No Poland Guarantee

I think it is not correct thinking that H had a long term plan at all, apart some somwhat confused dreams of eastward (lebensraum) and westward (alsace lorrain) expansion.
the Mein kampft is somehow vague about that, ad it is not clear if lebensraum would be identified as ethnically german territories (sudetenland and so on), or a limited strip od land near the polish border (warteghau), or the whole poland and morawia, or even ukraine.
regarding hartred against france, I guess that if I had to do trench warfare on the somme I would not like them either, but I think he menant something more resembling the 1871 conclusion (minor border adjustment, big prestige gain) than a subjugation.
Regarding Engalnd we was in a VERY friendly disposition, but the UK cabinet always rejected them (pease note I'm note making any judgment wether they were right or not), expecially when Chuchill came to power
 
but THERE WERE significant minorities of german population in the area.

Sometimes democracy fails, like when it coughs up Nazis. Sad but true. Before you can make it succesful again, you have to remove Nazis from the equation.

Regarding Chamberlain and Daladier, I do not think you're judging them fairly: at the time nobody would have dreamed that the situation would evolved as it had. ("Hey, he was elected by a democratic election! germans are serious people: they wouldn't dream of voting for a madman").

Now, if being an idiot carried the death penalty, we'd make Hitler's crimes pale to insignificance, but Chamberlain's policy wasn't all peace-democracy-self-determination-yay!. It was based on miscalculations about Hitler and phobic fear of Soviet Russia. It was a stupid, disasterous policy, even if there were some noble ideals behind it as well as misjudged and ignoble calculations.

The Nazis wanted their war over the Munich Crisis. It was averted by Chamberlain's frantic efforts. When a regime wants war, you see it off by strength and make sure it behaves, whether or not this means giving them their wish. You don't increase their strength by stabbing a democratic ally in the back, because if they want war so badly they're obviously going to use it against you soon.

The Nazis didn't demand "self-determination for the Sudetenland". They demanded "German troops occupy the Sudetenland without any pretense of democracy in ten short days, Czechs and Jews can pack their bags and run". You don't give such a regime what it wants, unless you think you can turn its naked aggression against the Evil Russkies, of course. Don't act surprised when they think you're spineless and turn on you, and don't act surprised when the Evil Russkies, after you've brushed off their every attempt to find an understanding with you, decide to look out for number one.

my point is that both the sudetenland and the danzig claims were reasonable in the eyes of european powers, and of course nobody in western europe wanted another War.

There's the simplification of the decade. Churchill and Atlee and The Gang certainly wanted one, if that was what it took. The Czechs would have preffered it to the other option. Most importantly, whatever everybody else thought, Hitler wanted it like nobody's business.

There's a fomous picture of chamberlain waving the piece of paper which "saved the peace of our days", which is often quoted as an exemple of misjudgment. However, if you look at the background, you can see a lot of people rejoicing. C and D just tries to to what people who elected them wanted them to do: trying to preserve peace

Chamberlain was one of the earliest great spinners, however, and euphoric relief combined with extremely skillful news management (a low point in the illustrious history of the BBC, I'm afraid) wore off very quickly (IIRC, there was a Gallup poll suggesting that Britons actually thought, in early 1939, that the government should hurry up and make that Russian alliance, which would figure: the British man-in-the-street isn't fussed about the fate of the Kresy). There was a fatalistic feeling in late-30s Britain. If Chamberlain had let the war that was brewing happen, Britons would have put their shoulders to the wheel just like we did in 1939.

The widespread pacifism of which so much is made A) had passed its peak, B) overlapped quite a bit witb blatant pro-Nazi figures such as the war-reviling Oswald Mosley, C) was never what it might seem. I'm reminded of the bit in Patrick Leigh Fermor's travelogue of 30s Germany where people are asking about the Oxford resolution not to fight for king and country (he being a student). This is Crete guy, yes. Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor DSO OBE, jumped out of a plane, kidnapped General Kreipe. That guy. he notes that a great many of the resolutions signatories would have wartime exploits of their own: the very formulation of the resolution was archaic, a near joke, a rejection of old jingoistic ideals but not of such very British ideas of "Well, it's all pretty terrible, isn't it? Well, musn't grumble." That, and not "Yay! War!", was the spirit of 1939.

what has the Final solution to do with the matter we are discussing?

It could never have happened if not for Britain, in common with everybody else, badly screwing up?
 
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When Churchill came to power Germany was not only at war with the United Kingdom but had already conquered no less than eight nations, many of them impeccable neutrals, not to mention the alliances with Mussolini and Stalin, also aggressive conquerers of nations so any protestations that Germany meant no harm were understandably treated with skepticism at that point by the British.



Had Hitler not been what he was the 1938 concessions on the Sudetenland might have been quite plausible but his nature and subsquent actions proved it to be a mistake. In practical terms, the concessions forced on Czechoslovakia, with the added cost of ending all chance of an accord between the British and French and the USSR, was not remotely worth the sole gain of delaying the war by a single year, especially since the benefits and military improvements gained by Hitler in that year vastly exceed what the British and French gained.
 
I think it is not correct thinking that H had a long term plan at all, apart some somwhat confused dreams of eastward (lebensraum) and westward (alsace lorrain) expansion.

He took opportunities and was constantly moving his sketchy plans forward (compare the Hossbach memorandum with what actually happened as opportunities presented themselves early and made him bolder), but the great polar star of his policy was Lebensraum, and he was also keen on revenge for Versailles, but not to the same extent.

the Mein kampft is somehow vague about that, ad it is not clear if lebensraum would be identified as ethnically german territories (sudetenland and so on), or a limited strip od land near the polish border (warteghau), or the whole poland and morawia, or even ukraine.

Um, no. Mein Kampf says something like "if we speak of space [raum] in Europe today, we must of course mean Russia [Soviet Union] and her vassal border states [that hate her, but they're all Slavs and therefore part of the Jewish World Conspiracy]", that "the end of Jewish domination in Russia will also mean the end of Russia as a state", to be replaced with German domination, presumably.

Greater Germany was a preliminary goal, and he planned to achieve it (and indeed achieved it) as a launchpad for the conquest of the Soviet Union and the extermination of the inhabitants, which was always his goal.

regarding hartred against france, I guess that if I had to do trench warfare on the somme I would not like them either, but I think he menant something more resembling the 1871 conclusion (minor border adjustment, big prestige gain) than a subjugation.

True, he had no major beef with western Europeans racially if they accepted total German domination of their "independent" states.

Regarding Engalnd we was in a VERY friendly disposition, but the UK cabinet always rejected them (pease note I'm note making any judgment wether they were right or not), expecially when Chuchill came to power

Excuse me?

1) It's Britain. *angry Scotsman :mad:*

2) Yes, he thought we were racially pure and admired our habit of invading helpless peoples and settling vast tracts of Lebensraum (although after we rejected his peace offers in 1940 he went off us in a big way), but...

3) What did the UK cabinet reject? A once-in-a-lifestime opportunity to be a pathetic vassal of the Nazist new Europe and accomplice to its genocide of the Jews and Slavs?

We bent over backwards to Hitler, disgracefully. As far as I'm concerned, questioning whether it could possibly have been correct to seek alliance with Hitler is walking on extremely thin ice.
 
I'm ot contesting your arguments from a 2010 point of view: we all agree now that H was a monstrous gedocidal criminal.
But from a 1938 point that was absolute crap.
Barring quite an accurate crystal sphere, Chamberlain and Daladier would not have any means to imagine the consequence as they developed.
Most of WW2 impact is due that what was believed to be unbelvable actually happened
If I were to write a fictional book on something like that, my would-be-editor would rebuke it: "it's not believable, nobody would give credit to suff like that".

Regarding UK (take your kilt on, I was not to hurt scottish pride :D ) I think youre looking it wrong.
In the original intention the UK-germany-Italy alliance was to be formed on equal terms: it's only after the Italian military incompetency was manifest that H began to treat his partner as a 2nd class one
 
It was quite clear in 1938 that yielding to Hitler's demands meant the end of Czechoslovakia as a military factor, the effective end of the Little Entente, probable allies for Germany in the form of Hungary and Slovakia and a slap in the face to Stalin while offering Germany massive military and other benefits.

Given that further problems were obviously coming regarding Memel, Danzig and so forth it would have been entirely valid to ask whether the Munich Accord would actually buy peace and, if it did not, would the time gained be remotely comparable to what was lost.


As for the allegedly desired Anglo-German alliance since it had no interest nor point to Great Britain...
 
I'm ot contesting your arguments from a 2010 point of view: we all agree now that H was a monstrous gedocidal criminal.
But from a 1938 point that was absolute crap.

Oh you did not just say Clement Atlee was talking crap!

Plenty of people thought this way at the time.

Barring quite an accurate crystal sphere, Chamberlain and Daladier would not have any means to imagine the consequence as they developed.
Most of WW2 impact is due that what was believed to be unbelvable actually happened
If I were to write a fictional book on something like that, my would-be-editor would rebuke it: "it's not believable, nobody would give credit to suff like that".

Nobody could foresee the Holocaust, but it was quite clear that we were selling out a valuable ally and bastion of democracy (and by implication shooting in the foot your chances of an even more valuable ally, albiet not exactly a democratic one...) to a a state that had repeatedly taken advantage of our goodwill to grab what they wanted.

Regarding UK (take your kilt on, I was not to hurt scottish pride :D ) I think youre looking it wrong.
In the original intention the UK-germany-Italy alliance was to be formed on equal terms: it's only after the Italian military incompetency was manifest that H began to treat his partner as a 2nd class one

This doesn't change that facts that:

1) Giving anyone a leg up to total domination of Europe is against British policy since forever, regardless of what the honeyed words in the treaty say.

2) Allying with Nazism wuld have been morally repugnant.
 
I'm sure we all reject irrational, non-parliamentary, I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong dictatorships, expecially those based on prejudice
 
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I'm ot contesting your arguments from a 2010 point of view: we all agree now that H was a monstrous gedocidal criminal.
But from a 1938 point that was absolute crap.

True, nobody would have thought about the Holocaust in 1938. But this is not the point. In 1938, they were concerned about another war to come. And they could have seen that Hitler was a monstrous warmongering criminal in 1938.

Barring quite an accurate crystal sphere, Chamberlain and Daladier would not have any means to imagine the consequence as they developed.
Most of WW2 impact is due that what was believed to be unbelvable actually happened

Again, you're mixing up the Holocaust, which nobody foresaw, and the consequences of a new world war, which could have been foreseen.

In the original intention the UK-germany-Italy alliance was to be formed on equal terms: it's only after the Italian military incompetency was manifest that H began to treat his partner as a 2nd class one

:confused:
 
Wrong, Hitler always planned to seek revenge on the former Entente. Especially France and Belgium due to border issues. Hitler completely ignored the Locarno treaty. Britain he acctuall thought he could avoid conflict with.


Incorrect, Hitler had war plans devised in case France would start troubles but even The Republic had its own and in account of recent history and the numbers of times French invasions went westward, only a fool wouldn´t have.

He might have believed Britain would not declare war over Poland but invasion of France? No, that he knew London would not accept no matter what, there had already been WW1 to demonstrate that.
Not to deflate national egos but he just cared too little to start an invasion against the west, even when France was occupied, he didn´t try to establish a new society there as what had been done in Germany. Should Czechs, Poles and Soviets declared war as one in 1938, it would have been a necessary war, that was in their common interests.
The Franco-English declaration of war hovewer did not come out of any actual necessity or morality but fear, so eager to preserve their own interest that they didn´t notice when and how they sacrified them.
 
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Uk-germany-italian alliance
:confused:

that was the main diplomatic aim of H (at least according to Miein Kampft).
The idea was not bad from a strategical point of view since was aimed at dividing the Ist world Entente, but it was very difficult to achieve.
Regarding Italy, it worked since Italy was frowned upon by western powers on the abissinian question, while H was glad to accept the East Africa annection and not to rise the question of Sud-Tyrol.
Regarding Uk, it was never accomplished since Britain flatly refused.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
Well, I'm the first to argue that a much better Munich outcome than OTL would have been for Chamberlain to slightly delay his acceptance of Hitler's terms, so that Hitler foolhardly gives the order to attack, the prepared Heer coup overthrows him. The world has a sane and responsible Germany that can safely handed the Sudetenland over in accordance to democratic self-determination. A sensible compromise can be likewise implemented over the Corridor, WWII and the Holocaust are surely averted. That would have been the optimal outcome, not OTL, not the Czechs keeping their ill-gotten gains, and not the Entente powers enforcing another Germany-screwing untenable and unjust peace on Europe.

You don't increase their strength by stabbing a democratic ally in the back, because if they want war so badly they're obviously going to use it against you soon.

A democratic ally that was greatly co-responsible for the crisis by having merrily violated self-determination for two decades. Nobody obliged the 1918 Czech to trample on the very clearly expressed self-determination will of the Sudetenfolk with flimsly historical excuses, that, if valid at all, would have required whole Bohemia-Moravia to go in Germany. Regardless of whatever happened later, it is was right to let the Sudetenfolk go where they wanted to go, and same for the Austrians.

The Nazis didn't demand "self-determination for the Sudetenland". They demanded "German troops occupy the Sudetenland without any pretense of democracy in ten short days, Czechs and Jews can pack their bags and run".

Let's not hide behind figleafs here. The Sudetenland folk (which were 90% German) had very clearly expressed their will to go in Germany time and time again since 1918, when the Nazi were a nasty idea in the mind of God.

You don't give such a regime what it wants, unless you think you can turn its naked aggression against the Evil Russkies, of course. Don't act surprised when they think you're spineless and turn on you, and don't act surprised when the Evil Russkies, after you've brushed off their every attempt to find an understanding with you, decide to look out for number one.

If Germany had got a sane leadership, the idea of satisfying its sensible irredentist claims and making it a stable satisifed power and part of an anti-Soviet coalition would have been a wholly sound policy, however.

The Czechs would have preffered it to the other option.

The rest of Europe were under no obligation to spill their blood in order to help the Czech keep their minorities under their thumb.
 
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