The war was over.
So why was everyone still angry?
On November 11, 1918, the guns went quiet. World War I was done. Soldiers went home.
But twenty years later, the world was at war again. How?
After WWI, the countries that won the war were angry at Germany. They made Germany sign a paper called a . The paper said Germany had to pay for the whole war.
Then the money vanished. Then the bullies came. Then another war.
This is the story of the twenty years between the wars.
This is the story of how anger, poverty, and bullies led to the next war.
Germany got blamed for everything.
The war was over. Now what? The countries that won WWI met in a big palace in France. They made Germany sign a paper.
The paper was called the Treaty of .
A is just a paper that ends a war. Everyone signs it. It says what happens next.
This one was hard on Germany. Very hard.
Four things the treaty made Germany do
Germans were furious. They felt the treaty was unfair. They did not think the war was all their fault.
For the next twenty years, many Germans stayed angry about this paper. One of them was a man named Adolf Hitler. You'll read more about him soon.
One day, the money just disappeared.
It was a Tuesday morning. People woke up, went to the bank, and the money was gone. All of it.
In America, people kept their money in banks. Banks used that money to buy — tiny pieces of a company.
On October 29, 1929, every stock lost its value at the same time. Banks lost everything. So did the people who trusted the banks.
This was called the Great .
What is a depression?
A is when the whole country gets poor at once. Not just one family. Everyone.
Factories close because no one can buy things. Workers lose their jobs. They cannot pay rent. They cannot buy food.
It lasted from 1929 to 1939 — ten years. And it spread from America to the whole world — including Germany.
Germany was already poor from the . Now no one had a job at all. Millions of Germans went hungry.
They were ready to follow anyone who promised to fix it.
Three angry men took over three countries.
When people are scared and hungry, they look for someone to blame. In three countries, three angry men stepped up and said: "I will fix it. Follow me."
They were called .
A dictator is one person who makes all the rules. No voting. No arguing. No saying no.
Here are the three that mattered most.
Same story, three countries
All three told their people the same story:
"You are better than everyone else. Other people ruined your country. Only I can fix it."
It was a lie. But people were tired. People were hungry. And so they believed.
A fourth dictator — Joseph Stalin.
Stalin made the rules for almost thirty years. He killed millions of his own people. But he called himself a hero of the workers.
After WWI, Russia had a big change. The kings were gone. A new government took over. It was called the Soviet Union.
It was the first country in the world run by . Communism means: no rich, no poor. Everyone shares.
That sounds fair. But Stalin did not share fairly. He kept all the power for himself. He killed anyone who disagreed.
Stalin's three plans
1. Build, build, build. Factories had to make steel, coal, and tanks — fast. Workers who failed were shot or sent to prison camps.
2. Take the farms. Stalin took every farm. The farmers got nothing. About 5 million people died of hunger.
3. Kill anyone who disagrees. Old friends. Generals. Anyone he didn't trust. He killed almost a million people just to make sure no one could ever say no.
Mussolini, Hitler, Tojo, Stalin. Four different countries. Four different stories. One playbook.
One leader. No voting. No saying no.
The world tried to keep the peace. It didn't work.
After WWI, the world said "never again." They made a club to stop wars before they start. It was called the League of Nations.
Forty countries joined. The League had one job: stop wars.
But the League had two big problems.
Problem 1: The United States did not join. America was the richest, strongest country. Without America, the League could not really stop anyone.
Problem 2: The League had no army. If a country did something bad, the League could only talk. It could not actually stop anyone.
Three tests. Three failures.
1931 — Japan invades Manchuria (a part of China).
The League said: "Japan, stop."
Japan said: "No."
The League did nothing.
1935 — Italy invades Ethiopia (a country in Africa).
The League said: "Italy, stop."
Italy said: "No."
The League did nothing.
1936 — Hitler invades the Rhineland (a part of Germany that was supposed to have no army).
The League said: "Hitler, stop."
Hitler said: "No."
The League did nothing.
The bullies learned a lesson.
Nobody will stop us.
That lesson would end with World War II.
Inside Germany, Hitler picked a target.
While Hitler was taking land outside Germany, he was attacking people inside Germany. He picked a target. He picked the Jewish people.
Hitler told a big lie. He said Jewish people were the reason Germany lost WWI. He said Jewish people were the reason Germany was poor.
None of this was true. It was a lie to give angry people someone to blame.
Many Germans believed him. They were angry and scared. They wanted someone to blame. Hitler gave them that.
1935 — The Nuremberg Laws
Hitler's government made new rules just for Jewish people:
• Jewish people were not real Germans anymore.
• They could not have certain jobs.
• They could not marry non-Jewish people.
• Their kids could not go to many schools.
These rules were called the Nuremberg Laws. They made it legal to treat Jewish people as less than human.
November 9, 1938 — Kristallnacht
The name means "Night of Broken Glass."
In one night, Nazis burned hundreds of Jewish stores. They burned synagogues — the buildings where Jewish people pray. They broke every window. They beat people in the streets.
That night, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested — about the size of a small city — and sent to camps.
The world saw what happened. Some countries said they were sorry. A few let Jewish families come live with them.
But most countries did nothing to stop it.
Later — when WWII started — it got much, much worse. About 6 million Jewish people would be killed. It was called the Holocaust.
We will read more about the Holocaust when we study WWII.
"Just let him have it."
Hitler started taking other countries. Britain and France had a choice: fight him now, or let him take a little and hope he stops.
By 1938, Hitler had broken the rules of the . He built a huge army. He took back land. Nobody stopped him.
Then he said he wanted a piece of Czechoslovakia — a country next to Germany. He said, "German people live there, so I should rule it."
The British leader, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Germany. He sat down with Hitler. He said: fine, take it.
This idea has a name: . It means giving someone what they want so they stop being a problem.
Chamberlain flew home. He waved a paper in the air. He said: "I believe it is peace for our time." He meant: "I got us peace."
Six months later, Hitler took all of Czechoslovakia. Not just the piece — the whole country.
Then, on September 1, 1939, Hitler Poland.
This time, Britain and France said: enough. They declared war.
World War II had begun.
Here is what you learned.
You now know how peace fell apart in just twenty years.
Tap each card to star it. Tap a purple word to hear it.
Tell the story back
Pick a card. Say it out loud. Then write one sentence. Start with: "Between the wars, ___."
The Fastest Man on Hitler's Track.
In 1936, the Olympics came to Berlin. Hitler built a brand-new stadium. He wanted the world to see that his people were the best at everything. Then a Black American runner showed up.
His name was Jesse Owens. He was born in Alabama in 1913. His family was poor. They picked cotton. When Jesse was nine, his family moved north to Cleveland, Ohio — like many Black families at that time.
Jesse was fast. Really fast. His gym teacher noticed. "Can you come to practice?" the teacher asked. Jesse said he could not — he worked after school to help his family.
So the teacher moved practice to the morning. Before school. Before work. Jesse ran every day at dawn.
By the time Jesse was in college, at Ohio State, he was the fastest man in America. But he was still Black in a country with Jim Crow laws — rules that kept Black people and white people apart.
He could not live in the same dorm as his white teammates. He could not eat in the same restaurants. When the team traveled, Jesse and the other Black athletes had to find their own places to sleep.
None of that stopped him.
In 1936, Jesse traveled to Berlin, Germany, for the . Hitler had spent millions on a giant new stadium. He wanted the Games to prove that white German athletes — people he called the "master race" — were better than everyone.
Jesse Owens ran the 100 meters. He won gold.
He ran the 200 meters. He won gold again.
He jumped in the long jump. Gold.
He ran the 4×100 meter relay with his team. Gold. A world record.
Four gold medals. Right in front of Hitler.
Something else happened in Berlin. A German athlete named Luz Long was Jesse's rival in the long jump. But instead of treating Jesse like an enemy, Luz gave him advice before the final round. It helped Jesse win.
After the jump, Luz walked over. In front of 100,000 people — in front of Hitler — Luz put his arm around Jesse. They walked together.
Jesse later said: "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler."
Jesse came home a hero. But America still had its own problems. President Roosevelt never invited Jesse to the White House. Jesse could not get a regular job. He worked as a janitor. He raced against horses for money.
Hitler's racism was loud. America's racism was quiet. Both were real.
Jesse Owens did not fix racism. But for four days in Berlin, he proved that the idea of a "master race" was a lie. And the whole world saw it.
Test Yourself.
Six questions. Cross out the wrong answers, then pick what's left.