appeasement. hitler’s aims a leading power! destroy the hated versailles settlement build up an...
TRANSCRIPT
Appeasement
Hitler’s aims
A leading power!• Destroy the hated Versailles settlement• Build up an army• Recover lost territory such as the Saar and the
Polish Corridor (Danzig) • Bring all Germans within the Reich:
Lebensraum.
• Definition: ‘give in to a bully’ Done to avoid war• The term appeasement has been used as a synonym for weakness
and even cowardice since the 1930s.• Main character: Neville Chamberlain became Prime minister of
Great Britain on May 28th 1937. Over the next two years Chamberlain’s conservative government became associated with the policy of Appeasement.
• His ideas: Chamberlain believed that Germany had been badly treated by the allies after WW1. He therefore thought that the German government had genuine grievances and that these needed to be addressed. He also thought that by agreeing to some of the demands being made by Hitler and by Mussolini he could avoid a European war.
Two distinct phases of appeasement:
• 1)1920’s-1937: War must be avoided at all cost! Britain and France sometimes drifted along, accepting Hitler’s various acts of aggression and breaches of Versailles.
• 2) May 1937: British Prime Minister (Chamberlain) claimed that reasonable claims could be approved through negotiation rather than force. Chamberlain remarked that no British government would ever risk the bones of a single British grenadier in defense of Poland. Germany took great advantage of this!
For Appeasement The appeasers, which included essentially French and British politicians,
were convinced that their policy was right and primordial to avoid war. • League of Nations: Failure. Chamberlain believed that the only way to
settle disputes was by personal contact between leaders.• Grievances for Germany and Italy• Cooperation• Fear of communism: Hitler a barrier against communist expansion
westwards Russia was the real THREAT• Pacifist• Britain and France were not in a position to fight Germany• Gave time to Britain to re-arm: “Nobody should treat her with anything
but respect.” (Chamberlain 1937)
Against Appeasement
• Staline became more suspicious of France and Britain• Re-arming allowed Germany to grow stronger• Appeasement allowed Hitler to think that he could get away with
anything
The snake of war ate Woodrow Wilson's rabbit
Opponents
Chamberlain vs. Churchill
Appeasement Appeasement = = “peace for our time” “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”
Opponents
• Both countries wanted to avoid war, yet some believed that the appeasement policy was not the right solution. Poincaré, French prime minister, wanted firmness against Germany. He wished to build a strong anti-German group with Italy and the U.S.S.R. That is why he pressed the soviets to enter the League of Nations (Sept. 1934). He refused the re-armament of Germany. Unfortunately, he was assassinated in October 1934…
France’s weakness• During the 1930s French governments followed Britain’s lead. The French
were very nervous of further German aggression and attempted to weaken Germany as far as possible. The French put their faith in a series of alliances with the new Eastern European states, these were known as the Little Ententes. Militarily the French established a huge network of military defenses on the German border known as the Maginot Line.(1930-1940 = Construction)
• Between 1917-1940 France’s democracy produced 44 governments under 20 different Prime Ministers. This rapid change of governments left France weak and divided. There were deep divisions between left and right wing parties. This decline deprived Britain of the one strong ally who could have helped to stand up to Germany. French weakness was one of the main reasons why Britain and France did not stand up to Germany in the mid 1930s.
“France was a badly divided country, where many right-wing politicians preffered Hitler to the socialist premier, Léon Blum.” (Winston Churhill)
Conferences
• Berchtesgarden (15 Sept 38), Chamberlain gives Sudetenland to Hitler (Benes agrees)
• Godesberg (22 Sept 38), Hitler wants more Czech territory immediately. Benes* does not agree, he orders mobilization.
• Munich (29 Sept 38), given Hitler’s demands, a 4 power conference is needed (Italy, France, Britain, Germany). The Czechs and Russians are not involved. The Czechs get no support and Benes resigns.
*Czech president
Rhineland"...no more than the Germans walking into their own
backyard." (Lord Lothian )
The policy of appeasement was clearly failing due to Hitler’s retrieval of
the Rhineland. On the 7th March 1936, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland despite the Treaty of Versailles which stated that it be demilitarized and kept free of German military personnel and weapons. Hitler wanted to test the willingness of his neighbouring countries giving Germany the cold shoulder. It was said that Hitler would have made his army evacuate peacefully if the French did show, but there was no sign of them, and so their failure to respond was a huge precipitant of World War II. The Franco-Soviet pact had been supplemented by a treaty of Alliance between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union which consequently made Germany feel threatened. Hitler felt it was necessary to remilitarize the Rhineland for Germany’s protection and defence. Britain and France were terrified of any possible risk of creating a war, and so they let the Germans back into the Rhineland
Anschluss• Germany, seeing that France and Britain had let their guard down,
decided to keep pushing. Hitler, once again, defied the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and tried to achieve a union with Austria. The Austrian Government wasn’t very enthusiastic about joining powers with Germany after seeing the rise of Hitler but many German speaking Austrians wanted him to have power over their country. In January 1938, Austrian Nazi’s attempted a putsch. Kurt Schuschnigg was forced to hold a vote asking whether his people wanted to be part of Germany. The vote came back with 99% of the population wanting Anschluss (meaning “link-up”) with Germany. Schuschnigg asked for help from France, Britain and Italy but Hitler promised that the Anschluss was the last of his expansionist aims and so not wanting to risk war, the other countries did nothing.
Sudetenland“It is the last territorial claim that I have to make in Europe”
(Adolf Hitler)
• Hitler didn’t keep his word and six months later, he demanded that the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia be handed over to Germany because he accused the country of oppressing the 3 million Germans living in the Sudetenland. Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Britain, met with Hitler three times during September 1938 to try to reach an agreement that would prevent war. The Munich Agreement stated that Hitler could have the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia provided that he promised not to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler was not a man of his word and in March 1939 invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Despite calls for help from the Czechoslovak government, neither Britain nor France was prepared to take military action against Hitler. However, they did believe that Poland would be Hitler's next target; both Britain and France promised that they would take military action against Hitler only if he invaded Poland. Chamberlain believed that, faced with the prospect of war against Britain and France, Hitler would stop his aggression, but he turned out to be wrong and on the 1st September 1939 German troops invaded Poland.
Invasion of Poland• After Britain and France has pressured Czechoslovakia into succumbing to the
demands of Nazi Germany in order to avoid war, the Munich agreement was signed. This agreement stated that Germany could have the Sudetenland under the circumstances that no further territorial claims were to be made by Germany. Despite the pact made, Hitler went on to dismember the Czechoslovak state in March 1939 in violation to the agreement. Britain and France responded by guaranteeing the integrity of the Polish state, they stated that they would wage war if ever Hitler were to invade Poland. Hitler responded by negotiating a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1939. The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. Hitler made this pact with Russia so that they would not fight each other and would instead divide Poland between them when they conquered it.
Poland was invaded by Germany on the 1st September 1939. German units from East Prussia, Silesia, Slovakia and of course Germany broke through polish defenses with 2,000 tanks and 1,000 planes. They invaded all around the borders of the country in order to create a massive encirclement attack. Hitler was confident that France and Britain would continue their policy of appeasement but turned out to be very wrong. Britain and France kept their promise and declared war on Germany on the 3rd September. The Soviet Union invaded Poland on the 17th September; Poland continued to battle it out but within weeks of invasion the polish army was defeated and they surrendered on the 27th September. By this time, it had already been established that the policy of appeasement had failed.
• In October 1939, Germany directly annexed those former Polish territories along German's eastern border: West Prussia, Poznan, Upper Silesia, and the former Free City of Danzig. The remainder of German-occupied Poland (including the cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Radom, and Lublin) was organized as the so-called General government under a civilian governor general, the Nazi party lawyer, Hans Frank.
