Did London desire to redirect German aggression towards the USSR & Eastern Europe in Apr-Sep 1939?

Did London desire to redirect German aggression towards the USSR & Eastern Europe in Apr-Sep 1939?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 33.3%
  • No

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • Total voters
    21

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
If so, how could one square that logically with the British guarantee to Poland, which directed German attention west and threatened Germany with two-front war?

Indeed, how could one square that with the "shock, shock" expressed by London and Paris during the March 1939 Nazi occupation of Bohemia?


Imagine if the Polish guarantee worked & deterred the Germans from attacking Poland. How plausible could an all-out German attack on the Soviet Union, bypassing Poland and traversing the Baltics to the USSR have been?
 
Not very plausible, since I doubt Poland would let them. I doubt the Baltic states would too. I doubt any german gov't would want to. Hitler or Schleicher, or any other one.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Not very plausible, since I doubt Poland would let them.

Since this wouldn't be through Polish territory, Poland wouldn't have anything to say about it.

I doubt the Baltic states would too.

The Baltic states are small enough that some focused effort from either Germany or the Soviet Union can "persuade" them to do alot of things.

I doubt any german gov't would want to. Hitler or Schleicher, or any other one.

Weird thing. It does seem like it would be quite strange and difficult to have German-Soviet fighting "around" Poland but not "in" Poland but I had seen books citing that the Russians feared exactly that in the 1930s. A few times, I have seen arguments that Stalin felt Munich demonstrated that the WAllies were trying to redirect the Germans east, and that he actually saw the British guarantee to Poland as a twisted tactic to continue to try to turn the Germans east (wtf!?!), and he did fear potential invasions via the Baltic or Black Seas* as much as through Poland.

Meanwhile, on the German side, I just finished reading Enemy in the East: Hitler's Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union which argues that the Germans were eager to ally with the Poles but also premised many of their plans on northern and southern routes to the USSR even in the event Poland was simply a neutral. https://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Fron...sr=1-2&keywords=rolf+dieter+muller#nav-subnav

One last item. AH.com's Dale Cozort posted an interesting scenario premised on an early, Baltic-focused, Nazi-Soviet war that left Poland alone.

See here:http://www.dalecozort.com/WW2_1297.htm



*to be fair, he had seen those during the Russian Civil War, which was the first time in his life when he had any military responsibility.
 
Top