1935

The year in brief

The year 1935 began with the plebiscite in the Saar, in which over 90 per cent of voters chose to return to Germany. In June Britain agreed that Germany’s fleet could reach 35 per cent of British tonnage, and itself set aside the naval limits of Versailles. On 15 September the Reichstag, meeting at the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, passed laws that stripped German Jews of political rights and forbade them to marry “Germans”. Antisemitism became the law of the land. On 3 October Mussolini’s troops crossed from Eritrea into Ethiopia without a declaration of war. For the first time the League of Nations declared a member an aggressor and imposed sanctions, but not on oil, coal or steel. The United States passed a Neutrality Act that banned the sale of arms to all belligerents.