Abstract
Hitler came to power with the aim of restoring Germany to the status of a great power, an essential precondition for embarking on a gradual revisionist strategy aimed at achieving continental hegemony. At the beginning of 1935, his expansionist programme still seemed far from becoming reality; yet only eighteen months later, it was already well underway. The conditions for this rapid transformation were created by the global crisis unleashed by the Italo-Ethiopian dispute. The Third Reich exploited this situation to advance its agenda, witnessing the democracies’ impotence in the face of treaty violations and the establishment of a privileged relationship with Italy, even though both France and Britain also attempted to engage diplomatically with Berlin. Germany’s return to great power status, therefore, was made possible by a series of factors linked to the profound transformations in the international system brought about by the Italo-Ethiopian War.