150 Hitler, Adolf Jews to wear yellow stars of David so that they could be identified, and resettlement in ghettos Hitler posed as a defender of peace and a crusader against Bolshevism The leadership of Britain and France appeased Hitler because to them Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) was a greater menace With consummate skill Hitler began to scrap the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles and to follow the policy of Lebensraum in an eastward direction Hitler withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference as well as from the League of Nations in October 1933 He denounced the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles and introduced conscription in March 1934 The next year Germany began expanding its armed forces and its navy in flagrant violation of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles In March 1936, Hitler occupied the demilitarized Rhineland Italy and Japan, with the same agenda of ultranationalism, militarism, and aggressive foreign policy, became close allies of Germany The three countries signed pacts for furthering their aims The Rome-Berlin Axis was established between Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) and Hitler in October 1936, and the following month Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, which Italy joined in 1937 Both Hitler and Mussolini supported General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) in the Spanish civil war against the republicans Continuing his policy of lebensraum, Hitler turned his attention toward Austria, which was German in tradition and language There had already been a putsch in 1934 for Anschluss (annexation) In March 1938 the Nazi army marched in and annexed Austria The republic of Czechoslovakia, with its minority population of 3.25 million Sudeten Germans, was next on the agenda Great Britain and France followed a policy of appeasement toward Hitler They thought wrongly that Hitler would remain satisfied, but it was not so At the Munich Conference of September 29, 1938, Czechoslovakia was dismembered, and the Sudeten area was handed over to Germany In March 1939, the country was occupied by Hitler Feverish diplomatic activity, signing of alliances, and mobilization of armed forces were undertaken by the European powers Hitler in his ingenuity and deviousness began to realize his aim He signed a military alliance, the “Pact of Steel,” with Mussolini in May 1939 Hitler’s diplomacy reached its apogee when he signed the nonaggression pact with Russia on August 23, 1939 He could then turn his attention toward Poland, notwithstanding the fact that Great Britain Adolf Hitler reinvigorated Germany in the 1930s and led the world into its most devastating conflict: World War II and Poland had signed a treaty of mutual assistance on August 25, 1939 The free city of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, dividing eastern Prussia from Germany, were seen as an affront to the Germans World War II began on April 1, 1939, after Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland Two days afterward Great Britain and France declared war against Germany Appeasement had been a failure For about two years, the juggernaut of Hitler’s Wehrmacht (armed forces) incorporated Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium The fall of France on June 22, 1940, was another triumph for Hitler Flushed with success, Hitler began to commit the blunder of attacking the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 Four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor