Reasoning Behind Totalitarian Regimes

Countries all across the world created solutions to the economic difficulties of the Great Depression. Totalitarian regimes began to appear as German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese leaders decided that their governments should have more power over their people. Frazzled by the economic hardships, people began to believe that these brutal leaders could improve their lives and save their governments. This is not the case, not only the people of these countries, but also the people of many other countries, were negatively affected by these dictators. Nations such as Poland, China, Czechoslovakia, and the United States had been affected by this and were left to rebuild their countries from the widespread devastation that occurred. There are several reasons behind the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe and Asia in the 1930’s and 1940’s, but for America, they were largely insulated from experiencing this.

As democracies across the world began to collapse after World War I, citizens turned to totalitarian leaders help resolve economic and social issues. One reason why the rise of the totalitarian regime of Germany happened was because of the Great Depression. The German economy was very dependent on the American economy and when the stock market collapsed in October of 1929, the German economy became defenseless. When the Germans were expected to pay off the thousands of loans from America, Germany went from a booming state to state that was barely moving. Within twenty-four hours, the standard of living that many German families enjoyed was destroyed by events that happened in the United States (“Great Depression Begins”). Adolf Hitler craving to get into politics saw that his time has arrived to enter. He originally w...

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...here are many modern examples of intolerance that can be compared to World War II that exist in the world today. Much like Germany, North and South Korea experienced intolerance within their countries. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the world had many ups and downs due to the rise of totalitarian regimes throughout the globe.

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Lapsansky-Werner, Emma J., Roberts, Randy, Levy, Peter B., Taylor, Alan. Prentice Hall United States History: Reconstruction to the Present. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009.

"Nazi Germany." : Ineffective Constitution. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Jan. 2014.

Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 05 Jan. 2014.