Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Please write
an 300 words
essay on how
the Nazi party
was formed
and how Hitler
became it’s
Leader.
The Locarno Treaties
The Locarno Treaties were signed in December 1925.
The major politicians of Europe met in neutral
Switzerland. The following was agreed to :
France, Germany and Belgium agreed to accept their
borders as were stated in the Treaty of Versailles.
France and Belgium would never repeat an invasion of
the Ruhr and Germany would never attack Belgium or
France again. Britain and Italy agreed to police this
part of the treaties. Germany also accepted that the
Rhineland must remain demilitarised.
In other treaties, France promised to protect Belgium,
Poland and Czechoslovakia if Germany attacked any
one of them. Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium,
Poland and Czechoslovakia all agreed that they would
never fight if they had an argument between
themselves - they would allow the League to sort out
the problem.
The other major treaty which seemed to herald in an era of
world peace was the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928.
This pact was signed by 65 countries. All 65 nations agreed
never to use war again as a way of solving disputes.
Therefore, Europe was effectively lulled into a false sense of
security by 1929 as the politicians of Europe had made it
plain that war was no longer an option in solving disputes
and that previous enemies were now friends.
This new Europe relied on nations being at peace and
harmony with one another.
The stability of Germany was shattered by the
Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and the nationalists who
had spent 1925 to 1929 in relative obscurity, rose to the
political surface once again.
They had no intention of accepting either Versailles or the
Locarno treaties and the League’s weaknesses in this decade
had also become apparent.
The League could only function successfully, if the
politicians of Europe allowed it to do so. Hitler and the Nazis
were never going to give the League a chance once they had
gained power.
The Road to War
The actual war in Europe itself began with a series of
events:
Germany took Austria (1938) and the Sudtenland
(1938)
The Munich Pact was created (1938) with England and
France agreeing to allow Hitler to keep the Sudtenland
as long as no further expansion occurred.
Hitler and Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis
military alliance to last 10 years (1939)
Japan entered an alliance with Germany and Italy
(1939)
The Moscow-Berlin Pact occurred promising
nonaggression between the two powers (1939)
Hitler invaded Poland (1939)
England and France declared war on Germany
(September 30, 1939).
The Outbreak of War
During March 1938 German troops had occupied Austria,
incorporating it into the Reich. In September Hitler
announced that the "oppression" of ethnic Germans living
in Czechoslovakia was intolerable and that war was near.
England and France met with Hitler (the Munich Pact) and
compelled Czechoslovakia to cede its frontier districts to
Germany in order to secure "peace in our time." Peace,
however, was only an illusion.
During March 1939 Hitler seized the rest of
Czechoslovakia by force of arms and then turned his
attention to Poland. Although Britain and France had
guaranteed the integrity of Poland, Hitler and Josef Stalin,
dictator of the Soviet Union, signed a secret, mutual
nonaggression pact in August 1939.
With the pact Stalin bought time to build up his strength at
the expense of Britain and France, and Hitler gained a free
hand to deal with Poland. When Hitler's army invaded
Poland on 1 September 1939, World War II began.
While German forces overran western Poland, Soviet
troops entered from the east to claim their portion of
that country.
France and Britain declared war on Germany and
mobilized their forces. The subsequent period of
deceptive inactivity, lasting until spring, became
known as the Phony War. Nothing happened to
indicate that World War II would differ significantly in
style or tempo from World War I.
The Phoney War had far reaching political
consequences for Britain.
Neville Chamberlain had returned a hero as
the man who had averted war at the last
minute. Now in 1939, with war declared, his
star shone less brightly.
Chamberlain after the Munich
Conference
The Lee Enfield was first produced in 1907; it had been designed
by an American called James Lee and built at the Royal Small
Arms Factory in Enfield - hence the rifle's name. The Lee Enfield
enjoyed a good reputation with those who were issued with it. It
had a ten-bullet magazine and its rate of fire in the hands of well-
trained men was high. At the Battle of Mons, the advancing
Germans believed that they were under fire from British machine
guns. In fact, it was the well drilled infantry of the BEF using their
standard issue Lee Enfield. A good infantryman would expect to
shoot off about twelve well-aimed bullets in a minute.
If the Lee Enfield had one weakness, it was that the firing
mechanism was susceptible to dirt and grit. Therefore, keeping
your rifle clean in the muddy environment of the trenches was of
paramount importance. When not in battle, many men simply
covered the firing mechanism with cloth in an effort to keep out
dirt which would clog up the rifle. The butt of the Lee Enfield had a
space inside it where cleaning material could be kept.
The Lee Enfield was so highly thought of that it was the standard
issue rifle to infantrymen in the British Army in World War Two,
some twenty years after World War One. I
Its robust nature meant that it was issued to the Home Guard.
The Home Guard manual had a 28-page section on the Lee
Enfield that covered how to fire it, how to keep the rifle clean,
how to load the rifle, judging distance and overall rifle
maintenance.
Bren Gun
The Bren Gun was eventually issued to the
Home Guard in World War Two.
The Bren Gun was a light machine gun that was
robust and could maintain short, sharp bursts of gun
fire. The Bren Gun used the same size ammunition as
the Lee Enfield rifle (.303 inch) and this compatability
was obviously useful.
The Bren weighed 21 lbs and had a length of 45
inches. It was capable of firing either single shots or a
burst of fire. The Bren was capable of firing 500
rounds a minute - though this was a theoretical figure
as the rate of firing was dictated by the speed with
which a fully loaded magazine could be changed.
Each magazine held just 30 rounds. Hence when in
use the firer used short bursts of fire.
Lewis Gun
The Lewis Gun was issued to units of the Home Guard
in World War Two. The Lewis Gun was a light machine
gun that used .303 ammunition - the same as the
Lee Enfield rifle and the Bren gun.
This ammunition compatibility was very useful during
live firing exercises.
The Lewis gun was air-cooled and could produce a
high rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. However, as
this depended on the speed with which its circular
magazine (called a pan magazine) could be changed
(the magazine held 47 rounds), those who fired the
gun used short bursts that tended to limit its rate of
fire to 120 rounds a minute.
The Lewis machine gun weighed 26 lbs and was
designed so that it could be fired by either a left-
handed or right-handed firer.