Nazi foreign policy 1933 to 1939, including withdrawal from the League, conscription and rearmament, the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the Munich Agreement, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and the invasion of Poland

Needs a thesis, developed paragraphs, dated evidence, and historiography.

Thesis

Nazi foreign policy succeeded by combining tactical patience (1933 to 1935), bold gambles (Rhineland 1936), and exploitation of appeasement (1938 to 1939). Success rested on Allied weakness as much as on Hitler's coherence; success ended at Prague.

Tactical patience 1933-1935

Germany withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference and the League (14 October 1933). The Polish Non-Aggression Pact (26 January 1934) bought eastern peace. Conscription was reintroduced (16 March 1935). The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (18 June 1935) authorised a 35 per cent fleet.

The Rhineland

German troops entered the demilitarised zone on 7 March 1936. The General Staff had ordered withdrawal if France resisted; France did not. Hitler later called it "the most nerve-wracking 48 hours of my life."

Axis and Spanish Civil War

The Rome-Berlin Axis was announced 1 November 1936. The Condor Legion bombed Guernica on 26 April 1937. The Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan (25 November 1936) was joined by Italy in 1937.

Anschluss and Munich

The Hossbach Memorandum (5 November 1937) outlined war by 1943 to 1945. The Anschluss (12 March 1938) annexed Austria. The Munich Agreement (29-30 September 1938) handed Germany the Sudetenland; Chamberlain proclaimed "peace for our time." Skoda works and 35 Czech divisions were stripped.

End of appeasement

The Prague occupation (15 March 1939) turned British opinion. The British guarantee of Poland (31 March), the Pact of Steel (22 May), and the Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939) prepared the invasion of Poland on 1 September.

Historiography

Overy (1987) treats foreign policy as ideologically driven from the start. Taylor (1961) treated Hitler as opportunist; the view is largely rejected. Hildebrand and Hillgruber developed the "Stufenplan" thesis.

Conclusion

Tactical skill, ideological coherence, and Allied weakness combined.

A 6-mark "why" needs three motives with evidence.

Strategic need to avoid a two-front war

The British guarantee of Poland (31 March 1939) and the slow Anglo-Soviet talks of summer 1939 made a war over Poland a likely two-front war. The Pact (23 August 1939, signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov) ensured the Soviets would not intervene in the west.

Operational requirements for Barbarossa

Hitler always intended a war with the USSR for Lebensraum, but not yet. The Pact bought time to defeat France and Britain first. Hitler told his generals on 22 August 1939 that "everything I have done is directed against Russia."

Tactical benefits

Secret protocols partitioned Eastern Europe into spheres of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Finland, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia to the USSR; western Poland and Lithuania to Germany. Soviet supplies of grain, oil, and raw materials would help Germany evade an Allied blockade.

Stalin's logic

From Stalin's side, Munich (September 1938) had shown the west would not stand with him against Germany; the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks of July to August 1939 stalled over Polish refusal to accept Red Army transit. The Pact bought time to rearm after the Purges.

Markers reward the 23 August 1939 date, Ribbentrop and Molotov, the secret protocols, and the two-front war logic.

A 3-mark "outline" wants three distinct, correctly dated steps.

Leaving the disarmament framework

Germany withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations on 14 October 1933, ending the pretence of negotiated equality.

Conscription and the Luftwaffe

Conscription was reintroduced on 16 March 1935 and the Luftwaffe announced on 9 March 1935 - both open breaches of the disarmament clauses.

The Anglo-German Naval Agreement

On 18 June 1935 Britain sanctioned a German fleet of 35 per cent of British tonnage, legitimising rearmament at sea.

Marking criteria

1 mark each for three distinct, correctly dated steps; do not simply assert "Hitler rearmed" without naming the measures.

A 4-mark "explain" needs a cause-and-effect chain with specific detail.

The act

Around 22,000 German troops entered the demilitarised Rhineland on 7 March 1936, with orders to withdraw if France resisted militarily.

The gamble

It was not risk-free: the General Staff feared a French response, and Hitler later called it "the most nerve-wracking 48 hours of my life." France, paralysed and without British backing, did not move.

The consequences

The Locarno Treaties were destroyed, Germany's western border was secured (the West Wall followed from 1938), and Hitler was vindicated against his cautious generals - emboldening the bolder gambles of 1938.

Marking criteria

1 mark for the dated act and numbers; 1 mark for the conditional withdrawal order; 1 mark for the Allied failure to act; 1 mark for linking the success to later aggression.

A 5-mark "explain ... using the source" wants the source decoded, then linked to own knowledge.

Decode the source

Source A is the Hossbach Memorandum (Colonel Friedrich Hossbach's notes of Hitler's 5 November 1937 address). It reveals that the public diplomacy of "self-determination" masked a programme of expansion by force: Lebensraum, the absorption of Austria and Czechoslovakia, and a war timetable of 1943 to 1945.

Apply own knowledge

The aims it records were realised faster than the timetable: the Anschluss (12 March 1938) and the Sudetenland at Munich (29 to 30 September 1938) annexed exactly the targets named, and the Prague occupation (15 March 1939) confirmed that "self-determination" was a pretext, not a limit.

The historiographical weight

Intentionalists (Hildebrand, Weinberg) treat Hossbach as proof of a premeditated programme; structuralists (Mommsen) read it as one improvised statement among many. Either way it shows expansion and Lebensraum, not mere Versailles revision, as the goal.

Marking criteria

1 mark for identifying the Hossbach Memorandum and its date; 1-2 marks for reading off the aims (Lebensraum, Austria/Czechoslovakia, war by 1943 to 1945); 1 mark for corroborating own knowledge (Anschluss, Munich, Prague); 1 mark for noting the source's contested status.

A 6-mark "assess the usefulness" rewards origin/perspective plus own knowledge, ending in a judgement.

Origin and perspective

Source B is a contemporary British cartoon (an owned paraphrase of David Low's "Stepping Stones to Glory" type, 1936), produced for a British readership. Its perspective is critical of appeasement: it presents each German move as an ascending "step" that the western powers passively permit.

What it is useful for

It is strong evidence of informed contemporary opinion that appeasement was emboldening Hitler. It correctly sequences the gambles - rearmament (1935), the Rhineland (7 March 1936) - and even anticipates the eastern crises (Danzig). It captures the mood that the west would not act, which the record bears out: France did not resist in the Rhineland, and Munich (1938) conceded the Sudetenland.

Limitations

As a single satirical cartoon it simplifies: it implies inevitability and Allied cowardice, understating French military paralysis, the trauma of WWI, and the genuine belief that grievances were legitimate. It is opinion, not analysis, and predates the key concessions of 1938.

Judgement

Highly useful as evidence of contemporary criticism of appeasement and of how Hitler's gambles were read at the time, but it must be corroborated with the diplomatic record and weighed as persuasion rather than proof.

Marking criteria

1 mark for origin/perspective; 1-2 marks for usefulness anchored in own knowledge (dated gambles, the appeasement record); 1-2 marks for limitations; 1 mark for a judgement on usefulness.

A 6-mark "why" wants three developed reasons with dated evidence.

It removed the two-front threat

The British guarantee of Poland (31 March 1939) made a war over Poland likely to be a two-front war. The Pact (signed in Moscow by Ribbentrop and Molotov) guaranteed Soviet neutrality, freeing Hitler to attack Poland and then the west.

The secret protocols made invasion practical

They partitioned Eastern Europe - eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Bessarabia to the USSR; western Poland and Lithuania to Germany - so the two powers could carve up Poland without clashing. Soviet grain and oil would also help Germany evade an Allied blockade.

It destroyed Allied deterrence

The collapse of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks (which stalled over Polish refusal of Red Army transit) left Britain and France unable to threaten Germany from the east. Hitler told his generals on 22 August that the path was now clear.

The outcome

Nine days later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland; the USSR invaded the east on 17 September.

Marking criteria

1-2 marks for the two-front logic; 1-2 marks for the secret protocols and economic benefit; 1 mark for the collapse of Allied deterrence; 1 mark for linking the Pact directly to the 1 September invasion.

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses the "to what extent" comparison directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

• Thesis. Nazi foreign policy was driven by a consistent ideological core - revision of Versailles, Volksdeutsche unification and, above all, Lebensraum - but Hitler pursued it through opportunistic timing and improvised method. The aims were programmatic; the tactics were opportunist. The intentionalist case is strong on ends, the structuralist case on means.
• Argument 1 - The consistent ideological programme (the intentionalist case). The aims were fixed early and pursued in sequence: Versailles revision (League exit 1933, conscription 1935), Volksdeutsche unification (Anschluss 1938, Sudetenland 1938), and Lebensraum in the east (Hossbach 1937; the drive on Poland and the USSR). Evidence: Mein Kampf (1925-1926) and the Second Book; the Hossbach Memorandum's war timetable; the targets named in 1937 were annexed by 1939. Hildebrand and Hillgruber's "Stufenplan" reads this as a staged programme.
• Argument 2 - The opportunism of method and timing (the structuralist case). The execution was reactive and improvised: the Rhineland gamble (1936) was conditional on French inaction; the Anschluss was triggered by Schuschnigg's plebiscite, not a fixed schedule; the Nazi-Soviet Pact reversed years of anti-Bolshevik rhetoric for tactical advantage. Evidence: the conditional withdrawal order in 1936; the abrupt timetable changes. A.J.P. Taylor pressed this into a claim that Hitler was merely an opportunist statesman.
• Argument 3 - Resolving the tension. The two are not exclusive: a fixed ideological destination was reached by opportunist exploitation of Allied weakness. Appeasement (the Naval Agreement 1935, inaction in the Rhineland, Munich 1938) supplied the openings; ideology supplied the direction. Prague (March 1939), taking non-German lands, shows the programme overriding the "self-determination" pretext.
• Historiography. Klaus Hildebrand (intentionalist, "Stufenplan") and Gerhard Weinberg (archival, intentionalist) stress a premeditated ideological programme; Hans Mommsen (structuralist) stresses "cumulative radicalisation" of a chaotic polycratic state with a "weak dictator"; A.J.P. Taylor (1961) treats Hitler as an opportunist - a view largely rejected; Richard Overy offers the modern synthesis that ideology drove policy from the start while method remained flexible.
• Judgement. The aims were a consistent ideological programme; the methods were opportunist. Weighed together, ideology is the better explanation of direction (Hildebrand, Overy), with opportunism explaining the timing - so "to a large extent" programmatic, but realised through improvisation.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 3)

The sharpest test of whether ideology or opportunism governed Nazi foreign policy is the occupation of Prague on 15 March 1939, because here the two finally part company. Until Prague, every German move could be defended as the revision of Versailles or the gathering of ethnic Germans into the Reich - the Rhineland was "their own back garden," the Anschluss united Germans with Germans, and even the Sudetenland at Munich (29 to 30 September 1938) was justified as self-determination, which is precisely why Chamberlain could believe in "peace for our time." The seizure of Bohemia and Moravia, by contrast, absorbed millions of non-Germans and exposed the "self-determination" formula as a pretext rather than a principle. As Richard Overy argues against A.J.P. Taylor, this is the point at which the opportunist reading breaks down: Hitler took the Czech lands not because an opportunity demanded it but because the ideological programme - expansion eastward towards Lebensraum - required it, even at the cost of the appeasement that had served him so well. Opportunism explains how Hitler advanced; only ideology explains where he was going.

Marker's note. A band-6 response keeps "to what extent" in view throughout - weighing programme against improvisation rather than narrating the events - and anchors every claim in dated evidence (1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1939). It sets historians in genuine tension (Hildebrand/Weinberg intentionalism vs Mommsen's structuralism, with Taylor as the rejected opportunist pole and Overy as synthesis) and reaches a graded judgement. Telling the story of 1933 to 1939 without arguing the aims-versus-methods question caps the response in the middle bands.

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that ranks appeasement against the other factors and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

• Thesis. Appeasement was a necessary condition of Nazi success but not its driving force: Allied weakness opened the doors, but it was Hitler's ideological purpose and tactical nerve that walked through them. Appeasement explains why the gambles succeeded; ideology explains why they were attempted.
• Argument 1 - Appeasement as the enabling factor. British and French acquiescence repeatedly converted German gambles into victories: the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (18 June 1935) legitimised rearmament; France's inaction let three divisions hold the Rhineland (7 March 1936); Munich (1938) handed over the Sudetenland without a war. Without these choices the gambles could have failed.
• Argument 2 - The limits of appeasement as an explanation. Appeasement is a story about Allied choices, not German aims; it cannot explain why Hitler pushed at all. The aims came from ideology - the Hossbach Memorandum (5 November 1937) set out Lebensraum and a war timetable before the major concessions. Appeasement also had limits: Prague (15 March 1939) ended it, producing the British guarantee of Poland.
• Argument 3 - The decisive interaction. Success required both: a passive west and a determined, ideologically driven aggressor exploiting it. The Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939) shows Hitler manufacturing his own opportunity once appeasement collapsed, rather than waiting on Allied weakness.
• Historiography. A.J.P. Taylor (1961) controversially shifted blame towards Allied blunders and appeasement, casting Hitler as an opportunist exploiting their errors; Richard Overy and Gerhard Weinberg reply that the ideological drive was primary and consistent; Klaus Hildebrand's "Stufenplan" makes the programme, not Allied weakness, the motor. Donald Cameron Watt (How War Came, 1989) details how the 1938-1939 diplomacy unfolded.
• Judgement. Appeasement was the indispensable opportunity but not the cause: it ranks below ideology and Hitler's tactical exploitation in explaining the success. Necessary, not sufficient.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 1)

Appeasement mattered most because it repeatedly turned reckless gambles into bloodless triumphs that a firmer response would have reversed. The clearest case is the Rhineland: on 7 March 1936 only around 22,000 German troops entered the demilitarised zone, under explicit orders to withdraw if France resisted, and Hitler himself called it "the most nerve-wracking 48 hours of my life." A French advance, which a militarily superior France could have mounted, would have humiliated Hitler and strengthened his cautious generals. Instead France, paralysed and without British support - the British dismissing the move as Germans going "into their own back garden" - did nothing, and the gamble paid off, destroying Locarno and emboldening the larger gambles to come. The same pattern recurred at Munich in September 1938, where Chamberlain and Daladier conceded the Sudetenland, with its 3.5 million Germans and Czech fortifications, rather than risk war. As A.J.P. Taylor provocatively argued, Allied miscalculation was woven through every German success; yet, as Overy insists, appeasement only ever supplied the opening - the impulse to exploit it came from Hitler.

Marker's note. A band-6 response ranks appeasement against ideology and tactics rather than just describing the concessions, sustains a judgement (necessary but not sufficient), and anchors claims in dated specifics (1935, 1936, 1938, 1939). It uses Taylor and Overy in genuine tension over where causal weight lies. Narrating the concessions without weighing their causal role against German aims caps the response in the middle bands.