Compare and contrast Germany's actions in the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
Answer (2)
Nazi Germany Remilitarized Rhineland violating the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The remilitarization changed the balance of power in Europe from France towards Germany, and made it possible for Germany to pursue a policy of aggression in Eastern Europe. Germany also occupied Czechoslovakia under the pretext that this action was the alleged privations suffered by the ethnic German population living in those regions. The Nazis aimed to re-unite all Germans either born or living outside of the Reich to create an "all-German Reich". Hitler had written in his 1925 autobiography (Mein Kampf) that he would create a union between his birth country Austria and Germany by any means possible ("German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland." "People of the same blood should be in the same Reich.").
Germany's actions in the Rhineland (1936), Austria (1938), and Czechoslovakia (1938-1939) illustrate a pattern of aggression fueled by Hitler's expansionist policies. Each action violated treaties and revealed the ineffectiveness of appeasement strategies employed by other European powers. Ultimately, these actions contributed to the outbreak of World War II.
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