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"It has sometimes been said that it was the last-ditch effort at conciliation undertaken by Chamberlain which undermined the resolve of this group. But in fact Chamberlain's efforts ended in failure. If Hitler had wanted war on 1 October 1938, he could have had it. The French and British had reached the point at which they could make no further concessions. The armies of France and the Soviet Union had mobilized. The Royal Navy stood at full alert. On 29 September 1938 it was Hitler who stepped back not his opponents, and there is no better explanation for this abrupt change of course than the sheer weight of evidence, argument and pressure that had been brought to bear on him over the previous weeks. Hitler was hearing expressions of concern not only from Beck and Krosigk, but also from Goering and most importantly perhaps from Mussolini, who intervened personally on 28 September. Nobody could accuse either Goering or Mussolini of opposing war on principle. But neither wanted to risk a war against Britain and France in 1938. Furthermore, if Hitler abstained from open military aggression, the British and French were clearly willing to give him virtually everything he might ask for. Reluctantly, Hitler backed down and accepted the extraordinarily generous settlement on offer at the hastily convened conference in Munich. In so doing, he almost certainly saved his regime from disaster." - Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
Propaganda puts Chamberlain as spineless, the reality was that he was not. Britain and its empire was not attacked or attacked anyone. He declared war on Germany out of principle.
"The Anglo-American Trade Agreement signed on 2 November 1938 sent a clear message to Berlin. As Britain and America celebrated their new unity of purpose, Goebbels issued strict instructions banning the German press from any comment implying that Berlin viewed the agreement as a significant 'victory for democracy’. Chamberlain was particularly pleased by intelligence reports, which suggested that the Germans believed that the agreement included ’secret military clauses’. In fact, it contained no such thing." - Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
Britain and France had not armed as fast as Germany needing to catch up quickly. The depression hit idle industry of the USA was available to catch up. Churchill regarded the industry of the British empire and the USA as all one, as he had open access to all of it.
"Britain had taken the unprecedented step of issuing a public guarantee of Poland's territorial integrity. To give this promise substance, Britain and France opened negotiations with the Soviet Union over the possibility of concluding a security agreement that would protect the rest of Eastern Europe against any further German aggression. With hindsight it is clear that these negotiations were doomed to failure. Ironically, a guarantee to the Poles made a deal with the Soviets impossible. However, in the spring of 1939 the formation of a triple alliance of France, Britain and the Soviet Union against Hitler seemed inevitable. The British cabinet, despite the reservations of Chamberlain, was genuinely committed to seeking a Soviet deal. And though the replacement of Maxim Litvinov as Soviet Foreign Minister was disturbing, Stalin and his new Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov certainly took the possibility of a Western deal seriously." - Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
It was Chamberlain who scuppered the British-Franco-Soviet alliance, with his anti-Communist feelings getting the better of common sense. If the triple alliance was formed Hitler would not have attacked anyone.
Neville Chamberlain was a disaster as British Prime Minister. He is commonly blamed for the Munich Pact in 1938 that surrendered the western part of Czechoslovakia to the Germans. This was a bad enough move. However, the real problems with Chamberlain and the conservative party began long before 1938. The conservative party ruled Britain for years before the outbreak of World War II. Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin were the architects of British foreign and domestic policy during these years.
Anyone observing German rearmament after the rise of Hitler in 1933 should have seen the need for an equal effort. Had the conservatives supported British rearmament and had the French done their part it would have been a considerable deterrent to Hitler. Money should have been appropriated for a larger air force and a larger army equipped with the latest tanks and armored vehicles. The British Navy was in decent shape. However, its limitations would soon be seen in the early stages of World War II.
Additionally, such an effort by Parliament would have helped strengthen the British economy during the years of the world wide Great Depression. The infusion of government deficit spending could have created tens of thousands of jobs.
Its hard to think any positive thought about Chamberlain in retrospect. About the only thing I can come up with is standing aside, so that Churchill could become Prime Minister.
I think the real PM Chamberlain was somewhere in the middle. He certainly woke up too late to German aggression but his actions were not only defeatist either. The game plan for the Western powers in the late 1930s was to gain time to catch up with German rearmament. The main advantage of Germany in say 1938 was that the arms development having started earlier allowed for more heavy guns (tanks, artillery, fighters etc.). Sure there were exceptions, but generally this allowed German troops to engage the enemy at longer range when they were still invulnerable. The other German advantage into 1942 was the combined arms warfare was so much better. It took the British and USSR 2 years to catch up to this and this was the most egregious leadership failure on their side in WW2 IMO.
So Chamberlain's decision to sacrifice the Czechs at the Munich conference is certainly morally reprehensible, but understandable in the course of the "gain time to build resources" strategy. However, it is one of the most important lesson in human history that peace is maintained via deterrence rather than appeasement. It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot have both. In this he failed.
P.S. In the 1920s into mid 1930s the British public was very much in favor of Germany. The French complained about this all the time and that's why they built the Maginot line - in case they had to fight Germany alone. So Chamberlain could not turn onto Germany overnight.
The conservative party ruled Britain for years before the outbreak of World War II. Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin were the architects of British foreign and domestic policy during these years.
Anyone observing German rearmament after the rise of Hitler in 1933 should have seen the need for an equal effort. Had the conservatives supported British rearmament and had the French done their part it would have been a considerable deterrent to Hitler. Money should have been appropriated for a larger air force and a larger army equipped with the latest tanks and armored vehicles. The British Navy was in decent shape. However, its limitations would soon be seen in the early stages of World War II.
Additionally, such an effort by Parliament would have helped strengthen the British economy during the years of the world wide Great Depression. The infusion of government deficit spending could have created tens of thousands of jobs.
Its hard to think any positive thought about Chamberlain in retrospect. About the only thing I can come up with is standing aside, so that Churchill could become Prime Minister.
"The Wehrmacht's only hope was to strike decisive blows against both the Czechs and the French in quick succession. This, however, depended on the German army and the air force being ready for battle from the beginning. Beck did not comment on the Luftwaffe, but internal sources make it clear that it was far from ready for war in the autumn of 1938."
"What concerned Beck was the possibility that France might intervene in the West whilst the majority of the German armed forces were tied down in Bohemia. Furthermore, even if Germany did manage to survive this initial period of risk, the German army in 1938 was clearly not in a position to inflict a decisive battlefield defeat on the French. Even to make good the plans of 1936 would require a huge increase in the armaments effort. "
- Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze
"The Wehrmacht's only hope was to strike decisive blows against both the Czechs and the French in quick succession. This, however, depended on the German army and the air force being ready for battle from the beginning. Beck did not comment on the Luftwaffe, but internal sources make it clear that it was far from ready for war in the autumn of 1938."
"What concerned Beck was the possibility that France might intervene in the West whilst the majority of the German armed forces were tied down in Bohemia. Furthermore, even if Germany did manage to survive this initial period of risk, the German army in 1938 was clearly not in a position to inflict a decisive battlefield defeat on the French. Even to make good the plans of 1936 would require a huge increase in the armaments effort. "
- Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze
I would say yes and no. Starting the war in 1938 would not have been much different for Germany compared to 1939.
1. German rearmament started earlier, giving them same advantage in 1938 as in 1939
2. Western powers were catching up in armament and thanks to their greater resources were bound to win the longer Germany waited for war
3. The Reich's finances were becoming more and more desperate due to the well-hidden but enormous armament costs. A government bankruptcy was inevitable and 1939 seemed the longest German finances could last before requiring a large war booty and war powers to suppress either hyperinflation or bankruptcy.
It turned out that not having to fight the Czechs and getting the large productive assets in the country for free was a major boon to the German war economy. This made the appeasement policy of the Western Powers in 1938 so much worse.
Except Hitler's decision to invade Russia was predicated on his belief that the Soviets would be easy pickings, which was delusional. If he'd come to his senses, recognizing what he was risking, would he have still invaded? It was clearly the most direct cause of his and Germany's defeat and the main reason they were unable to defend the Atlantic Wall.
Stalin was clearly shocked when Hitler invaded. He was content to watch the "capitalist" powers fight it out, weakening each other, while the Soviets sat on the sidelines and built up their strength. He might have even continued to supply the German's with oil and other supplies, since a stalemate in the West was in his best long-term self-interest.
Adolf Hitler had determined that Germany's destiny lie in seizing land in the east long before the war. For that matter, long before he came to power and before he even concluded that he should lead Germany (early on, Hitler was a beer-hall orator calling for a nationalist dictatorship but hadn't yet envisioned himself running it).
Hitler's rise was predicated on several beliefs:
*Germany lost the first world war because she was undermined at home and must shake off the shackles of Versailles
*Democracy is terrible
*Germany's existential extrenal threat lies to the east, in the form of Bolshevism
*The German people need land into which to expand, land that is occupied by Slavs
*The Jews are responsible for all of these above
Barbarossa was neither opportunistic nor the result of a throughtful analysis by Hitler. Once he was in power, points 3 & 4 above were to be achieved by rolling east. That this would never be a wise move mattered not. The war against Poland was unwise - Hitler was convinced the UK and France would not go to war over Poland (he was wrong). The move west was a terrible gamble. Hitler got lucky in the short term, but the UK could never be subdued and ultimately it was 1940 that all but determined that the United States would enter the war. The western offensive in December 1944 was a pointless waste, but Hitler still had clung to the idea that Antwerp miught be seized and the Allies then pushed off the continent. So the idea that Hitler, for whom a final showdown with what he perceived as the Jewish Bolsheviks was part of his core ideological DNA, was ever going to lucidly conclude that it was a bad idea to invade the USSR and thus refrain from doing so, is a non-starter. He was always going east and he was always going to convince himself that there was a chance of success. Also, bear in mind that Hitler was not deterred by the possibility of failure. Unlike most national leaders, he was content to risk everything, including his own life and the complete destruction of his nation.
The attack west was never an end in and of itself, but merely a move to secure his flank so he could move east. In a sense, April 1940 saw the preliminary moves of Barbarossa. Thus, it would make no sense for Germany to expend such human, military and political capital in the west just to decide to stay there and be content with that. That was not what Hitler was about. Also, given that he was going to attack Stalin, he at least picked the best time to do so. June 1941 was probably the least bad (I won't use the term 'best') to move east. So - again, given the decision to do so - the timing was reasonable.
Germany wasn't in a position to simply sit on its western gains. It desperately needed to loot territories in the east. The conquered territories in the west, along with allies (ie, Italy) and neutrals that couldn't be blockaded by the Royal Navy (ie, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland) couldn't meet the needs of Germany at war. Beyond food (remember, Germany couldn't feed itself) there was the critical need for petroleum. Before 1939, about half of German oil was imported from Mexico but that was cut off after the war began. Synthetic fuel (derived from coal, one thing Germany did possess in some abundance) could not be produced in any quantities approaching Germany's needs. Even with pre-June 1941 imports of oil from the USSR, Germany was going to deplete its available stocks by the end of that year. The Romanian oil wasn't enough - Hitler needed the oil fields of the Caucuses to continue. And Stalin could have made things worse by constricting and then eliminating Soviet oil exports had Hitler waited. With every passing year the USSR was going to be less and less vulnerable to a German attack.
Hitler in 1941 had two options: fold or wager it all. And Adolf never folded.
That's like asking "What would have happened at Normandy (or almost any other major amphibious landing of WWII in either theatre) if it had gone according to plans"?
"The Wehrmacht's only hope was to strike decisive blows against both the Czechs and the French in quick succession. This, however, depended on the German army and the air force being ready for battle from the beginning. Beck did not comment on the Luftwaffe, but internal sources make it clear that it was far from ready for war in the autumn of 1938."
"What concerned Beck was the possibility that France might intervene in the West whilst the majority of the German armed forces were tied down in Bohemia. Furthermore, even if Germany did manage to survive this initial period of risk, the German army in 1938 was clearly not in a position to inflict a decisive battlefield defeat on the French. Even to make good the plans of 1936 would require a huge increase in the armaments effort. "
- Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze
This probably indicated that Hitler was bluffing to some extent around the time of the Munich conference.
This probably indicated that Hitler was bluffing to some extent around the time of the Munich conference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK
You got it.
Wrong.
Completely wrong.
In April 1938, Hitler ordered secret plans for invading Czechoslovakia to be drawn up. One does not make such plans and keep them secret if one is only bluffing. The basis of these plans were a lightning strike which would make the German seizure of the Sudeten a fait accompli before France and the UK could act, prompting them to accept it. In May, before the 'Weekend Crisis', Hitler discussed the necessity of invading the Sudeten by the end of the year on the notion that waiting would result in a less favorable international political climate for doing so. These discussions were not for public consumption buy private talks. The aforementioned plans were styled Case Green. In the weeks before Munich, Hitler stated to his circle - at the Berghof - of his intention to march on Prague. A week later he ordered the creation of the Sudeten German Legion to sow chaos prior to and during an invasion. Immediately before Munich, Goebbels' diary states that Hitler was not bluffing and that an invasion would proceed were the issue not conceded by the western powers. Weizsacker confirms this. All of this was revealed only later, after the war. Again, such secret plans cannot by definition be part of a bluff.
Hitler was more than happy to gain the Sudeten without a fight. But the notion that it was all a bluff is contradicted by all the evidence and supported by none of it.
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