When Adolf Hitler, had a firm position within Germany, war was inevitable. It had to have been he had been preparing for years. His sole concern for Germany was for it to become sufficiently strong to realise his geopolitical goal of Germany being the dominant power within Western Europe.
             When he became chancellor, he asked that the rearmament, secretly occurring from the mid 1920's (which was forbidden by the treaty of Versailles) to be stepped up. He then withdrew Germany from the League of Nations to prevent the possibility of foreign control over Germany. In 1935 Hitler announced that rearmament had begun within Germany and that it had also established an air force. (Which later became known as the Luftwaffe)
             In 1936, Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland, an action that was forbidden by the treaty of Versailles. There was no foreign opposition.
             "Germany therefore no longer feels bound by the Locarno treaty.... the German government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarised zone...Men of the German Reichstag!"
             In 1936 Germany began closer relations with fascist Italy. The two antidemocratic states joined together to assist General Francisco Franco in overthrowing Spain's republican government during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). In November 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Berlin-Rome Axis. That same year, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, the three signatories pledging to defend each other against the Soviet Union and international communism.
             It was also in 1936 that Hitler informed the regime's top officials that Germany must be ready for war by 1940. In response, the Four-Year Plan was established. Developed under the direction of Hermann Goering, it set forth production quotas and market guidelines. Efforts to regiment the economy were not without conflict. Some of the economic elite desired that Germany ...