It is the inquisitive nature of man that is primary driving force behind the Five W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Though these are all meaningful pursuits in their own right, it is the purpose of this piece to shed light on the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union’s purpose, as well as the most likely causes for its manifestation. Also in question, but not out of the scope of discussion, is whether or not non-aggression pacts truly work to preserve peace, or whether they are unintentionally one of the primary fuel sources that combust to cause war amongst the nations involved. The realist holds the key to this argument. The realist perspective sits alone as being the most concise angle from which to view the events transpired. However, without understanding a bulk of the history, a moderately concise answer cannot be delivered to the reader. During WWI, Russia was in dire straits; they were at war with both neighboring and distant countries while also having internal conflicts. Recognizing the need to appease the German war machine, Lenin felt it essential to have the Russian state bound to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Brest-Litovsk). Essentially ceding territory to Germany, this treaty created a sort of buffer between Germany and Russia, allowing the Russians to focus more on internal affairs. However, in April of 1922, Germany and Russia signed yet another treaty; the Treaty of Rapallo had both Germany and Russia renounce territorial and financial claims against each other. To ensure that relations would remain peaceful for at least the near future, Germany and Russia signed the 1926 Treaty of Berlin. Among other things, the purpose of the Treaty of Berlin was to solidify neutrality, sh... ... middle of paper ... ...nt. Modern History Sourcebook: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939." FORDHAM.EDU. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2011. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: a History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Print. Manchester, William. The Last Lion. London [u.a.: Sphere, 1985. Print. Carr, Edward Hallett. German-Soviet Relations between the Two World Wars, 1919-1939. New York: Arno, 1979. Print. Philbin, Tobias R. The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919-1941. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1994. Print. "Moscow Dossier Embarrasses US and Britain Ahead of Riga Summit | World News | The Guardian." Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. Web. 16 June 2011. .
The Potsdam Conference occurred from July 17th to August 2nd, 1945. The conference took place between US president Harry Truman, Soviet’s Joseph Stain, and England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The major goal of the Potsdam meeting was what would happen with Germany postwar. They wanted to be able to ensure the “eventual reconstruction of Germany’s democracy and peace.” At that time, the Soviet Union occupied a lot of the Eastern part of Germany and wanted a “unified, but unarmed Germany.” However, President Truman did not trust Stalin’s motives. In addition, Truman had found out that they had tested their atomic bomb and it was ready to be used in battle. Truman seeing the immense advantage the US had from a military standpoint knew he had leverage.
Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Nazi Germany: The Face of Tyranny. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century, 2000. Print.
The historical field concerning the Weimar Republic, Germany's parliamentary government during the interwar years, is not only an extremely sophisticated area of study, but an extremely competitive one as well. In the early eighties, a much heated and unprecedented scholarly dispute arose surrounding The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, written by David Abraham - at the time, a fledgling historian and assistant professor at Princeton University. Nazi seizure of power from the Weimar Republic has long intrigued scores of historians. Various models have been constructed in an attempt to explain how an entity such as the Nazi movement came to power over such an industrially, culturally, and socially advanced society such as Germany's (Notes from Jamie van Hook 2/14).
Fritzsche, Peter. Life and Death in the Third Reich. 1st Ed. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP,
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; a History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.
Many historians in the period 1970 – 2000 attempted to write a complete account of the Weimar republic and very few succeeded, however, E.J Feuchtwanger’s ‘From Weimar to Hitler’ published in 1993 is one of the most successful overviews published. Feuchtwanger excellently examines the high politics of the Weimar re...
Mann, Thomas (1929), ‘The struggle against Fascism’ in Anton Kaes, Martín Jay and Edward Dimendberg (eds), The Weimar Republic Sourcebook‘, California: University of California Press
In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a pact, known as the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression pact (Evans; “German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact”; “The Hitler Stalin Pact”: Woolf). This pact was shortly made before the beginning of World War II, which made half of eastern Europe into the territory of both the Soviet and Germans (“German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact”). Although Stalin was trying to make agreements with France and Britain, he chose to compromise with Germany (Woolf). In doing this, Stalin believed this would keep Germany and the Red Army at peace (“German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact”).
An explanation of the Nazi’s rise to power would be inadequate without some attention given to the origins of Hitler, the Nazi party and the world views which would eventually shape the foundatio...
The realism that will be the focus of this paper is that of Kenneth Waltz. Kenneth Waltz presents his theory of realism, within an international system, by offering his central myth that, “Anarchy is the permissive cause of war”. Kenneth Waltz’s central myth helps answer the question as to why war happens in the first place. During the cold war, there was a heightened sense of insecurity between Russia and the United States due to presence of nuclear weapons. The Movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb used cold war tension between the two countries to tell the story of a general who went crazy and decided to unleash his fleet of nuclear bombers onto Russian military bases.
Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.
Kaplan, Marian A., Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999
The stipulations of the Versailles Treaty were aimed to bring down Germany and make it as weak as possible. One of the solutions the the victors came up was to take territory away from Germany, resulting in the country losing more than forty percent of their coal producing areas. They took away the Polish Corridor, parts of East Prussia, parts of Denmark, as well as Lorraine-Alsace (Doc A). Taking away the Polish Corridor put Germany in a difficult position, as it geographically split Germany into two pieces. In addition, the city Danzig was also a very...
Throughout history, negotiation has been a powerful tool used by world leaders to avoid violence and solve conflict. When negotiation succeeds all parties can feel that that have achieved their goals and met their expectations, but when negotiations go awry countries and relationships can be damaged beyond repair. The Munich Agreement of 1938 is a primary example of this type of failure, which was one of the catalysts to the start World War II and Czechoslovakia’s loss of independence. The Czech people were greatly overlooked during this agreement process, which still in some instances affects the country today. The 1930s were a challenging time for Europe and the powers within it due to the aftermath of WWI and the worldwide economic depression. Meanwhile, Fuhrer Hitler and the Nazi party were continuing their domination of Europe and threatening to invade Czechoslovakia, which many felt would most likely incite another World War. To prevent this England, France, Italy and Germany entered into an agreement, which would allow Germany to seize control of Sudetenland and is today known as the ‘Munich Pact’. Sudetenland had a large German population and its borders were in strategically strong areas for the German military. For negotiations to be successful there are many components that one must be aware of such as personalities of all parties, end goals of each person and the history from the country. England led the process with an appeasement policy as an attempt to mollify Hitler and the Nazi party and prevent war, which this pact did not. The Munich Pact is a perfect example of how negotiation can fail when all of the pieces do not fall correctly into place.
Germany’s attempted at a democratic republic is often viewed as a little more than a prelude to the Third Reich . Before one examines the Third Reich and the collapse of the Weimar Republic, first one must look how the Weimar was created. The beginning of the Republic can be traced back to 1914 with the total war occurring or World War I,