Appeasement and Adolf Hitler in 1938
The Failure to Stop German Aggression and Land Conquests
During September 1938, European eyes were focused on Munich in Southern Germany where an extraordinary conference was taking place. The Munich Conference, culmination of weeks of negotiation and an early version of “shuttle diplomacy” by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, resulted in a policy of “appeasement.” Although Chamberlain would return to England, telling the people that he brought, “peace with honor…peace for our time,” Adolf Hitler soon broke the agreement in March 1939, taking all of Czechoslovakia.
Background of Appeasement in the Late 1930s
After Hitler came to power in 1933 and the Nazi Party began consolidating state control, many of the military restrictions imposed on Germany at the Versailles peace conference ending World War One were rejected. In 1935, Germany formally withdrew from the League of Nations and began to draft men into the military.
One year later, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, in contravention of post-WWI declarations. Some historians point out that this first action by Hitler to rebuild the Reich might have been stopped had Britain and France taken strong steps to warn off Hitler. Not yet prepared for a general war in 1936, Germany might have delayed or even avoided future aggressions.
By the time of the Austrian Anschluss of March 1938, Nazi Germany had already formed a pact with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The joining of Austria and Germany was the result of a national plebiscite in which almost 98% of Austrians voted for the union. The union was even blessed by Austria’s strong Catholic Church.
The Sudetenland Leads to Appeasement
The Sudetenland bordered Germany and Czechoslovakia and was home to 3.5 million Germans. Prior to World War I, these Germans, in part, had lived within the confines of Austria-Hungary. The allied leaders, following the end of the Great War, redrew the map of Europe, creating new countries like Czechoslovakia and resurrecting old countries like Poland that had been swallowed up by the pre-war European empires.
In many ways, the effects of post WWI geographic endeavors provided future excuses for men like Hitler and Stalin to reclaim or “unite” regions ethnically similar to the mother country. Creating nations like Czechoslovakia provided convenient “buffer” states designed to stop future aggressions, yet they also provided emerging dictators with emotional arguments, whether they personally believed them or not.
Chamberlain, speaking for Britain and the French premier, Edouard Daladier, agreed to a separated Sudetenland, only to find days later that Hitler demanded that the region be ceded to Germany. Britain and France acquiesced. Hitler, breaking the Munich Pact, annexed all of the Czech state in March 1939. Britain and France, condemning the action, also gave strong assurances to Poland. Clearly, appeasement had been a failure.
Results of Appeasement
Winston Churchill was one of the few vocal critics of appeasement. “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat…” he declared in Parliament. “We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude…The system of alliances…has been swept away.” [1] Russia’s Josef Stalin also took lessons from the appeasement policy. In August 1939, The Nazi-Soviet Pact set the stage for the invasion of Poland.
Appeasement emboldened Hitler and provided the German people with successes. The humiliation of Versailles was buried in a new, powerful nation. Hitler had made promises to them and followed through with tangible results. All of this might have been avoided had Britain, France, and even Russia taken a firmer line with Hitler.
Sources:
Winston S. Churchill, Blood, Sweat, and Tears (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1941)
Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott, The Appeasers (Pheonix Press, 2000)
Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-194: Nemesis (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001)
Neville Chamberlain
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