This significance covers ⭐ Why Does This Matter? within Hitler's Foreign Policy for GCSE History. Revise Hitler's Foreign Policy in Conflict and Tension 1918-1939 for GCSE History with 8 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 5 of 13 in this topic. Use this significance to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
⭐ Why Does This Matter?
Short-term: Hitler's systematic foreign policy — rearmament (1935), Rhineland (1936), Anschluss (1938), Sudetenland (1938) — transformed Germany from a disarmed, treaty-bound state to the dominant military power in Europe in just six years. Each success was permitted by appeasement, making the next demand bolder.
Long-term: Hitler's three aims — reversing Versailles, creating Greater Germany, Lebensraum — were not equal. The first two could theoretically have been satisfied without world war. Lebensraum could not: it required conquering Poland and then the Soviet Union. This distinction explains why the war of 1939 was different from the crises of 1936 and 1938 — it was not a negotiated revision of Versailles but a racial war of conquest that ended only with unconditional German surrender in 1945.
Turning point? The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (March 1936) was arguably the decisive turning point — the moment when military resistance would have been most effective and Hitler's orders were to retreat if France resisted. France's inaction convinced Hitler that the democracies would never fight, making the subsequent escalation to war far more likely.
Practice questions for Hitler's Foreign Policy
What did Hitler mean by 'Lebensraum'?
In which year did Hitler remilitarise the Rhineland?