Causes of World War II: History of Germany & German Militarism
This film (originally titled as ‘Here is Germany’) is a 1945 American propaganda documentary film directed by Frank Capra and produced by the U.S. Office of War Information. It was made to prepare soldiers who had not seen combat to go to Germany for the U.S. occupation after the May 8, 1945 unconditional German surrender. It explains why the Germans started World War 2 and what had to be done to keep them from « doing it again ».
The film gives us a brief history of Germany and German militarism till 1939. It traces the rise of Prussia from Frederick the Great through Bismarck, telling the audience that the Prussian state was organized as an instrument of conquest, dominated first by aristocratic landowners, militarists and state officials, later joined by those big industrialists with ties to the militarists and their Imperial Government. The development of a military-industrial dominated state in the founding of the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1870 climaxes in the catastrophe of World War 1. The film depicts the Third Reich from this perspective, seeing Nazism as simply a continuation of the aggressive German tradition, promoted by the businesses dependent on government contracts for arms.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT
Some long-term causes of World War 2 are found in the conditions preceding World War 1 and seen as common for both World Wars. Supporters of this view says that World War 2 was a continuation of World War 1 by the same means.
Problems arose in Weimar Germany that experienced strong currents of revanchism after the Treaty of Versailles that concluded its defeat in World War 1 in 1918. Dissatisfactions of treaty provisions included the demilitarization of the Rhineland, the prohibition of unification with Austria (including the Sudetenland) and the loss of German-speaking territories such as Danzig and Eupen-Malmedy despite Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the limitations on the Reichswehr making it a token military force, the war-guilt clause, and last but not least the heavy tribute that Germany had to pay in the form of war reparations, which became an unbearable burden after the Great Depression. The most serious internal cause in Germany was the instability of the political system, as large sectors of politically active Germans rejected the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic.
After his rise and take-over of power in 1933 to a large part based on these grievances, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis heavily promoted them and also ideas of vastly ambitious additional demands based on Nazi ideology such as uniting all Germans (and further all Germanic peoples) in Europe in a single nation; the acquisition of « living space » (Lebensraum) for primarily agrarian settlers, creating a « pull towards the East » (Drang nach Osten) where such territories were to be found and colonized, the elimination of Bolshevism; and the hegemony of an « Aryan »/ »Nordic » so-called Master Race over the « sub-humans » (Untermenschen) of inferior races.
Germany systematically flouted the Versailles treaty, reintroducing conscription in 1935, remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936, annexing Austria in March 1938, and the Sudetenland in October 1938.
All those aggressive moves met only feeble and ineffectual policies of appeasement from the League of Nations and the Entente Cordiale, in retrospect symbolized by the « peace for our time » speech following the Munich Conference, that had allowed the annexation of the Sudeten from interwar Czechoslovakia, breaking off Slovakia as a German client state, and absorbing the rest of it as the « Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia ».
As Nazi attentions turned towards resolving the « Polish Corridor Question » during the summer of 1939, Britain and France committed themselves to an alliance with Poland, threatening Germany with a two-front war. On their side, the Germans assured themselves of the support of the USSR by signing a non-aggression pact with them in August, secretly dividing Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. The stage was then set for the Danzig crisis to become the immediate trigger of the war in Europe started on 1 September 1939.
Causes of World War 2 | History of Germany & German Militarism | Propaganda Documentary | 1945
TBFA_0098 (DM_0052)
NOTE: THE VIDEO DOCUMENTS HISTORICAL EVENTS. SINCE IT WAS PRODUCED DECADES AGO, IT HAS HISTORICAL VALUES AND CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. THE VIDEO HAS BEEN UPLOADED WITH EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. ITS TOPIC IS REPRESENTED WITHIN HISTORICAL CONTEXT. THE VIDEO DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSITIVE SCENES AT ALL!
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