HITLER 1935-1936

In 1935, Hitler began to greatly accelerate his foreign policy plans. In early 1935, he took what was probably the most important decision made in German foreign policy up to the beginning of World War II, and that was the total and complete repudiation of the Versailles limitations on German rearmament. In other words, Germany was now openly declaring itself to be free to do whatever it wanted militarily. The Western powers really did not react. Now, there are a number of theories as to why this happened, but it is important understand, as we discussed, the whole evolution of Nazi foreign policy -  the background of this whole situation.

The Soviet Union was involved in a massive rearmament campaign. Also, it was involved in a massive campaign of mass murder of its own citizens. So, it is not unreasonable that nations in Europe did not necessarily see Germany as the number one threat. Russia, under Lenin, had made it very clear that they wanted to invade and conquer Europe. So, it is not an unreasonable assumption to see that people in Europe saw Germany as a counterweight to Russia, and this influenced thinking about that situation. Also in 1935, the Saar returned to Germany in an overwhelming vote in a plebiscite, which showed that Hitler's popularity among the Germans was very high, even outside areas that Germany controlled.

Another event took place in 1935 that would have very serious consequences for the structure of security in Europe, and that was Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia. This led to great tensions between Italy and Britain, and France. As a result, Mussolini became rather isolated in Europe, and as we will see, much more sympathetic to reevaluating positive relations with Germany. Now, the second most important event that took place in 1935 was a very critical part of Hitler's long-term plan, and that was a nonaggression pact with England. Germany and England negotiated what was called the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which was considered a big step forward for Germany's international relations, and set certain limitations on both German and British naval armament campaigns.

Moving on to 1936, the most important event at the beginning of the year was the German reoccupation of the Rhineland, another blatant violation of the Versailles Treaty, and another action which provoked no reaction from the Western powers. In the summer came the Berlin Olympics, which were a huge public relations triumph for Germany. Germany won the Olympics, and Germany presented itself quite successfully to the world as a positive, prosperous society on the mend from World War I, and so on and so forth. Later in the year came an event that was very, very significant in terms of Hitler's plans, which is not that widely known - which is the visit of England's former Prime Minister, Lloyd George, to Germany. This visit was a huge public relations success. Lloyd George was absolutely thrilled with Hitler, and even wrote a very, very favorable article about Hitler when he got back to England.

So, Hitler's policies were going really very well, they were going very well, and things were falling into place. Towards the end of the year, a very significant military agreement was negotiated. In Berlin, the Japanese military attaché was of man by the name of Hiroshi Oshima, probably one of the most important people relating to World War II you might never have heard of. It was due to the positive relations between Hitler's private foreign policy advisor, von Ribbentrop and Oshima that the Nexus of a German-Japanese military agreement evolved.

Now we will discuss in more detail the Eastern aspects of German foreign policy, because Germany from 1933 onward really had only one major key ally, and that was Chiang Kai-shek's China - very interesting situation. And the so-called anti-Comintern pact between Germany and Japan was very unpopular with the German military, but it was signed anyway, and it was another piece in Hitler's master plan for invading and conquering the Soviet Union. Also in 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, which found Germany and Italy on one side working together against the Soviet Union on the other side. So all this laid the groundwork for a rapprochement between Hitler and Mussolini.