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How Did Nationalism Cause Ww2

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People would do anything in order to ensure that their country would be the greatest in the world. They do this because of nationalism, a very extreme form of belief and loyalty towards ones country. This lead to many people believing their country was perfect; unequaled in economic, military, and political power. Nationalism was very popular in the late 18th and 19th centuries; countries were promoting nationalism in order to keep their citizens loyal. It played an important role in generating conflict and revolutions during the World Wars and the Interwar years. WW1’s direct cause was the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, an event that was caused specifically because of nationalism, but many other events that were also rooted by …show more content…

Germany lost more than 13% of its land due to the limitations set by the treaty of Versailles, and the people were outraged. It was soon said by Adolf Hitler, “the restoration of the frontiers of 1914 could be achieved only by blood”; showing that he knew that he must wage war if he wanted to regain the lost land (Hitler, Mein Kampf). Once he came to power, Hitler was able to rally the people using the idea of Lebensraum, or living space for the German people. The people were excited for Hitler because they truly believed he would be the one to restore their losses. People soon began to follow him more willingly, joining his Nazi party and increasing it substantially. He then invaded Poland, the first step in his plan to conquer all of Germany’s former lands. Japan waged war against China for the same reason. More land was needed for the growing population, and the resources in Manchuria were needed as well. Japan staged the Mukden incident to legitimize their reason for invasion, and this depicts the effect that nationalism had on Japan’s leader. They went as far as to stage an explosion on their own train tracks to give them a reason for invading another country. These two ideas, the Mukden incident and Lebensraum, show that nationalism led to the leaders of Japan and Germany to go to the extreme in order to make their country a better place for themselves and for the people living

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