Totalitarianism

Throughout Europe, democracy had prevailed by 1919. But by 1939, Europe’s countries were split in their ways of government. Eastern countries went authoritarian, while Western countries stayed democratic. Dictatorship in Europe was by far not something new, but this new, modern form of totalitarianism, however, was. One leader who belonged to the one party in the country led the new totalitarian state. These governments were also different in that they gave more power to the central …

…goals. The most effective of the three governments was Nazi Germany. Hitler’s use of force and terror with the SS and the often use of the concentration camps, made life for non-conformists very difficult to basically impossible. And therefore, Hitler achieved his ideals for Germany. Eventually all three governments would fall in World War II, but their establishment and use during the inter-war period, reeked havoc on much of both Eastern and Western Europe.