Prussia was known to be one of the most militaristic countries in the world and had one of the strongest armies. The country was more of a state that was controlled by the military because of their militarist mindset (Webb 26). The Prussian military started off with Friedrich Wilhelm I, "The soldier king" as their military leader and the army was further developed for hundreds of years by his successors (Hagen 290). It was so much of a military state that most of its budget was spent went on its military (Webb 26). The militarist way that Prussia had was sustained only because of the type of lifestyle the people were living in. There was also a strong education system that worked towards the kids being obedient and willing to fight for their country (Hagen 291). Lastly, Prussia’s expansion, which was run by Otto von Bismarck, "The Iron Chancellor,” allowed for increased population and resources which helped sustain such a militarist country (Webb 28). Bismarck wanted to unify all the German states together under the Prussian rule (Webb 28). He achieved this and worked the rest of his life to sustain the peace in Germany. Although he did great for his country, his successors did not have the same effect.
Consequently, once WWI started in 1914, there was chaos all over Europe. After several years of battle, many countries beat the Prussian German military. There was a lot of change once the German military was defeated. Because the army was defeated, it's obvious that monarchy was abolished, and democracy was established. This Germany seemed new and improved with a democracy and seemingly no threat to other countries, but there was still the Prussian Germany under the surface. This is because of the people that still believed in the old ways and the Prussian military, and many of them believed that peace treaties were the cause of their country’s new troubles in terms of the financial and political status and wanted to bring their old ways back along with their national pride. Prussia Germany and its history are a big factor towards WWII even though many people do not see it. This Prussian military is the basis of what Adolf Hitler revived to essentially start the second war, which, above all, meant a desire to restore Germany's military strength. Without this strong and feared Prussian military, there would have not been a military for Hitler to restore and start a war with.
With that in mind, the German military was no more at the end of WWI and most Germans accepted this fact and put in their best effort to rebuild their country in any way that would help the country’s status. But there was some Germans that still believed in the old way and thought the outlooks of the new German life was worse than it was at the current time. One of these people was Adolf Hitler, who started off as a normal soldier during WWI (Ranke 3). Hitler started off as a high school dropout who was not even a German citizen, rather, an Austrian who volunteered to fight in the German military (Ranke 8). About thirteen years later, Hitler rose to be a very popular political leader (Ranke 8). He was elected in 1933 as Chancellor of Germany, a position in which he abolished democracy and brought back the old ways of a dictator (Ranke 11). From his compelling speeches to his promise of the strongest military and conquering the world, he gathered up all the Germans who became his supporters (Ranke 10). He ran his power by a strong and ruthless military; they would attack anyone that was a part of another party to show that you are either with us or against us.
Once Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, he started to get a lot of attention from his fellow politicians. Most of them thought of him as a danger but underestimated him at the same time. However, in the 1933 elections, he became the prime minister of Germany, and overcame all the opposing politicians in a political battle (Ranke 11). As Hitler as the prime minister and in charge of the military unit, he ran Germany under his thumb. There was no law or order rather Hitler was the law and whatever he wanted would be in effect. Although Hitler was on top of everything in terms of his power, he started to face threats from many angles. He had to deal with his own generals that figured out what Hitler’s awful plans were and his neighboring European powers (Ranke 90, 91). Hitler was very smart and found a way to force his generals to fight for him but still had to face the European countries because of their fear of the recreation of a dominant Germany army (Ranke 47, 90). With his personally and extremely smart warfare style, he was able to find a way to win the battles against his neighboring countries and keep building his German empire.
Furthermore, Hitler was a very dangerous man but he was also still building up his military. Some countries such as France and Great Britain had the full capability of defeating Hitler and his empire in the beginning of his reign when his army was still lacking and weak, but because of the appeasement of Hitler, Germany kept growing and growing (Fairbairn 350). The appeasement of Hitler was by most countries in Europe, but the most prominent countries were Britain and France (Record 93). There were a lot of reasons for the noninvolvement of countries trying to stop the rise of Hitler and Germany. These countries used a lot of pacifism due to the effects of World War I and therefore did not want any more war and violence to erupt (Trubowitz, P., & Harris, P. 304). They believed that since all of Europe experienced the tragedies and disasters from WWI that the people will not want war to happen again because it is just a mass massacre of the people of the countries. Although this belief made sense because of the timeline of events, it had a few holes in it. The first is the fact that the European countries assumed that any further wars in the future would be with the same equal forces (Trubowitz, P., & Harris, P. 292). Not only that, they believed that all countries technology and warfare would stay the same and that they would be equivalent if whenever a future war would come (Trubowitz, P., & Harris, P. 292). As history has told us these two facts are not true, but because they were the belief for all of Europe during that time, most of the countries reduced their manpower in the army and did not think about evolving and improving their technology in warfare. The second fact is the belief of the european countries that Hitler could be appeased and that since he was a soldier of WWI, he did not want another war on his hands as the dictator of Germany (Record 99). Even though Hitler had warned the world of his plans, not only did the countries in Europe do nothing to stop him, the whole world did nothing until it was too late. Hitler kept deceiving the world with the small crisis’s he was involved in by saying it was a last demand he had to take care of (Record 99). Time and time again, the world was fooled until the start of WWII in 1939. But by this time, it was too late and the worst war the world had ever seen was about to begin.
The result of this appeasement from many countries toward Germany and Hitler was a strong factor in Germany strengthening its forces and power over time. During this time period Hitler was slowly and slowly taking over land (Ranke 15). Hitler knew that since this time was right after WWI and that most countries would be pacifistic and timid to start another war, he started to slowly and carefully take over lands surrounding him (Ranke 15). Not only did he take over territory, he took their resources and manpower by dismantling their army and adding onto Germany’s which was how Hitler was able to restore a version of the Prussian army (Ranke 15). A perfect example of this is when Hitler demanded the western region of Czechoslovakia, all the other European countries strongly convinced Czechoslovakian government to give it over so there did not erupt a whole new war that could kill many for a piece of land (Trubowitz, P., & Harris, P. 298). Czechoslovakia wanted to fight for their country and to protect what was theirs but because France and Britain, their allies, betrayed them and did not help in fear of starting a new war, the Czechoslovakia government was forced to give up their land and military which left them defenseless (Trubowitz, P., & Harris, P. 304). Another example of this was the Japanese militarism, very similar to the German militarism, which had a big impact on the war as well (Li 90). Japanese leaders had the same mindset as Hitler in terms of conquering land all over the world which put Japan on the map as an expansionist aggressor (Li 60-61).
The discussed events and timelines depict how the Prussian military which was developed for a long time before the start of WWII was a force and army so powerful in Germany at the time that when it was defeated, Adolf Hitler came into play to reignite a version of the Prussian army. With Adolf Hitler at the top of the chain and his reignition of the Prussian military, he was able to start the most detrimental war ever seen in world history. He did so in order to expand his empire and make Germany control the whole world. Nonetheless, even in the beginning of the Hitler’s reign he was not as powerful as he was in WWII. This means that something could have been done to stop him in his place but because the countries in Europe were still weak and wanted to be pacifists in their approach to avoid violence, they ended up helping Hitler with his quest of domination and did not do something about it until it was too late at the start of WWII. If there was more effort by the European countries to stop the strengthening of the German empire, there may have been a better chance in which the second world war would have never happened.