P.M.H. BELL’S OPENING QUESTIONS (Chapter 4)
Was World War II “an inevitable war or unnecessary
war?”
Was it a “planned war or improvised war?” Did Hitler
take office with a blueprint for aggression or respond
to opportunities created by the blunders of other
Powers?
Was it “Hitler’s war or just another German war?”
Was it an “ideological war or a war for reasons of
state?”
Bell argues that these questions remain devilishly hard to
answer if we only study developments through the year
1939. Only in his last chapter does he take a stand.
THE SUDETEN CRISIS, SEPTEMBER 1938
• May 1935: Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German “Home
Front” wins majority of votes in the Czech Sudetenland.
• November 1937: Neville Chamberlain sends Lord Halifax
to Hitler.
• March 1938: German Anschluss with Austria.
• May 1938: War scare caused by false rumors.
• August 1938: Runciman Mission studies Sudeten German
grievances.
• September 15, 1938: Chamberlain in Berchtesgaden,
agrees with Hitler on a plebiscite for the Sudetenland.
• September 22/23, 1938: Chamberlain in Bad Godesberg;
Hitler raises new demands that are rejected.
• September 29/30, 1938: Mussolini offers a “compromise”
at the Munich Conference.
David Lloyd George and
Charles Lindbergh both
expressed great admiration for
Germany during visits in 1936
The Berlin
Olympics, 1936:
Here German
athletes who have
won the gold &
bronze in
gymnastics salute
their Führer.
When Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in 1937, he
believed that the Versailles Conference had committed injustice
by applying national self-determination where it harmed
Germany, but NOT in Austria, Danzig, or the Sudetenland
Danzig street scene 1937
Chamberlain’s confidant,
Viscount Halifax, meets privately
with Hitler, November 19, 1937
THE HOSSBACH PROTOCOLL:
Minutes of a secret conference on November 10, 1937
Hitler told his top national security advisors that he was
resolved “to solve the question of Lebensraum” by
1943/45 at latest. He hoped that a solution might come
sooner, if France fell into civil war or a war with Italy in
the Mediterranean. Arms spending and the quest for
autarchy must therefore be accelerated.
Foreign Minister Neurath, War Minister Blomberg, and
Army Commander-in-Chief General Fritsch all protested
that Germany must not risk war with France and Great
Britain. Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht, not
present, had long argued that arms spending must be
decreased to avoid inflation.
Within four months the protesters were all removed from
office.
In February 1938
Austria’s
Chancellor Kurt
von Schuschnigg
sought to forestall
Anschluss by
proposing a
referendum.
Hitler greeted by cheering
throngs as he enters Vienna on
March 14, 1938,
and a poster urging voters to
approve the Anschluss
Hitler & Mussolini
celebrate their “Axis”
in Rome,
May 1938
(this had been a joint
propaganda slogan
since November 1936)
Charlie Chaplin as
Adenoid Hinkel
and Jack Oakie as
Benzino Napoloni:
The Great
Dictator (1940)
A cordial Hitler welcomes Chamberlain to Berchtesgaden,
September 15, 1938
German map of the ethnic composition of
Czechoslovakia (1938):
Hitler and Chamberlain agreed in principle that the
League should conduct a referendum in the gray zone
At Bad
Godesberg on
September 22,
Hitler
demanded the
immediate
German
occupation of
all disputed
territory, and
Chamberlain
refused.
BRITISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE EXAGGERATED
GERMAN STRENGTH IN SEPTEMBER 1938
(see P.M.H. Bell, pp. 199-209)
Actual combat-ready British intelligence
German aircraft
estimate
Fighters
453
717
Bombers
582
1,019
Dive-bombers
159
227
Great Britain had only 2 army divisions that it could
send to France if war broke out in September 1938.
An RAF memorandum from October 1936 estimated
150,000 civilian casualties from bombing raids in the
first WEEK of a war with Germany.
The heads of government in Munich, 29 September 1938:
Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Hitler, & Mussolini
Neville Chamberlain announces to a cheering British
crowd that he has brought them “peace in our time.”
The Implementation of the Munich Pact
CHURCHILL IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 5 OCTOBER 1938
“The utmost that [Chamberlain] has been able to gain for
Czechoslovakia has been that the German dictator, instead
of snatching his victuals from the table, has been content
to have them served to him course by course.”
“The maintenance of peace depends upon the
accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor, coupled
with a sincere effort to redress grievances.”
Great Britain should have responded to the Anschluss by
arranging a joint declaration with France and the USSR to
guarantee the territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia.
“I think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be
maintained as an independent entity.” Within years or
perhaps just a few months, it would be “engulfed by the
Nazi regime.” Great Britain and France had suffered a
“disaster of the first magnitude.”
CHAMBERLAIN’S REBUTTAL
“War today is a different thing not only in degree, but in kind
from what it used to be…. When war starts today, in the
very first hour, before any professional soldier has been
touched, it will strike the workman, the clerk, the man-in-thestreet, and his wife and children in their homes.”
“As regards future policy, there are really only two possible
alternatives. One of them is to base yourself upon the view
that any sort of friendly relations with totalitarian States are
impossible, that the aussurances which have been given to
me personally are worthless, that they …are bent upon the
domination of Europe.” On that premise Churchill would be
correct that Britain should “arm to the teeth” and form
alliances. But that policy contains “all the things which the
party opposite [Labour] used to denounce before the War—
entangling alliances, balance of power and power politics. I
reject it… because to my mind, it is a policy of utter despair.”
PROFITEERS FROM
CZECH MISERY
Polish tanks rumble
into Teschen on
October 2, 1938
Admiral Horthy leads
Hungarian troops into
southern Slovakia,
November 5, 1938
ORIGINAL LEADERS OF THE CONSERVATIVE RESISTANCE
Carl Goerdeler (DNVP),
Mayor of Leipzig, 1930-36;
Reich Price Commissar,
1931-32, 1934-36
Colonel-General Ludwig
Beck, Army Chief of Staff,
who resigned in protest in
August 1938
ALMOST EVERY
GERMAN SYNAGOGUE
BURNED ON
REICHSKRISTALLNACHT
November 9/10, 1938
(scenes from Siegen,
Bielefeld, & Berlin
Hitler cultivated ties with the Slovak leader,
Father Josef Tiso, and persuaded him to declare in March
1939 that Slovakia had seceded from Czechoslovakia
(Tiso and Ribbentrop in Salzburg, July 1940)
GERMAN TROOPS
OCCUPY PRAGUE,
MARCH 15, 1939
The German press did
not seek to conceal the
rage of the Czechs
The Chamberlain cabinet issued an unconditional guarantee of
Polish independence on March 31, but no alliance was forged.
Did Hitler assume that Britain would back down again?
General Edmund
Ironside confers
with Field
Marshal Edward
Rydz-Smigly in
Warsaw,
July 18, 1939
In May 1939 Chamberlain followed Churchill’s advice to open
talks with Stalin for a Grand Alliance. But the Franco-British
military delegation did not arrive in Moscow until August 11
A Gallup
Poll in April
had shown
that 92% of
British
voters
supported
the idea.
HOW SHOULD WE INTERPRET STALIN’S DEMAND FOR
“TRANSIT RIGHTS” IN POLAND IN CASE OF WAR?
Bell regards it (pp. 300-05) as a blatant demand for
territorial expansion, concluding that the French and British
could never win this bidding war with Germany. (The
Soviets apparently leaked details of these talks to Berlin.)
At the time, however, Chamberlain took Stalin’s demands at
face value and urged the Poles to accept. Poland’s refusal
created a dilemma in London.
Chamberlain’s policy was determined by advice from the
Committee of Imperial Defence that Poland had a
STRONGER ARMY than the USSR. The CID concluded that
the whole Soviet system would collapse within six months
of the outbreak of a war with Germany, and that Poland’s
“splendid cavalry” represented a major strategic asset.
Bell’s distinction between Realpolitik and “ideology” may be
unrealistic, psychologically.
Joachim von Ribbentrop and V.M. Molotov sign the
“Hitler-Stalin Pact,” August 23, 1939