Timeline: 1931 to 1940

1931 Economic depression is deepened by the fall of international trade. Europe's credit structure collapses. Bank failures increase. Unemployment in the U.S. rises to 15.9 percent. Japan and Britain go off the gold standard. President Hoover and the U.S. Congress are opposed to an unbalanced budget. 1931 In Latin America, conservatives in power are blamed for the economic decline and liberals in power are blamed for the economic decline. An anti-Communist dictatorial regime takes power in Argentina. In Peru a leftist coalition out-polls General Sanchez Cerro, but the counting is done under Cerro's bayonets, and Cerro becomes president. 1931 Japan's army goes on the offensive in Manchuria, forcing Chinese troops to withdraw from Shenyang (Mukden), Changchun (Ch'ang-ch'un), and Jilin (Kirin). An unofficial war between Japan and China has begun. A Chinese boycott of Japanese goods intensifies. Chinese students want allout war against Japan. Chiang Kai-shek bans student demonstrations and continues his offensives against Communist strongholds. 1931 The League of Nations rebukes Poland for mistreating Germans in Upper Silesia. 1931 Famine spreads across the Soviet Union. Stalin speaks of the need to protect the revolution against its enemies. "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries," he says. "We must catch up in ten years, or they will crush us." Supervision of literature has begun, with Stalin intervening in the studies of philosophy and history. 1932 The Soviet government is rationing food in cities and launches a police operation to collectivize agriculture. Peasants resist. They burn their crops, destroy their tools and their livestock. Resistance is crushed. It is believed that during this year a million peasants die. 1932 Japan sends troops to Shanghai. Its warships and aircraft bombard China's capital, Nanjing. Japan's move disrupts Chiang Kai-shek's offensives against Communists. In Japan, a group of super-patriots try to murder Hirohito's cabinet and to move Hirohito to accept a military government. The plot fails. 1932 By the end of the year, economic depression hits bottom. For the world in general, the vicious circle of withdrawal from economic activity creating more withdrawal is over. 1933 In January, Hitler becomes chancellor. Mussolini is disturbed by a rival fascism - fascists believing in dominance. Germany's parliament building is set afire. Communists are blamed and put in prison and the Nazis win more seats in parliamentary elections. Chancellor Hitler is voted emergency powers. He crushes the Social Democrats, whom he has vilified as Marxists, and he crushes labor Unions. About fifty concentration camps are created to enclose detainees. A bonfire of books occurs outside the University of Berlin. 1933 The Vatican signs a concordant with the new German government. Pope Pius XI sees Germany as a bulwark against Communism which he believes is the greatest danger to civilization.

1933 In Egypt, the "Young Egypt" (Misr al-Fatah) para-military movement begins, modeled after Hitler's National Socialists, with Green (for Islam) shirts, the Roman (Nazi) salute and translations of Nazi slogans. Two fifteen-year-old members: Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Sadat. 1933 At Oxford University, students debate the question that "this House will in no circumstance fight for king and country." Undergraduates vote 275 to 153 against fighting for king and country. A second, more raucous debate results in 750 against fighting and 138 for. A similar debate at the London School of Economics results in a pacifist resolution that is supported unanimously. In the U.S. a poll of 21,725 students from sixty-five U.S. colleges finds 38.7 percent who declare themselves pacifists, another 33 percent who believe the only justification for bearing arms would the county being invaded, and 28 percent declare they would fight another war if their government ordered them to. 1933 Franklin Roosevelt takes office and a Democrat majority takes its seats in Congress. Congress passes an emergency banking bill, creates the Civilian Conservation Crops, gives mortgage relief to millions, creates the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority and gives the Federal Trade Commission new regulatory powers. Roosevelt rejects deficit spending. Industrialists support higher wages for employees as a way of increasing consumption. Prohibition is repealed. 1933 Uruguay's president since 1931, Gabriel Terra, dissolves parliament and begins ruling by decree. 1933 President Vargas of Brazil disbands Congress, declares martial law and warns of the threat from Communists. He jails editors and political opponents. 1933 In Peru, an uprising against General Snchez Cerro has been crushed with the help of aerial bombardment. Political debate and most newspapers have been silenced. Thousands have been jailed and some are chained to walls in the fortress near downtown Lima. Then Snchez Cerro is assassinated. General Manuel Oscar Benavides becomes president. He promotes public works and labor legislation, encourages education and sanitation and releases political prisoners. 1933 Japan has declared its holdings in Manchuria an independent country, which it calls Manchukuo. The League of Nations Assembly votes against recognizing Manchukuo. 1934 In the United States, drought and neglectful care of land has produced another year of dust storms. Farmers in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico suffer. Growth of crops on around 300 million acres of land has been curtailed. Another 100 million acres has lost most of its topsoil. 1934 After a seven-year crime spree, Clyde Barrow, and his friend Bonnie, are ambushed and killed in Louisiana by Texas Rangers. 1934 In the Soviet Union, calm has returned in the countryside. Old Bolsheviks disturbed by the brutality of collectivization speak up for the communist ideal of liberty and happiness for everybody. The 17th Party Congress meets and gives more support to the Bolshevik leader Sergey Kirov than to Stalin. Kirov does not challenge Stalin, but Stalin has reason to believe that his power within the Party is in jeopardy. The Soviet Union joins League of Nations. H.G. Wells visits Russia and is impressed. In December, Kirov is assassinated.

1934 Pu-yi, China's former boy-emperor (of "Last Emperor" fame) is crowned monarch of Japan's Manchurian state: Manchukuo. Manchukuo is recognized by Germany, Italy, a few rightist regimes in Latin American, and by the Vatican - which wants to protect Catholics in Manchuria. 1934 Pursued by Chiang Kai-shek's forces, China's Communists flee Jiangxi Province and begin their Long March. 1934 Government spending in Germany has brought economic recovery. Germany is rearming. Hitler sides with the German Army against the homosexual leader of his brownshirts (the SA), whom the army dislikes. Hitler's SS raid and kill 116, including old Nazi leaders who believed in socialism. President Hindenburg thanks Hitler publicly for "nipping treason in the bud." A month later Hindenburg dies. Hitler is declared Germany's head of state and supreme commander of the military. His title is Leader (Fhrer). Some people are forgiven and released from concentration camps as a show of a new national unity. 1934 In Austria all political parties are banned, including Austria's National Socialist (Nazi) party. The Social Democrats and labor movement resist and are crushed. The religiously pious chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, establishes a dictatorship. Later, Austria's National Socialists attempt a coup. They wound Dollfuss and Dollfuss dies. German troops are massed on the border between Germany and Austria, but Italy's dictator, Mussolini, is opposed to Germany taking Austria. The German army is still weak, and Hitler backs down. 1935 Soviet manufacturing is more than five times what it was in Russia in 1913. Russia's world share in manufacturing is 13 percent, compared to 33 percent for the United States. Germany is third at 11 percent. 1935 Italy invades Ethiopia. The League of Nations declares Italy to be in violation of the League's sanctions against aggression. 1935 In the United States, a dust storm has turned day into night. A best-selling book by Walter Millis, Road to War, gives people a new vision about World War I. Some are saying that Americans had been "saps" or "suckers." Time magazine describes Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia as a "civilizing mission" and it ridicules the Ethiopians. 1935 Hitler reintroduces military conscription - a repudiation of the peace treaty signed at Versailles. Jews lose their citizenship and are expelled from government employment , the professions and most forms of economic activity. Some Catholics and Protestants express discomfort with paganism among the National Socialists. A few Catholics activists are attracting Nazi opposition. 1935 Late in the year, about 20,000 survivors of the Long March arrive at Yenan, in the far north of China, where they are able to recuperate. The Communist Party has been reduced to about 40,000, and Mao Zedung has emerged at the top of the Party's leadership. 1935 In Greece a military coup overthrows the republic and invites King George II to return from exile. King George supports the dictatorship Ioannis Metaxes but quietly he favors Britain over Hitler's Germany. 1936 In Palestine, Jewish homes are set afire, shops looted and orchards destroyed. While trying to maintain order in 1936, British soldiers kill more than 140 Muslims.

1936 In Sweden, economic recovery has brought industrial production to 50 percent above what it had been in 1929 and unemployment has falled to 5 percent. In the U.S. unemployment is about half what it was in 1932, now around 15 percent. 1936 An election gives rise to a "Popular Front" government in Spain, ending two years of rule by a coalition of Center and Rightist parties. Peasants begin seizing land. Strikes erupt against employers. Anarchists set fire to churches, monasteries and the homes and offices of capitalists. Armed robberies against common people skyrocket in Barcelona. A rebel movement against the government is led by General Francisco Franco. The rebels gain support from Germany and Italy. Civil war has begun. Mexico sends aid to the government. Russia sends food and advisers. 1936 Adolf Hitler defies the Versailles Treaty again by sending troops into the Rhineland, Hitler believing that France and Britain will not oppose his move militarily. 1936 In Britain's House of Commons, Winston Churchill declares the remilitarization of the Rhineland a triumph for Hitler. He speaks of the danger to parliamentary nations from heavily armed dictatorships. He complains the spirit of British people is being tamed and cowed "with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defense measures." He is denounced as a scaremonger and warmonger. 1936 Britain's King George V dies. His son, Edward VIII, becomes King of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, King of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India. He gives up his throne to marry a divorcee from the United States. 1936 A group wanting a most glorious and powerful Japan try by force to take over the government. The coup fails. Meanwhile, arms production has stimulated a strong economic recovery. 1936 Italy, Germany and Japan sign an "anti-Comintern Pact" directed against the Communist International (the Comintern) and the Soviet Union. 1936 In the Soviet Union a new constitution goes into effect. The first show trials begin, against two old Bolsheviks who had been at the top of the party hierarchy, Zinoviev and Kamenev - to be described in Arthur Koestler's famous novel Darkness at Noon. Stalin's old opponent, Leon Trotsky, is in exile in Norway and is falsely accused of plotting with fascists and the German secret police. The Soviet Union outlaws abortion. 1937 Construction is completed on the Golden Gate Bridge, across the entrance to San Francisco Bay. 1937 Japanese troops are shot at near Beijing. Japan responds with military expansion. The Chinese surrender Beijing and Tientsin. Chiang Kai-shek's hope for peace with Japan is shattered, and he proclaims war "to the bitter end." China signs a military pact with the Soviet Union. Japan's army marches toward Nanjing. They assault U.S. and British gunboats on the Yangtze River. Japan's soldiers see Chinese resistance as the work of devils. With the Chinese thus demonized, the "Rape of Nanjing" begins. 1937 In Germany the judiciary is now unable to interfere with the activities of Hitler's Gestapo. All Jewish-owned employment agencies in Germany are ordered closed. German citizens are asked not to patronize Jewish doctors. A Nazi decree bars Jews from receiving university degrees. German

officials announce that the nation's film industry is completely cleansed of Jews. Jews are forbidden to play music by Beethoven or Mozart during Jewish cultural concerts. Hitler formally abrogates the Treaty of Versailles. German warplanes are helping Franco. They bomb the Basque town of Guernica and kill more than 1,600. 1937 Anti-Jewish violence erupts in Romania. 1937 Pope Pius XI publishes an encyclical entitled Divini Redemptoris, condemning atheistic Communism. 1937 President Roosevelt speaks of "peace loving nations" placing aggressive nations - Japan, Germany and Italy - under quarantine. Isolationists complain that distinguishing between "peaceloving" and "warlike" nations is not neutrality but taking sides. 1937 As a diplomat for the new government of Neville Chamberlain government, Lord Halifax visits with Hitler, who pledges his support of British empire. Hitler offers advice on how to deal with those in India seeking independence. Kill Gandhi, he advises, and if that is not enough kill the other leaders too. His friend, Henry Cannon, reports that Halifax "likes all of the Nazi leaders, including Goebbels." Cannon reports that Halifax "thinks the regime absolutely fantastic." 1938 Lord Halifax is made Foreign Secretary, following the resignation of Anthony Eden. 1938 Japan passes the National General Mobilization Law. Clashes occur between Japanese and Soviet forces along the Soviet-Manchurian border. After months of bombing, the Japanese capture the southern city of Canton (Guangzhou). In November, the Japanese announce a New Order for East Asia. They declare that trade is to be mainly between Japan and China, while nations such as the United States, Britain, Germany and France will be allowed to continue to function in China but will have to settle for leftovers. 1938 In the United States, Dorothy Day, a Catholic Worker activist, begins a movement opposed to any sort of war. In April 1938, the Socialist Party announces that Roosevelt-style liberalism is "a prelude to war." The Socialist Party leader, Norman Thomas, speaks against collective security as a way of stopping fascist aggression. Staying out of war, he claims, is the best way of avoiding fascism in the United States. The American Federation of Labor joins the isolationists, its executive council announcing its opposition to any step that might lead to war. The Catholic Press Association joins the opposition against "entanglements." 1938 While searching for water, United States geologists in Saudi Arabia find a lot of oil. 1938 Pope Pius XI commissions an American Jesuit, John Lafarge, to write an encyclical condemning Nazi anti-Semitism. Lafarge and others write "The Unity of the Human Race." Pope Pius XI dies and "The Unity of the Human Race" dies with him. 1938 Mussolini is grateful for Hitler's support concerning Ethiopia. He agrees to give Hitler a free hand in Austria. Hitler gives Mussolini his approval to do whatever he wishes. Hitler invades Austria. Then he creates a war scare over the issue of the mistreatment of Germans in Czechoslovakia. Europe's big powers meet at Munich and give Germany Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, returns to England saying that "peace in our time" has been achieved. Czechoslovakia, complies with Hitler's threats and pressure.

Czechoslovakia outlaws its Communist Party and begins persecuting Jews. In October, the "Night of the Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) against Jews takes place. World reaction is largely negative. Hermann Goering, the number two Nazi, says that the persecutions of the Jews is a dishonor to Germany and that Jews who want to leave Germany should be allowed to do so with their capital. He favors Madagascar as a Jewish homeland. 1938 Roosevelt expresses horror and dismay regarding Kristallnacht. A Gallop poll records 94 percent disapproval of "Nazi treatment of Jews." The U.S. aviation hero, Charles Lindberg, says he does not understand why the Germans are handling their "Jewish problem" unreasonably. 1938 Purge trials continue in the Soviet Union. Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov, dies mysteriously in Paris, believed by some to have been murdered by a Stalin agent. Stalin wants to defend the Soviet Union by renewing its old alliance with Germany, letting Hitler rage against the West rather than the Soviet Union. Trotsky and various Communists outside the Soviet Union create the "Fourth International" as a revolutionist alternative to Stalin's international, the Comintern, which has been declared as not having as its purpose the overthrow of capitalism. The Soviet Union is trying to get along with the major powers rather than to offend - a continuation of Stalin's policy of building socialism in the Soviet Union rather than exporting revolution. 1938 Britain, France, Austria and the Vatican recognize the Franco regime, and Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War. 1938 Lan Ping, 24, leaves her stage name and her career in acting and goes to Yennan to study Marxism-Leninism. There she will be known as Liang Qing and will marry Mao Zedong. With her tight grasp on Marxism-Leninism she will eventually become one of China's "Gang of Four." 1939 In February, Lise Meitner, a Jewish woman originally from Vienna, in exile after Hitler's takeover, publishes her discovery of nuclear fission - atom splitting. 1939 Britain produces a White Paper on British rule in Palestine. It prohibits Jews from buying more land outside their existing settlements and restricts Jewish migrations to Palestine. The British hope this will keep the Jews as a permanent minority in Palestine. 1939 Encouraged by Germany, Slovakia declares independence. The Czechs agree to German demands and make Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. The German army enters Prague peacefully. The government of Neville Chamberlain is outraged by Hitler having ignored his promise at Munich to respect what remained of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain now believes that Hitler's word is worthless. 1939 Former president Herbert Hoover declares that no clear and present danger exists. He speaks of Roosevelt's "dangerous adventures" and argues that Roosevelt is trying to divert people's attention from his failure to end the depression. 1939 Four months after German troops entered Prague and seventeen days after the last Jewish enterprise in Germany is closed, Mohandas Gandhi writes a letter to Hitler telling him he is "the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state." He ends the letter with "your sincere friend." 1939 Hitler vows that the city of Danzig will again be German. Germans in the city of Memel demonstrate their desire to be again a part of Germany. Lithuania gives Memel back to Germany.

Poland complains. Poland is disturbed and hostile to Germany, and Germany breaks diplomatic relations. 1939 Italy invades and annexes Albania. King Zog is unwilling to become a puppet. He and his his family flee to Greece. Albania's parliament votes to unite their country with Italy. A subordinate fascist government is created under the leadership of Shefqet Verlaci. 1939 A German, Erich Warsitz, flies the first turbine-equipped jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178. 1939 To help him prepare for an invasion of Poland, Hitler settles affairs with the Soviet Union. He is not ready to take on both Poland and the Soviet Union. He offers the Soviet Union territory that had been a part of tsarist Russia's empire and territory that Poland had taken during Russia's civil war - territory east of the Curzon Line. The Soviet Union wants some security vis--vis Germany and agrees to give Germany a free hand in Poland west of the Curzon Line. 1939 Hitler believes that Britain and France will not go to war when he invades Poland. He says, "Our opponents are poor creatures. I saw them at Munich." He invades Poland on September 1. On September 3, Britain and France declare war on Germany, and they are joined by India and New Zealand. The British cannot send help to Poland and the French sit on their border rather than invade Germany. Poland surrenders on September 24. 1939 With the outbreak of war, public opinion changes in the United States. Americans would like to help Britain. Congress amends the Neutrality Act, allowing supplies to be sold to belligerents. 1939 In November, Russians and Japanese forces are fighting along the border between the Soviet Union and Manchuria. And a border dispute between the Soviet Union and Finland erupts into war. 1939 A referendum orchestrated by French and Turkish authorities results in Turkey annexing Hatay, including the city of Antakya (Antioch). The Syrians, ruled by the French, dislike the annexation. 1940 On 5 April Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels says, "Till now we have succeeded in leaving the enemy in the dark concerning Germany's real goals, just as before 1932 our domestic foes never saw where we were going or that our oath of legality was just a trick... They could have suppressed us. They could have arrested a couple of us in 1925 and that would have been that, the end. No, they let us through the danger zone. That's exactly how it was in foreign policy, too... In 1933 a French premier ought to have said (and if I had been the French premier I would have said it): 'The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!' But they didn't do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well armed, better than they, then they started the war! 1940 On 17 April, Germany begins the first transport of "Gypsies" in Poland to concentration camps there. Some are sterilized and forced to work in Germany's arms industry. 1940 Britain is laying mines along Norway's coastal waters. Germany invades Norway, as planned, to keep the British from disrupting the coastal supply line from Sweden. Germany takes control also of the land between it and Norway: Denmark.

1940 A rebellion against Prime Minister Nivelle Chamberlain replaces hims with Winston Churchill, on May 10, the day that Hitler sends his armies into Belgium and Holland. 1940 On June 5 Hitler sends his armies into France. Eleven days later the French government votes thirteen to eleven in favor of an armistice with Germany. Germany agrees to peace with a friendly French government. German forces remain in France along the coast of the English channel. 1940 Germany wants peace with Britain. Winston Churchill refuses. An air war between Britain and Germany begins. 1940 The Soviet Union annexes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 1940 Mussolini invades Greece without warning Hitler, retaliating for Hitler not warning him of his invasions. Britain sends a naval force against the Italians. The Greeks push the Italians back to Albania. In December the British launch an offensive against Italian forces in Libya. 1940 Hungary joins the German-Italian alliance. Romania joins the German-Italian-Hungarian alliance. 1940 Trotsky has been living in Mexico. He is murdered by a Soviet agent and dies on 21 August. 1940 Japan's parliament unanimously passes a declaration of support for holy war against China. Japan launches a new offensive there. Hostility toward Japan increases among Americans. People in the United States begin to wonder about the scrap metal, oil and other materials that American businesses are selling to Japan. 1940 The U.S. Navy moves the base of its Pacific Ocean fleet from San Diego to its naval base at Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands. Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku, commander of Japan's Combined Fleet, describes the move as "tantamount to a dagger pointed at our throat." 1940 Spending is lifting the United States out of the depression. Millions are going to work in what is called the defense industry.