DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY 1920-1945
CHAPTER 1
THE GROWTH OF FACIST REGIMES
1.1 Origins of Fascism
Why many Italians were disappointed with democracy
· Rich north and poor south
· Few had a strong national identity (not long united)
· Tensions between church and state
· 600,000 dead soldiers in WW1
· At the Paris Peace Conference, Orlando failed to get some lands they expected to get (North Tyrol, Dalmatia and Fiume). Nor did they get any German colonies. Italians very disappointed with their government.
· 2 million unemployed
· Strikes and lockouts
· Peasant unrest
Mussolini’s Early Life (listed)
Blacksmith’s son
Socialist family
Quit teaching and became editor of socialist newspaper
Expelled from socialist movement for favouring WW1
Injured in grenade practice.
New newspaper ‘Il Popolo d’Italia’ called for a dictatorship to solve the problems.
Birth of Fascism
1919 M set up the first combat group ‘Fascio di Combattimento’
Fascio, Roman salute, blackshirts.
Noisy marches against socialism and communism.
Popular with unemployed.
Characteristics of Fascism
· Ultra-nationalism
· Totalitarianism (strong government)
· Cult of the leader
· Racism
· Anti- communism (biggest single reason for popularity)
Becoming popular
Won no seats in 1919 as the Fascist Party had some extreme socialist views so M dropped these (opportunist).
Wealthy capitalists gave money (Fiat, Pirelli and banks).
‘Squadristi’ were violent paramilitaries who intimidated opponents.
1922 socialists called a general strike to protest against the government.
March on Rome.
Prime Minister Facta asked King Victor Emmanuel III to call out the army.
Instead he asked M to become PM
He had only 35 seats out of 535
The March on Rome became a victory parade.
1.2 Becoming a Dictator
With only 35 seats M made no dramatic changes. This reassured the other parties and they gave him a huge vote of confidence.
The king allowed M to rule by decree for one year.
The ‘Acerbo Law’ was passed which gave 2/3 of the seats to the biggest party
In 1924 the Fascists became the biggest party
Fascist violence became endemic.
Matteotti, a leading socialist strongly denounced Fascism.
He was killed and the scandal made M’s position difficult.
Socialists withdrew from parliament as a protest. Now there was no effective opposition
1926 parliament gave him the power to rule by decree.
Il Duce
Superman V lazy, arrogant
Propaganda
OVRA secret police dealt with opponents but only 10 killed.
Only 4000 sent to concentration camps.
Only passed the Race Law under pressure from Hitler in 1938. This banned Jews from the army, government jobs and owning large businesses.
Balilla
1.3 Church-State Relations
M. an atheist before 1922.
Much to gain by healing rift between Church and State.
Brought in laws restricting contraception and abortion.
Allowed religious displays in schools and public buildings.
Financial rescue for the Catholic Bank of Rome.
1925 church wedding 10 years later and baptised children.
The Lateran Treaty 1929
· Vatican independence
· Catholicism made the state religion
· Church given control of religious education
· Pius XII recognised the Italian state
· Church no longer claimed state lands
M. at his most popular
Pope saw him as a champion against Communism.
1938 church rejected Race Law
During WW2 Church quietly criticised Fascist excesses.
.
1.3 The Economy
De Stefani
Minister for Finance 1922-25
Tax concessions to attract foreign industry
Reduced government expenditure.
Unemployment fell dramatically.
Autarky
M wanted self-sufficiency.
He believed that a large population and an empire were needed for this.
Economic battles:
· Battle for Grain. Expensive bread and reduced production of other foods.
· Battle for land. Pontine marshes and others
· Battle for Lira. Sacked De Stefani and revalued lira in1926. Made exports dearer and had to devalue in 1936
· Battle for births. To provide soldiers. Tax incentives and medals. Failed.
The Corporate State.
M believed that all sides should work for the common good.
Lockouts and strikes and TU s banned
Every profession and industry had its own corporation with 3 fascist members.
Corporations favoured the employers and wages fell by 10%.
Standard of living one of the lowest in Europe.
Better social insurance for workers.
Other reforms
· Trains and autostrada
· More schools. Better standards of education. Indoctrination.
· Squadrisri drove many Mafia gangsters to USA
The weakness of Italy’s economy was shown up when WW2 began.
1.4 Foreign Policy
Wanted to make the Mediterranean ‘an Italian lake’
Saw himself as an emperor.
1923 occupied Corfu until Greece paid compensation for 4 murdered Italians
1924 occupied Fiume
Otherwise in the early years was accepted as a moderate by other European powers.
Alliance with Hitler
1935 Italy formed the Stressa Front with Britain and France (to oppose German rearmament and expansion) as M was concerned that Hitler might invade Italy.
1935 took Abyssinia in spite of League of Nations’ sanctions.
Also in 1935 League of Nations’ sanctions were put on Germany for Rhineland.
This put Hitler and M in the same boat and in 1936 they signed the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1937 Japan joined in the Anti-Comintern Pact
1938 Italy not ready for war and M was peacemaker at Munich Conference.
1939 Pact of Steel a full military alliance.
Spanish Civil War
Joined Franco to show military might.
Between Spain and Abyssinia, Italy was exhausted militarily and economically by 1939.
World War 2
He did not join the war until June 1940 when Hitler looked certain to win.
Italian army in Greece and North Africa were a joke.
By 1943 the Allies were in Sicily despite German help.
M was also minister for War and was blamed. He was deposed and jailed.
Marshal Badoglio surrendered to the Allies and declared war on Germany.
German commandos freed M.
He was made head of a puppet government (the Salo republic).
As the Allies moved north M tried to flee
M and Clara Petacci shot and displayed in Milan.
1.5 Other Fascist Regimes
Spain
String of weak governments and a very poor economy 1918 to 1923.
General Primo de Rivera ruled without parliament until1931 when the King forced him to resign during the Great Depression.
1931 a Republican left wing government tried to curb the power of the church, the rich and the army.
The army under Franco revolted
1936 to 1939 Civil War.
Franco won with help from Italy and Germany
Spain neutral during WW2.
Franco’s Falange Party was the only one allowed until 1975.
Portugal
Weak governments and economy after WW1
Dr. Antonio de Oliveria Salazar with the army’s help ruled from 1932 to 1968.
Generally benign.
THE ROAD TO DICTATORSHIP:
GERMANY 1933-1939
2.1 The Weimar Republic 1919-1933
January 1919 at Weimar. Liberal and democratic.
Reichstag and Reichrat (like senate)
Crushed the Spartacist rebellion the same month.
The Treaty of Versailles
Not negotiated
Article 231 ‘guilt clause’ and loss of land angered Germans
Weimar government blamed.
Wolfgang Kapp led extreme nationalists and soldiers (freikorps) in a march on Berlin.
A general strike supporting the government ended the Putsch.
£6,600 million Reparations
1923 failure to pay French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr.
German workers went on strike.
Currency collapsed.
The Streseman Era
Foreign Minister 1923-29
Believed they should try to fulfil Versailles to make Germany ‘acceptable’ again.
Ended passive resistance and brought in a new currency (Rentenmark)
1924 the American Dawes Plan eased repayment schedule and gave a loan.
1929 the Young Plan reduced the amount to £2000 million.
Signed Locarno Pact accepting Germany’s borders.
Germany accepted into the League of Nations.
The economy picked up but he died in 1929
The Great Depression
US loans stopped.
The government cut expenditure.
Unemployment soared to over 6 million. Tenants evicted. Shops empty.
Democracy was blamed. Germans not used to it.
Weak coalition governments contrasted with Bismarck’s days.
President Hindenburg sacked the PM Heinrich Bruning and Franz Von Papen took over.
In 1933 Hitler took over. He promised a lot.
2.2 Hitler and the Nazi Party
Hitler’s Early Years (listed)
Braunau in Austria
Failed to get into Vienna art college
Iron cross for the corporal
War ended while he recovered from gas attack. He felt betrayed.
Nazi Party
Sent to investigate Anton Drexler’s German Workers Party and joined it.
His fanatical right wing views and mesmerising speeches gathered support.
He became leader and renamed it the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
The Brownshirts
SA or Stormtroopers were gangsters who protected Hitler’s rallies and broke up others.
By 1923 they numbered 15,000 and were armed.
The Swastika was party of the effort to create a religious aura.
The Beer Hall Putsch
1923 economy bad. Hitler thought it a good time for rebellion.
Had General Ludendorff’s support.
Police killed 16 and they gave up
Landsberg Prison
Got 5 years and served 9 months.
Used trial well
Wrote Mein Kampf
Nazi Ideas
· Aryan master race
· Jews to blame for Germany’s ills
· Lebensraum
· Communism evil
· Treaty of Versailles torn up
· Totalitarianism
2.3 The Nazis Seize Power
1920s economy improved and the Nazis were banned.
Hitler seemed to become democratic and the ban was lifted.
He reorganised the party.
Sections for women and children were established.
His team:
· Goebbles. Propaganda
· Goring. Second in command
· Hess. Hitler’s secretary
· Himmler Law and order
· Alfred Rosenberg. Party philosopher.
The Breakthrough
1928 got only 12 seats.
The Depression struck.
H promised jobs, land to tenants, government contracts to business and to build up the army.
1932 they had 230 seats out of 650.
Hindenburg didn’t like Hitler but Von Papen and then Von Schleicher did not have the support of the Reichstag and eventually had to make Hitler chancellor in 1933.
1933 Election
1933 H called another election
Goring turned 50,000 SA into police and opposition disappeared.
Reichstag fire blamed on a Dutch socialist.
Hindenburg issued an emergency decree and Communists were banned and jailed.
Did not get an overall majority
March 1933 the Enabling Act allowed Hitler to act without parliament.
All other parties banned.
State governments dismissed and replaced with Reich governers.
The Nazi run Labour Front replaced the trade union movement.
1934 Hindenburg died and H became Fuhrer.
The Night of the Long Knives
Rohm in charge of 2 million SA and criticised H for taking employers side.
30th June 200 killed by the SS led by Himmler.
The Nazi Economy
Minister for Finance Hjalmar Schacht. His aim was autarky (self-sufficiency)
· Public works such as Autobahn created jobs
· Rearmament created jobs and iron industry boomed.
· Conscription
· Industry encouraged (Volkswagen)
· Imprisonment of Jews, communists and other opponents created jobs.
2.4 Hitler’s Foreign Policy
Main aims were to get rid of the Treaty of Versailles and Lebensraum.
Rearmament
Began by asking that other countries disarm as Germany could not defend itself.
When they refused he left the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations in 1933.
1935 Goring was forming the Luftwaffe and Conscription was introduced.
1935 Naval Agreement with Britain allowed Germany to have 35% of Britains ships and the same number of submarines. Versailles was at an end.
1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia and the Stresa Front was at an end.
Invasion of the Rhineland
1936 3 battalions sent in with orders to retreat if they met resistance. They did not.
Now Hitler would continue to gamble
Rome-Berlin Axis
1935 after Abyssinia Hitler ignored the League’s sanctions.
Hitler promised not to claim German-speaking Tyrol
Both helped Franco.
1936 Rome-Berlin axis signed. Vague support of each other.
1937 Anti Comintern pact with Japan.
1939 Pact of Steel a military alliance.
Anchluss
Once part of Germany and German speaking.
Anchluss forbidden by Versailles.
1938 the Nazi, Seyss-Inquart, replaced Schuschnigg as PM.
He ‘appealed’ to Hitler to send in troops to prevent civil war.
France and GB protested but did nothing.
The Sudetenland
2 million Germans
Hitler told Sudeten leaders to make complaints about discrimination.
Chamberlain believed that if all Germans were in Germany, Hitler would stop (appeasement).
Munich Conference 1938
M agreed to try to persuade Hitler.
M, Chamberlain, Daladier and Hitler met.
Neither Czechoslovakia nor USSR invited.
1st October 1938 Germany took Sudetenland
Chamberlain claimed ‘peace with honour’
March 1939 Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Polish Guarantee
Britain and France armed and introduced conscription.
Both countries gave Poland a guarantee that they would help if Poland were attacked.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
Hitler believed a deal with Stalin would frighten Britain and France from helping Poland.
Also he did not want war on 2 fronts.
Stalin felt that he would be left alone against the germans.
Stalin also wanted time.
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
To outsiders it was a10 year non-aggression pact. There were secret clauses dividing Poland between them and giving USSR the Balkan States.
War
31 August 1939 Germany claimed a radio station had been attacked by Poles.
1st September Germany invaded Poland
3rd Britain and France declared war.
CHAPTER 3
NAZI PROPAGANDA
3.1 State Control of the Mass Media
Messages to be conveyed
· ‘One people, one empire and one leader’ more important than the individual, family, religion, class or region.
· Cult of the leader
· Anti-Semitism
· Nationalism
· Anti-communism
· Appeal to groups (workers, women, youth)
Goebbles (listed)
Working class, limped from birth, very clever.
Doctor of Literature
Started as a socialist but won over by H.
1926 Gauleiter of Berlin (party leader)
Founded Der Angriff (the attack), nazi newspaper.
Minister for Propaganda
Controlled all mass media
Exploited the Reichstag fire, the burning of the books and the Olympics.
Very anti-Semitic. Big part in the Nuremberg Laws and Crystal Night.
Poisoned family and shot himself.
The Media
Posters
Posters and paintings showed the peasant and the factory worker as the backbone of Germany
Radio
Direct contact with people.
Goebbles only allowed one radio company the Reich Radio Company.
Radios produced cheaply so that every family had one.
Played everything German.
Press
1933 The Reich Press Law banned all opposition papers and all Jews and left wing journalists sacked.
Goebbles held a news conference every day to make sure guidelines were followed.
‘The Attack’ and ‘Peoples Observer’ were widely read
Foreign papers could only be got through the German Press Agency.
Cinema
Goebbles really interested and did not use it too much.
He banned all Jews
Marlene Dietrich left for the US
Leni Riefenstahl (listed) made technically brilliant films of 1934 Nuremberg Rally and the Olympics.
‘The Eternal Jew’ was almost a horror film.
Films made to boost morale during the war were shown when they were losing.
Literature
Thousands of writers blacklisted.
1933 liberaries ransacked and books burned.
2500 writers left Germany and criticised Nazism (Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann)
Music
Beethoven and Wagner revered.
The works of Jewish composers like Mendelssohn were banned.
Jazz considered Negro music and banned.
Others considered too modern.
Many gifted people emigrated.
Art and Architecture
Hitler considered himself an expert
All modern art seen as degenerate and left-wing.
Picasso, Gauguin, Cezanne and Van Gogh all removed from galleries.
Many left Germany.
1933 Albert Speer appointed Reich Architect.
He designed the arenas for the Nuremberg Rally and the Olympics.