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Remilitarization Of The Rhineland
The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (, ) began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a military response, so they did not act. After 1939, commentators often said that a strong military move in 1936 might have ruined the expansionist plans of Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany. However, recent historiography agrees that both public and elite opinion in Britain and France strongly opposed a military intervention, and neither had an army prepared to move in. After the end of World War I, the Rhineland came under Allied occupation. Under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the German military was forbidden from all territories west of the Rhine or within 50 km east of it. The 1925 Locarno Treaties reaffirmed the then-permanently-demilitarised status of the Rhineland. In 1929, German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhineland
The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, and the German Empire. Term Historically, the term "Rhinelands" refers to a loosely defined region encompassing the land on the banks of the Rhine, which were settled by Ripuarian Franks, Ripuarian and Salian Franks and became part of Frankish Austrasia. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the former stem duchy of Lotharingia, without developing any common political or cultural identity. A "Rhineland" conceptualization can be traced to the period of the Holy Roman Empire from the sixteenth until the eighteenth centuries when the Empire's Imperial Estates (territories) were grouped into regional districts in charge of defense and judicial execution, known as Imperial Circ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Rearmament
German rearmament (''Aufrüstung'', ) was a policy and practice of rearmament carried out by Germany from 1918 to 1939 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which required German disarmament after World War I to prevent it from starting another war. It began on a small, secret, and informal basis shortly after the treaty was signed and was openly and massively expanded after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. Under the Weimar Republic, the early steps towards rearmament began with support for paramilitary groups including the ''Freikorps'' and Citizens' Defense, although the government banned most such groups by 1921. Secret cooperation between the German military and Soviet Russia began in 1921 and grew to include training in and manufacture of weapons banned by the Versailles Treaty. In 1926, military leadership revealed its previously secret programs to the civilian government and with its cooperation embarked on two large-scale rearmament programs designed to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitler's War In The East 1941−1945
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919 he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921 was appointed the leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923 he attempted to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was sentenced t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the fourth Premier of the Soviet Union, premier from 1941 until his death. He initially governed as part of a Collective leadership in the Soviet Union, collective leadership, but Joseph Stalin's rise to power, consolidated power to become an absolute dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he created is known as Stalinism. Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Georgia, Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fascist Italy (1922–1943)
Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Italian Fascists imposed totalitarian rule and crushed political opposition, while simultaneously promoting Modernization theory, economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church. According to historian Stanley G. Payne, "[the] Fascist government passed through several relatively distinct phases". The first phase (1922–1925) was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, albeit with a "legally-organized executive dictatorship". In foreign policy, Mussolini ordered the pacification of Libya against rebels in the Italian colonies of Italian Tripolitania, Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica (eventually unified in Italian Libya), inflicted the Corfu incident, bombing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet Union, it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country by area, extending across Time in Russia, eleven time zones and sharing Geography of the Soviet Union#Borders and neighbors, borders with twelve countries, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, economy were Soviet-type economic planning, highly centralized. As a one-party state go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deuxième Bureau
The ''Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général'' ("Second Bureau of the General Staff") was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany. However the term "''Deuxième Bureau''" (), like "MI6" and "KGB", outlived the original organization as a general label for the country's intelligence service. French military intelligence was composed of two separate bureaux prior to World War II. The ''Premier Bureau'' was charged with informing the high command about the state of French, allied and friendly troops, while the ''Deuxième Bureau'' developed intelligence concerning enemy troops. The ''Deuxième Bureau'' was celebrated for its cryptanalytical work, but it was criticized for its involvement in the Dreyfus affair and its consistent overestimation of German military formations prior to World War II. Its final director was Colonel Louis Rivet. History 19th century On June ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maginot Line
The Maginot Line (; ), named after the Minister of War (France), French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by French Third Republic, France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Nazi Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. It was impervious to most forms of attack; consequently, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries in 1940, passing it to the north. The line, which was supposed to be fully extended further towards the west to avoid such an occurrence, was finally scaled back in response to demands from Belgium. Indeed, Belgium feared it would be sacrificed in the event of another German invasion. The line has since become a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer a false sense of security. Constructed on the French side of its borders with Kingdom of Italy, Italy, Switzerland, Nazi Germany, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium, the line did not extend to the English Channel. French st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hague Conference On Reparations
The Hague conference on reparations of 1929–30 was an international conference on World War I reparations that reviewed and adopted the Young Plan, the final attempt during the Weimar Republic to settle the reparations issue. The conference was held in The Hague, Netherlands in two parts, from 6 to 31 August 1929 and from 3 to 31 January 1930. The first session centred around British demands for better terms and a larger share of the reparations payments for itself. Compromises, mostly on Germany's side, eventually resolved the issues. Outside of the formal Young Plan discussions, France agreed to an early withdrawal of the troops occupying the Rhineland in exchange for German concessions on reparations. The second session, which took place after the Wall Street crash of October 1929, set up the Bank for International Settlements to handle the transfer of payments between countries and settled the remaining Young Plan issues despite sometimes furious objections from Germany' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cordon Sanitaire (international Relations)
A ''cordon sanitaire'' (, French for "sanitary cordon") is the restriction of movement of people into or out of a defined geographic area, such as a community, region, or country. The term originally denoted a barrier used to stop the spread of infectious diseases. The term is also often used metaphorically, in English, to refer to attempts to prevent the spread of an ideology deemed unwanted or dangerous, such as the containment policy adopted by George F. Kennan against the Soviet Union (see ''cordon sanitaire'' in politics). Origin The term ''cordon sanitaire'' dates to 1821, when the Duke Armand of Richelieu deployed French troops to the border between Bourbon France and Spain under the Trienio Liberal to prevent yellow fever from spreading into France. Definition A ''cordon sanitaire'' is generally created around an area experiencing an epidemic or an outbreak of infectious disease, or along the border between two nations. Once the cordon is established, people f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerhard Weinberg
Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg (born 1 January 1928) is a German-born American Diplomatic history, diplomatic and Military History, military historian noted for his studies in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. Weinberg is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a member of the history faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1974. Previously he served on the faculties of the University of Michigan (1959–1974) and the University of Kentucky (1957–1959). Youth and education Weinberg was born in Hanover, Germany, and resided there the first ten years of his life. As Jews living in Nazi Germany, he and his family suffered increasing persecution. They emigrated in 1938, first to the United Kingdom and then in 1941 to New York State. Weinberg became a U.S. citizen, served in the United States Army, U.S. Army during its Occupation of Japan in 1946–1947 and became a corporal. He returned to receive a BA (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diktat
A diktat (, ) is a statute, harsh penalty or settlement imposed upon a defeated party by the victor, or a dogmatic decree. The term has acquired a pejorative sense, to describe a set of rules dictated by a foreign power or an unpopular local power. The phrases "To impose its values" or "give orders" can be synonymous with giving a diktat. An example of firman or Royal Diktat was the one issued by Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1717, exempting the British from the payment of customs duties in Bengal. Origins The term is from German, derived from the Latin past participle ''dictātum''. It arose from Dictatus Papae, which attempts to resolve the struggle of the priesthood and the Empire in the Holy Roman Empire. Historical use The term was first noted in 1922 by Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, regarding the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated Germany. The treaty was referred to as such because the Allies presented it to Germany without allowing any negotiations over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
