World War II Forum: Really Brief Answers

Posted by: Canadian () on 2 Oct 2003 at 10:05:00 AM
In-Reply-To: Not on posted by No.9 on 6:33:08 PM 1 Oct 2003

Some very basic points we could probably make: 1939 Europe still bore the Versailles legacy in its political boundaries, particularly Poland with its Free City of Danzig and the "Corridor". Hitler always got whipped into a frenzy over that (not hard to do) mostly because it split off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Also, he had nothing bu contempt for the young republic of Czechoslovakia which was born out of Versailles in recognition of the Czechs and Slovaks long-suffering under the archaic Austrian Hapsburg Empire. It included a slice of German-speaking land called Sudetenland. Another legacy of Versailles, politically, was the creation of the Union of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (really Yugoslavia). The Soviet Union had hungry eyes on the Baltic region and attempted to obtain a sphere of influence there in order to counter the growing strength of Germany. It was also of course politically estranged from the Western Euro powers of Great Britain and France. The role of the United States in 1939 in Europe was proportionately small as its domestic policy was still very much one of isolationism. The greatest legacy of the Second World War was the resultant HUGE influence of American political and economic power in Europe. Now the entire Eastern Front theatre brought the same influence to the Soviet Union. As the Red Army steamroller rolled back the German armies it physically came to occupy most of Eastern Europe - a factor which the US and its allies could not do very much about. Through the infusion of American economic aid after the war under the "Marshall Plan" named after the US Army Chief Of Staff Western Europe swiftly recovered but in 1945 itself much of the Continent was devastated. Germany was split into zones of occupation - the Western Allies amalgamated theirs into West Germany and the Soviet portion became East Germany. This was the powerful political symbolization of the Cold War. I hope these trifles help a little.

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