Shortly after peace treaties were signed after the end of World War I, many predicted the inevitable subsequent World War. Howard Spodek mentions how the economist John Maynard Keynes feared that the victors demanded too much out of Germany and Austria, causing these countries to eventually retaliate. He questioned the direction of all civilized, advanced nations and feared they might end up destroy each other. World War II did not begin overnight, there were multiple reasons and signs that it was bound to happen.
After being forced to officially assume full responsibility for the damages of the First World War, Germany felt humiliated and resentful. Germany signed the Versailles Treaty, which demanded Germany to pay reparations costs of the war. Germany was stripped from Alsace-Lorraine and other territories. During the worldwide Depression, Germany induced hyperinflation as a way to pay the forced costs of the war, thus impoverishing the middle class and increasing resentment over the Treaty. Germany, which was accustomed to a military monarchy, did not believe that the new government, the Weimar Republic, was strong enough to improve Germany. The people perceived the form of government as a weak democracy, causing the government to lose major support from the citizens.
“Desperate times evoke for desperate responses” (Spodek 686). The rise of Benito Mussolini, who referred himself as “Duce”, in Italy and his philosophy of fascism, is a prime example of this. Fascism, a political philosophy, movement, or government that exalts the nation over democracy and advocates a centralized, autocratic government led by a disciplined party and headed by a dictatorial, charismatic leader, was Mussolini’s ideology (686). Fascism exalted the nation over the individual and governed with tight control of the economy and social life of the nation. It suppressed all opposition and glorified warfare. Although it is somewhat unclear why he had so many...