World War One

The entire world was greatly affected by World War One. However, the two countries the most affected were Germany and Italy, because their economic, political, and social conditions were greatly changed. In the aftermath, Hitler and Mussolini both preached that their countries that they would reclaim their greatness. However, as time went on, it became clear that their idealistic dreams were not going to happen, even though they were determined to fight until they did.

The economy of Germany was weakened after World War One, because they were in major debt because of the war guilt clause. They never really paid off the debt, but they did print more money instead of making more jobs. Soon, they had extreme inflation and people would bring wheelbarrows of money to buy bread. They took out American loans, and when the loans stopped, the German economy collapsed. Hitler used their need for security to propel himself to power, and soon became chancellor. Once he was in office, he used his power in Germany to put Germans to work building highways, manufacturing weapons, and serving in the military. As a result, unemployment dropped from six million to one-point-five million.

As a dictator, Hitler wanted more than economic and political power. He also wanted to control every aspect of life, so the Nazi party took full control of the government, and Hitler became a dictator. He dissolved independent labor unions, banned strikes, and gave the government authority over business and labor. He turned the radio, press, painting, and other forms of art and expression into tools for propaganda. All religions were forbidden to criticize any of the actions the government or Nazis took, and schoolchildren were forced to join Hitler Y...

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...le of Italy liked Mussolini, he severely oppressed them. He treated Italy like one giant newspaper, and he was the editor in chief. Also, political opposition was outlawed, and whenever one popped up, they were often framed, exiled, and then killed. He never openly admitted that he had them killed, but everyone suspected. However, he did create more jobs, and his greatest (and most famous) accomplishment was getting the infamously late trains to be on time. But his methods for achieving that enforced peoples fear of him- he threatened to have the engineers killed if their trains didn’t run on time!

After World War One, Italy and Germany suffered from many political, economic, and social changes. Both inflated and unstable economies allowed for Fascist dictators to take control, which ended in people’s fear and the eventual decline and death of the dictators.