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What effect did totalitarianism have on the Second World War?

The rise of totalitarian governments, particularly that of Nazi Germany, was a major cause of World War II. The reason for this is that Adolf Hitler, the German dictator, based his power upon promises of restoring German greatness, and for him, this always entailed, as he made clear in his speeches, German conquest of Europe. Hitler's aggressions, then, which began by his flouting the rules of the Treaty of Versailles by sending German troops into the Rhineland in 1936, were fundamental to Nazi totalitarianism, and they eventually led to the outbreak of war in the fall of 1939. Beyond that, the fact that totalitarian leaders were able to almost totally mobilize their peoples for war, along with the use of new technologies, resulted in unimaginable casualties. Stalin's Soviet Union, for example, suffered nearly 27 million people killed, both victims of Hitler's invading armies and the utter and total sacrifice that Stalin required of his armies and his people. Indeed, these casualty numbers include many people murdered by Stalin's police and others. So totalitarianism contributed to the outbreak of the war and to its incredible cost.

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