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16 - Back to War, 1938–1939

from Part IV - Toward Catastrophe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2026

Geoff Eley
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

Gaining resonance from 1918, pacifism joined socialist internationalism and Communists’ novel militancy. The League of Nations drew much of that sentiment, from refugees and humanitarian relief through public health and the ILO to nutritional science and development economics, claiming economic planning, scientific and technological transfer, and humanitarian cooperation for new networked expertise. Self-consciously “Europeanist” initiatives formed, including fascist ideas of a united European “great space” under Mussolini and Hitler. By 1936–1939, imperialist visions of a New Europe made population politics key to international revisionism, exchanging self-determination and minority protections for greater-national expansion and population removal. Brutally radicalized by the Nazis’ Kristallnacht (November 1938), antisemitism became a violent driver. In 1937–1941, anti-Jewish laws reversed earlier emancipation – from Poland and Romania, through Italy and Hungary, to Czecho-Slovakia, Croatia, and Vichy France. That was the ugly backcloth to Hitler’s drive for war. In September 1939, vitally enabled by Franco-British appeasement and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, Hitler invaded Poland.

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  • Back to War, 1938–1939
  • Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: The Modernist Wish
  • Online publication: 24 April 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139020053.017
Available formats
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  • Back to War, 1938–1939
  • Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: The Modernist Wish
  • Online publication: 24 April 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139020053.017
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Back to War, 1938–1939
  • Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: The Modernist Wish
  • Online publication: 24 April 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139020053.017
Available formats
×