History question of the week #2

[Jimmy McGill]

What do you believe the fundamental reasons for the start of WWII. Treaty of Versiaille? Reparations? Failure of Wilson to get get UN like world body. International tensions due to do the global economic depression? Isolationist in the 1920's and 1930s?

Ready, set, go.

 

[Moral]

There was too many bad guys and the good guys needed to beat them.

 

[The-Dude-Abides]

What do you believe the fundamental reasons for the start of WWII. Treaty of Versiaille? Reparations? Failure of Wilson to get get UN like world body. International tensions due to do the global economic depression? Isolationist in the 1920's and 1930s?

Ready, set, go.

Yes.

 

[LuciousBDragon]

What do you believe the fundamental reasons for the start of WWII. Treaty of Versiaille? Reparations? Failure of Wilson to get get UN like world body. International tensions due to do the global economic depression? Isolationist in the 1920's and 1930s?

Ready, set, go.

It was either because of Lebensraum or because your great-grandfather touched himself in the barn.​

 

[seminole97]

The guy who started it wrote a book explaining why.

He originally titled the book 4 ½ Jahre Kampf gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit. Eine Abrechnung (4 ½ Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. A Reckoning), but ultimately it was shortened to Mein Kampf.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

As far as Germany...the "stab in the back" BS has to rank pretty high.

In 1919, a parliamentary committee of inquiry interrogated the commander-in-chief of the German army, General Paul von Hindenburg, on the reasons why Germany had lost the First World War. According to Von Hindenburg, Germany had lost because the new German government had not supported him and had started peace negotiations. Moreover, the German army had been weakened by the revolutionary atmosphere in the army and in at home. He quoted an English general, who had allegedly said: ‘The German army has been stabbed in the back.’
Hindenburg’s quotation refers to the Stab-in-the-back myth. According to this conspiracy theory, the German army had not been defeated on the battlefield, but because social democratic politicians had signed the truce in order to take control. In reality, the army command had made mistakes and the German army was in no shape to keep on fighting. But generals like Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff spread the story to avoid having to admit the mistakes they had made.

Right-wing extremist, nationalist, and antisemitic groups believed that this ‘stab in the back’ was the work of an international Jewish conspiracy.

Even during the war, fabrications were circulating about the supposed lack of patriotism among the German Jews. For that reason, the German government introduced a ‘Judenzählung' (count of Jews) in the army in 1916. It proved that the number of Jews fighting at the front was proportionate. The results of the investigation were not made public, though.

Slanderous propaganda such as the Stab-in-the-back myth contributed to antisemitism and hatred of the social democratic government. In 1921, members of a Freikorps murdered politician Matthias Erzberger, who had signed the armistice in 1918. Several Jewish and social democratic politicians were to fall victim to right-wing extremist assassinations in the years that followed.

The stab-in-the-back myth | Anne Frank House

www.annefrank.org

The reality is that both Hindenburg and Ludendorf both told the Kaiser the war was lost and he should abdicate.

At the end of September 1918, following the failure of his summer offensives, and under the influence of heavy German losses during the subsequent allied counter-offensives of August and September, Ludendorff told the Kaiser that the war was lost and that power must be transferred to civilian statesmen.

Wilhelm II, German Emperor / 1.0 / encyclopedic - 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ambitious policies played a major part in bringing about the First World War, yet with the onset of hostilities he was sidelined by his generals. In certain key areas, however, notably in appointments to top positions and in the conduct of naval warfare he continued to have...

encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net

Basically these two douchebags set the table for WW2, AND set the table for the justification of the holocaust....IMO. Unfortunately history has underplayed their role. They were both revered by the German people.

 

[FAUlty Gator]

Looking back at historical documents, I’d say that once the Red Skull got Hydra into place, WW2 was inevitable.

 

[General Tso]

What do you believe the fundamental reasons for the start of WWII. Treaty of Versiaille? Reparations? Failure of Wilson to get get UN like world body. International tensions due to do the global economic depression? Isolationist in the 1920's and 1930s?

Ready, set, go.

When the Germans bombed pearl harbor

 

[InsaneHawkJJP]

 

[thewop]

Hyperinflation in Germany didn't help. People were using cash as kind line because the paper was worth more than the Deutsch mark they were burning. They tried to print their way out of debt...not wise...

 

[sober_teacher]

The vengeful tone that the British and French took with the Treaty of Versailles laid a lot of the groundwork imo. They wanted Germany laid so low they couldn’t possibly threaten them again for generations. Instead, they provided the openings that Hitler ultimately exploited.

 

[Hawkfan_08]

Funny that this was the question and my students just took their WWII test two weeks back. All of it could be contributed to the articles in the Treaty of Versailles. Many of the things you all are mentioning (reparations, military reduction, land loss, etc) all come from there.

The Great Depression had a huge impact on this as well as American banks could give loans to Germany but once we got slammed by the stock market crash there was nothing left to loan. Had to focus on us first.

The entire war may not have been escalated as quickly had Hitler not been so risky by breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Another pretty big blunder for Hitler.

 

[LuteHawk]

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in Dec. 1941,
WWII had already started in Europe.

Hitler's German army seized Austria in 1938, occupied
Czechoslovakia in 1938, invaded Poland in Sept. 1939,
and took down France in June 1941. In April of 1941, Germany
also occupied Norway and Denmark. In May of 1941,
Germany occupied Belgium and Holland..

Bottom Line: The dictatorship of Hitler and his quest for
an Empire was the match that lit the fire of WWII.

 

[Sharky1203]

Eva Braun. Crap is always started over women. 🤣

Treaty of Versiaille. It was bankrupting Germany having to pay for WW1.

 

[TJ8869]

Poland started it.

 

[sober_teacher]

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in Dec. 1941,
WWII had already started in Europe.

Hitler's German army seized Austria in 1938, occupied
Czechoslovakia in 1938, invaded Poland in Sept. 1939,
and took down France in June 1941. In April of 1941, Germany
also occupied Norway and Denmark. In May of 1941,
Germany occupied Belgium and Holland..

Bottom Line: The dictatorship of Hitler and his quest for
an Empire was the match that lit the fire of WWII.

To me it’s more Versailles than Hitler - in that I think that treaty created the conditions that made WW2 inevitable. If not Hitler it would have been someone else imo.

 

[Titanhawk2]

What do you believe the fundamental reasons for the start of WWII. Treaty of Versiaille? Reparations? Failure of Wilson to get get UN like world body. International tensions due to do the global economic depression? Isolationist in the 1920's and 1930s?

Ready, set, go.

There was a UN like world body, League of Nations (there were only one-fifth as many nations as today). You didn't list appeasement, or there remained and will always be, bad actors on the world stage.

 

[sober_teacher]

There was a UN like world body, League of Nations (there were only one-fifth as many nations as today). You didn't list appeasement, or there remained and will always be, bad actors on the world stage.

The League of Nations was doomed before it began.

 

[DropitlikeitsHawk]

The Rothschilds continued reach for owning world banks and centralization.

 

[peacehawk]

Hitler

 

[h-hawk]

Some good books that relate to the topic.

In the Garden of the Beasts -"Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd is a mild-mannered academic from Chicago who becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany. This book tells the true stroy of love, intrigue and emerging terror at the American embassy in Berlin during the tumultuous 12 months that witnessed Hitler's rise to power. Google Books"

The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich and Berlin Diary - William L Shirer

"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany is a book by American journalist William L. Shirer in which the author chronicles the rise and fall of Nazi Germany from the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889 to the end of World War II in Europe in 1945. Wikipedia"

"Berlin Diary is a first-hand account of the rise of Nazi Germany and its road to war, as witnessed by the American journalist William L. Shirer. Shirer covered Germany for several years as a radio reporter for CBS. Wikipedia"
(Actually compiled from his notes after the war but the way it is presented gives a "you are there" perspective to the events.)

 

[BrianNole777]

Hitler

 

[Jimmy McGill]

The League of Nations was a weak organization, not what Wilson wanted. It failed before it started. Plus U.S. Congress was adamant against it (isolationism).

Wilson was too sick and old to get it done. If T.R. had been leading the fight for it, it might have had a better chance.