League of Nations Cause the Rise of Hitler and WWII

History is an excellent teacher when we bother to consult her. But for her lessons to be learned we must view her with an unbiased and critical eye. Isn't it easy to consider WWII the megalomaniacal dream of a man with a funny mustache? Isn't it nice when we can so neatly pigeon hole an event or personality? It helps us keep everything in a neat little folder - out of sight, out of mind and thus unquestioning in our appraisals and opinions. The reality is it lends little to our knowledge and understanding. And that leads to my pet peeve...if we do not know our history we are doomed to repeat it.

Adolf Hitler can be seen as a victim of his own disaffection with life as well as supreme opportunist. The Treaty of Versailles and the onerous reparations of Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations placed upon a defeated Germany led to all that came after. Wilson was a Progressive, and he sought progressive ends. His was the first real global effort at supranational governance. It failed badly and led to far worse than it sought to remedy. It was full of those famous "unintended consequences" so many progressive policies result in. It was the precursor to the UN and we can see how effective the UN is, right?

But I think to call it "unintended consequence" is to put a less pejorative spin on reality. While the League of Nations did not seek further conflict as a result, progressive efforts always lead to them...always. It's the natural detritus of trying to force society to comport to a set of political ideals. The League of Nations' efforts at forcing their vision upon war torn Europe led to all that followed.

Seeking to punish Germany by trading Alsace-Lorraine back to France led to anger and disaffection. The French receiving control of the Rhineland led to more real anger. Suddenly Germany found its new enemy for the next war...France, who was the major beneficiary of the League of Nations reparations. Germany was being punished for "starting" WWI, and the progressive "unintended consequences" were on their way to being delivered.

Had Germany not have been so punitively savaged in the Treaty of Versailles it is likely Hitler would not have had the fodder to effectively build a ruling coalition. If that does not happen there is no WWII, at least not as we knew it.

As well there was the internal struggle of Communism that solidified Hitler's hold on power. Communism was supported by many Germans in the post WWI era...those 15 years between 1918 and 1933 when Hitler won the most seats in the Reichstag and became Chancellor. Germany was awash in disaffection, political struggle and militias of both Communists and Nazi's seeking the upper hand. There were constant street fights between the two competing ideologies in this time period. Eventually it reached the point where people were ready for an end to the misery. I'm not sure German's really cared who came out on top so long as some form of stability resulted.

Would Germany have been so embroiled in violence without the crippling economic measures the Treaty of Versailles saddled them with? For the answer, look to France. They too were embroiled in the struggle of Marxism seeking to assume the mantle of leadership in France, but it did not result in anything like the German experience. Perhaps it was because France was not on the receiving end of supranational punitive measures. Germany had many ills over which to be angry. Add in the violent struggling between Nazi's and Communists and the Weimar Republic's inherent weakness, again due to the Versailles Treaty, and we can see where Hitler came from.

Progressive efforts at societal engineering and their belief in their ability to make a better human society by law or caveat have led to more misery than would have otherwise manifest. Man cannot be engineered. Societies evolve naturally...at least successful ones. The League of Nations sought to engineer a society that was suitable to their vision, and in so doing created the spark of evil that came after.

Perhaps without such an obvious cause of misery as the Treaty imposed the Nazi's would have never been able to attain so much power. Interwar Germans were wronged and suffered and naturally they sought redress and Hitler and the Nazi's came along at the exact right time to exploit the public disaffection.

Nothing leads to successful demagoguery as effectively as an angry, confused and felt much abused public.

Don't believe me? Where did the current American demagogue rise from? He arose from opportunity, albeit one his cohorts spent better than 40 years creating. Think about it. 40 years of progressivism telling kids there are no winners. 40 years of moral relativism being preached in schools to the minds of people not yet able to empirically question what they're told. 40 years of repetitious mantras of "imperialism, evil corporations, racist citizens," and all the rest.

Progressivism seeks power by creating disaffection. It seeks to tell us how bad it all is and how only they can fix it with their fantasies of social engineering. No thanks. I know history and I know what the progressive led League of Nations wrought. As well, I know all too well what it is Marxist's seek, and when the desires of Marxism are placed alongside the words and denigrations of progressivism in the US, we see an almost identical set of principles. No thanks. We have 60 million reasons to not embrace progressivism...60 million dead human beings from WWII and the 100 million or so that Marxism has killed since, and all in an effort to engineer a fantastic Utopia. No thanks.