This article is part of the series The Road to World War II .

When Hitler became Chancellor there was no fundamental change in German foreign policy aims: the key factor remained the revision of the Versailles Treaty, an aim which the moderate Streseman and Hitler’s predecessor, Brüning, had already initiated. What was different, though, was the pace at which Hitler proceeded.

According to Alan Bullock, Hitler combined, “consistency of aim with complete opportunism in method and tactics.” Whether Hitler desired to ignite a war remains disputed. Historians in favor base their arguments on the “Hossbach Memorandum”, in which Hitler makes clear his intentions to invade Czechoslovakia and Austria even if it means risking war with England and France. But others like AJP Taylor dispel the Memorandum as “day dreaming, unrelated to what followed in real life,” claiming that the aim of the meeting where the Memorandum was drafted had been to discuss the armaments programme, not foreign policy.

More significant to the debate are the aims laid out by Hitler in his “Mein Kampf”:

• To relieve Germany of the burden of the Treaty of Versailles, implying the rearmament of Germany and reclaiming her international status
• To unite all the German-speaking people (Sudetenland, Austria, Danzig in particular) and incorporate them into an overarching German Reich
• To expand “Lebensraum”, living space in the east (Ukraine and the Soviet Union), for the German people to live

All these goals were outlawed by the Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler’s first step was to demand parity with the other European players at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. When France rejected this outright on grounds of fear of vulnerability in case of a German expansion. Inspired by Japanese defiance following the invasion of Manchuria, Hitler withdrew Germany from the Conference and the League of Nations (October 1933).