It was earlier than that. All that was noble in the spirit of Europe was thrown into the buzz saw in WWI. The grip of Communism and Fascism were a direct result.
Give that man a cigar. European Civilization took a bullet through the lungs after 1914, and thrashed around horribly before finally bleeding out during WWII. Europe did indeed die in Auschwitz, but was mortally wounded nearly three decades earlier. The horrors on the Continent during the Thirties and Forties could never have taken place without the physical and spiritual mutilation caused by the Great War.