After WWI, many argued that humanity had fought its last war. However, just 20 years later, a second global war broke out. World War II surpassed the death and destruction seen in WWI. By the end of the war, 80 million people were dead, nearly 3% of the world’s population. The causes of WWII included the unsustainable peace settlement after WWI, the Great Depression, imperialism, and the rise of fascist and authoritarian powers like Nazi Germany.

NUREMBERG RACE LAWS

(Reich Citizenship Law and Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor)

These laws institutionalized many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology, and provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. The laws excluded Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or German-related blood.” Ordinances supporting these laws deprived German Jews of most political entitlements, including the right to vote or hold public office. These laws represented a major shift from traditional antisemitism, which defined Jews by religious belief, to a conception of Jews as members of a race, defined by blood and by lineage. 

The Munich Agreement, 1938

Adolf Hitler greets Neville Chamberlain upon the British Prime Minister's arrival in Munich, Germany, on September 29, 1938. Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister from May 1937 to May 1940, was the leader of the appeasement effort of Nazi Germany allowing Hilter's rearmament, thus betraying the Treaty of Versailles.