DBWI: Chamberlain says 'Yes' to Hitler

In my history class today we were covering the late '30s-early '40s period, which got me wondering, if Chamberlain had given Hitler Czechoslovakia (make no mistakes here, giving Germany the Sudetenland would have been tantamount to giving them the country), what would have happened? Would the SU have been as much of a threat for example as it turned out to be, or would a fight with Germany have left them somewhat weaker?
 
IIRC Germany was still preparing for war at that time, which is why the Germans were so unprepared for it when Hitler ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia... If Chamberlain had said yes I think he would have just moved on to Danzig. His expansion premise was actually quite reasonable ethnically /

OOC: No holocaust and short war means Hitler is just another politician, not a curse word.

/, look at this map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/German1910.png
 

Cook

Banned
if Chamberlain had given Hitler Czechoslovakia...
It’s nonsense, Chamberlain wasn’t the key to the situation – he just gets all the credit in Britain. The British had no influence one way or the other; they had no alliance with Czechoslovakia (so the Czechs had no reason to listen to them anyway) and the British army consisted of two divisions with the possibility of two more in six months’ time. The only means the British had of exerting influence was the Royal Navy; fat lot of good that would have been in the centre of Europe!

No, the whole thing hinged on the French Premier, Edouard Daladier. The French were the Czech’s allies and with good reason – Czechoslovakia’s 35 divisions were critical for France’s defence; the French relied on them being added to the strength of the French army to balance the much greater potential of Germany. Czechoslovakia’s defence was anchored on the rugged border regions and they’d built a line of formidable defences to enhance the natural obstacle of the terrain. Prior to Daladier departing for the talks in Munich he’d been briefed by the chief of the French army who made it plane to Daladier that giving up the Czech border defences would have been tantamount to giving up the defence of France herself; if the choice offered was surrendering the Sudetenland or war, then it would be better to choose war*. Armed with such knowledge Daladier had no choice but to stand firm and threaten war unless Czechoslovakian rights were respected, Chamberlain just went along for the ride.

Would the French, and as a consequence the British, have gone to war with Hitler as they threatened to do? The alternative would have been to sit idly by while Hitler invaded, just as they’d done six months before with Austria. But Austria wasn’t a strategically vital ally, critical to France’s own survival; so yes the French would have gone to war with Germany. Certainly general Halder, the German Army’s chief-of-staff believed they would; it was fear of a repeat of the Great War (complete with another ignominious German defeat) that prompted him and the other conspirators to attempt their inept little coup.

Bizarre as it may sound, the conspirator’s hadn’t meant to kill Hitler, his death was an accident; the plan was to seize Hitler and drag him in front of a People’s Court on a charge of recklessly endangering the German state by plunging it into a new European war. From this charge they’d apparently hoped that Hitler would be declared no longer competent to govern. Germany would be governed by a military dictatorship which would have handed over to a provisional government following Hitler’s trial.

Of course, all that went pear-shaped almost from the start; Halder gave the signal to General von Witzleben, commander of the Berlin military district and a co-conspiritor, to secure Berlin, take control of the government and party buildings and arrest Hitler and the other key members of government. But the soldiers sent by von Witzleben to the Chancellery clashed with Hitler’s SS security detachment, a gun battle resulted and the soldiers resorted to grenades to fight their way room by room through the Chancellery – Hitler was just killed by shrapnel when one of the grenades rolled under the desk he was sheltering under.

While this was happening General Beck, the former Chief of Staff who had resigned earlier in the year when Hitler had first announced his plan to invade Czechoslovakia, was trying to persuade General Brauchitsch, the new commander of the army (who was not a conspirator) to join them. Brauchitsch simply refused to do so and the bulk of the army remained loyal to Brauchitsch (There is some speculation that Brauchitsch had been unaware that Hitler had been killed). The entire coup collapsed in the space of an afternoon. By the middle of the next day, Herman Goering had taken the oath of office of Chancellor and Fuhrer of the Third Reich, ending the reckless confrontational foreign policy period of Adolf Hitler, and beginning the steady decline of the German Reich.




*This by the way actually happened; Daladier was indeed given that briefing in exactly those terms by General Gamelin prior to going to Munich.
 
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The only means the British had of exerting influence was the Royal Navy; fat lot of good that would have been in the centre of Europe!
I don't know, they did pretty well with the blockade in WW1, and Germany was stronger then, so I suspect that even without France they could have put Germany to some inconvenience if they moved in on Czechoslovakia, though whether they would have is up for debate.
 
...Beginning the steady decline of the German Reich.


But I disagree on this point. Granted, their economy went downhill pretty quicky, they didn't get Sudetenland, but not being smacked by another war was probably more important.

Now, there some historians who say that Germany could have crushed France in 3 months or so, but Germany's economy would just go *pop* in the meantime.

Now, the "steady decline" of the German Reich is true on a few points only: Military , Government power and (for the first few years, economic strength). The economic reforms that were eventually forced through in 1944, with the military cuts, general absence of US economic assistance and Soviet invasion of Poland forced them into reality. Germany stopped being a source of free lunches. The economy went back uphill.

If Chamberlain actually gave the Sudetenland to Germany, I can see the soviets invading Poland* earlier(meaning even less time for the poles to prepare)[Stalin was pretty sure the Allies were going to intervene in poland if he attacked, like what to Germany, unless he waited for a situation where the Allies were not in a helpful position.], while Germany would likely keep Hitler , who'd probably lead Germany in a -meh- manner, possibly into a diplomatic black hole. The -meh- part about Hitler is from personal experience: Good politicians make bad leaders. Germany would probably reformed it's economy later, or not at all, with which Germany would be sucked into economic collapse.

Regardless, is anyone going to visit Vienna for the 74th celebration of the
2nd German unification?

*Stalin invaded Poland in 1944, December 25, soon after Germany reformed it's economy, and was quarter-way through with military modernization.

OOC: "Germany is crushed" by allies is way too boring for my tastes.
 
It’s nonsense, Chamberlain wasn’t the key to the situation – he just gets all the credit in Britain. The British had no influence one way or the other...

If so, then why did the Germans and French pay so much attention to what the British were saying? Hitler met Chamberlain two or three times personally in September 1938, did he not?
 

Cook

Banned
If so, then why did the Germans and French pay so much attention to what the British were saying? Hitler met Chamberlain two or three times personally in September 1938, did he not?
It was an attempt at wedge politics; divide and weaken them, plus no doubt Hitler thought Chamberlain could have some influence on Daladier.

But for Daladier to have been willing to abandon the French alliance with Czechoslovakia after the military briefing he’d received prior to going to the conference would have been tantamount to knowingly committing national suicide, would certainly have been political suicide. It would have been quite literally a suicidal act too – the mob would have murdered the Premier signed away an ally to the Germans as soon as he stepped off his plane back in Paris! Or are we meant to imagine that French alliances were worthless pieces of paper? Particularly a strategically vital alliance.
 
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