Prelude To Armageddon WW2: The Decade 1930s

The 1930s. The decade was tumultuous. The ferment in that period was the time of a gathering storm which burst at the end of the decade. That is WW2.The images below show snippets of that period and gives us an inkling that the world was heading towards death and destruction.

Adolf Hitler, 35 years old, on his release from prison of Landesberg, on December 20, 1924. Hitler was convicted of treason for his involvement in a coup attempt in 1923, called the Beer Hall Putsch.

A Japanese soldier stands guard over the Great Wall of China in 1937. IN Asia Japan was flexing its muscles. It had defeated Russia in the war of 1904-5. So there was really no-one to challenge them. First thing they did was invade China.

First images of the Japanese occupation of Beijing in China, 13 August 1937.

  Japanese soldiers involved in the fight street in Shanghai, China in 1937. The Battle of Shanghai lasted from August to November 1937. In the end, Shanghai fell to the Japanese, after there were more than 150,000 deaths.

Japanese warplanes roar over China on a bombing mission. 1937.

On February 5, 1938, A Chinese woman sees the remains of her family, all of whom were killed during the Japanese occupation of Nanking, apparently victims of atrocities at the hands of Japanese soldiers.

Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek (right) head of the Nanking government in Canton, with General Lung Yun, president of the Yunnan provincial government in Nanking, June 27, 1936. Kai-shek was supported by the Americans.

Buddhist monks of the Temple of Asakusa Great preparing for the Second Sino-Japanese War in Tokyo, Japan, on May 30, 1936. They need not have worried. China was too weak to hit back at Japan. The war was largely one-sided.

Japanese soldiers executing captured Chinese soldiers in 1937. The Japanese dealt with the Chinese very brutally. The Chinese haven't forgotten that even today. China deal with Japan very harshly today. Remember the brouhaha over the arrest of  the captain of a Chinese trawler by the Japanese in 2010?

October 28, 1922. The March to Rome. Mussolini seizes power in Italy. Here he is seen with his followers. Hitler took inspiration from what Mussolini did and tried something similar but faced failure. I refer to the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

1935.  Italian soldiers hoist their flag at Macalle in Abyssinia (Ethiopia now). Abyssinian emperor Haile Selasie appealed to the League of Nations for intervention, but in vain. Britain and France were in no mood to annoy Italy.

 Italian soldiers in action in Abyssinia in 1935. The poor Abyssinian army was no match for the Italians and fell quite easily. The Italians made heavy weather of even that. And when the tough British army came later the Italians in Africa fled in panic. Rommel with his German soldiers saved them. But that happened years later.

March 19, 1938. Madrid. Spanish Civil war. The Casa Blanca Building explodes because of explosives placed by the Republicans which killed 300 of Franco's Nationalist fighters. The Loyalist soldiers took six months to make a tunnel half a kilometer long to place the bombs under the building.

 German Stuka Dive bombers fly over the Spanish skies. May 30, 1939. It has cross markings of Franco's Nationalist Air Force. Germany had sent the Condor Legion to help Franco. For Hitler it was arms testing.

 June 2, 1937. Government soldiers train Spanish women how to fire a rifle.

 1936. Burgos, Spain. A Nationalist soldier tosses a grenade on Republican positions as the Loyalist soldiers fire away with their machine guns.

December 1936. The civilians always suffer. Madrid subway station. Spanish people take refuge as Franco's warplanes bomb Madrid.

German girls at a camp of Nazi Youth Movement. Women had a limited role according to Nazis. Breed healthy Aryan children.

Young boys hang on to every word Hitler utters at a Nazi convention in Nuremberg in 1935. These boys provided the backbone of the German army and Waffen SS a few years later.

Kristallnacht. November 10, 1938. Jewish shops were attacked and many Jews were sent to concentration camps.