Many reasons have been given for why Britain 'appeased' Hitler in the

1930s. Historians have ascribed every possible motive to Chamberlain,

each of which either damns or praises his policy of appeasement :

Key Question 1:

Why Appeasement?

Sheer abject cowardice on the part

of Chamberlain
This nave Prime Minister had
allowed himself to be misled by Hitler
Appeasement was a noble attempt to prevent bloodshed
The policy was a brilliant feat of diplomacy that prevented a major
European war in 1938 [and, therefore, should NOT have
been abandoned in relation to Poland!]

Appeasement shrewdly postponed war with Germany: by

implementing it, Chamberlain was wisely buying Britain some
desperately needed time to RE-ARM, etc.


Zachweiner,

SMBC,
August 2013

Nowadays, many people criticize Chamberlain for appeasing

Hitler. Appeasements prevailing legacy/ lesson is that one does
NOT negotiate with dictators [nor terrorists, for that matter!]

E.g.: George H. Bushs response to Iraqs 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Bush Sr. saw Saddam Hussein as an Arab Hitler whose
aggression against Kuwait, if unchecked, would lead to further
aggression in the Persian Gulf. In announcing the dispatch of US
forces to Saudi Arabia on August 8th, 1990, he declared:

To assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and

unrealistic. If history teaches us anything, it is that we must
resist aggression or it will destroy our freedoms.
Appeasement does not work. As was the
case in the 1930s, we see in Saddam
Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening
his neighbors.

USAF F-15s and F-16s fly over Kuwaiti oil fires, set by the retreating Iraqi
army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

 In the 1930s, there were some people most notably

Winston Churchill who damned Chamberlains policy:

It is a total defeat. Czechoslovakia will be

swallowed up by the Nazis. And do not
suppose that this is the end. This is only the
beginning.
-Churchill, speaking about the Munich Agreement, 1938.
But at the time, most people thoroughly agreed with
Chamberlain, praised him even:

Give thanks to your God. Your children are safe.

Peace is a victory for all mankind. If we must have a
victor, let us choose Mr. Chamberlain.
-The Daily Express, 1938.

Voice in the Wilderness: The Truth About Hitler-article Churchills

alarmist profile of Hitler, published in The Strand Magazine in November 1935.

In Defense of Appeasement: a noble attempt to keep the peace?

For obvious reasons, we tend to think of the 1930s in terms of the

origins of the Second World War. The question we tend to ask, is
whether or not the Western Powers could have done more to avert it,
whether or not the policy of appeasing Japan and Germany was a fatal
blunder that led to war. But this may be to reverse the order of

events; appeasement did not lead to war; it was war, the

numerous acts of aggression that swept the world in the
1930s, that led to
appeasement.
-Niall Ferguson in

The War of the

World (PBS, 2007)

 The FIVE most important contemporary

reasons for/attitudes toward appeasement, were:
1. FEAR OF COMMUNISM:

besides the obvious economic

benefits to Britain of a
rejuvenated , trade-friendly
German nation, many British
people hoped that a strong
Germany would redress the
upset traditional Balance of
Power [=deterrent to
aggression] in Europe & block
the imminent expansion of
Soviet Communism!
1941: playing on known fears of
Communism: Nazi Anti-Bolshevik poster,

titled: Europe's Victory is Your Prosperity.

2. DISCREDITING OF THE VERSAILLES SETTLEMENT:

many Britishers agreed with Hitler that the Treaty of Versailles had
been unfair and, consequently, felt that his demands & actions were
reasonable [e.g. in regards to the demilitarized Rhineland, Britons
questioned whether it was, fair to prohibit a major European
power from stationing troops in one part of its territory. Most
people in Britain were not
prepared to support any military
action designed to prevent Hitler
from walking into his own back
garden (Culpin 226).

1936: GERMANY
REOCCUPIES RHINELAND

German sentries on the Rhine

opposite Coblenz

NOTE: consequently, throughout

the 1920s, subsequent British
governments had sought to revise
the Treaty in Germanys favor;

Chamberlains policies were not

much different from the policies
of his predecessors!

E.g.: in his controversial defense of appeasement

policy in 1961, English historian A.J.P. Taylor,
claimed that , the real culprits for the international

crisis of the 1930s were the peacemakers of 1919,

who had failed to completely eradicate the
possibility of a German military revival. Taylor
viewed Chamberlains determined bid to appease
German grievances as a very realistic assessment of
the failings of the past and a well-meaning attempt
to solve them.
According to Taylor, Munich was a triumph for
appeasement because it solved a key German
grievance and at least delayed the outbreak of a
major European war. Indeed, Taylor claims that
war came quickly in 1939 because Chamberlain,
under pressure from his domestic critics, was
forced with some reluctance to
ABANDON (!) appeasement (McDonough 78).

3. BRITISH MILITARY
SPREAD TOO THIN:

many people in the United

Kingdom felt that events in
Central- and Eastern
Europe were not Britain's
business; therefore, most
were not prepared to
support any military action
against Germany. Instead,
some wanted Britain to
focus on maintaining her
overseas Empire (and worry
about Imperial Japans
aggressive expansionism
into Asia, for starters!).

 NOTE: protecting British interests overseas was deemed to be

hard enough without adding Germany as an additional challenge.
Indeed, the [British] army and naval chiefs constantly warned

Chamberlain that Britain was not militarily prepared to fight a war

against Germany, Italy and Japan simultaneously and
Chamberlain accepted their arguments (McDonough 82).
Revisionist historians have suggested that this was another
important reason why Chamberlain adopted appeasement policy.

In any event, Britain did not

have troops to spare to counter

[Hitler]; they were at full stretch
in PALESTINE [suppressing
the Arab Revolt of 1936-39], in
various parts of the British
Empire and particularly in
India (Culpin 226).
Palestine, c. 1938: 1st Battalion Irish Guards of the British Army near Nablus

Responsibilities of Empire: pacifying the troubled regions of Palestine

1938: British troops on observation post with rifles, machine-guns & flare-lights

 And then there was ITALY and

Mussolinis empire ambitions to add to
the list of nations to keep an eye on:

Trouble on the Horizon: a 1938

Japanese propaganda poster for the
Tripartite Pact: "Good friends in three

countries.

4. THE DESIRE TO AVOID ANOTHER WAR & NEGATIVE

IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: the majority of the

British people wanted peace as opposed to fighting yet another

Great War [90% of Britons according to a League of Nations poll!];

rather than spending billions on re-armament, they wanted to see

this money spent on fighting the Great Depression instead: domestic
socio-economic betterment at home! (Public opinion before 1937
opposed all-out rearmament and wished to avoid war
(McDonough 82).
Left-Wing
Support for
Appeasement

Hence, democratically elected British

politicians (thus including
Chamberlain!) had no alternative but
to pursue the policy of appeasement
lest they would be voted out of office
in the next general election!

Revisionist scholars regard the latter

as yet another important
reason for the policy.
London, 1938: Hyde Park Peace Demonstration:
a speaker addresses a crowd at a peace rally

 At any rate, the

British economy did

not [yet] contain
enough skilled
workers to produce
rapid rearmament
without severely
disrupting the fragile
economic recovery
from the great
slump [Great
Depression]
(McDonough 82).

NOT UNTIL LATER:

1942: Hawker employees at

work on the production

of Hurricane fighter aircraft at a
factory in Britain

Focus on Peace: Canon Dick Sheppard

Christian pacifist Dick Sheppard advertising a meeting of

the Peace Pledge Union in February 1937. The Union
recruited more than 100,000 supporters. Sheppards
charismatic personality helped to create a broad absolute
pacifist movement in 1936 and 1937 as fear of war
deepened in Europe.

5. CONSERVATIVE ADMIRATION:

The Duke of
Windsor and his
American wife,
Wallis Simpson,
meet Hitler in 1937

Some right-wing members of the British

upper class as well as the working class
envied German Fascism as a viable &
efficient alternative to what they denounced
as their own weak, incompetent,
failing and inefficient democratic
system [e.g. in mishandling the Great
Depression!] and approved of Hitler's
policies.
Right-Wing
Support for
Appeasement

London 1936: Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of

Fascists, is saluted by female & male blackshirts

Olympic Stadium, Berlin, 1938:

Germany vs. England 3-6

Dark Times - the extent of appeasement

policy: players of the English National Soccer
Team instructed by its government to give the
Nazi salute during the German national
anthem before a match in Germany in 1938

Its significance: 6 Results 1. a) Allowed Hitler to grow stronger;

of Appeasement
b) (To some extent) caused the war,
Historians have said that
appeasement:
2.

by encouraging Hitler to think he

could do and get away withanything with complete impunity.

Humiliated Britain & damaged her reputation no country in

Central- and/or Eastern Europe would soon trust Britain again; this
encouraged Stalin to sign the Non-Aggression Pact in 39.

3.

Abandoned millions of people to the Nazis (!)

4.

Gave Britain the morale high ground when war came, Britons
knew they had done everything possible to keep the peace; it had
been an honorable attempt to prevent the deaths of millions of
people in another Great War.

5.

Was ultimately inconsequential; a different (aggressive) response

would not have stopped Hitler either, who was determined to go to
war no matter what.

 Some historians hold the view that, appeasement abandoned millions of people

to the Nazis

Poland, 1939: England!

This is your doing!

6. Appeasement
bought Britain time
to RE-ARM.

Where the Chamberlain-bashers have really

got it wrong is when they miss his genuine
commitment to Britains victory over Nazi
tyranny. As chancellor, he authorized aerial
rearmament in 1934, doubling the strength of
the RAF. And in his last budget in 1937 he
hitched up income tax to pay for a massive
1,500 million rearmament plan.
-British historian Dominic Sandbrook,
BBC History Magazine, 2008.

Never in the field of human conflict was so

much owed by so many to so few
-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1940

March 11, 1938:

Hitler enters Austria

Munich
A Closer Look at
Appeasement in Action:

The Sudeten Crisis

Before 1938, Britain had already
condoned Hitlers domestic &
foreign policy steps on a number of
occasions, but it was the events of the
Sudeten crisis which demonstrated
appeasement in action seemingly
Rally on Heroes' Square in
Vienna Hitler Delivers a
Speech on the Day after the
Annexation of Austria
(March 15, 1938)

trying to buy off Hitler by giving in

to his demands, seemingly no matter
his price.

 After Hitler's Anschluss with Austria in

March 1938, Czechoslovakia was
widely believed to be his next target: it

seemed the Fhrers obvious, selfevident next step.

 The new democratic state of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918,

when the vast, multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire was broken up into
smaller nations after losing World War I. The principle that gave
countries such as Czechoslovakia independence was called selfdetermination: each nation had the right to its own state within the
area where its people were in the majority.
However, in the case of Czechoslovakia, the borders were drawn

along historic rather than ethnic boundaries. While the country was
predominantly Slavic, there were also areas with overwhelmingly
German and Hungarian majorities.
It seemed in many ways a contradiction
of that post-war philosophy of selfdetermination: 3 million Germans

(=23% population of Czechoslovakia!)

lived within its boundaries, yet were
never asked whether they wanted this!

Spotlight on the One of these areas a fringe around the

western part of the country, mostly populated
Sudetenland
by Germans was known as the Sudetenland.
At first, the coexistence of Slavs and Germans in the new republic

worked fine. German parties were important power brokers and

participated in almost every coalition government. Hitlers rise to
power, however, led to the growth of Sudeten German nationalist
sentiment.

Soon, 70% of Germans in

Czechoslovakia voted for
the Sudeten Nazi Party (!)

1938: flags are out in the small Sudetenland town of Kuschwarda

to show support for the recent takeover by Germany.

Formidable Fortifications
As soon as Adolf Hitler came
to power in Germany in 1933,
Czechoslovakia grew nervous
about invasion.
Czechoslovakia began

constructing a ring of
fortifications along its
mountainous borders (which
were predominantly inhabited
by ethnic Germans; e.g. the
area around Slavonice, which
was part of the Sudetenland):
Iron- reinforced concrete
bunkers were connected by
underground tunnels.

Bunker in the Czech fortification line in the mostly mountainous

Sudetenland (= ideal for military defensive purposes!) This was why
Hitler wanted the region: it would leave Czechoslovakia powerless
before him.

(Modern Czech Republic)

Stachelberg artillery fortress in Bab near Trutnov

 In 1938, Hitler
set his mind to
taking over the
Sudetenland.
First, Hitler
encouraged the
Sudeten Nazis to
demand union
with Germany.
Next, Hitler made
plans to invade
(and then
smash!) the
young Republic of
Czechoslovakia.

Hitler with Henlein, Leader of the Sudeten-Germans

Hitler's pro-Nazi henchman in the

Sudetenland was Konrad Henlein, leader
of the nationalist Sudeten German Party
[SdP]. Henlein was actively engaged in

persuading the Sudeten Germans to loudly

demand unity with Hitler's Germany.

 Hitler instructed Henlein to be a real pain-in theneck to Czechoslovakia by making ever-increasing

demands on behalf of the Sudeten Germans;

September 7,
1938

these demands were to be absurd & unreasonable

to the extent that they would be totally,
unacceptable to the Czech government (!)

Throughout the summer of 1938,

Nazi agitators in the Sudetenland
had caused political and social
unrest while Nazi Propaganda
Minister Goebbels
propaganda machine waged a
ferocious anti-Czech campaign,
claiming that Sudeten Germans
were being persecuted & abused
by the Czechs.
Hitler and Henlein

Henlein

 There were bloody riots; the Czech government declared

martial law in the Sudetenland, while German newsreels showed
evidence of Czech atrocities against the innocent Sudeten
Germans; Nazi leaders in Czechoslovakia fled to Germany.

Czechoslovak soldiers patrolling the town of Krsn Lpa (German: Schnlinde) in

the Sudeten Region, September, 1938

 At the annual Nuremberg Rally in early September, Hitler and

Gering both made threatening speeches concerning the so-called
Sudeten Question; both Nazi leaders threatened to support the
Sudeten Germans with military force:

The Germans in Czechoslovakia are neither defenseless, nor

are they deserted, and people should take notice of that fact.
This Nuremberg speech of
September 12, 1938, precipitated
the final crisis over Czechoslovakia
(Czech troops had been mobilized
against Germany since May of that
year). Hitler again gambled on

Britain and France not being

prepared and/or willing to fight (!)

WAR appeared IMMINENT.

German soldiers
attending Nuremberg Rally

Then Chamberlain intervened

Munich 1938:

Chamberlain
waving his hat
to unseen
crowd at
Oberwiesenfeld
Airport.

September 15, 1938

1. Chamberlain met Hitler at

Berchtesgaden:
Hitler promised him that that the
Sudeten Question was, the last

problem to be solved.
Chamberlain decided Hitler was,

a man who can be relied upon.

Hitler demanded the parts of the
Sudetenland in which ethnic
German formed the majority be
annexed to Germany on grounds
of the principle of selfdetermination (by holding a
referendum).

 Chamberlain and Deladier, the French Premier, agreed that all areas,
in which more than half of the population was German, should be
ceded to Germany (pending a plebiscite), while the borders of the rest
of Czechoslovakia should be internationally guaranteed.
(Left:) Still Hope:

Peace Dove Chamberlain descends

upon Hitlers home (below) on the
Obersalzberg of the
Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden in
Southern Germany.

 Next, Chamberlain and Deladier forced (!) the Czech

Government to accept this arrangement.

The Berghof, September 15: Hitler greets Chamberlain; Nazi Foreign Minister

Von Ribbentrop watches on the right.

2. Chamberlain met Hitler for a 2nd

time, now at Bad Godesberg:

September 22, 1938

Still not satisfied, Hitler now rejected the

Anglo-French concession and made
additional demands; his new price for
peace: the immediate annexation ( =
WITHOUT a referendum!) of all German
areas with military installations & factories
intact, plus supervised plebiscites in areas
with German minorities. This would

increase both the area and value of land that

Czechoslovakia would have to give up.
Chamberlain refused these new demands;

the Czech Government mobilized all its

forces; France called up over half a
million reserves. War seemed probable

1938: England During

Czech Crisis

Photo showing a newspaper

stand in London.

September 29, 1938

3. Britain and France met Hitler

yet again and made a pact with
him at Munich :
Chamberlain now determined that
Czechoslovakia was not one of the
great issues which justified war,
but merely, a quarrel in a far-away

country between people of whom

we know nothing.

Neville Chamberlain waving

and smiling as he steps out of
the airplane for the benefit of
the press.

Joined by FDR, he called for an

international conference, which would
be convened in Munich and involve
the four Great Powers of Europe; the

Czech Government was not even

invited to the talks (!) nor was the
Soviet leadership

At Munich, Hitler won his new demands:

The Czechs would have to evacuate the

German [Sudetenland] areas as early as

by October 10th
Plebiscites were to be held under

international supervision in all areas

home to German minorities
The adjusted borders of the

Czechoslovak state would be guaranteed

by all four Powers.
Britain and France notified the Czechs that they
were free to fight if they wished, but that they
would have no British nor French support (!)

The Czechs acknowledged the futility of

resistance and chose not to fight

Selassie

Schuschnigg

Bene

Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitlers Joint Resolution "Never to Go to War

with One Another Again"

Hitler Signs the Munich

Agreement
(September 30, 1938)

Significance of Munich 1938:

Chamberlain gave Hitler the green light for a peaceful annexation of
the Sudetenland; thus, on September 29th, Britain and France sealed

the fate of Czechoslovakia by signing the infant-state over to the Nazis.

Neville Chamberlain (England), douard Daladier

(France), Hitler, Benito Mussolini (Italy), and Galeazzo
Ciano (Italy) before signing the Munich Agreement.

The Betrayal of
Czechoslovakia:

Chamberlain, Daladier,
Mussolini & Hitler

September 30th, 1938

Chamberlain returned to England with his famous piece of paper: I

believe it is peace for our time, he told the cheering crowd. To his
sister, the Prime Minster wrote:

You have only to look at the map to see that nothing that
France or we could do could possibly save Czechoslovakia
from being overrun by the Germans, if they wanted to do it.

Results of Munich:
At the time of the Munich Conference in September 1938, the
fortifications were filled with 1.5 million mobilized Czechs and
Slovaks. Morale was high, and nobody doubted that the French and

British would honor treaties with Czechoslovakia and help the young
democracy.
But instead, Chamberlain signed off on the Munich Agreement,
ceding the German areas of Czechoslovakia, and with it the Czech
fortification line (!),
to Hitler without
involving Czech
representatives in
the negotiations.
(Chamberlain won a

Nobel Prize for this

appeasement policy!)

 Alone, the Czechoslovak army outnumbered by the Germans

three to one would stand no chance. The frustrated soldiers

were ordered home, and Czechs were forced out of the

Sudetenland. Half a year later, in March 1939, Hitler occupied
the rest of the Czech Republic
Today, the never-used bunkers along the hiking trails around
Landtejn stand witness to the futility of appeasement policies
and to the Czechs bitter sense of betrayal

An assessment of the Munich Agreement by a Czech historian:

With the protective belt of frontier-mountains Czechoslovakia lost the

warrant of her independenceWith the destruction of the Czechoslovak
state Central Europe had its spine broken, the Western democracies
lost more than 40 divisions of potential allies, and Germany had no
obstacle in her march to the South-East (Polisensky 1947).

The Never-Used Fortifications

Captured without firing a shot:

A Czech bunker in German hands following the German take-over of the Sudetenland

October 1, 1938
Hitler marched unopposed into the Sudetenland. He said that it was
the start of a 1,000-year German Reich; earlier, after the Munich

Conference, he had declared:

Thus we begin
our march into
the great
German future
The last

democracy in
Eastern Europe
had been
abandoned to
Hitler

Czechoslovakia, 1938:

Konrad Henlein speaks in the

marketplace in Eger during the
time of the German annexation
of the Sudetenland.

October 13, 1938: Hitler visiting his victorious Army in the Sudetenland

Great PR for Hitler:

Liberation Day for the

Sudeten-Germans

Eger, October 3rd, 1938

Significance of Munich to (future)

East-West relations [= The Cold War!]
The USSR was the obvious choice to protect Czechoslovakia: Britain
and France were too far away to be able to viably act and Russians,
Czechs & Slovaks shared a common Slavic heritage.
However, fear

of Communism
spreading
throughout
Europe was
sufficiently
strong to
prompt Britain
and France to
exclude (!)
Russia from the
negotiations in
Munich

 This Soviet-exclusion
from Munich arguably
precipitated the 1939
Nazi-Soviet NonAggression Pact; a wellfounded fear on the part
of Stalin that Russia
would be abandoned by
Britain and France (just
like Czechoslovakia had
been!) led the Soviet
leader to secure his own
borders by whatever
means necessary even

if that meant striking a

deal with Hitler in
August 1939!

1930s-era Soviet poster

by Kukryniksy showing
Western powers serving
up Czechoslovakia to
Hitler on a dish.

Inscription in the flag:

To the East!

Czechoslovakia
On 15 March 1939,
Hitlers troops
marched into the rest
of Czechoslovakia.

This, for most British

people, was the time
when they realized
that the only thing
that would stop Hitler
was war

The Occupation of Prague:

A Motorcycle Division on the Charles Bridge

(March 15, 1939)

Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1939

Last but not least: UP