- Isolationists passed a series of Neutrality Acts in the 1930’s. These laws….
- banned arms sales or loans to countries at war.
- warned U.S. citizens not to travel on ships of countries at war.
- FDR announced the Good Neighbor Policy in an attempt to improve U.S. relations with Latin America.
· Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy in 1922.
· Mussolini’s policies:
- All political parties, except the Fascist party, were outlawed.
- He controlled the press and banned criticism of the government.
· Promising Italians greatness, Mussolini invaded and conquered Ethiopia in 1935.
* The League of Nations failed to help Ethiopia.
· Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party preached racial and religious hatred.
· Hitler claimed that Germans were a part of a superior “Aryan” race, and that Jews were to blame for Germany’s troubles.
· In 1933, Hitler became chancellor, or head of the German government.
· Hitler’s policies:
- He created a totalitarian state, in which the Nazi’s controlled every aspect of German society.
- Citizens must always obey the government, and the government could not be criticized.
- Jews had their German citizenship taken away, they were forbidden from using public facilities, and they were removed from most types of work.
- Thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps. Eventually, Hitler planned on killing all of Europe’s Jews in a plan he called the Final Solution. Today his plan is referred to as the Holocaust.
- Hitler built up his armed forces, in violation of the Versailles Treaty.
