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Updated as of 2 October 05
Today in History:
On October 2, 1780, Major John
Andrι, a British spy associated with Benedict Arnold, was
executed on this day in history.
Quote of the Day:
"In my view we are much worse
off now than when we went into Iraq. This is not a partisan position. I voted
for these guys."
A senior figure at a
military-sponsored think tank as told to James Fallows in "Bush's Lost Year" in
The Atlantic Monthly (Oct. 2004)
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Take the Ann Coulter
Quiz
Where are you politically? Take
the
Neocon Quiz and find out.
"History
is Far too Important to be left to History Professors"
Teaching isn't such a novel idea
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Age of Total War
Current History
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DDE in War & Peace
Splendid Little
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Modern World Civilization
Spring 2008
How did an
Assassination in a small Balkan
Capital Change History
The Russian Revolution.
Divided Europe since 1945.
Created Yugoslavia.
Caused World War II.
Contributed to the rise of
Hitler.
Led to the First Genocide in
History.
First use of weapons of mass
destruction.
Caused the death of a
generation.
Contributed to the rise of
Fascism.
The collapse of the old order.
The Birth of the Modern Middle
East.
Including Israel and Iraq.
The
Preconditions of the War
Germanys
victory over France during the Franco-Prussian War during 1870-71.
The Treaty of
Frankfurt gave Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.
Germany became
the main economic and military power in Europe.
The Wars
Precipitants
Imperialism.
The breakdown
of the international System.
Nationalism.
Naval arms
race.
Offensive
military doctrines.
Alliance
structure.
Internal
political difficulties.
Decline of the
liberal ideal.
Archduke
Franz Ferdinand
Heir to the
Austrian throne.
Had a plan to
share power with the Czechs as well as the Germans and Hungarians.
He was also a
threat to the Serbs who wanted Bosnia as part of a greater Serbia.
The chief of
Serbian military was head of the Black Hand.
On June 28,
1914 Black Hand agents murdered the Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo.
The Big Four
Lloyd George from the UK
Woodrow Wilson from the USA
Georges Clemenceau from France
Vittorio Orlando from Italy
What Germany Lost in World War I
All gains from treaties with
Russia and Rumania.
Lost Poland and Alsace-Lorraine.
Lost Eupen and Malmedy to
Belgium.
Lost Memel to Lithuania.
Lost the Polish Corridor to
Poland.
Danzig became a free city.
The Saar would be administered
by the League of Nations for 15 years.
A plebiscite would determine the
fate of Schleswig.
German war criminals would be
tried.
Germany would have to pay
reparations.
Military Provision of
Versailles
The Army limited to 100,000 men.
No aircraft.
No cadet schools, academies, or
General Staff.
No submarines.
No warships larger than 10,000
tons.
The End of the Romanovs
Nicholas II (1894-1917) and the
Russian government was in serious trouble since 1905.
What they didnt need was an war
that demonstrated the weakness of Russia.
The war demonstrated the general
incompetence of all facets of the tsarist regime.
As the Russian situation
deteriorated, Nicholas II went to the Front and left his wife in charge of the
government.
This was compounded by her
relationship with Rasputin.
Prince Yusupov decided to rid
Russian of the dirty monk.
The Bolshevik Coup
Lenin, living in Switzerland in
exile, returned in April.
He issued his famous April
Thesis and called for an end to the war with the cry of Peace, Land, and
Bread.
He encouraged an uprising.
In July, an abortive revolt of
the Bolsheviks failed.
Lenin still called for an
uprising in November 6-7, 1917.
When it came, the Provisional
Government suddenly collapsed.
The Situation in the Middle East
In order to gain support from
European Jewry at the expense of Germany.
Lloyd George agreed to create a
Jewish homeland.
This was done by the Balfour
Declaration.
Also, the British encouraged an
Arab Revolt (1916-18) lead by Hussein and T. E. Lawrence.
Likewise, with the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire.
Winston Churchill agreed to
maintain Mesopotamia as a single viable unit
known as Iraq.
At the expense of the Kurds who
sought an independent state.
Adolf Hitler: The Early
Years
Born in Austria in 1889.
Came to Munich in 1913.
Served during the Great War and
reached the rank of CPL.
Was one of the earliest members
of Anton Drexlers German Workers Party.
There he discovered his talents
as an orator.
In 1920, the party changed its
name to the NSDAP.
In 1921, Hitler became Fuhrer.
The Growth of the NSDAP
By 1921, Hitler created a
private Army known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)
or Sturm troopers, to protect his meetings and disrupt the meetings of his
opponents.
They often wore brown shirts,
hence they were called Brown shirts by their enemies.
They often came from stocks used
for German troops sent to Africa during World War I.
The Beerhall Putsch
The situation was saved by
Hitler.
On the evening of November 8,
1923, when Kahr was holding a meeting of his supporters in the
Burgerbraufeller,
Hitler stormed the meeting.
Hitler proclaimed the Reich and
Bavarian governments were deposed and the National Revolution had begun.
He forced Representatives of the
Bavarian Government and Army to pledge their support.
During the evening, those
officials renounced their earlier pledge.
Hitlers New Germany
Without Hitler, World War II
would not have happened in Europe.
This does not excuse the
British, the French, the Russians or the Americans.
From the materials captured at
the end of the war, it appears that Hitler had no clear plan.
It seems that Hitler gambled.
Of the Allies, he knew the
French the best.
The British he hardly
understood.
Hitlers Goals
Hitler let it be known that he
thought Germany needed living space.
Even when he was successful, he
still would not shrink from war.
It is more than fair to say that
one other foreign leader was such a natural born bully as Hitler.
The Rationale for Appeasement
The Great Depression and the
need to cut government expenses.
The fear of war, particularly in
Eastern Europe.
Crisis in the the Dominions,
ie., India and Palestine.
The concern the Dominions had
about a war in Central Europe.
The Situation in the Far East.
Early Immigration Solutions
Syrian Solution
-- Buy 30,000 square miles in Syria from the French and locate the Jews
there.
Ecuador Solution
-- Move the Jews to Oriente Province.
Madagascar Solution
-- Move the Jews to the large island off the coast of Africa.
Nazi Solutions to the Jewish
Question
The Origins of Kristallnacht
Poland passed an Expatriates Law
on March 31, 1938.
If Polish Jews did not renew
their passports, then they could not claim Polish nationality and this had to be
done by Oct. 29, 1938.
The Germans then rounded up the
Ostjuden and shipped them back to Poland on Oct. 28.
One such family was the
Grynzpans and their son Herschel was living in Paris.
Young Grynzpan received a letter
from his sister telling of their plight.
Grynzpan then shot the German
Third Sec in the German Embassy -- Ernst Vom Rath.
The Training Ground for the
Final Solution
With the outbreak of the war,
the immigration solution was no longer possible.
Earlier, Hitler authorized the
elimination of the sick and mentally ill.
This was called the T4 Program,
named after Tiergartenstrasse 4, the headquarters of the program.
Only the effort of Cardinal
Galen slowed, but did not stop the process.
What it did was to serve as a
training ground for the men who would run the killing centers in the East.
The Final Solution to the Jewish
Question
The Machinery of Destruction
The Origins of the Final
Solution
The first step was the start of
the euthanasia program.
Followed by the establishment of
Ghettos in Poland and the decision on a Territorial Solution.
The Invasion of the Soviet Union
and the use of the Einsatzgruppen, special action units, which traveled in the
wake of the Wehrmacht into Russia.
The Wannsee Conference
July 31, 1941, Herman Goering
orders Reinhard Heydrich to develop a comprehensive plan for the Final Solution
to the Jewish Problem.
The Meeting was set for January
20, 1942 in the Berlin Suburb of Wannsee.
It was to be a meeting of all
bureaucratic and party agencies.
Numbers and costs were
finalized.
Operation Reinhard Death Camps
What Did The Allies Know and
When Did They Know it?
Word reached the WJC in 1942 and
was passed to the British and Americans.
The British broke the Enigma
Code and knew what the Germans were doing in the West.
Escapees, especially Rudolf
Vrba, passed photos to the West.
German soldiers took photos and
it was the worst kept state secret.
Operation Reinhard Death Camps
What Did The Allies Know and
When Did They Know it?
Word reached the WJC in 1942 and
was passed to the British and Americans.
The British broke the Enigma
Code and knew what the Germans were doing in the West.
Escapees, especially Rudolf
Vrba, passed photos to the West.
German soldiers took photos and
it was the worst kept state secret.
The Civil Servants and the
Holocaust
They saw themselves as competent
and inner directed.
They did not belong to the Nazi
Party.
They did not buy the Nazi
Rhetoric.
Most were not Anti-Semites.
They did not read Anti-Semitic
literature either.
They were not robots.
Yet they made the system work.
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