DBQ: How did the “War to End All Wars” lead to World War II?

Overview: World War I, also known as the “Great War” and the “War to End All Wars,” brought the world’s superpowers together in a colossal power struggle for the first time in modern history. After 4 years, with many casualties and damages suffered by all involved, the war ended decisively with safeguards to prevent future global wars. Just 20 years later, however, this “global peace” was shattered with the onset of World War II. Your job is to look at both World Wars, comparing and contrasting the two, and determining how these wars are connected.

Hook Exercise: Part One: Individually or with a partner, write down the things you know about Adolf Hitler, describing him in 3-4 sentences. Then list 5 characteristics of Adolf Hitler.

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Part Two: Chances are your classmates wrote negative descriptions of Germany’s leader during WWII. Discuss these responses as a class. Then discuss the reasons why so many people may have opted to support such a leader.

Document A Source: 64 Congress, 2 Session, Senate Document No. 685: "A League for Peace."

Excerpted from Woodrow Wilson’s Peace Without Victory Speech

“…it must be a peace without victory…Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last; only a peace, the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance.”

Document B Source: From The Treaty of Versailles and After: Annotations of the Text of the Treaty (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1944)

Article 42. Germany is forbidden to maintain or construct any fortifications either on the left bank of the Rhine or on the right bank to the west of a line drawn 50 kilometers to the East of the Rhine.

Article 45. As compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the north of France and as part payment towards the total reparation due from Germany for the damage resulting from the war, Germany cedes to France in full and absolute possession, with exclusive right of exploitation, unencumbered and free from all debts and charges of any kind, the coal mines situated in the Saar Basin…

Article 119. Germany renounces in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions.

Article 159. The German military forces shall be demobilized and reduced…

Article 231. The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an Allied or Associated Power against Germany.

Document C

Document D

Figure  1-­‐“Our  last  hope:  Hitler”  

Figure  2-­‐“We  want  work  and  bread!    Vote  Hitler”  

Figure  3-­‐“Germany’s  Liberation”  

Figure  4-­‐“We  will  take  the  fate  of  our  nation  into  our  own  hands!    Hitler  for  President”  

Document E Underlying Causes of WWI

Above Image: Young Hitler in 1914 displaying his nationalist pride in Munich as Germans celebrate the beginning of WWI

Underlying Causes of WWII

     

 

Above Image: “Germany Lives!”