The Third Reich 1031

out his foreign policy with patience. He left in place the foreign minister
and much of the old diplomatic corps, although he viewed them as weak
and suspected their loyalty. Four months after coming to power, he
declared that he had no intention of rearming Germany and that he wanted
only peace. That October, in a typical switch, Hitler announced that Ger­
many would walk out of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, which had
begun the previous year, and that it would leave the League of Nations, to
which it had been admitted in 1926. He insisted that Germany wanted
peace and respect and would take only legal steps to “break the chains of

Versailles.”

In the meantime, Germany worked to extend its influence in Eastern

Europe. During the Depression, as France pulled back credits, German offi­

cials signed a series of economic agreements with Eastern European states,

bringing them into Germany’s economic orbit and increasing their economic

dependency. Hitler’s policy of deficit spending—particularly to rebuild

Germany’s armed forces despite the Treaty of Versailles—was perceived in

Eastern Europe as successful.

Hitler signed a nonaggression agreement with Poland in January 1934

(the Soviet Union had done the same two years earlier), while assuring his

generals that he had no intention of respecting the agreement. The German­

Polish pact was a blow to France’s plans to maintain Germany’s diplomatic

isolation by a collective treaty system directed against Hitler. French mili­

tary alliances with the Eastern European states of Poland, Czechoslova­

kia, Romania, and Yugoslavia would have left Germany surrounded by

potential enemies, albeit relatively small ones. The Polish dictator Jozef

Pilsudski did not trust Hitler, but Pilsudski believed that he might be able

to balance Poland’s strategic position between Germany and the Soviet

Union and could take advantage of a possible German attack on either

Austria or Czechoslovakia to annex disputed territories. The Soviet Union,

which had joined the League of Nations in 1934, signed a defense treaty

with France a year later and another with Czechoslovakia soon after, which

bound the Soviets to defend Czechoslovakia in case of a German attack,

but only if France fulfilled its treaty obligations.

The Fiihrer and the Duce

While France scurried to find allies, Germany for the moment had none.

Hitler had long admired Benito Mussolini. Both had taken advantage of

economic and social crisis to put themselves in a position of unchallenged

authority. Both intended to overturn the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler’s territo­

rial ambitions in Eastern Europe did not conflict with Mussolini’s goal of

empire-building in the Balkans and North Africa. But because of possible

conflicting interests, notably Hitler’s long-range intention to annex Austria

and Mussolini’s claim of the Austrian Tyrol for Italy, some possible tension

existed. Yet fascist Italy and Nazi Germany seemed natural allies, sharing an