Deleted member 1487
Pretty much on. Blomberg was going to get purged sooner or later.Ok, gotcha.
Does this mean there isn't much potential in preventing the Blomberg-Fritsch affair, or Austria putting up more resistance?
Pretty much on. Blomberg was going to get purged sooner or later.Ok, gotcha.
Does this mean there isn't much potential in preventing the Blomberg-Fritsch affair, or Austria putting up more resistance?
Shirer has a lot of facts wrong that we now know as the result of access to files that were not available until the fall of the USSR and the opening of Soviet archives among other things. I don't think it would have made a difference in the end to Hitler. He might have given Goering's option a try, because it looked like Chamberlain was about to successfully pressure Poland into caving with hindsight, but Hitler believed it was a waste of time and Chamberlain was bluffing. As it was Chamberlain did say Britain was going to go to war publically over Poland, but Hitler didn't believe him; perhaps if he said it privately Hitler might have reconsidered, I don't know, but Chamberlain was pathologically trying to avoid war and making Germany feel it was being encircled; given Hitler's apoplectic rage at the May Guarantee to Poland and his naval build scheme after renouncing the AGNA I think all a private discussion of Britain's intention to go to war would have done was ramp up Hitler's desire for war. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Hitler was dead set on war.What do you make of Shirer's claim, when writing on the May Crisis, that "had Chamberlain frankly told Hitler that Britain would do what it ultimately did in the face of Nazi aggression, the Fuehrer would never have embarked on the adventures which brought on [WWII]"?
(Again, yes I know Shirer isn't the most objective or best source.)
That was true AFAIK, but I don't know if that would have mattered.What about Shirer's claim that in the lead up to Munich, the generals tried to get Chamberlain to give Germany a clear warning, even clueing him in on their conspiracy to overthrow Hitler?