Germany Rises - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 123

Germany's territorial expansion began in 1936 when, in defiance of the treaties of 1919,
German troops took control of former German territory along the Rhine. Some European
statesmen were apprehensive, but no military resistance was offered, owing in part to grow-
ing recognition that the terms of surrender in the First World War had been overly harsh.
In 1938 German troops crossed into Austria, dismantled its government, and in a rally in
Vienna, Hitler proclaimed to a rapturous crowd that German-speaking Austria was now a
German province. The new province gave Germany an enormous hoard of gold and a half-
million workers for Germany's busy armaments factories.
The regime was immensely popular and was bent on war, and the political economy
distorted to the extent that by 1938 52 percent of government expenditure and more
than 17 percent of gross national product was being poured into armaments. In the year
of Munich [1939 ] … Germany was spending more on weapons than Britain, France,
and the United States combined. [121]
Germany then demanded annexation of a province in Czechoslovakia whose popula-
tion was largely German speaking. In September 1939 the British Prime Minister visited
Hitler and returned with a promise of “peace in our time”—acceding to German demands
without even consulting the Czechs. With the benefit of hindsight, many now claim that
Hitler could have been stopped had France and England and the rest of Europe been ready
to go to war, first over the Rhine territory and then over Czechoslovakia. But memory of the
First World War and fear of losing another generation of young soldiers haunted Europe. A
few, Winston Churchill foremost among them, were ready to pay the price of standing up
to German aggression, but a fearful public would not be moved. [122]
In March 1939, German armies crushed Czechoslovakia, and on August 31 of that
year, Hitler issued orders to attack Poland. France and Britain then declared war on Ger-
many. World War II had begun.
THE PHOENIX DIES AND IS REBORN
At war's outbreak, more than 110 million people had been called to the colors. Once begun,
the war in Europe dragged on for almost six terrible years. Only three countries escaped its
devastations (Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland). When the war ended on VE Day (May 8,
1945), civilian and military casualties were comprehensible only to those who had exper-
ienced the war firsthand. Millions were homeless. About one-third of a million Brits were
dead, as were a half million French; there were more than four million Poles, more than
eighteen million Russians, and more than four million German losses. [123]