The Second World War is the greatest destruction in the XX century. The war took the lives of about 17 million soldiers and greater number of civilians, who died as a result of bombings, starvation, and deliberate campaigns of mass murder.
Nowadays, there are many versions about what is really caused World War II. One of the causes of the Second World war was the Prussian militarism – developed in 200 years of history, it was the force that made Germany so powerful, and made it possible for a man like Adolf Hitler to gain total control of it. One more cause of the World War II was exactly Adolf Hitler – madman and political genius, he re-ignited the Prussian militarism after the German defeat in World War I. With this great power under his control, he started the greatest and cruelest war in history, in his planned attempt to vastly expand Germany and to dominate the entire world. The other cause of the war was appeasement – Britain and France could easily stop Hitler when Germany was still weak, but their war-traumatized pacifist desire to totally avoid violence just helped Hitler rebuild Germany’s military strength more rapidly, until it was too late to stop him.
First cause was Prussian militarism started with Friedrich Wilhelm I, “The soldier king” of Prussia, then a small kingdom around Berlin, and developed for over 200 years, making Prussia one of the most militarist countries in history. Prussia’s successful expansionist militarism reached its peak under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, who was its prime minister. Bismarck wanted to unify the many German states to one great country and he achieved that goal in less than decade, with a series of wars band diplomatic maneuvers. After World War II German military was dismantled, the exhausted country was required to pay enormous compensations to the equally exhausted victors. As a result Germany was in a financial crisis and a political chaos. So, Germans wanted to restore its national pride and past greatness, which above all meant to desire to restore Germany’s military strength.
As it was already mentioned the second cause of the war was Adolf Hitler. In 1933 he was elected the Chancellor of German, and quickly abolished democracy. In his authoritative book “The Rise and Fall of Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany”, William L. Shirer writes about Hitler: “………”
Hitler was an exceptional speaker, a demagogue. His speeches on his political audience was almost hypnotic. Hitler managed, with incredible skill and astonishing success, using all the characteristics described above, to arrange and initiate a series of crises on the brink of war, and come out winner with great gains, territorial and other, time and again. And without actually starting a war, which until 1939 he was going to lose because the German military was still too small and ill-equipped to win.
The third cause was appeasement. The result of appeasement policy was that Britain and France did nothing more than diplomatically protest when Hitler violated the peace treaty, started a major rearmament plan, largely increased military manpower. Czechoslovakia is a key example. It had a significant military force, very well equipped. The Czechs wanted to fight for their country and they could do it especially with the help of Britain and France, but they were betrayed by France and Britain which played Hitler’s game. So, Czechs had to give their military equipment to Hitler. This modern equipment, in plenty, was used by the German military in World War II.