1. The Age of Anxiety
Chapter 34

2. Post WWI issues Unemployment for returning soldiers
Chapter 34 Age of Anxiety
Post WWI issues
Unemployment for returning soldiers
Rebuilding war destroyed cities
Repaying war debt
Social unrest
Spread of Communism
Anger from the Treaty of Versailles
Depopulation from war deaths

3. Experimentation in Art
Horrors of war as point of departure
Photography made realism irrelevant
Art as creation, not reproduction
Retreat to abstraction
Les fauves
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Disappearance of distinction between “good” and “bad” art
New Visions in Psychology
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
The life of the subconscious mind
Repression of sexual desires, fears
Interpretation of dreams
Free association
Application to mythology, religion, literature, art, etc.

4. Kellogg-Briand Pact Signed in 1928 by all independent nations
Everyone agreed to disarmament
Outlawed all war but gave no punishment for breaking the pact
League of Nations could not enforce the pact
Japan violated it in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria
France built the Maginot Line- a wall to stop Germany from invading again

5. The Great Depression
Money borrowed from U.S. by Austria and Germany to pay war debts to France and England
France, England dependent on those payments to pay debts owed to U.S. for WWI
October 1929
Overproduction led to price decline
Stock brokers borrowed money to buy stocks
The investors called for the loans to be paid back
The stock brokers couldn’t pay their loan
Banks collapsed because people were unable to repay loans
Banks couldn’t give loans so businesses closed
1 in 3 Americans were unemployed
This bred fear, which allowed strong dictators to rise

6. Agricultural Surpluses and the Great Depression
Single-export countries devastated by declines due to new technology
Reclaimed rubber destroyed rubber-based economies of Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, Ceylon
Overproduction in 1920s
Strongest harvests in 1925, 1929
Wheat at lowest price in 400 years
Farm income dropped
Less demand for manufactured goods
Inventory surpluses

7. Economic Contraction Spreads
Inventory surplus led to layoffs
Layoffs led to decreased demand
Businesses failed
By 1932, U.S. industrial production at half of 1929 levels
Forty-four percent of U.S. banks out of business
Deposits lost
Hardest hit: countries dependent on export of manufactured goods for essentials
Japan
Single-export countries
South America

8. Economic Experimentation
U.S.: “planned scarcity”
Vegetables, fruits, and animals destroyed
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
Failure of laissez-faire, “planned scarcity” approaches
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), economist
Stimulate economy by lowering interest rates
Encouraging investment, employment
The New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
WWII spending

9. The New Deal
1932 President FDR introduced a massive package of social and economic programs to help end the Great Depression
Regulated banks and the stock market
Created jobs in construction
Gave aid to farmers of the dust bowl
Introduced Social security for elderly
Vastly increased the Government’s power in everyday lives of Americans

10. Communism in Russia War Communism, 1918–1922
Bolshevik Revolution, October/November 1917
Soviets took over
Civil war, 1918–1920
Red terror campaign
Execution of tsar
Whites defeated by Red Army in 1920
War Communism, 1918–1922
Rapid collectivization
Confiscations
Massively unpopular, Lenin backtracked in 1921
New Economic Policy (NEP), partial privatization of the economy

11. The New Economic Policy
Temporarily restored market economy; some private enterprise
Allowed peasants to sell surplus at free market prices
Electrification
Establishment of technical schools
Lenin suffered three strokes; died 1924
Bitter power struggle among Bolshevik leaders ensued

12. The Great Purge “Congress of Victors” / “Congress of Victims”
Intra-party civil war
Stalin removed all persons suspected of opposition, 1935–1938
Two-thirds of Central Committee
Half of army’s high ranking officers
Execution or labor camps
1937–1938, more than 1.5 million detained; 681,692 shot

13. Fascism in Italy
Italy was angry they didn’t receive any recognition or land in the Treaty of Versailles
This led to Benito Mussolini rallying the disgruntled veterans and unemployed to create the Black shirt Fascists
The Black Shirts were nothing more than a dangerous gang who bullied Mussolini’s way to the head of the Government
The Fascists marched to Rome in 1922; fearful King Emmanuel gave power to Mussolini
Mussolini took power without war but through intimidation

14. Fascism Characteristics
A term used for an authoritarian government that was not communist
Extreme nationalism
Glorified action, violence, discipline, and blind loyalty
Believed in Social Darwinism
Sworn enemies of communist/socialist
Single party dictatorship, control of the economy, use of spies to enforce terror, strict censorship, brainwash youth, unquestioned obedience to leader

15. Germany’s Many Problems
Treaty of Versailles harshly punished Germany for WWI
No strong leader to guide Germany and fix problems
Multiple political parties made it difficult to form an effective government
Inflation of goods, Great depression, high unemployment

16. Rise of Hitler Hitler was a smooth talker
Germans were angry, unemployed and looking for a change. The Treaty of Versailles heavily punished Germany
Hitler promised to reverse the Treaty of Versailles and restore Germany to a powerful nation
Just like Mussolini in Italy, Hitler bullied his way to power…1933 he was elected Chancellor

17. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party
1921, became chairman of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis)
Attempted to overthrow government in 1923
Wrote popular autobiography Mein Kampf in jail
Capitalized on public discontent with postwar era
War guilt clause
Reparation payments
Inability of major parties to come to consensus
Anti-Semitism

18. How did Hitler happen? Germany was in bad shape; high unemployment
Weak government that couldn’t make decisions to fix Germany’s problems
Hitler promised the world to Germans as long as they supported him
Nazi membership soared when the Great Depression hit
He promised to end the Treaty of Versailles, create jobs, expand the army
Hitler promised to revenge all the “wrongs” done to Germany as well punish those responsible

19. The Racial State Theories of racial superiority, racial purity
Pronatalist propaganda
Policies of eugenics
Compulsory sterilization of 30,000 Germans
Abortions illegal for healthy Germans, mandatory for “hereditary ill” and “racial aliens”
Euthanasia program killed 200,000 people with physical or mental handicaps between 1939 and 1945
Precursor to massacres of Jews, gypsies

20. Anti-Semitism Biological racial theories and religious descent
1935 Nuremburg Laws
Prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews
Removal of Jews from civil service, schools
Liquidation of Jewish-owned businesses or purchase by non-Jews
Kristallnacht: major country-wide pogrom on Jews, November 9–10, 1938
“Night of broken glass”