What started the World War II?

Answer 1

Here are them in bullet points and if doing an essay you might want to research them a bit more:

LONG TERM CAUSES
1) The Treaty of Versailles - huge discontent, £6 600million pounds reparation as a result of having to accept the War Guilt Clause, loss of economy (loss of colonies) which lead to hyperinflation, harsh conditions

2) All those lead to the rise of Hitler who rode in to power through the discontent and high unemployment

3) The fear of another world war (therefore appeasement was used)

4) The failure of the League of Nations (appeasement) - ie Manchuria and Abyssinian Crisis, the fact that America (a leading power) didn't join, Germany wasn't allowed to join until 1936 nor Russia

5) The Nazi-Soviet Pact


SHORT TERM CAUSES
1) Remilitarisation of the Rhineland

2) Anschluss (the reuniting of Germany and Austria which was forbidden by the treaty)

3) Invading Czechoslovakia (this was the height of appeasment) and this was the start of Germany gaining "Lebensraum" at the expense of non-German people (and therefore not covered by "self-determination")

4) Final spark is the invasion of Poland

CONCLUSION
Many of these extend from the failures of the Treaty of Versailles.

Answer 2

World War II started primarily because the American people were unwilling to join the League of Nations at the end of World War I, thereby removing what would have been that organization's major military power. This led to, or allowed at least, Hitler's rise to power in Germany. There were several points at which he was thoroughly overextended and any kind of a show of force by the League or even just a few of its member nations would have put an end to his plans, but the other European powers continually caved in to him, appeasing him at almost every turn and allowing the territory, manpower and raw materials under his rule to continually increase. Then when the Friendship Pact between Germany and Russia was signed, his back was covered and he could attack, first Poland and then the countries to the west. American isolationism was the main cause.

Answer 3

The reasons go back to world war I, to the humiliation and the unfair heavy financial compensation that Germany had to pay just for losing in a war that was purely imperialistic for all parties. Ofcourse it also has to do with the rise of nationalsozialismus in Germany, but it was also these historical circumstances after world war I that made it possible for the nazis to come up.The act that actually started it was the invasion of Poland by the german army.

Answer 4

The Cause was in part hurt pride and Economy from World War I leading Adolph Hitler who was offering a quick and easy route to regaining Prestige to teh German people. Of course the cause of World War 1 then goes back to Napoleon III and Bismark which then goes back to Napoleon I etc.

Answer 5

Germany invaded Poland, a sovereign nation, on September 1, 1939. That's the short, sweet answer.

There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the actual act of aggression that sparked the war.

Answer 6

World War II Begins
Hitler's Ambitions
Adolf Hitler wanted more land, especially in the east, to expand Germany according to the Nazi policy of lebensraum. Hitler used the harsh limitations that were set against Germany in the Versailles Treaty as a pretext for Germany's right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived. Germany successfully used this reasoning to envelop two entire countries without starting a war.

Austria: On March 13, 1938, Germany took over Austria (termed the Anschluss) - a contingeny specifically disallowed in the Versailles Treaty.
Czechoslovakia: The French and the British handed Germany a large portion of Czechoslovakia at the Munich Conference in September 1938. Hitler had then taken the rest of Czechoslovakia by March 1939.
Why was Germany allowed to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without a fight? The simple reason is that Great Britain and France did not want to repeat the bloodshed of World War I. They believed, wrongly as it turned out, they could avoid another world war by appeasing Hitler with a few concessions (such as Austria and Czechoslovakia). Great Britain and France had not clearly understood that Hitler's goal of land acquisition was much, much larger than any one country.

The Excuse
After having gained both Austria and Czechoslovakia, Hitler was confident that he could again move east, this time acquiring Poland without having to fight Britain and France. (To eliminate the possibility of the Soviet Union fighting if Poland were attacked, Hitler made a pact with the Soviet Union - the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.)

So that Germany did not officially seem the aggressor (which it was), Hitler needed an excuse for entering/attacking Poland. It was Heinrich Himmler who came up with the idea; thus the plan was code named Operation Himmler.

On the night of August 31, 1939, Nazis took an unknown prisoner from one of their concentration camps, dressed him in a Polish uniform, took him to the town of Gleiwitz (on the border of Poland and Germany), and then shot him. The staged scene with the dead prisoner dressed in a Polish uniform was supposed to appear as a Polish attack against a German radio station.
Hitler used the staged attack as the excuse to invade Poland. which was called Blitzkrieg
At 4:45 on the morning of September 1, 1939 (the morning following the staged attack), German troops entered Poland. The sudden, immense attack by the Germans was called a Blitzkrieg ("lightening war").
The German air attack hit so quickly that most of Poland's air force was destroyed while still on the ground. To hinder Polish mobilization, the Germans bombed bridges and roads. Groups of marching soldiers were machine-gunned from the air.

But the Germans did not just aim for soldiers, they also shot at civilians. Groups of fleeing civilians often found themselves under attack. The more confusion and chaos the Germans could create, the slower Poland could mobilize its forces.

The term "Blitzkrieg" ("lightening war") was coined by Western newspapermen to convey the rapid and mechanized German attack on Poland.

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Using 62 divisions, six of which were armored and ten mechanized, the Germans invaded Poland by land. Poland was not defenseless, but they could not compete with Germany's motorized army. With only 40 divisions, none of which were armored, and with nearly their entire air force demolished, the Poles were at a severe disadvantage - Polish cavalry were no match for German tanks.

Declarations of War
On September 1, the beginning of the German attack, Great Britain and France sent Hitler an ultimatum - withdraw German forces from Poland or Great Britain and France would go to war against Germany.
On September 3, with Germany's forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

World War II had begun.

Answer 7

World War I started World War II. The roots of the 1939-45 conflict lie in the aftermath of the 1914-18 conflict.

Following the end of WWI, many Germans felt betrayed by their leaders, in that the armies hadn't actually been defeated on the battlefield, and yet they found themselves surrendering.

France was demanding vast reparations from Germany for the war, the payment of which, had it been stuck to, would have lasted until the 1980s. Previous wars had been waged on the understanding of "to the victor, the spoils". However, the scale of WWI rendered this utterly impossible. Protesting against the reparations, Germans in the industrial Ruhr valley went on strike, backed by the German Weimar Government. France responded by sending troops in to try and force the men to work.
Germany was still paying its striking workers and the result of this was to plunge the country into massive hyperinflation. It was said that people were burning the notes as fuel and spending the coal as money, as the currency had become so devalued.

In 1923, Hitler tried to take control, in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch. For his part in this, Hitler was sent to jail, where he was to write "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle").

In order to remove Germany from the instability and financial strife it was mired in, the US started providing short term rolling loans to Germany. This resulted in a period of relative prosperity, and Hitler was completely unable to gain power, as his far-right shock tactics were simply shut out.
In 1929, the Wall St. Crash resulted in the US recalling all of its loans to Germany, again destabilising the country. Hitler seized this opportunity to claw his way into power. The German people were desperate and Hitler promised them a way out, a way to avenge the shame of the First World War.
In the period from 1933-38, he began re-arming Germany, contrary to the Treaty of Versaille. The Spanish Civil War in 1936-37 gave Germany the opportunity to perfect their Blitzkrieg tactics which would be put into such devastating effect later.

In the meantime, in the Far East, Japan was extending her Empire, by over running easter China and Manchuria. It was Japan's ambitions there which eventually led them to attack Pearl Harbor.

In Europe, Germany annexed Austria and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. In response to this, the then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler to try and ensure that Germany would not go further with her continental ambitions. Despite Churchill's warnings in Parliament, the British Government was confident that Chamberlain would succeed. On his return from Germany, Chamberlain famously proclaimed that he had secured "peace in our time".

However, Hitler had no such intention. Realising that Russia, in a reprisal of its self appointed role as "Mother of the Slavs", might intervene should Germany push further eastwards, Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, ensuring that the two nations would not go to war.

After taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia, Britain warned Germany against invading Poland. Hitler ignored this and duly ordered his forces across the border. Britain responded by declaring war.

The classical start for WWII is Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. However, the underlying causes are far more complicated and stretch back almost 20 years, taking in other military campaigns as well as economic and social factors.

Answer 8

I heard it was an argument over how many telegraph Poles Germany owed its war debt creditors.

Answer 9

The Polish infidels bombed a German radio station on the border....at least from Goebbels perspective.

Answer 10

germany...it lost the 1st and 2nd world war