The Rise of Evil

The seeds of World War II were planted at the peace conference that ended World War I. The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany — the 'war guilt' clause forced Germany to accept sole responsibility for the war, pay $33 billion in reparations, and lose 13% of its territory and 10% of its population.

The German economy staggered through the 1920s under these burdens, then collapsed entirely in the Great Depression after 1929.

Into this humiliation stepped Adolf Hitler. A decorated but failed WWI corporal, Hitler channeled Germany's resentment into a political movement built on racial hatred, national pride, and promises of restored greatness. He blamed Germany's defeat not on military failure but on betrayal by Jews and socialists — the 'stab in the back' myth.

In January 1933, President Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor. Within eighteen months, Hitler had dismantled German democracy.

The Western democracies watched and appeased. When Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, reoccupied Austria in 1938, and demanded the Czech Sudetenland, Britain and France gave way at every step — desperate to avoid another war after the trauma of 1914-18.

At Munich in September 1938, Chamberlain returned from negotiations with Hitler waving a piece of paper and promising 'peace for our time.' Six months later, Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

In Asia, Japan had been building an empire since the 1930s, invading Manchuria in 1931 and launching full-scale war against China in 1937 — with massacres at Nanjing killing an estimated 200,000 civilians. Italy under Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia. The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis formed.

Franco won the Spanish Civil War with German and Italian assistance. The world watched, protested, and did nothing decisive.

On August 23, 1939, the world learned with shock that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union — ideological opposites — had signed a non-aggression pact. Its secret protocols divided Eastern Europe between them. Eight days later, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war. The Second World War had begun.