Figure 1.--This press photo shows a kind of human interest image of Hitler a few months after he had annonced the resumption of conscription, a ceutical step in rearmament.. The press caption read, "Chancellor Hitler of Germany with a small chilf who interrupted a military display in Berlin recently in an effort to get a better seat. Hitler helped the youngster to a vantage point, momntarily delaing the parade." Th image would have come from Goebbel's Propaganda Miniistry and was perfect for the kind of image Hitler wanted to project abroad. The photograph was dated October 26, 1935. This was a wire-servoce press photo. At the time resolution on such photographs was poor. So editors have penned in details.

Hitler even after announcing conscriptiom continued the moderate foreign policy that he had adopted upon becoming Chancelor. By moderate of course we mean that Hitler did not threaten war or demand the return of territory from neoghboring countries are demand inification with Austria that had been expressly prohinited by the Versailled Treaty. This caused many to think that Germany and Hiler could be lived with. But of course this was a carefully calculated policy. He had no choice. He did bot yet hve an army and he needed time to build one nd to prevent Allied intervention to prevent him from building one. While Hitler's foreign policy was moderate in not demnding territory, his domestc policy was far from modertine, violating every militry provision of the Versailles Treaty in an effort to rearm. Here the central step was conscription. It is not possible to build a lrge, powerful army without conscriptiom. This was why Hitler's announcement of conscroption was the critical step in German rearmamet (March 1935). And Hitler did not change his foreign policy immediately. Wih this he was moderte. In nassive rearmament spending, he was anything but moderate. With conscription he had the men he needed to build the army of his dreams, but it would take some time to train the men and build the needes weaponry. As a result his foreign policy did not immeditely change. Here he would only launch his more agressive foreign policy once he jad the military to put real force behind new demands.

Created: 7:11 AM 7/9/2016
Last updated: 7:11 AM 7/9/2016