Hitler’s Path to WarHistory 323 April 10, 2013

Mussolini promises Italian support for Franco;Hitler sends the “Legion Condor”

Guernica, a Spanish town leveled by German bombers

Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977)Austrian Dictator, 1934-1938

The Anschluss:Germany’s army

marches into Austria,March 1938

Jubilant crowds greet Hitlerin Vienna, Austria

Hitler’s next target: the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia

When Hitler threatens war, British Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain (1869-1940) comes to visit

The Munich Conference: Britain, France, Italy, and Germany

Chamberlain:“Peace in our time”

The Sudetenland, Oct. 1938:

Troops greeted fanatically –Jews and socialists rounded up

A rubber-goods store

after “Aryani-zation”

Anti-Semitic outbursts in Vienna (March 1938):Jews forced to clean

streets by hand

Identity card of a German Jew(ca. 1938)

Polish Jews deported (Oct. 1938)

Ernst vom Rathand his killer,

Herschel Grynszpan(Nov. 7, 1938)

Across Germany, synagogues burnt

to the ground(Nov. 9, 1938)

Kristallnacht in Kassel:The Aftermath(Nov. 10, 1938)

Broken glass (Nov. 10, 1938)

Population in German concentration camps, 1933-39

July 1933 26,700July 1934 8,0001936 5,0001937 8,0001938 24,000

(for a few weeks, 35,000 Jews)1939 22,000 (half criminal, half political)

March 1939:German soldiers seize Prague and the remainder of Bohemia

Danzig in the 1930s:the “Free City” backs ties

with National Socialist Germany

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Aug. 23, 1939)

Sept. 1, 1939: Germany invades PolandSept. 3, 1939: Britain & France declare war on Germany