Ideology alone was of course not enough for Hitler to rise to power. The question remains: how was Hitler able to revive the German economy sufficiently to fight a global war in a mere six years? Hitler had taken political power in Germany in 1933. Once this question has been asked, the direction of the answer is obvious: the German economy would have to be supported by the great powers, France, Britain or America; there was no other way.

The key question that contemporary people around the world want to answer is, “What kind of people could perpetuate the unspeakable crimes that occurred in the 1940s war in Europe?". This is of course the correct question to be asking. But alongside it are parallel questions that are rarely investigated. 'Unspeakable' crimes were committed across the colonial world, in both South and North America's, and smaller but dreadful ways by all the colonial powers from time to time, as my blogs have highlighted. The Nazi Holocaust was the final colonialist racial crime. It is this theme that is pursued below.

In the next several blogs I will cover the rise of Nazi Germany, Hitler, the Jewish holocaust, and racism. European and American readers will be used to these subjects. They are frequently covered in film, radio, TV and even referenced general conversation. This begs the question, is there anything new to say? Outside Europe and the USA, these subjects will be less covered. However, because one outcome of this period was the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Arab world, and to a less extent the Islamic peoples around the world, has been deeply affected by events in which they had no hand. The rise of Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust has therefore been of significance almost worldwide.

Japan had been able to follow European nations in colonising other countries and settling her people in her new colonies. By the end of 1945, around six and half million Japanese lived as settlers or as government officials in Japanese colonies such as Korea, Taiwan, China, Manchuria and Micronesia. Japanese military might had created an empire in the Asia Pacific region.

The USA would protect her vassals so long as they accepted her world leadership role. This latter included allowing USA military bases on their land, joining the military alliance, NATO, led by the USA; and following the financial leadership of the USA in terms of the dollar standard, and rules laid out in the United Nations, World Trade Organisation, and other global financial organisations. The Americans asserted their world power, and the vassals agreed voluntarily to follow behind.

The 30 years from 1914 to 1944 represent years of such death and turmoil at every level that it is hard to exaggerate the suffering across the globe. Many of the events of this period have become so seared into people’s memory, contemporary events are frequently compared and contrasted with them. More people than ever were involved in, or affected by war, and at the times when there was no war, there was chaos across the global economy, which affected everyone’s lives.