1936-3-7 Remilitarisation of the Rhineland

1936-3-7 Remilitarisation of Rhineland by German Army under Adolf Hitler - HiPo > .

Treaty of Versailles vs the rise of Nazism | Professor Dan Stone > .

24-6-17 Life Under Adolf Hitler: The First Years Of Nazi Germany - War Stories > .

23-5-14 French Defence Strategy & Rearmament - strategic autonomy, Hx - Perun > .

22-7-26 France's Hx & Geostrategic Choices in Central Europe - gtbt > .

22-10-6 Rise of Hitler, 1930s, Invasion of Poland | WWII. E 2 (subs) - Katz > .

22-10-3 Comparing Pootin to Hitler | Dream of the Great Past (subs) - Katz > .

Rise of the Nazis - doc | BBC Select > .

On 7 March 1936 the German Army under control of Adolf Hitler violated international agreements by remilitarising the Rhineland.

The Rhineland area of Germany, which lay on the border with France, had been banned from containing armed forces within a 50km-wide strip under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was also unable to maintain any fortifications within the area.

This agreement had later been confirmed by Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann in the Locarno Treaties of 1925. However, by 1936 Hitler had come to power and had begun to break the terms of Versailles by increasing the number of German weapons beyond the agreed limits and reintroducing conscription.

The Western powers had failed to respond to these moves with anything more than diplomatic grumbling, so Hitler felt emboldened to further test the limits of the Versailles settlement. After France and Russia signed the 1935 Franco-Soviet Pact, Hitler chose to send three battalions, or approximately 22,000 German troops, into the Rhineland. They entered on the morning of Saturday 7 March in what he claimed was a defensive move against ‘encirclement’.

Hitler’s own generals were expecting retaliation from France, and had even been ordered to stage an immediate withdrawal if the French army made a move. Despite Hitler’s concerns, however, France refused to move against Germany without the support of Britain. Having been severely weakened by the impact of the Great Depression and distracted by the unfolding Abyssinia Crisis, Britain sympathised to an extent with the German desire to defend its own border and refused to intervene. Hitler therefore successfully remilitarised the area.

●τ 1937

1937-8-13 Battle of Shanghai 1937-11-26 ..

1937-8-13 Battle of Shanghai 1937-11-26

.

Shanghai 1937-8-13: Where WW2 Began | The Battle Of Shanghai | Timeline > .

The Battle of Shanghai (淞滬會戰) was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war, and even regarded by some historians as the first battle of World War 2. After over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea, the battle concluded with a victory for Japan. Both sides accused each other of using chemical weapons during the battle, both without evidence.

●τ 1938

38-3-12 Austrian Crisis ..

38-10-30 War of the Worlds ..

38-11-9 Kristallnacht 38-11-10 ..

38-11-9 Kristallnacht 38-11-10

Holocaust Survivors Remember Kristallnacht > . 

Zones of Statelessness; Kristallnacht; etc | Timothy Snyder (2017) > .
Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) >> .   

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom(s), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night") comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.

Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from foreign journalists working in Germany sent shockwaves around the world. The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday."

The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources puts the figure much higher; when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 suicide deaths. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.