Lessons Learned From The World War II

In every mistake, there is a lesson and this war was no exception. WW2 gave the future us lessons that we should never forget. This war was known for being the biggest, deadliest, and historical wars to ever occur. The two aspects I feel are the most important for people today to understand and can be used as lessons for today’s world are The Treaty Of Versailles and The Rise Of Fascism. 

When you create a treaty, the goal is to not only seek justice but also prevent any future wars. This, however, was not achieved with The Treaty Of Versailles. Later on, as World War Two ended, many people have come to the realization The Treaty Of Versailles was an aspect that the world could learn from. When World War One ended, The Allied Powers negotiated a treaty about German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. This negotiation led to many arguments, however, they decided many questionable liabilities and reparations that Germany had to do. These consisted of Germany being made to accept full responsibility for the outbreak of the war, give up all the land they conquered, remove all soldiers and military installations, give up control of the coal mines of the Saar Basin, give Alsace and Lorraine back to France and some territory to Belgium, forbidden to unite with Austria and to acknowledge the independence of Czechoslovakia, decrease their army to 100,000 as well as eliminate the Air Force and Navy, and to pay billions in war reparations to France and the other Allied Powers who won.  Without analyzing these clauses, we can understand that The Allied Powers wanted to frighten and threaten Germany with this treaty. The idea of doing this to a country you recently went to war with was risky. The Allied Powers’ error teaches us that if you intend to have power and dominance over your enemy, that will never achieve peace. The Allied Powers wanted to be superior against Germany, but this idea would quickly go wrong. Without the input of Germany, they were not going to have a choice in what is implemented fairly into the treaty. When the treaty was presented, Germany was not pleased with many aspects of the treaty. An example of an assigned liability they did not approve of was the agreement that Germany had to take all the blame for the war. They believed that they did not start the war so taking full responsibility was not fair to Germany. Although they wanted to decline, Germany was threatened with an invasion so the treaty was accepted. They lost money, soldiers, and the German citizens were not happy. During Germany’s defeat, The Allied Powers remained victorious and powerful in their perspective.  With the knowledge of how complicated and time-consuming World War One was, instigating another war with revenge was not a good idea. The quote “ Weak people revenge, Strong people forgive, Intelligent people ignore” by Albert Einstein indicates the mindset of The Allied Powers. This mistake teaches the world that revenge will not only fail but also affect things massively in the future, especially in the aspect of world wars. Since The Treaty Of Versailles caused so much damage, when they entered the war, they were against and seeking vengeance for their economy enduring so much loss. The maintenance of peace after The Treaty Of Versailles was poorly done. As trying to not cause conflict was overlooked, this and the Treaty’s controversial clauses gave Hitler an excuse to violate The Treaty Of Versailles and begin many issues. This point in history teaches others that magnanimity, fairness, and respect will give peace after war. Without those, chaos will ensue and guarantee another World War. 

Fascism during World War Two was a huge issue that gave us many effective lessons. Fascism is a system of government in which nationalism is promoted, labour and industry is regulated by a strong national government, and all opposition is suppressed and this ideology is theorized to have begun with Benito Mussolini, who became dictator of Italy in 1922.  Mussolini is known for destroying Italy’s government. A decade later, Adolf Hitler had a similar run as the leader of Germany. He was a part of The Nazi Party and is known for orchestrating World War Two and The Holocaust.   When these leaders came into power, they both targeted their countries during the aftermath of World War One. Both areas were poor, weak and, much more, especially Germany. They convinced their desperate citizens to support them and oppose the government. Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento and gained many supporters. This caused fascism to spread and influence people quickly. Hitler even helped Mussolini create the Social Republic in Northern Italy. Hitler is known for his impact by using fascism because he used anti-Semitism to prove one main point. Hitler served in WWI and believed that Jews caused Germany’s defeat.  This false idea convinced many upset Germans to support and join Hitler in his movement. He was very good at manipulating and convincing German people during this tough time. At this time he created The Nazi Party. This was inspired by The German Workers’ party, a racist and nationalist group. His new party became his known creation and persuaded the community with receiving the most votes. After requesting to be the chancellor Hitler would continue to make history. Though he improved some aspects of Germany, he caused World War Two and his reign quickly got worse.   This simple brainwashing technique is a vital step for fascist leaders. They will target economies in desperate situations and use their power against them once they gain everyone’s trust. Hitler and Mussolini’s persuasion shows people what to avoid when looking or voting for a new leader. Creating new groups to overthrow the government, twisting reality and applying false notions to the truth,and stopping any forms of freedom of speech are just a few signs of a fascist leader. When your freedom of speech is limited, many people will rebel and speak their truth, however, during the reigns of people like Hitler, you would be arrested or usually killed for this. An example of this was when a man named August Landmesser refused to do the Nazi salute during a rally. He fell in love with a Jewish woman named Irma Eckler and got engaged. His refusal to do Hitler’s “Sieg heil” was captured on a photo that would later get him expelled from The Nazi Party. Later, he was imprisoned and drafted to Pena Military service and died in action. His wife was sent to a concentration camp and later killed.  The tragic death of Landmesser and Eckler teaches us how grateful many countries should be to have freedom of speech. Fascist leaders will do anything to stop anyone that is against their beliefs including taking a basic human right away from others.  As every country watches fascist countries like Germany suffer, the choice to intervene was dangerous, but this would do much more harm than they thought. During this time, many countries were dealing with their issues so they left Germany alone. This started to fail when Hitler took this opportunity to go against The Treaty Of Versailles. Due to other issues, they decided to have

appeasement for this issue. Since nobody held Hiler accountable or told him to stop, he grew in power and caused more trouble. Hitler believed that everyone was afraid of him, further perpetuating the belief that he was unstoppable. As other areas realized what was going on, they gave him a limit he could not go over. By this point, it was too late and he became too powerful to control. He gained many allies who could fight against strong enemies like Britain and soon caused World War Two. In life, the right decision would be to disregard situations, however, holding the person accountable is needed to move forward and ignore the person. When all those countries ignored Germany and Hitler, they never told him to stop so he continued to get worse. The lesson that was taught in this situation was to confront problems before it gets worse. Approaching situations like this, later on, is never good and in this case, World War Two was created.

In life, you shoud never have regrets because they create lessons. The two aspects I feel are the most important for people today to understand can be used as lessons for today’s world are The Treaty Of Versailles and The Rise Of Fascism. Many of these historical events hurt, truamatized or killed many people but we can learn from these teachable moments and prevent history from repeating itself.