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That's the Explorers Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War, episode 33,

The Third Reich, part 19, the Rhineland.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Anita for the donation, and to Don, Jackson, Jason,

Scotty, and Ryan for choosing to support this podcast on Patreon, where they now can access

to special ad-free versions of all of these episodes, plus special Patreon-only episodes released

once a month.

If that sounds interesting to you, head on over to History of the Second World War.com slash members to find out more information. I would also like to send a special

thanks to listener Hendrick from Germany, who helped me out with some research for this episode

back in March of 2020. The mid-1930s would be a period where Germany would begin to shed many of the

limitations placed upon it by the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended the First World War.

By 1936, Germany had already announced that it was rearming and ignoring the military limitations

included in the treaty. Reparations had also essentially ended a few years earlier.

In March 1936, another important feature of the treaty would be discarded when on March

7th, German troops entered the Rhineland. The Rhineland had been demilitarized in the Treaty of Versailles,

with the German army forbidden from basing troops or building defenses in the region. This included a strip of land that was about 50 kilometers wide on the east bank of the Rhine River,

which was considered incredibly important territory by the French military.

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