Imperialism+and+Militarism+ (Efekan,+Irem)

=Imperialism:=

Definition: the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.

Imperialism is known as one of the factors that caused World War II between many countries-mostly European- and it is the war where Germany got defeated.
====In order to look at the causes of World War II related to Imperialism, we have to look at Adolf Hitler, who can be considered as one of the biggest dictators of all time.Adolf Hitler became `fuhrer'-meaning he became the leader- of Germany in 1933. When he came to power, one of his biggest aims was to bring all German speakers in one country and create a Greater Deutchland. In order to do this, he needed to get more land from other countries, which is where Imperialism comes in. Hitler needed to take over other countries in order to create Grand Deutchland.====

In 1938, Adolf Hitler had already taken over 1938 and he was making plans to take over Sudetenland, the Germany-speaking area given to Czechoslovakia in 1920. There were quiete a few reasons why Adolf Hitler decided to take over Czechoslovakia which are listed below: Hitler used many inside sources for the destruction of Czechoslovakia just like he used Austrian Nazis when he was trying to take over Austria. He staged protests and riots so it would give him an excuse for a military take-over. He ordered the Germany army to "smash Czechoslovakia". The Czechs knew that they were not in a position to fight back against the Germans so they decided to ask the French-whom they had an alliance with- to support and protect them.
 * A free and hostile Czechoslovakia would make it impossible for Germany to fight a war in the West.
 * He thought the USSR might be wanting to invade Germany through Czechoslovakia.
 * He hated the Czechs because they were Slavs
 * He wanted their wealth and resources.

However, Chamberlain-the president of Britain at the time- did not want a war breaking out and he felt as though a peaceful solution could be found to this problem. Chamberlain met Hitler on September 15th and when Hitler demanded that he would risk war in order to get Sudetenland back, Chamberlain accepted that areas in which more than half of the population was German should be handed over back to Germany and he persuaded the French and the Czechs to accept this compromise. A week later however, on September 22nd, Chamberlain met Hitler again and Hitler wanted Germany to occupy the entire Sudetenland by September 28th and if his demands were not met, he told Chamberlain that the German army would invade on October 1st. After a meeting in Munich between Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini and the Prime Minister Daladier of France, it was agreed that Sudetenland would be transferred to Germany. Adolf Hitler went on to tae over the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. After hearing this, Britain and France immediately ended their policy of appeasement.

In 1939, Hitler had his eye on Poland. There are many predicted reasons why Hitler decided to take over Poland in 1939. There were 34.8 million people living in Poland at the time and there were over 3 million Jews, and taking over Poland would also minimize the transportation effort for the Germans. Taking over Poland was not very difficult, Poland gave up after 4 weeks of fighting against the Germans in September 1939. Hilter put up concentration camps all of Poland, and the largest one was known as Auschwitz. On June 14th 1940, the first 728 Polish prisoners were brought to Auschwitz along with 1500 Polish Jews. Poland was the only in country in Germany-occupied Europe where hiding Jewish citizens were punished by death. In 1942, Nazis set out to kill all Polish Jews which was not fully succesful.


 * "Destruction of Poland is the first priority. Our most important objective is the total destruction of the living resources of Poland and not to reach a particular line drawn on a map. I shall give the ministry of propaganda some justification, true or not, for our attack on Poland. Nobody in the future will ask the victor if he was truthful or not. If one decides to start and conduct the war, legality does not matter, what matters is victory. Pity and compassion have to be eliminated from your thinking. You have to be brutal because the stronger is always right. Therefore, I have prepared and ordered my SD[Sicherheit Dienst-skull and crossbones] to kill without mercy men, women and children of Polish origin."**
 * -Adolf Hitler**

Before Hitler sent German troops to Poland for the invasion, he had made a secret pact with the Soviet Union called the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939. This alliance between Russia and Germany had to be made in secret because Russia met with Britain and France in April 1939 to form an allience in order to protect Poland from Germany. By April 1939, Germany had already taken over Czechoslovakia and Austria and he had started dropping hints about where he would take over next so Britain and France wanted to support and protect Poland from Germany. There are many guesses on why Russia decided to form an allience with Germany but no one has any certain information on this. After Germany took over Poland in September 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany divided the country between them.

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When Britain and France saw this, they decided that they needed to declare war against Germany in order to stop Hitler from taking over many other countries. Many think that German invasion of Poland was the main reason behind the war and even though there are many other factors that triggered it, the invasion of Poland was the last straw.

Japan also had a lot to do with Imperialism before World War II. The war broke out in East Asia because of the Japanese invasions for resources even before Adolf Hitler became the dictator of Germany. This cartoon is showing the Japanese imperialism in Australia and New Zealand.

=Militarism=

Definition: 1. a strong military spirit or policy.  2. the principle or policy of maintaining a large military establishment.  3. the tendency to regard military efficiency as the supreme-ideal of the state and to subordinate all other interests tothose of the military.  Source: dictionary.reference.com/militarism  As you can see, militarism is when a country is rulled by the military forces. If we look for some examples of militarism from our history, we can see that Germany was a huge militarist country and some even believe that militarism was one of the major causes of World War II.  According to www.2worldwar2.com, one of the 3 major reasons behind World War II was because of German or Prussian Militarism. Prussian Militarism was developed in 200 years and some believe that it was the number one element that made Germany and Hitler so powerful over other countries.  Many years years a go, the Germany we know now was divided between 300 different political-units ruled by absolute princes. Prussia was one of these many countries. If we try to look at the Prussian Militarism we would have to go back to the 1700's when Friedrich Wilhelm also known as "The Soldier King" was ruling the country. So, German or Prussian Militarism was something that existed when Hitler came to power.  If we look at how Militarism is listed in the causes of World War II, it was mainly because Hitler was building up his army and sending his troops to other countries to take over them to gain more power for Germany.  We can also look at Japanese Militarism which was very similar to German Militarism. The Japanese started the war in the East Asia after taking over China even before Hitler became the dictator of Germany.  