1939.06.28 “20 Years After”
by Charles (Chuck) George Werner (1909-1997)
17 x 15 in., ink in board
Coppola Collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Werner
Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner's cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.
The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I and imposed harsh penalties on Germany, was signed on June 28, 1919. The 20th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles was on June 28, 1939.
By 1939, Europe was on the brink of another major conflict, with World War II breaking out in September. The treaty's harsh terms, including the "war guilt clause" (Article 231) and significant reparation payments imposed on Germany, are widely considered to have contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Hitler capitalized on German resentment of the treaty, promising to undo its provisions and restore Germany's power and pride. The economic distress in Germany, exacerbated by reparations and the Great Depression, created fertile ground for the Nazi Party to gain support.
The League of Nations, created by the treaty to promote peace and prevent future conflicts, proved ineffective without the participation of the United States and lacking effective enforcement mechanisms.
By March 1936, Germany reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland, violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties—and did so with no military pushback from Britain or France. Hitler and made it clear that the peace regime established in 1919 had no enforcement mechanism.
On March 12, 1938, Germany annexed Austria in what Hitler termed the Anschluss.
In September 1938, Britain and France allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland under the Munich Agreement, in hopes of avoiding war. That agreement would come to be known as the epitome of failed appeasement.
Just months before June 28, Hitler flouted even the Munich terms by occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
