AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how post-World War I grievances, weak democracies, and economic crisis helped extremist movements grow
- Identify how **Italian fascism** and **German Nazism** rose to power through both violence and legal institutions
- Distinguish between **fascism** and **Nazism**, especially the central role of race in Nazism
- Analyse how the **Great Depression**, **appeasement**, and failed **collective security** helped turn extremism into war
- Trace the step-by-step road from the collapse of Weimar democracy to the invasion of Poland in **1939**
- Use precise evidence, dates, and cause-and-effect reasoning in AP European History answers

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how interwar extremism destabilized Europe and helped produce World War II, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know how the **Treaty of Versailles**, wartime bitterness, and fear of communism weakened support for liberal democracy
- Identify the main features of **fascism** and **Nazism**, and explain how they were similar but not identical
- Understand how **Mussolini** came to power in **1922** and how **Hitler** became chancellor in **January 1933**
- Explain the role of **Weimar weaknesses**, including **Article 48**, hyperinflation, coalition instability, and the **Great Depression**
- Know the significance of the **Reichstag Fire**, **Enabling Act**, **Night of the Long Knives**, and **Nuremberg Laws**
- Explain the difference between **appeasement** and **collective security**
- Trace the diplomatic chain from the **Rhineland** to **Anschluss**, **Munich**, the **Nazi-Soviet Pact**, and the invasion of **Poland**
- Understand why the **Spanish Civil War** mattered as a sign of ideological conflict and democratic weakness

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did extremist movements gain support in Italy and Germany after World War I?
2. How did Hitler use legal and constitutional means, not only violence, to destroy democracy in Germany?
3. What is the difference between appeasement and collective security?
4. Why did Britain and France accept the Munich Agreement in **1938**?
5. Name three steps in the road from Nazi rule to war in Europe by **1939**.

## Introduction

The interwar period, from **1919** to **1939**, was not just a pause between two wars. For AP European History, it is best understood as a tense and unstable era in which the settlement after World War I gradually broke down. Extremist ideologies did not simply appear from nowhere. They grew because millions of Europeans lost faith in parliamentary democracy, feared socialist revolution, resented peace treaties, and suffered severe economic hardship.

This topic matters because AP questions often test **causation**. You need to show not just that fascism and Nazism existed, but how they turned Europe toward war. Extremist ideology mattered, but so did elite miscalculation, weak democratic institutions, the collapse of collective security, and the choice of Britain and France to delay confrontation.

> **Key Term: interwar extremism**
> Political movements between World War I and World War II that rejected liberal democracy and supported authoritarian rule, mass politics, propaganda, and often violence.

### Why democracy weakened after World War I

World War I left Europe politically shaken and economically strained. New democracies appeared after **1918**, but many were fragile from the start. In Germany, the **Weimar Republic** was associated with defeat and the hated **Treaty of Versailles**. In Italy, many people believed victory had brought too little reward. Across Europe, workers, veterans, and the middle class often felt betrayed by old elites and unconvinced by parliamentary governments.

> **Key Term: Weimar Republic**
> Germany’s democratic government established in **1919** after World War I.

A key mistake is to treat fascism as only a product of the **Great Depression**. That is too narrow. In Italy, fascism came to power before **1929**. Its roots were war frustration, nationalist anger, fear of socialism, and elite willingness to support anti-left violence. In Germany, by contrast, the Depression was far more decisive because it wrecked an already weak democracy.

The 1920s gave some temporary hope. Germany stabilized under **Gustav Stresemann**. The **Dawes Plan** in **1924** helped restructure reparations and brought in American loans. The **Locarno Treaties** in **1925** improved relations with France, and Germany entered the **League of Nations** in **1926**. This shows an important AP point: Weimar was not doomed from the first day. It recovered for a time.

Yet this recovery rested on shaky foundations. Germany depended heavily on American credit. When the Wall Street Crash came in **1929**, loans dried up, unemployment rose sharply, and voters moved toward extremes. This is a classic cause-and-effect chain AP examiners like to see:

Versailles resentment + weak coalitions + emergency powers + dependence on U.S. loans + Depression = collapse of democracy.

> **Key Term: Article 48**
> A clause in the Weimar Constitution allowing the president to rule by emergency decree.

Article 48 mattered because it let leaders bypass parliament in a crisis. Under **Heinrich Brüning**, austerity policies were imposed through presidential decree. This deepened economic pain and taught Germans that democracy could be suspended from within.

> **Test Tip:** In SAQs and LEQs, avoid single-cause claims such as “Hitler rose because of Versailles.” Strong answers link **long-term causes** like Versailles and constitutional weakness with **short-term triggers** like the Great Depression.

### How fascism and Nazism rose to power

> **Key Term: fascism**
> An authoritarian, ultranationalist, anti-liberal, and anti-communist ideology that favours dictatorship, political violence, mass mobilization, and a strong state.

In Italy, **Benito Mussolini** founded the Fascist movement after the war. His **Blackshirts** attacked socialists and trade unions, which won him support from landowners, industrialists, and conservatives frightened by strikes and factory occupations in **1919–1920**. This support was crucial. Fascism did not seize power by overwhelming popular revolution. It was helped by elites who thought they could use it.

In **October 1922**, Mussolini staged the **March on Rome**. This was a show of force, but the decisive step was legal: **King Victor Emmanuel III** chose to appoint Mussolini prime minister rather than crush the movement.

> **Key Term: March on Rome**
> The fascist show of force in **1922** that pressured the king to appoint Mussolini prime minister.

This is a major distinction students often miss. Mussolini and Hitler both benefited from conservative elites who believed extremists could be controlled. In Italy that elite was the monarchy and traditional ruling class; in Germany it was men such as **Hindenburg** and **von Papen**.

Mussolini then turned appointment into dictatorship. The **Acerbo Law** of **1923** gave a large parliamentary bonus to the leading party, helping fascists dominate parliament. In **1924**, the murder of Socialist deputy **Giacomo Matteotti** exposed fascist violence, but Mussolini survived the crisis and tightened repression. By **1925–1926**, opposition parties were effectively crushed. The **Lateran Accords** of **1929** with the papacy gave his regime extra legitimacy among Catholics.

German **Nazism** shared fascist hostility to democracy, liberalism, and socialism, but it was more fully racial.

> **Key Term: Nazism**
> The German form of fascism, defined especially by racial ideology, antisemitism, Führer leadership, and expansion for Lebensraum.

Hitler’s movement drew strength from anger at Versailles, the **stab-in-the-back myth**, anti-communism, and antisemitism. The failed **Beer Hall Putsch** of **1923** taught Hitler that he must gain power through legal channels. That lesson shaped the Nazi rise in the early 1930s.

When the Depression hit, Nazi support surged. In **1928** the Nazis were minor; by **1930** they had made major gains, and by **1932** they were the largest party in the Reichstag. But Hitler still did not win an outright democratic mandate for dictatorship. He was appointed chancellor on **30 January 1933** because conservative elites thought they could manage him.

The destruction of Weimar democracy then happened quickly and often legally. After the **Reichstag Fire** on **27 February 1933**, Hitler blamed communists and pushed through an emergency decree suspending civil liberties. The **Enabling Act** of **23 March 1933** let him legislate without the Reichstag.

> **Key Term: Enabling Act**
> The law passed in **March 1933** that allowed Hitler to govern without parliamentary approval.

The Nazis then coordinated all major institutions under party control, a process often called **Gleichschaltung**. Trade unions were destroyed. Other parties were banned. Regional autonomy was weakened. Youth and culture were directed toward Nazi goals.

The **Night of the Long Knives** in **June 1934** removed rivals such as **Ernst Röhm** and reassured the army. When **Hindenburg** died in **August 1934**, Hitler merged offices and became **Führer**.

> **Key Term: Night of the Long Knives**
> The Nazi purge of **30 June–2 July 1934** that killed rivals and secured army support for Hitler.

Nazism also moved rapidly into racial exclusion. The **Nuremberg Laws** of **1935** stripped Jews of citizenship and banned marriage or sexual relations between Jews and “Aryans.” This was not a side issue. It was central to Nazi ideology.

> **Key Term: Nuremberg Laws**
> Racial laws issued in **1935** that excluded Jews from German citizenship and formalized antisemitic discrimination.
>
> **Test Tip:** If an essay asks you to compare Mussolini and Hitler, do not say they were “basically the same.” A higher-level comparison explains that both were authoritarian and anti-democratic, but **Nazism made racial antisemitism and eastern expansion central**, while Italian fascism was initially less focused on race.

### Why extremism led to war

Extremism produced war not only because dictators liked aggression, but because the post-1919 international system failed to stop them. Here the key contrast is between **collective security** and **appeasement**.

> **Key Term: collective security**
> The principle that states should act together to resist aggression against any member of the international order.
>
> **Key Term: appeasement**
> The policy of making concessions to aggressive states in order to avoid war.

The **League of Nations** was supposed to enforce collective security, but it proved weak. Its failures outside Europe mattered inside Europe because they showed aggressors that rules would not be enforced. Japan in **Manchuria** and Italy in **Ethiopia** exposed this weakness. The **Hoare-Laval Pact** especially damaged confidence by suggesting that great powers might reward aggression rather than punish it.

By the mid-1930s, Hitler tested the system step by step. In **1935**, Germany openly rearmed in defiance of Versailles. The same year, Britain signed the **Anglo-German Naval Agreement**, allowing Germany a larger navy than Versailles permitted. This was an early act of appeasement, not just Munich.

In **1936**, Hitler remilitarized the **Rhineland**. This was a major gamble. German troops had orders to retreat if France acted. But France, lacking British backing and facing its own political strains, did nothing. Hitler concluded that the democracies lacked resolve.

Meanwhile, the **Spanish Civil War** from **1936** to **1939** showed Europe’s ideological divide. **Francisco Franco’s** Nationalists received major aid from Germany and Italy. The Soviet Union aided the Republic. Britain and France followed nonintervention, which in practice helped the Nationalists more than the Republic.

The bombing of **Guernica** in **1937** by the German Condor Legion became a symbol of modern terror and a warning of what wider war might bring. The conflict is often called a “dress rehearsal” for World War II because it tested weapons, tactics, and the willingness of democracies to stand aside.

The diplomatic chain after **1936** is essential:

- **Rhineland remilitarized, 1936**
- **Anschluss** with Austria, **March 1938**
- **Sudetenland crisis** and **Munich Agreement**, **September 1938**
- occupation of the rest of **Czechoslovakia**, **March 1939**
- **Nazi-Soviet Pact**, **August 1939**
- invasion of **Poland**, **1 September 1939**
  > **Key Term: Anschluss**
  > The annexation of Austria by Germany in **March 1938**.
  >
  > **Key Term: Munich Agreement**
  > The **1938** settlement in which Britain and France allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

Why did Britain and France appease? Not because they loved fascism. Their reasons were real: trauma from World War I, military unpreparedness, economic weakness, and a belief that some Versailles terms had been too harsh. Some also thought Hitler’s demands might stop after “self-determination” for Germans.

But **March 1939** changed the picture. When Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, it became clear he wanted more than revision of ethnic borders. At that point, Britain and France guaranteed Poland.

The final twist was the **Nazi-Soviet Pact** of **August 1939**. Ideologically, Nazism and Soviet communism were enemies. Politically, however, both states found temporary advantage in a nonaggression agreement. Hitler avoided a two-front war at the start; Stalin gained time and influence in eastern Europe.

> **Key Term: Nazi-Soviet Pact**
> The **August 1939** nonaggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, including secret plans to divide eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

Once Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war. AP exam answers should show that **1939 was the end of a process**, not a sudden accident. Interwar extremism made war likely because dictatorships embraced expansion, democracies hesitated, and the institutions meant to preserve peace proved too weak.

### How to frame this in AP exam answers

For AP Euro, this topic appears often in **SAQs**, **LEQs**, and sometimes **DBQs** through causation or comparison.

A strong thesis usually does three things:

- names more than one cause
- distinguishes long-term from short-term factors
- explains why the causes mattered together

For example, a strong line of reasoning would argue that interwar extremism produced World War II because postwar resentment and economic crisis strengthened anti-democratic movements, while weak institutions, conservative elites, appeasement, and failed collective security allowed those movements to turn revisionism into conquest.

If asked for comparison, organise clearly:

- shared features of fascism and Nazism
- major differences
- why those differences mattered

If asked for causation, build a chain rather than a list:
Versailles and fear of communism weakened democracy; the Depression radicalized voters; elites elevateded extremists; dictators rearmed and expanded; Britain and France yielded; war followed.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The interwar period lasted from **1919** to **1939**
- Fascism in Italy grew from war discontent, fear of socialism, and elite support
- Mussolini became prime minister after the **March on Rome** in **1922**
- Nazism shared fascist authoritarianism but made race and antisemitism central
- The Weimar Republic was weakened by Versailles, coalition instability, **Article 48**, and economic crisis
- The **Great Depression** was the immediate trigger for the Nazi electoral breakthrough
- Hitler became chancellor in **January 1933** and destroyed democracy through the **Reichstag Fire Decree** and **Enabling Act**
- The **Night of the Long Knives** in **1934** secured Hitler’s position with the army
- The **Nuremberg Laws** of **1935** formalized Nazi racial exclusion of Jews
- The League of Nations failed to enforce collective security in the 1930s
- Appeasement included earlier concessions as well as the **Munich Agreement** of **1938**
- The road to war ran through the Rhineland, **Anschluss**, Munich, Czechoslovakia, the **Nazi-Soviet Pact**, and Poland

## Key Terms and Concepts

- interwar extremism
- Weimar Republic
- Article 48
- fascism
- March on Rome
- Nazism
- Enabling Act
- Night of the Long Knives
- Nuremberg Laws
- collective security
- appeasement
- Anschluss
- Munich Agreement
- Nazi-Soviet Pact


Europe During the Interwar Period - Interwar extremism produced World War II