<P> On 28 June 1919, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, a peace treaty which ended the formal state of war and imposed various punitive measures upon Germany, including military restriction, loss of territory and colonies, war debt, and effective acceptance of blame for the initiation of hostilities in World War I . At the time of the armistice, an attempted Communist revolution transpired (October 1918 - August 1919), resulting in the abdication of the Emperor of Germany in November 1918, and what became known as the Weimar Republic was subsequently established in the wake of the uprising . The transition from monarchy to republic was difficult, and many in the new government were not supportive of the democratic system of government . The officer class gave little support to the Republic, and Germany was forced to borrow money from the United States and others to pay its war debt, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles . In the early 1920s a period of hyperinflation made the Reichsmark almost worthless . In January 1922, one US dollar was worth 191 Marks, but by November of the same year it was equal to 4,200,000,000 Marks . </P> <P> In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich following a contentious election . Under Hitler's leadership, the Reichstag turned the government into an effective dictatorship under Hitler's oversight on 21 March 1933 with the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933, and the economic hardships were significantly diminished via implementation of new economic and social policies . After five years in power, Hitler annexed Austria, former component of the Austro - Hungarian Empire (allies of the former German Empire), into Germany, despite such an act (specifically, "prohibition on the merging of Austria with Germany without the consent of the League of Nations") being banned by both the Treaty of Saint - Germain - en - Laye and the Treaty of Versailles . In early November 1938, the First Vienna Award was signed, allowing Germany to seize the Sudetenland, a German - speaking area of Czechoslovakia which had been a part of the German Empire - allied Austro - Hungarian Empire . Soon after, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia and also gained Memelland (part of the former German Empire from 1871 - 1920) through the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania . </P> <P> While some sources claim Hitler still wanted more, to create Lebensraum, or "living space", for Germany, other sources claim evidence of hostility on behalf of Polish partisans toward ethnic Germans in the Danzig Corridor (territory lost to Germany as a result of the Treaty of Versailles) which may have served as a motivating factor for the German invasion (often portrayed as propaganda to justify German expansionism). </P> <P> Two Western powers, the United Kingdom and France, gave guarantees to Poland that they would declare war if Polish independence came under threat, as presented in a statement to the House of Commons by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain 31 March 1939 (formalized by the British 6 April 1939; not ratified until 4 September 1939 by the French): </P>

Why england declared war on germany in ww2