explain the economic conditions of europe in 1932
Answers
The European interwar economy (the period between the First and Second World War, also known as the interbellum) began when the countries in Western Europe were struggling to recover from the devastation caused by the First World War, while also dealing with economic depression and the rise of fascism. Economic prosperity in the United States during the first half of the period was brought to an end with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.[1]
In 1919 a new democracy was formed in a German town known as the Weimar Republic. This new government was thought to be doomed from the start and after the hyperinflation of 1923, “money became so worthless that children could play with stacks of it.”[2] Despite civil unrest in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe, there was still hope that world peace could be maintained. This hope was all but lost after Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933.[3]
The years following consisted of a string of international crises, including: Hitler's disregard of the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing compulsory military service in Germany and sending troops to demilitarized zones in Rhineland, Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in October, 1935, the Spanish Civil War in the summer of 1936, and Japan’s invasion of northern China in 1936. These events climaxed with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, as Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later effectively ending the interwar period.