Tweede Wereldoorlog - Herbewapening

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Tweede Wereld Oorlog - Herbewapening
Why the rearmament is one of the causes of the second world war.
Within three days becoming leader of Germany Hitler told his military commanders that rearming Germany was his first priority. But how come that nobody prevented Hitler exceeding the limit for his army?

After the First World War a peace treaty was drawn up at Versailles, called the Treaty of Versailles. It was made by the ‘Big Tree’: Woodrow Wilson; the American President, David Lloyd George; the British Prime Minister, and George Clemenceau; the French Prime Minister. Nobody from Germany or Austria was allowed to take part in the negotiations. One of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles was that Germany had a limit for its army. They decided that Germany never again was allowed to rearm its army like it did in 1914. So max 100,000 soldiers and only six battleships. Germany was not allowed build any submarines, planes or tanks and to keep any troops in the Rhineland. The Germans were angry with this because they wanted to rebuild their forces.
Immediately there were great problems for people in Germany. After WW1 they had to suffer bad harvests and rapid inflation. To make matters worse, Germany had to pay reparations to the Allies. Soon thousands of Germans were unemployed and terribly poor. At this point Hitler appeared. He took advantage of the trouble the Germans were faced with and said that he would solve problems and provide jobs and food. In 1929 Hitler really became to power, and people began to join the Party. In 1932 Germany had 100,000 soldiers as was agreed with the Treaty of Versailles. In 1939 there were more than one million soldiers marching in Germany. But how come, because didn’t the European Politics decide that Germany should never rearm its army again.
In 1933 the President of Germany, appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Now come back to the rearming. Now Hitler was having a great power, slowly his little army became greater and greater. Hitler’s army became greater without prevented by France and Britain. Hitler no longer bothered to keep rearmament secret. In 1935 he organised a massive rally in Berlin to proclaim Germany’s rearmament plans. Britain even signed an agreement called a Naval agreement with Germany, allowing Germany to increase the size of its navy to 35 percent of the size of the British navy. This was crucial for Hitler because now he knew he could do more and expand his army. It was a kind of green light for Hitler to start building Europe’s greatest army. This caused more confidence by the Germans. In order to go on with the rearming Hitler needed the production of the Rhineland. The only way for Hitler to get the Rhineland was pushing away the Treaty of Versailles and occupy the Rhineland. In 1936 the Germany army marched into the Rhineland. The French did not oppose them. On 3 September 1939 Brittain and France declared war on Germany.