World War II and US Intervention

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) left the global powers that had participated in the Great War with a structural imbalance that would prove fatal to the cause of lasting peace. The withdrawal of Russia during the war, and the unwillingness of the US to sign the treaty afterwards left a precarious balance in Europe. Great Britain and France, victors in the war, and Germany the main defeated power, had to determine a relationship going forward absent the involvement of the Unites States and Russia. President Wilson had emphasized the need for international cooperation and peaceful adjudication of grievances through the auspices of the new League of Nations. However, both France and England opted for a punitive treatment of Germany. The Germans were bitter in defeat and felt they had been betrayed in the war and the treaty negotiations. They viewed as insult and injury the $50 billion dollars in war reparations that were imposed on them. Considering the difficulty that the western democracies had in winning the war, and the fact that France and England no longer had the US or the USSR available to them, the course they took proved shortsighted and doomed a lasting peace to failure.

The bitterness, frustration and instability of Germany was apparent. Representative government was thrust upon the Germans by the allies and it was fragile at best. The Weimar Republic had to contend with armed paramilitary extremists from left and right from the outset. After the failure of an attempted coup by the communist in1919 known as the Spartacus Revolt, the Hitler led Nazi Party also attempted to topple the republic. In 1923, a poorly planned and executed coup attempt by the Nazis was suppressed and Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison. He ended up serving a total of six months of house arrest in a villa owned by a powerful industrialist. He used the down time to write his plan for Germany’s future, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). In it he described in detail the whole sordid saga that became Germany’s future from 1933-1945. At the time, few paid attention. A decade later the rambling memoir became required reading while the German classics, from Faust to Kant to Goethe were being burned by the Nazi Party.

The US danced through the Twenties until the stock market crashed in 1929. Americans, disillusioned by the failure to “make the world safe for democracy”, as Wilson had promised, wanted no part of political engagement with Europe. Trade and investment were the focus of business minded America as far as Europe was concerned. International finances were less understood then than they are today, and they were a mess. Great Britain and France attempted to hold Germany to the huge reparation payments they were forced to make to the allies for war guilt. The US was insisting on payment for material shipped to France and Great Britain during the war. America had come out of the war a $10 billion dollar creditor. The allies asked for forgiveness of the debt but the government refused. Meanwhile Germany was seeking loans for US investment banks in order to make reparation payments. Credit was holding up the circular flow of money and Europeans were having a hard time rebuilding their damaged economies. US corporations were selling goods to Europe and invoked the aid of Congress to erect tariff barriers. Europe was being squeezed dry of the small amounts of capital it had. American business was in for a huge shock and the shock began in October 1929.

The economic depression that began with the US stock market crash in 1929 had far-reaching political implications as it spread around the world. In Germany, the Nazi Party had 100,000 members in 1929. However, after three years of a worsening economy that saw unemployment reach 40%, three million Germans voted for the Nazi party in the elections of 1932. What had eluded Hitler and the Nazis by violence came to them through the chaos that had become the parliamentary process in Germany by then. The 85 year old President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany. The Nazis rose to power by manipulating the republic that they despised and had tried to overthrow. In 1933 a mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag and Hitler declared martial law. The first concentration camps were under construction by the end of that year.

The years 1933-39 could well be called the Lost Opportunity to stop Germany’s aggression under Hitler, leading to WWII. His violations of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles began with the rearming of Germany. When this met with no response he took the next step up of resigning Germany from the League of Nations. Again, receiving rebuke but no measures from the League he began occupying the Rhineland a DMZ (demilitarized zone) 1936. In the same year he formed an alliance with Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy, and Japan also joined the Axis powers. Each time the leaders of the west objected, Hitler assured them of his interest in peace and they acquiesced. This pattern continued with the invasion of Austria, forcibly joining it to the German nation, and finally the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, a treaty member of the League of Nations. By 1938 the Wermacht, the German war machine was almost fully operational. Hitler signed a treaty with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that allowed England’s leader to go home declaring “peace in our time” had been achieved. But nine months later Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939. The ostrich that was the west finally had to take its head out of the sand and WWII began.

The US government and its citizens watched the proceedings in Europe and once again remained firmly committed to neutrality. Once again, the US began material help to the allies through the Lend Lease program. Roosevelt knew that the US would need to get into the war but the determined objection of the American people stood in the way. In 1940, with France defeated and Hitler posing for pictures under the Arc de Triumph, a survey of the American people found that 90% still wanted to remain neutral. Although preparations for war had begun, Roosevelt’s hands were tied until the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is said that when Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of embattled England heard news of that attack he danced a jig. Finally, the Americans were in the war.