Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg

By Jean Sénat Fleury

All witnesses agreed that the remains of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were taken to the garden of the Chancellery, sprinkled with essences, and were incinerated. To question Hitler’s suicide is not the subject of debate in this book. I assert as a lawyer, coupled with my experience as a career judge, to say that the investigation on the crimes committed by the Nazis during the Nuremberg trial, which resulted in the judgment of twenty-four senior Nazi officers before the military tribunal of Nuremberg, did not meet all elements of evidence of Hitler’s death. Even in the case of a cripple who doubted in the death of the German dictator—we had enough at the time of the trial—Hitler should be tried in absentia at Nuremberg.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984553430

Jean Sénat Fleury

Career judge, teacher, writer, Jean Sénat Fleury was born in Haiti and currently lives in Boston. A former intern at the National School of Magistrates (Paris and Bordeaux), he has held various positions within the Haitian judiciary. He was in turn a trainer at the National Police Academy (1995–1996) and director of studies at the School of Magistrates of Pétion-Ville (2000–2004). Author of the book The Stamp Trial, he wrote several other historical works such as: Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Words from Beyond the Grave, Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking, Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg, The Trial of Osama Bin Laden, Hirohito: Guilty or Innocent: The Trial of the Emperor, and Adolf Hitler and Hirohito: On Trials. Mr. Fleury had emigrated to the United States in 2007. He earned a master’s degree in public administration and a second in political science from Suffolk University. His new book, Japan’s Empire Disaster provides an understanding of the expansionist policy practiced by Japan during the end of the nineteenth and the first period of the twentieth century.

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Copyright © 2018 by JEAN SÉNAT FLEURY.

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Rev. date: 11/30/2018

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

Comment

Prologue

THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

One   Reflection on the Nuremberg Trial

Two   The Road To Power

Three   The Road To War

Four   The Political and Economic Context of the Second World War

Five   The Decline

Six   Report on the Second World War

Seven   A History of the Holocaust

Eight   The Nuremberg International Military Tribunal

Nine   Actors in the Trial

Ten   Some Elements of the Trial

Eleven   The Benefits of the Trial

Twelve   Overview of the Trial

ANALYSIS OF THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

Thirteen   The Context of the Trial

Fourteen   Relation between the Red Cross and the Nazis

Fifteen   Relation between the Catholic Church and the Nazis

Sixteen   Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin

Seventeen   Critics of the Trial

THE TRIAL

Eighteen   Opening Statement At The Hearing

Nineteen   First Statement For The Prosecution

Twenty   Nazi Terrors In The Conquered Lands

Twenty-One   The Final Solution

Twenty-Two   The Capitulation

Twenty-Three   The Resumption Of The Hearing

Twenty-Four   Second Statements For The Prosecution

Twenty-Five   Collectives Sanctions

Twenty-Six   The Verdict

ANNEXE

Twenty-Seven   Opening Statement Before The International Military Tribunal

RABOTEAU

Twenty-Eight   The Raboteau Case

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

About the Author

DEDICATION

I write this book in memory of the victims of the Second World War with the hope that the narrative will open the eyes of the present and future generations on the atrocities of war and raise awareness of our leaders to value peace in the w orld.

To a well-known rescuer, Oskar Schindler, and to Princess Alice of Battenberg in Greece, who was the wife of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, mother of Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh, and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Princess Alice stayed in occupied Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognized as righteous among the nations at Yad Vashem.

To various organizations that attempted to facilitate the emigration of the Jews and non-Jews persecuted as Jews in Europe. Among the most active were the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, HICEM, the Central British Fund for German Jewry, the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews), which represented German Jewry, and other non-Jewish groups such as the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees (Jewish and Other) coming from Germany and the American Friends Service Committee.

Finally, in memory of the 26,973 men and women– righteous among the nations from fifty-one countries– who have been recognized as rescuers by Yad Vashem’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel.

This book is also dedicated to all men and women who served in the liberation army during the Second World War and who carried with courage and determination the cause to liberate the world from the clutches of Hitler.

Revisiting history: it is not the privilege of a few or a negotiable right poorly granted or questioned by the State. It is, first of all, a necessity. It is also the inescapable current brought by the evolutionary points of view of the successive generations. It is, at the same time, an indispensable step if one wants to keep alive the memory of the Peoples.

• The Trial of Marshal Petain

As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I have no rancor or hatred against them. They are for me only entities, spirits of social malfeasance. And the act I am doing here is only a revolutionary way to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.

I have only one passion, that of light, in the name of humanity that has suffered so much and who has the right to happiness. My fiery protest is only the cry of my soul. So let’s dare translate me into the Assize Court and let the investigation take place! I wait.

• I accuse, Émile Zola

A thousand years will pass, and the guilt of Germany will not be erased.

Hans Frank, governor general of Poland, before he was hanged at Nuremberg.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.

George Santayana

I and my wife choose death to escape the shame of the deposition or surrender. Our desire is to be burned immediately on the places where I have provided most of my daily work during the twelve years spent in the service of my people.

–Excerpt from Adolf Hitler’s private will

FOREWORD

W hen I had received the new manuscript of M. Jean Sénat Fleury, I was far from expecting to be in a different universe than the one to which he has already accustomed us. Of course, it had already been a matter of trial in his books. However, I must admit that in this book, I really did not expect to be faced with the controversial character of Adolf Hitler. Whether he took his life or fled after the fall of the Third Reich, no matter, and we can always speculate on his fate; the fact remains that the world has not yet fully recovered from the Second World War and all the atrocities that were committed at that time. It is also really inconceivable that it was not quoted at trial earlier, as was his colleagues at the famous Nuremberg t rial.

I was astonished and, at the same time, delighted to see that Hitler was finally to be judged for all the heinous crimes that were committed under his power. What an excellent idea had M. Fleury following the writing of his latest work. I sincerely wish to congratulate the author for the work done and for his contribution so that the collective memory does not forget but especially that it realizes and becomes aware.

Guy Jacques

September 10, 2018

COMMENT

T he book, " Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg", that my good friend Jean Sénat Fleury is publishing, is a classic in law and international justice. The flagrant violation of human rights and the disregard for individual freedom were damaged between 1933 and 1945 with the madness of the German dictator Adolf Hitler who had claimed to be superior to other peoples on the principle of race. Although the real reasons for wars are only known by their authors, what can we learn from the Second World War? Long before, I must remember that the fallout of the First World War favored the polarization of geopolitics with the emergence of U.S. military supremacy in the West and the creation of the Soviet Union with the Bolshevik Revolution in the East. Here, following the arguments put forward, some may say that this war had enabled the United States to become the world’s first military power. The same is true of the Second World War, which, in term of benefits, allowed the United States to become the world’s leading economic power. Along the way, we can say that the issue of wars is an investment project that is at the defensive and oppressive level. That is to say, in making war, the nations defend themselves in relation to their future just as they oppress in the same order of ideas. Since none of us do have access to the Temple of Themis, it would be difficult to know the real reasons of the Second World War.

However, we have seen the systematic persecution of an ethnic group, in this case, the Jews. Now, with regard to the Nuremberg judgment, it was not realized with the intention of achieving social justice for the minorities persecuted by Hitler, but rather to close the chapter of the Second World War. The message through this suspicious trial was in the sense that the Führer’s mission was coming to an end. As the other would say, make me crazy or wise, how was a regime that had built on the principle of deprivation of psychological, ideological, and social enjoyment could be in the Nuremberg trial represented by only twenty-four accused? It must be understood that the act of war is the final action or the execution of the war project. The war project is multidimensional; it is a whole mechanism encompassing the contribution of several areas of expertise just as she must have financial contributions. As the author rightly pointed out, the Nuremberg trial was so biased that it was more of a political response than social justice.

In reading Mr. Fleury’s book, I noticed how much the author had analyzed the facts to plead the case. By inventing Hitler’s judgment in absentia before a criminal court in Nuremberg, he foiled the plan of those who had plotted behind the curtains and wanted Hitler to be a victim or winner of the Second World War. Indeed, if the investigation leading to the judgment of the twenty-four senior Nazi officers had not been accentuated on the need to proceed to judgment in absentia of Hitler since his legal death was not confirmed, there is, instead of advancing the idea that it was something wanted. As a result, the Nuremberg judges made Hitler the big winner of this war. And those who are in favor of conspiracy theories share with me the idea that it was very plausible that the Führer might be present in the room to sit at the place of one of the court’s attorneys.

But fortunately, the plotters could not mislead the author, who put Hitler in his place, deciding to try him for the crimes and atrocities of the Nazis during the Second World War. Since Adolf Hitler did not respond within the time allotted by the court, he was therefore considered to be absent and sentenced in absentia.

To all those who will have the opportunity to read this book, I hope they will find even symbolic justice in this trial against Adolf Hitler, a decision condemning the dictator that was omitted at the Nuremberg trial.

Jacques A. Démézier, Sociologist

PROLOGUE

S ince my book Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking was published, I have continued with a series of great fictitious trials with the character of notorious criminals who escaped justice. There were several in my list: John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Jesse James, Lee Harvey Oswald, Joseph Bonanno, Al Capone, Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, Jack the Ripper, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Osama Ben Laden, Benito Mussolini, Mobutu Sese Seko, Hirohito, Saloth Sar said Pol Pot, and Attila, king of the Huns, the said the scourge of God.

After reviewing the list, I stopped my choice on Adolf Hitler, the dictator who ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 and unleashed the Second World War.

Judging the great criminals of history who have escaped justice, this is the purpose of mounting a series of fictitious trials in which the contradictory debates are opened before an invented tribunal and everything is played as if the hearing is real. I began this process by judging Napoleon Bonaparte and several other dignitaries of the monarchy and the French empire in the book entitled Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking. I continued the series with the book Adolf Hitler: Trial in absentia in Nuremberg.

Written at a time when efforts are being made to bring to justice all those who have been implicated in one way or another in the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War, the book Adolf Hitler: The trial in Absentia in Nuremberg, is a timely opportunity to question the justice efforts to condemn former Nazis and to raise awareness among governments like those of Ukraine, Norway, and Sweden who have no rules to judge former war criminals and to pass legislation to allow the prosecution of those who collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination camps. These laws would also facilitate the judgment of those who participated indirectly in the killing of innocent people, offering new opportunities to try suspects despite their advanced age.

Thousands of genocide perpetrators have fallen through the cracks of justice an effect favored by the Cold War. A dozen former Nazi criminals still free have been identified in 2016 by the Simon-Wiesenthal center. This organization, which had specialized in the hunt for the latest Nazi criminals had been operating since 2002 in a Last Chance Operation with a view to having them condemned by the courts. The trial of Adolf Eichmann, which took place in 1961 in Israel, and Reinhold Hanning who took place in 2016 in Germany, were the last two ones that advanced somewhat the awareness of the importance of genocide and demonic actions of Nazis criminals.

Inventing Hitler’s trial is a way of honoring the memory of the millions of victims who died under the orders of the German dictator in the extermination camps (including 1 million at Auschwitz-Birkenau). At least 800,000 were killed following conditions of material and psychological misery, to which they had been subjected in particular ghettos, and finally, 1.3 million were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen and their accomplices, intervention groups that accompanied the German army in the occupied territories. Inventing Hitler’s trial is finally a way to honor the memory of the tens of millions of civilian and military victims who perished during the war.

The judgment in absentia of Adolf Hitler, considered as one of the greatest criminals in history, is a step to condemn war, and also a decision to correct a serious error committed by the Nuremberg tribunal, which was not to judge Hitler in absentia during the trial. This book is a book of information and training; a reference book that should be read as an educational tool on the history of the Second World War, while allowing a better understand of the atrocities of the Nazi regime in the years from 1933-1945. Through the play of fiction, I hide behind the judge who takes sat in Nuremberg to lead the debates on Adolf Hitler’s judgment in absentia and condemn the German dictator, one of the greatest political monsters the planet has ever known.

THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

IN CONTEXT

ONE

REFLECTION ON THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

W ith the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, we lived in the illusion of a world of peace where the thought of another world war seemed to want to fade from the collective memory for at least a hundred centuries. Yet, twenty years after the peace agreement signed in Paris, the world would witness the deadliest war in history with a count of more than sixty million deaths added to the hundreds of millions of homeless people and cities devastated on the European and Asian continents. Although it is not surprising that the signatory countries of the Versailles Treaty were part of the Second World War, it is surprising, however, that the victors of the Second World War would once again be playing with a trial, as if the twenty-four senior Nazi regime judges tried by the international military tribunal at Nuremberg were the only ones guilty of the crimes and atrocities of the Second World War.

The eagerness with which this trial took place is misleading; one may wonder why this judgment could be held without any consideration to judge the leader of the Nazi regime, in this case Adolf Hitler? It is also valid to denounce the quota of the accused (twenty-four), initially tried by the international military tribunal Nuremberg, and a hundred others judged by the Americans, still in Nuremberg and before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East united to try crimes committed on the Pacific front, a number that seems insignificant, when we know that Nazism (1933-1945) had several ramifications, be it at the political, economic or social level. All in all, the omission of the name of the Führer in the Nuremberg trial, without being convinced that he had committed suicide shows how the verdict was not intended to do justice to the millions of victims of Hitler’s tyranny and advocates the predominance of his race to the detriment of other races in the world. The start of this trial was solely in the Allied plan to have a legal document dedicating the victory of the winners over the losers and find a legal way to share the cake.

It is with a view to denouncing social injustice in the Nuremberg trial that this book describes why it was necessary at the time to judge Hitler in absentia at Nuremberg. Considering that during the trial the Führer might still be alive, and that there was no scientific proof of his suicide to attest to his legal death; not judging him in absentia seems like something wanted: a decision that has been taken from a political agreement among the powers that had their representatives in the composition of the international military tribunal at Nuremberg.

To judge Hitler in absentia before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal at the same time as the twenty-four other Nazi defendants, what would be the advantages of this trial?

The disappearance of Adolf Hitler on the world political scene, did not bury the ideology of the German dictator who still remains a myth to the eyes of hundreds of thousands of his followers so far operating in the world. For proof, more than 80 million copies of the book in which Hitler published his political message, "Mein Kampf" were sold on the market. No less than 70 million copies were sold after the end of the Nazi regime and Germany’s defeat in 1945.

The publisher has already foreseen since 2016 to publish a critical version of the book of Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf," accompanied by comments from researchers to put in perspective and demonstrate the arguments of this apology of violence and racism a commendable initiative, of course, but we can guess the purpose of this approach, to earn millions with the Hitler brand.

The publication of this central book in the history of the twentieth century will be accompanied by a critical apparatus, established by a scientific committee of historians, stressed the news release of Fayard Editions in 2016. The last French edition of "Mein Kampf dates back to 1934, before the Second World War. According to the estimates of the GfK Institute, nearly twenty-five thousand copies of this book were sold in 2015. The group Land Bavaria owned the rights of the book until December 2015. A critical edition of Mein Kampf is being published in Germany. It is the first edition in German since the end of the Second World War. The Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IZT) was responsible for this critical edition. The original Mein Kampf" was published in 1925 in Germany. A completed version was published in 1926. The book remains for the time being, banned for marketing in Germany and the Netherlands.

Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have given the legal right to not only seize all the dictator’s assets but also prevent commercial groups from collecting millions through Hitler’s work, especially the book "Mein Kampf", which has returned since 2015 to the public domain.

It is an insult to the victims of the Second World War that more than 60 million people died, especially for the Jews who suffered Hitler’s humiliation and terror, to witness the spread of the ideology of the Nazi dictator as in the years 1933-1945, conveyed through the book "Mein Kampf". Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have opened a public debate on senior officials and businessmen of the occupied territories who had participated and cooperated with the Nazis. In addition, a verdict recognizing Hitler’s guilt would have allowed the Allies to having a legal document to confiscate the assets of officials and corporations who had collaborated with the Nazis and to use the seized property to repay the humanity of the losses of the war. And most importantly, judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have motivated much more research to apprehend a higher number of Nazi criminals who fled Germany after the war and maybe would prevent Hitler from being seen as a hero by racist supporters, followers of the Nazi ideology, who swarm today in the world: fanatics of the far right who represent a real danger for minorities, mainly blacks and Jews. Judging Hitler would avoid all the mysteries on Hitler’s death by forcing Stalin to share the information kept secret by the Soviet Intelligence.

Finally, Hitler put on trial in Nuremberg would offer an extraordinary opportunity for the Allied to bury the Nazis in the wake of the Second World War. In the process of denazification, this would be a final act to show the world the true face of Adolf Hitler, and this trial would allow the prosecution to publicly expose the documentation on the names of some secret organizations that used the German dictator as a puppet to carry the mission to eliminate the Jews during the Second World War.

This book aims to correct the deficiencies committed in Nuremberg where the name of Hitler does not appear in the list of the accused. Thus, in carrying out Hitler’s fictitious judgment in absentia, the aim is to show how the initial Nuremberg judgment prevented humanity from knowing the whole truth about the material and intellectual authors of the Second World War, a plot fomented by the economic, political, religious, and financial powers hidden behind Hitler, who used his charisma, and his demonic nature, to start the war and lead humanity to disaster. Thus, since the immediate fallout of the Nuremberg trial was to impose the victors’law on the vanquished, and not to repair the social injustices and the damage done to humanity by the Nazi madness, we open the first chapter of the book on a contextualization of this trial by conveying the benefits of a trial in absentia of Adolf Hitler, which would have seized the assets of the dictator and also pursued his accomplices. To do this, we will proceed to the historicity of the Nazi regime by developing the march into the political power of Hitler to lead to its advance to the war.

TWO

THE ROAD TO POWER

I n the summer of 1931, a young German Jewish lawyer named Hans Litten forced Hitler to testify at the Berlin court. In cross-examination, Hitler was forced for three hours, in front of a public hearing, to defend his beliefs, his ambitions, his methods, and the very essence of Nazism. Litten declared at the time that Hitler was a monster and that if he came to power in Germany, he would impose a bloody ferocious dictatorship, and the whole world would suffer from his actions. But Litten’s warnings had not been taken seriously. Once the Nazis came to power, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, where he finally committed suicide. Beyond Litten’s suicide, the other important fact to remember is his prediction made on Hitler. As he had predicted during the hearing in Berlin, with Hitler as Chancellor in Germany, a monster was cre ated.

On January 30, 1933, in Berlin, German ideologist and statesman Adolf Hitler took power. Founder and central figure of Nazism, Hitler established an imperialist and racist totalitarian dictatorship known as the Third Reich. In the 1920s, in a climate of political violence, Hitler became the head of the National Socialist Party of German Workers (NSDAP, the Nazi Party), and tried in 1923 a failed coup. Placed in prison, he wrote in his cell the book Mein Kampf, in which he exposed his racist and ultranationalist conceptions.

With Hitler out of prison, and after the elections of July 31, 1932, in the Reichstag, which resulted in a considerable increase in the power of the Nazi Party, von Papen offered the post of vice-chancellor to Hitler, who refused, and demanded the post of chancellor. After Hitler’s refusal on November 16, Von Papen resigned and was replaced by general Von Schleicher, but he continued his efforts to bring Hitler to power. On January 4, 1932, von Papen had a meeting with Hitler at the home of a Cologne banker von Schröder and Göring attended, with a few other leaders, this meeting on January 22 at Von Ribbentrop’s house. On January 9, 1932, Von Papen also met with president von Hindenburg and, from January 22, officially he discussed with him the formation of a cabinet with Hitler as chancellor. In November 1932, a number of industrial and financial figures signed and petitioned president von Hindenburg to entrust Hitler with the post of chancellor. Schacht actively contributed to the signatures at the bottom of this petition. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Reich by president von Hindenburg. Under his rule, there was a fierce and brutal dictatorship, millions of people were taken prisoner and sent to extermination camps for religious, political, and ethnic differences (including socialists, communists, Blacks, Jews, homosexuals, handicapped people, Jehovah Witnesses, and trade unionists).

In August 1934, Hitler was elected the head of state. Then he bore the double title of führer and chancellor of the Reich. Very quickly, under his power, Germany became a hegemonic power dominated by a revanchist and warlike anti-Semitic Pan-Germanist policy. Hitler adopted anti-Jewish legislation in 1935, and the Nazis took control of German society (workers, youth, media and cinema, industry, science, etc.). Soon, the regime would lead Germany to trigger World War II.

THREE

THE ROAD TO WAR

O n the political front Hitler since 1935 had organized Germany economy for a relatively high production of ready armament. His goal was to produce armaments quickly by increasing Germany’s armament-producing plan. On early April 1933, he created the Reich Defense Council to work on a new and secret rearmament program. On July 20, 1933, the chancellor promulgated a new Army Law, abolishing the jurisdiction of the civil courts over the military while declaring that, the Army had to guarantee the protection of the nation against the world beyond ours frontiers. He repeated that, the task of the S.A. is to secure the victory of the National Socialist Revolution and the existence of the National Socialist S tate."

In a speech on September 23, 1934, at Nuremberg, he renewed almost the same message given by Roehn, the chief of the S.A., on November 5, 1933, in front of fifteen thousand officers in the Sportpalast in Berlin:

On this day we should particularly remember the part played by our army, for we all know that if, in the days of our revolution, the army had not stood on our side, then we should not be standing here today. We can ensure the army that we shall never forget this, that we see in them the bearers of the tradition of our glorious old army, and that with all our heart, and all our powers, we will support the spirit of this army.

In 1935, Hitler reintroduced conscription and approved the first of several large military parades. The following year he unveiled his Four-Year Plan: ostensibly an economic program to achieve German self-sufficient; in reality this was a program to prepare Germany’s military for war. By the beginning of 1939, Germany’s armed forces counted more than 90,000 soldiers, 8,000 aircraft, and 95 warships.

Who fights with poison, Hitler threatened his enemies during a speech at the opera house in Berlin on August 1939. Will be fought with poison. Who disregards the rules of human warfare can only expect us to take the same steps. I will carry on this fight, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured! ... From this moment, my whole life shall belong more than ever to my people. I now want to be nothing but the first soldier of the German Reich. Therefore, I have once again put on that uniform which was always no sacred to and dear to me. I shall not take it off until after the victory or I shall not live to see the end!

Germany wanted more land and invaded Poland. Due to the alliance between Great Britain and Poland, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. The alliance between Australia and Britain meant that she was also at war. The Second World War had started.

The ambition to dominate Europe first and then the rest of the world led Hitler to occupy most Europe countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Denmark, France, Norway, Russia etc.). After the occupation of Austria in March 1938, following the occupation of Czechoslovakia on March 12, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Then successively, he invaded Denmark and Norway (April 9, 1940), Luxembourg, Holland, and Belgium (May 10, 1940), France (May-June 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941), Greece (April-May 1941), and Russia (June 1941).

FOUR

THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

T he First World War ended with the surrender of Germany, which accepted the conditions set out in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Japan, the United States divided the former colonies Germany and the victorious countries, particularly France, obtained the right to high reparations allowances. France, moreover, obtained the reintegration of Alsace and the Moselle, annexed by Bismarck after the war of 1870.

Russia, after the Bolshevik Revolution and the Counter-Revolution, became the Soviet Union, while new States (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Baltic States) were created in Central Europe, in the name of the principle nationalities, in particular because of the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The borders of the USSR are also displaced for the benefit of Poland. In Germany, the Treaty of Versailles was denounced, imposing heavy war indemnities and the loss of German lands such as Upper Silesia.

In Italy resentment was as strong as in Germany. Italy did not obtain the allocation of the provinces of Istria, Dalmatia and Trentino which the country wished. During the 1920s and 1930s, France and the United Kingdom did not agree on the compensation payable by Germany, and the reconstruction or dismantling of German industrial structures. This conflict led to the occupation of the industrial region of the Ruhr, rich in coal, iron and metallurgical industry, by Belgian and French troops from 1923 to 1925. This occupation quickly led to a crisis in the German economy, a significant devaluation. Mark and a reinforcement of the policies of the extreme right nationalist and the extreme left communist. The Dawes Plan of 1924 put an end to this occupation. Five years later (1929) the world entered the most serious economic crisis in history.

The economic crisis of 1929 affected all the economies of the world, and had serious consequences for the fragile economies of the European countries just out of the war, especially Germany, causing in this country heavily hit by the aftermath of the World War I, unemployment and recession. The repatriation of large American investments in Germany plunged the German economy into a serious crisis. In Germany and Italy, economic crises made it easier for the National Socialists to take power. In the Third Reich, the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in 1933. Hitler increased his popularity by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles, which is the general demand of all Germans, even the opponents of National Socialism, the Nazi party. Hitler and his fanatical partisans who wanted to conquer lands joined forces with other fascist powers (Italy, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania).

Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy withdrew from the League of Nations and moved closer to Nazi Germany. Italy soon became a dictatorship where all opponents were exiled or murdered. In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, of which she made an Italian protectorate. In Germany, Adolf Hitler took the power on January 30, 1933. Very quickly, he restored in Germany the generalized