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Shocking Successes that Came from Stressful Situations in History

Khalid Elhassan April 30, 2021 37 min

German troops crossing a bridge into the Rhineland on March 7th, 1936. The Article

The Rhineland, as defined by the Treaty of Versailles. Wikimedia

27. The Fuhrer’s Remilitarization of the Rhineland

Unfortunately, the historic record of people successfully handling pressure is not limited to good guys. Take Adolf Hitler, one of history’s vilest people, and his success in remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936. Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Treaty of Versailles forbade the defeated Germans from stationing armed forces in the Rhineland – a region in western Germany bordering France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The treaty expressly specified that a violation “in any manner whatsoever… shall be regarded as committing a hostile act“.

The demilitarized Rhineland was the single greatest guarantor of peace in Europe because it kept Germany from attacking her western neighbors. Simultaneously, it made it impossible to attack her eastern neighbors, as well. Doing so would leave Germany open to attack from those eastern neighbors’ ally, France, on Germany’s unprotected west. However, although a demilitarized Rhineland was a positive for European peace, it was a humiliating negative for German pride. One of Hitler’s most popular campaign promises during the Nazis’ rise to power was to remilitarize the Rhineland.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.