ed and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been
             subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of
             Germany and her allies." The Germans were forced to pay reparations totaling 132,000,000,000 in gold marks, it lost 1/8 of all its land, all of its colonies, all overseas financial assets, and the German military was basically non-existent. This settlement devastated Germany, economically and politically. The ruin left by the war led to a Great Depression in Germany and around the world.
             This depression was the second event that brought upon the age of totalitarianism and left WWII unavoidable. As the Germans looked for someone to get them out of this economic downfall a man began his rise to power with promises of glory, Adolph Hitler. Once Hitler gained supremacy and Germany had some political stability, he then attempted to rebuild the German economy through any means. The ultimate goal of Hitler's policy was to secure "living space" for the German "master race" in Eastern Europe. He played skillfully on the divisions among the European powers to gain many of his aims without war. With the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini he announced a Rome-Berlin alliance (the Axis) in 1935. Meanwhile, in the Far East, the Japanese, the only Asian industrial power, coveted the natural resources of China and Southeast Asia, but found their expansion blocked by European colonial powers or by the United States. Having seized Manchuria in 19
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