Hitler's foreign policy aims, German rearmament and the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, and the growing tension across Europe by 1938.

What this dot point is asking

This section of the wider world depth study covers the steps by which Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles and raised tension in Europe between 1933 and 1938. You need his foreign policy aims and then the sequence of moves, rearmament, the Rhineland, alliances and the Anschluss, and crucially the analysis of why each unopposed step made the next more likely. The 16-mark essay frequently asks you to rank these steps.

Hitler's foreign policy aims

These aims were not secret: Hitler had set out the core ideas in Mein Kampf in the 1920s. They mattered because each was incompatible with the 1919 settlement. Destroying Versailles meant rearming and reversing the territorial terms; uniting German-speakers meant absorbing Austria and the Sudetenland; Lebensraum meant expansion into Poland and the USSR. Understanding the aims lets you explain why the individual steps below were not random opportunism but a connected programme.

Rearmament and the Rhineland

From 1933 Hitler began secret rearmament, then announced it openly in 1935 with the reintroduction of conscription and the creation of an air force (the Luftwaffe), in clear breach of Versailles. The Western response was weak and even encouraging: in the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935), Britain agreed to let Germany build a navy up to 35 percent of the Royal Navy's size, accepting another breach of the treaty and undermining any common front with France.

The Rhineland is the pivotal moment for analysis. Hitler later admitted the 48 hours after the troops moved in were the most nerve-racking of his life. The fact that the Western powers stood aside taught him that bold action would not be challenged, which directly shaped his willingness to risk the Anschluss two years later.

Alliances and the Anschluss

Hitler strengthened his diplomatic position by ending Germany's isolation. He backed Franco's Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War from 1936, using it to test new weapons such as the dive-bombers that destroyed Guernica, and he built alliances: the Rome-Berlin Axis with Mussolini's Italy (1936) and the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan (1936), aimed against communism. These ties reduced the chance of Italy opposing him, which had blocked an earlier attempt at Anschluss in 1934.

By the end of 1938 the pattern was complete: each unopposed move had broken Versailles, raised tension and increased Hitler's confidence, leaving Europe poised for the Sudetenland crisis and the slide to war covered in the next dot point.

Try this

Q1. State two of Hitler's foreign policy aims. [Knowledge recall]

• Cue. Destroy Versailles, unite German-speakers, gain Lebensraum, or destroy communism (any two).

Q2. Explain why the remilitarisation of the Rhineland was such a gamble for Hitler. [Short explanation]

• Cue. His army was small and ordered to retreat if France resisted; success when France did nothing proved appeasement worked and emboldened his later moves.