In this talk for secondary school pupils, Professor Frank McDonough examines the causes of WWII. He looks at long-term factors such as the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations and the depression following the Wall Street Crash, before turning to Hitler. He was an exceptional individual who had laid out his expansionist intentions as early as 1925 in Mein Kampf. Hitler built up German armaments while successfully gambling against the weakness of his opponents.