Pleaseread the Learning Resource for Week 4, the Course Resource “Devil’sDecade” and the lectures below, then participate in this discussion. You need to post a direct response
1. Nazism/Stalinism
Althoughsworn enemies, it is common to lump together Germany under Hitler andthe Soviet Union under Stalin as two examples of totalitarianregimes. In analyzing these two phenomena, are their similarities ordifferences more important? Some factors you might want to consider aretheir view of history, their ideological principles, their behaviorwhile in power, their immediate political goals, as well as theirrespective geopolitical situations. Given that we are looking at theSoviet Union in the 1930s in some depth for our research project, maybewe could focus more on Germany.
Note:let us agree from the start that were we to rank all people who haveever lived in terms of their moral worth, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalinwould be way down near the bottom. But I still hope that ourdiscussion can go beyond a debate over whether Hitler or Stalin was thebigger [expletive deleted].
2. The Great Depression
Itis hard to underestimate the disruption caused in Europe by the GreatDepression. To what extent did the policies pursued by variousgovernments of Europe in response to this economic crisis set the stagefor the diplomatic and political crises of the late 1930s?
3. The Paralysis of the West
Historyhas not been kind to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime ministerwho is often held personally responsible for “appeasing” Hitler’sexpansionist policies at the Munich Conference in 1938. But the factorsleading to the Czechoslovak crisis, the topic of conference, did notemerge overnight. Was the disaster at Munich the result ofChamberlain’s naiveté/incompetence/vacillation, or was he dealt a badhand, given the previous failures to confront the Germans after themilitarization of the Rhine, the German intervention in the SpanishCivil War, or the Anschluss? Why did the West not mount a more determined challenge against the Germans in the 1930s?
