Nazi Germany and Its Leader - Research Paper Example

?Nazi Germany Nazi Germany and its leader Hitler are still hot topics in international political arena because of its significance in studying globalpolitical history. The Second World War caused panic not only in the western world, but also in other parts of the world as well. For the first time in the history of modern world, a dictator tried to conquer the entire world through WW2. Germans who suffered humiliation in the First World War decided to take revenge for their sufferings and the result was Second World War. Hitler with his mesmerising speeches motivated the Germans to conduct another war to salvage the lost pride. In Hitler’s opinion, German culture was superior to other cultures in the world and therefore they have the right to rule the world. Hitler in a speech in 1928 argued that brutality rather than humanity is the basis of life! Man has become master of the world through conflict and continual struggle… But mankind is not a uniform and equal mass. There are differences between races. The Earth has received its culture from elite peoples; what we see today is ultimately the result of the activity and the achievements of the Aryans (Kitson, p.1925) In fact, Hitler did succeed in conquering substantial portions of the world through WW2. Westerners initially tried to conduct negotiations with Hitler or Nazi Germany instead of uniting against the common enemy. All these developments motivated Hitler further and he started to expand his wings further and further. Many people believe that Hitler or Nazi Germany committed a tactical blunder which finally cost them victory in WW2. Nazi Germany was not much interested in attacking Soviet Union initially even though communism was indigestible to Hitler. Hitler and Joseph Stalin actually signed an agreement; not to attack each other at the time of WW2. However, the above agreement caused problems later for Hitler and finally resulted in the downfall of Nazi Germany and Hitler. This paper analyses what would have happened if Hitler attacked Soviet Union at the beginning of WW2. In 1938 an international crisis developed around Czechoslovakia, populated mostly by ethnic Germans known as Sudetenland, has started to shake the global peace and Hitler has threatened to go to war with Czechoslovakia unless so-called Sudetenland was immediately ceded to Germany. The British Prime Minister Chamberlain flew to Germany in order to avoid a possible Second World War which resulted in the Munich Peace of 1938 (Zuljan). Hitler started his effort to conquer the world with the help of Sudetenland issue. In fact Hitler’s major aim for raising this issue was to study the responses of other global powers. Instead of responding aggressively to Hitler’s claims, global powers like Britain and France tried settle the issue with the help of negotiations. The dialogues between Hitler, Chamberlain and Daladier (the French prime minister) with the help of Mussolini as mediator settled the issue amicably. At least the European thought that the issue was over. However, it was the beginning of other major problems. Hitler started to make more claims up on more areas in Europe after tasting victory in the Sudetenland issue. He has realized that majority of the Europeans countries were afraid of German power and therefore he can expand German territories to more areas. “At dawn on September 1, 1939, the German army launched a ferocious assault across the Polish border. By October 6, it was all over. Poland ceased to exist as a country. World War II had begun” (The Nazi Occupation of Poland). The invasion of Poland was quiet unexpected to countries such as France, Britain, Australia etc. In fact this attack served as eye opener to European countries and they started realize the threat from Nazi Germans for their sovereignty. Making all Hitler’s calculation wrong, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war against Germany as Germany rejected the call for immediate withdrawal from Poland. The declaration of war by Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared against Germany remained only on papers which helped Germany to conquer Poland easily. “The destruction of Poland was followed by the disintegration of all other sovereign states in East Central Europe” (Dziewanowski, p.1). After Poland invasion, Hitler remained idle for a lengthy period. Europeans thought that was established in Europe and Germans would not conduct anymore attack in Europe. Proving all such calculations wrong, “The inactive period ended with the surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway by the Germans. On May 10, 1940, German forces overran Luxembourg and invaded the Netherlands and Belgium” (World War 2).These attacks were followed by another attack on France by the Germans which forced France to surrender a substantial portion of France to the Germans. Greece and Yugoslavia were other countries attacked by Germans in 1940’s. Germans failed to conquer Great Britain because of the great leadership of Winston Churchill. It should be noted that Germany never tried to attack Soviet Union during this period even though they attacked all the other prominent European countries in the 1940’s. In fact, Germans and Soviet Union were engaged in a secret agreement during this period for not to attack each other. This secret agreement was later known as Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact. “For agreeing, not to join the possible future war, Germany has given the Soviets the Baltic States; Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Poland was also divided between and shared by Soviet Union and Germany” (Rosenberg). Some have seen Stalin's decision to grab as much territory as he could, even in alliance with Hitler, as a rejection of the ideological premises of Communism and definite shift in the traditional Russian approach to territorial expansion. The loss of a broad belt of territory in the West to Russia's western neighbours at the end of World War I has been painful to all Great Russian nationalists, with whom Stalin by then came to identify himself. These losses, a humiliating reminder of Russia's defeats during 1914-1920, had also damaged the U.S.S.R.'s strategic situation by depriving it of Baltic ports in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland, thus making Leningrad a dangerously exposed frontier city (Dziewanowski, p.1) Even though, Nazi Germany had no respect towards the European military powers, they had enough respect towards the military power and capabilities of Soviet Union. Even though communism was the number one enemy of Nazis, Hitler thought that he could shift his focus towards Soviet Union only after conquering other parts of Europe. Hitler’s calculations went wrong, as Soviet Union started to realise the threat from Germany later. Stalin correctly assessed that once all the other European countries come under Germany, Germans may shift their focus towards Soviet Union. Therefore, he thought it is better to attack Germany before the conclusion of Germany’s attacks on other countries as Germans may struggle to maintain different war fronts in Europe. Moreover, German advancement towards Soviet territories created many concerns in the minds of Soviet leaders. Soviet Union realized that Hitler was a strong critic of communism and therefore under no circumstances, Hitler may stay away from attacking Soviet Union. Based on the above calculation, Soviet troops launched a counterattack on Germany o on February 2, 1943 which resulted in the surrender of Germans. It would have been easier for the Germans to conquer the entire Europe if they started WW2 with an attack on Soviet Union. Soviet Union was the major power of Europe in the 1930’s and 40’s and the surrender of Soviet Union would have helped Nazi Germany to get an easy walkover over on other countries. It should be noted that German power exhausted considerably after various successful attacks on other European countries. In other words, Soviet Union attacked Germany at a time when Germany was not in a position to make any counterattack. It should be noted that as part of the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact, Soviet Union and Germany helped each other economically also. Soviet Union supplied enough food items to Germans who had food scarcity in exchange of machineries and furnished goods from Germany. The violation of Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact resulted in the stoppage of food items export to Germany from Soviet Union. Thus Germany started to experience food scarcity which is another reason for their failure in Second World War. Hitler wrongly calculated that capitalist countries such as Britain, France etc may never establish alliance with communist Soviet Union. He thought that his secret alliance with Soviet Union may help Germany to avoid a scenario like Germany vs other European countries. However, in order to counter the threats from a common enemy, capitalism and communism established alliances which was quiet unexpected to Nazi Germany. Stalin was actually afraid of a possible invasion by Germany and he has tried to counter it with the help of other European nations. Stalin has calculated that Adolf Hitler might not start a war against united Europe if Soviet Union and other prominent European countries like Britain and France form an alliance. But Germany and France were never interested in establishing ties with the communist Soviet administration led by Stalin. Thus Stalin had no other ways than an agreement with Germany to avoid a possible war with Germany. To conclude, Germany’s failure to attack Soviet Union during the initial part of WW2 prevent them ultimate victory in Second World War. Even though Germany signed a secret deal with Soviet Union, before the beginning of WW2, they failed to get benefits out of it. By the time when Soviet Union attacked Germany, German military power was exhausted considerably and Soviet Union faced little resistance from Germany. Many people believe that had Germany started their European mission from Soviet Union, the outcomes of WW2 could have been different. Works Cited 1. Dziewanowski M. Kamil, “The Polish Campaign of September 1939 in Perspective”. 2008. Polish news. Wednesday, 24 September 2008. Web. 07 February 2012. http://www.polishnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=93:historiapolish-history&id=402:the-polish-campaign-of-september-1939-in-perspective&Itemid=329 2. “German Invasion of Western Europe May 1940.” 2010. Web. 07 February 2012. 3. Kitson Alison, “Germany, 1858-1990: Hope, Terror, and Revival”. 2011. Oxford University Press, 28-Jun-2001 4. Rosenberg ,Jennifer. “The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.” 2009. Web. 07 February 2012 5. “The Nazi Occupation of Poland.” Web. 07 February 2012. 6. “The Invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia, 6–8 April.” Web. 07 February 2012. 7. “World War 2.” The Free Dictionary. Web. 07 February 2012. 8. Zuljan Ralph. “Munich 1938”. Web. 07 February 2012. Read More