We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Das Auswärtige Amt und die deutsche Entscheidung zur Remilitarisierung des Rheinlands.
- Authors
Wolz, Alexander
- Abstract
The reoccupation of the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland on 7 March 1936 was an important turning point in the prehistory of the Second World War. The coup strengthened the National Socialist regime both internally and externally, so that after this point it became impossible to suppress Hitler's will to war and to put the German Reich in its place without the necessity of a war. The exact circumstances of the Rhineland crisis, however, have hitherto remained unclear. Only an analysis of the draft plans, which the German Foreign Office outlined for the Locarno Treaty, reveals the chain of motives which lay at the heart of the crisis. After 1933 the diplomats were at first ready to stick with the Locarno Treaty. But after the German withdrawal from the League of Nations and rumours that England and France had concluded a military alliance, doubts grew whether the Locarno Treaty was still in force legally and politically. When the German attempt to get the other powers to commit to a modification of Locarno failed, the German Foreign Office saw no alternative other than the cancellation of the treaty. While the diplomats were planning a political step, Hitler decided to connect the termination of Locarno with a military operation, and thus turned it into the sort of violent coup which was to become characteristic for National Socialist foreign policy.
- Subjects
GERMANY. Auswartiges Amt; HISTORY of Rhineland, Germany; HISTORY of diplomacy; 20TH century German military history; DIPLOMATIC history; LOCARNO Conference (1925); STRESEMANN, Gustav, 1878-1929; TWENTIETH century
- Publication
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 2015, Vol 63, Issue 4, p487
- ISSN
0042-5702
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/vfzg-2015-0031