Nazi Foreign Policy

Building up German Hegemony in Central Europe, 1933-1938

Overview:
Within five years Hitler and his aides managed to rearm Germany, to dismantle almost
all of the remaining legacy of the Treaty of Versailles, and to make Germany a strong,
hegemonic power in Central Europe again. What they reached until 1938 was a
formidable success, and it probably made Hitler more popular than ever before in
Germany. His ultimate foreign political aims, of course, went far beyond this; they
included above all the conquest of living space in Eastern Europe and the "removal" of
the Jews (a term that still left open whether the Jews should be segregated and
expelled or killed; the first policy was the dominant one until 1941).
This was a far more aggressive program than anything Hitler's conservative allies and
indeed most Germans wanted. They still saw revision of Versailles as the top priority.
They wanted to return to the German borders of 1914, mostly in the East at the expense
of Poland, and they expected at some point to realize the Anschluss of Austria and to
annex those territories of the Czechoslovak state that were settled predominantly by
Germans (the Sudetenland).
For a while, however, Hitler's radical aims overlapped with the more limited revisionism
of his conservative allies. As a first step, Hitler wanted to rearm massively and to
strengthen Germany's position through the revisionist program of the conservatives. To
strengthen Germany's position for the ultimate struggle against the Soviet Union, which
always was his top priority, Hitler hoped to win Britain as an ally. Hitler thought that the
British, given their growing concern about the increasing strength of Japan and the
United States, would let him expand in Eastern Europe, as long as he would not
threaten Britain directly.
Hitler misunderstood British politicians, however. By making partial concessions to him
they hoped that he would sign international treaties and accept a stable European order.
Exactly because the British did fear Japanese and American power, they hoped to
create a stable situation in Europe, in which Germany would check the influence of the
Soviet Union, about whose extensive industrialization and rearmament the British were
worried, too. But at no point did the British diplomats plan to give Hitler a blank check for
eastward expansion. They were willing only to grant Germany the revisionist aims of the
German conservatives.
Hitler did not understand this. He projected his own crude Darwinism and craving of
racial expansion on the British and believed it would be to the best British interest to win
Germany as an ally against the Soviet Union and as a power that the British could
ultimately use in an alliance against the remaining world power, the United States.
Whether Hitler envisaged world dominion to be achieved during his lifetime is not
entirely clear. But evidence suggests that the conquest of living space in the East and
the extermination of Jews did not constitute the end in Hitler's foreign political vision.

The violent creation of an Aryan elite in Continental Europe should probably have led to
a final struggle for world dominance between an Aryan-dominated state and the United
States. For this struggle Hitler expected Japanese and maybe British support. (Breeding
a supposedly "pure" Aryan elite, of course, would have taken several generations.)
The start of Hitler's foreign policy:
Hitler knew that it was unwise to propagate his ultimate goals right away. To the public,
he declared that he had only peaceful aims. Those who saw Leni Riefenstahl's film
"The Triumph of the Will," which focuses on a party rally in 1934, remember the
repeated stress of peace, work, and unity. That the commitment to peace was always
expressed in the most aggressive tone, however, should have raised some eyebrows
already then. Hitler indeed started preparations for rearmament almost immediately
after taking power. As soon as the economy recovered a little, he increased military
expenditure. Already in 1933 he announced German withdrawal from the League of
Nations because he did not want to violate openly the League's disarmament clauses.
But Hitler remained generally cautious until 1938. As Tirpitz's fleet-building plan had
passed a danger zone during which a surprise attack could have destroyed everything,
Hitler feared that German rearmament might trigger an attack by France and its eastern
allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia, before Germany was ready. Hitler also looked out
for allies and tried to remain on friendly terms with some of Germany's potential
enemies.
First he sounded out the chances for an alliance with Italy, just as he had conceived it in
Mein Kampf. But although Italian fascism under the dictator Benito Mussolini seemed to
have much in common with Nazi Germany, Mussolini at first preferred to remain neutral.
When Nazis in Austria staged a putsch in July 1934 and demanded unification with
Germany, Mussolini sent his tanks to the Austrian border on top of the Alps. His threat
saved Austrian independence for the time being. Hitler's peaceful declarations, however,
impressed French and British diplomats. Although they remained suspicious of German
rearmament they did not consider the situation serious enough to justify an attack on
Germany.
Hitler, moreover, secured a surprising success. In January 1934 Poland concluded a
non-aggression pact with Germany. This was a radical departure from the pro-Soviet
and anti-Polish policies of the Weimar governments and the military elite. So far,
Germany had always cooperated with the Soviet Union in order to ward off a Polish
attack and, ultimately, to win back the territories lost to Poland after 1918. Hitler's nonaggression pact with Poland angered some of his conservative allies, but it was a
pragmatic, cynical move. Since Poland was the key power in French plans to contain
Germany, his pact took the bite out of France's Eastern European alliance system. If
Poland did not help the French to fight Germany, the French would have a difficult time
forming a second front in the back of the German troops.
France's commitment to defense:
But Poland's decision to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany indirectly resulted
from some fatal French decisions. France was the main guarantor of the Versailles

system and most likely to disturb German attempts to ignore the peace treaty. In the late
1920s, however, French politicians had realized that their initial aim after the war,
namely to weaken Germany's economic and -- indirectly -- military potential for all times
would fail. The German economy recovered and looked prosperous from 1924 to 1929,
and even during the Great Depression it was obvious that at some point in the future the
Germans would again be able to build up a powerful industry and military machine.
France itself was economically healthy until 1933 but structurally still inferior to
Germany. With its low birthrate and high war casualties, France expected to fall behind
even further. In the mid-thirties a severe shortage of recruits had to be expected. These
were the so-called annes creuses, the hollow years. In this period the children born
during the First World War would come of age, and the boys would join the army. The
birth cohorts of 1914-1918, however, were so small that France's army would for several
years suffer a severe lack of men. To make matters worse, France could not rely on
strong foreign help to keep Germany unarmed and powerless for all times. The United
States was not much interested in European affairs. Britain also seemed less interested
in Europe than in overseas problems. Italy had never been happy with the postwar
order and -- since 1922 under Mussolini's leadership -- was more inclined to revise the
order of Versailles than to guarantee it. The only reliable allies of France, Poland and
Czechoslovakia, seemed too weak in the long run to help France subdue a newly selfassertive Germany.
The French realized all this in the late 1920s and decided to build a defensive wall on
the German border, the Maginot Line, an elaborate system of interconnected
fortresses. The First World War had tought that it took fewer people to defend a wellprepared bastion than to storm it and that the attacker always suffered much heavier
losses than the defender. Since France had a lack of men and was most afraid of
another bloody war, it seemed reasonable to build the best possible fortress. Since until
1933 the French economy was prospering, the money needed to start work on the
Maginot Line could be found.
As reasonable as it looked in a purely French perspective, however, the Maginot Line
had two serious flaws. First, it made an aggressive move of French troops into Germany
more unlikely. The Maginot Line could not be used to punish Germany if it violated the
Versailles treaty or attacked Poland. It thus weakened the credibility of potential French
military sanctions against Germany. This had severe repercussions in Poland. Poland's
dictator, Marshal Pilsudski, concluded that an agreement with one of his hostile
neighbors, the Soviet Union and Germany, may be necessary. His non-aggression pact
with Hitler did not terminate the Franco-Polish alliance, but it marked a blow to the
French security system against Germany, the cordon sanitaire.
The second flaw of the Maginot Line was its geographic limitation. It covered only the
border between Germany and France. Both the German-Belgian frontier and the
Franco-Belgian frontier (where the Germans had attacked in 1914!) were left
unprotected. The north of France had sandy ground on which building fortresses posed
difficulties. A protective wall on the Belgian-German border, moreover, was never built.

Belgium feared to lose its independence by agreeing to the full extent of military
cooperation with France that would have been necessary to extend the Maginot Line to
the Dutch border. (Another question is, whether the Maginot Line should not have been
continued along the Dutch-German border as well.)
Hindsight, of course, makes critique easy. The French would have fared better, had they
concentrated on modernizing their offensive and mechanized weapons. The problem in
retrospect was not that France had no aggressive weapons -- even in 1940 the French
still had more tanks and airplanes than the Germans -- but that France stopped to keep
some of its mobile forces on the highest technological standard. The French relied too
much on the defensive Maginot Line and thus helped to disrupt their own Eastern
European security system. It was foreseeable that after a few years German
rearmament would make a French attack senseless.
To make matters worse for France, the Great Depression hit the French with some
delay in 1933 and the following years. So at the time when a preventive strike against
Germany would have been possible, the French had the worst economic difficulties.
This intensified their war-weariness. The First World War had cost so many casualties
that France was unwilling to go to war again. It was more comfortable for France to rely
on Hitler's peaceful declarations than to wage war. Hitler, moreover, made foreign
countries believe that his foreign policy was no more than the traditional revisionism of
the Weimar governments by leaving Schleicher's foreign minister Ernst von Neurath in
office until early 1938. When the French finally became alarmed about German
rearmament it was too late for them to stop it.
Hitler's first successes:
One success that had more to do with the legacy of the peace treaty than with Hitler's
foreign politics was the return of the Saar district to Germany. The Versailles Treaty
had separated it from Germany for fifteen years. A plebiscite should then decide its
future. The population of the Saar district, having never consented to French rule, voted
overwhelmingly for return to Germany in January 1935. This both reflected and
increased Hitler's popularity among Germans. In March 1935 Hitler felt safe enough to
reintroduce general conscription. This blatant violation of the peace treaty did not
provoke a punitive French attack, but it prompted France and Britain to form a closer
alliance with each other and with Italy. At a conference in the Italian town Stresa in April
they condemned Germany's step and emphasized that treaties were sacrosanct.
This was too little to impress Hitler, even though Mussolini's alignment with France and
Britain displeased him. A real alliance evolving from the Stresa conference could have
embarrassed him, especially since France concluded a treaty of mutual assistance with
the Soviet Union in May 1935. For tactical reasons, the Soviet Union had started to
cooperate more closely with the democratic western powers. In 1934 the Soviets had
joined the League of Nations. Their treaty with France in 1935 signaled that they had
continuing interest in containing Hitler's Germany together with the western powers.
But already in June 1935 Hitler scored another success, which undermined the Stresa
declaration on sacrosanct treaties: the British signed a bilateral treaty with Germany, in

which the Germans agreed to limit their future naval buildup to 35% of the Royal Navy's
strength. Hitler also promised not to build more than 45% of the U-boats the British
owned. This looked like an agreement binding Germany without giving it anything in
return. The naval treaty, however, achieved two things for Germany. First it showed to
the British that Germany was for the moment not interested in translating its industrial
potential into a naval threat. Hitler sought to avoid Tirpitz's footsteps for the time being
and declared that he had no intention of challenging British naval supremacy. Hitler
hoped that the naval agreement might become a step toward the alliance with Britain
that he desired. It did not cost the Germans much, since their rearmament for the time
being had other priorities and since the German navy was still much weaker than the
treaty allowed.
Second, the naval treaty demonstrated blatantly that the Treaty of Versailles was a
piece of paper and that the British -- in spite of their declarations in Stresa -- knew and
accepted this. The disarmament clauses of the Versailles treaty allowed the German
navy far less than 35% of the British ships and forbade the building of submarines. The
German-British naval treaty thus helped to undermine both the Stresa front and the
peace treaty. In retrospect, we can argue that it would have been wise for Britain and
France to keep Mussolini's friendship. But this was very difficult because Mussolini soon
did something that put the Stresa front to an even harder test than the Anglo-German
treaty had done: He ordered troops from the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia to
invade Ethiopia. Ethiopia was an independent African state and a member of the
League of Nations.
This put Britain and France into a difficult position. As the leading powers of the League
of Nations, they had to punish Italy, impose sanctions, or even go to war until Italy
withdrew the troops and restored Ethiopia's sovereignty. As European powers
concerned with German rearmament, however, they had no interest in alienating
Mussolini because they needed him as a partner. Instead of making a decision, France
and Britain adopted a half-hearted policy of economic sanctions against Italy - with the
worst results. On the one side, their obvious reluctance to punish Italy destroyed all
confidence in the League of Nations, which proved unable or unwilling to protect the
sovereignty of a member state. On the other side, the sanctions, though harmless,
alienated Italy and pushed Mussolini into Hitler's arms.
Hitler meanwhile played a double game. He secretly provided Ethiopian resistance with
weapons so as to prolong the military conflict and further alienate Mussolini from the
western powers. At the same time he gave Mussolini diplomatic support. His policy
succeeded. In March 1936 the Stresa front had broken, and Hitler therefore risked the
next violation of the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops into the demilitarized zone in
the Rhineland. Many in his entourage considered this too risky a step, and Hitler himself
was afraid of a French and British declaration of war. But nothing happened. The
French were absorbed with a domestic crisis, and the British thought that the Rhineland
was German territory after all. This new success again boosted Hitler's domestic
popularity. The remilitarization of the Rhineland also had strategic importance. If
Hitler wanted to attack the Soviet Union he needed to put his own troops to the French

border in order to protect Germany against an attack by Russia's ally, France. And Hitler
was now increasingly committed to realizing his true foreign political aims.
Anti-Communist policy:
In 1936 Hitler thus adopted a more vociferous anti-communist foreign policy. He hoped
to convince the British to finally conclude an alliance with Germany, which he sought to
present as a bulwark against communism. To underpin his anti-communist orientation,
he also decided to intervene in the Spanish civil war.
Spain had been a democratic republic from 1931 on but suffered from strong social
tensions between socialist workers and anarchists on the one side and the feudal
aristocrats, the Catholic church, and the army on the other side. In 1936 a government
of left-wing liberals, socialists, and communists was elected. In reaction, General
Francisco Franco, the head of fascist militias organized after the Italian model,
launched a putsch. Neither side could at first overcome the other. A bloody civil war
started that ended in 1939 with a fascist victory.
The republicans were supported by the Soviet Union and France, where the same kind
of leftist government had just taken power before. Britain gave some naval assistance to
the republicans, who were also supported by an international brigade of many thousand
socialists and republicans from other countries. The Spanish fascists received military
support from Italy and Germany and some help from Portugal. Hitler wanted to avoid
that Spain, now like France under a leftist government including the communists, would
join the Franco-Russian alliance against Germany. He also wanted to bind Mussolini
more to Gemany by launching a common "fascist" initiative.
Hitler's plan again worked out. In November 1936 Mussolini committed himself to Nazi
Germany. The alliance of Berlin and Rome was called the Axis (November 1936), which
should suggest an axis of anti-communist resistance in Europe. Only one month later
Japan, worried about Soviet power in the Pacific, signed an alliance with Germany, the
so-called Anti-Comintern Pact (December 1936), and Italy joined the pact in the
following year. (For the text of these treaties, see tripartite text.)
Unlike Germany before 1914, Hitler thus could win some significant allies. Reassured
by this he started to intensify war preparations against the Soviet Union. In 1936 he
proclaimed the so-called Four-Year Plan, a program for rearmament. Within four years,
Hitler told his closest confidants, Germany had to be ready for war. In public, Hitler
concealed the Four-Year Plan's military implications and stressed that it was merely
supposed to create full employment.
After the quick succession of events in 1935 and 36, 1937 was outwardly a quiet year in
European politics. But important decisions happened either elsewhere or in secret. After
six years of warlike conflict, Japan invaded China in July 1937. This alarmed Britain and
the United States, which both had important trade interests and power political concerns
in East Asia. Even more than before, Britain was willing to grant Germany some
eastward expansion in Europe if that could preserve European peace. The British
government now adopted the controversial policy of appeasement. It signaled to Hitler

that it would make concessions regarding Danzig, the city under League of Nations
control, Austria, and the Sudetenland. In return, the British demanded that Hitler respect
the international commitments he would sign (what a deal!). Hitler, on the other side,
simply wanted a British alliance giving him a free hand in Eastern Europe. He liked
treaties as long as they gave him some advantage, but he did not plan to keep them.
(See anecdote, though a rather depressing one.)
Anschluss and the Munich Conference:
Sooner or later the differences between what the British and French were willing to
grant and what Hitler wanted had to clash. In early 1938 Hitler thus got ready for a more
aggressive foreign policy. Although he still hoped for an alliance with Britain, he made
preparations to realize his aims without it and even against British resistance. But first
he had to overcome some difficulties in his own state apparatus and in the military. The
foreign ministry, the economic leaders, and the highest generals had gotten restive and
critical of Hitler because they considered his foreign policy dangerous and precipitated.
Even a military coup against Hitler was discussed.
Hitler reacted by appointing some blind followers to the top of the economy and the
military. He also dismissed the conservative foreign minister Neurath and appointed a
Nazi, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Thus prepared, he increased pressure on the reluctant
Austrian government to let the Austrian Nazis participate in government. This would
have been the first step toward Anschluss. When Mussolini told Hitler that he would not
oppose Anschluss any more and when the Austrian government continued to reject
cooperation with the Austrian Nazis, Hitler ordered German troops to invade Austria on
12 March. Initially he wanted to leave Austria some independence, but when he saw the
enthusiasm with which the Austrian population welcomed the German troops he found it
safe enough to absorb Austria completely. Britain protested at first but recognized the
Anschluss only two weeks later.
The success of the Anschluss encouraged Hitler to increase pressure on
Czechoslovakia. He did not believe that he would get the Sudetenland without a war,
but now he wanted to start a war in order to conquer eastern central Europe and attack
the Soviet Union. Hitler believed he did not have much time to realize his foreign
political program and that the sooner he acted, the better. He secretly ordered the
German army to get ready for war by 1 October 1938. In public, he declared his
peaceful intentions and promised that annexation of the Sudetenland was Germany's
last territorial claim in Europe.
His impatient policy triggered a domestic and international crisis in September 1938.
Most of Germany's conservative elites, particularly the generals and some former high
officials, were highly concerned about Hitler's course. Secretly they warned the British
prime minister of Hitler's more far-reaching intentions and asked him to remain tough.
They hoped that Hitler would have to back down if he encountered determined
resistance from Britain and France. This would weaken him at home and make it
possible for the generals to replace him with a more careful leader.

The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, however, did not want to get involved
in conspiracies with German conservatives. He preferred a gentleman's agreement with
"Herr Hitler" and visited him in his private home in the Bavarian Alps. Chamberlain
agreed to force Czechoslovakia to hold a plebiscite in those regions inhabitated
predominantly by Germans. This would have made an integration of the predominantly
German Sudetenland into Germany most likely.
Hitler, however, always demanded more than what he was granted. A few days after
Chamberlain's return to London, Hitler demanded immediate annexation of the
Sudetenland without a plebiscite. Europe seemed on the verge of war. In the last
minute, Chamberlain asked Mussolini for mediation, and a conference was called to
Munich. On 29 and 30 September the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met with
Hitler. They agreed on a compromise plan that originated from the conservative circles
in the German foreign office and counteracted Hitler's hopes to destroy Czechoslovakia
immediately and to start war against the Soviet Union soon after. Britain, France, and
Italy granted Germany control over the whole Sudetenland. They also offered some
Czechoslovak territories to Poland and Hungary. In return, Germany -- with all other
conference powers -- guaranteed the inviolability of the remaining Czechoslovak rump
state. In addition, Germany and Britain also concluded a non-aggression pact. For the
text of the Munich agreement, see Yale, Avalon Project: Nuremberg Trials: Munich
Conference.
Chamberlain was triumphant. He felt that he had saved peace in Europe. Since nonaggression pacts were so popular and easy to get, Hitler concluded another one with
France in the end of 1938. He made it clear to the French, however, that he wanted a
free hand in Eastern Europe.
The Munich conference was a remarkable event for several reasons. First, the western
allies, France and Britain, agreed to reduce the territory of one of the new states of the
Versailles system. The remainder of Czechoslovakia was powerless, since the
Czechoslovak army had to surrender its best defenses, the mountains along its borders.
Second, the Munich conference made Hitler probably more popular in Germany than he
had ever been before. Without a war (going to war seems to have been no more
popular in Germany than in France and Britain) he had made some of the most
important German dreams come true. Versailles was largely dismantled, Austria and the
Sudetenland were united with Germany. Only few people understood that Hitler was
less than happy with the conference because he had hoped to go to war and to redraw
the map of Eastern Europe without any foreign interference. Third, the Munich
conference had ignored the Soviet Union. Chamberlain, who was worried about Soviet
power in Europe and elsewhere, had done everything to keep the Soviet dictator Stalin
away from the conference table. Britain wanted to be the main mediator of European
affairs.
Understandably, Stalin drew his consequences. Since 1934 he had considered Nazi
Germany as the predominant threat to the Soviet Union; therefore he had concluded the
alliance with France in 1935. In 1938, however, he suspected that the western powers

were playing Germany off against the Soviet Union. Stalin was terrified at the thought of
seeing the capitalist powers standing united against the Soviet Union. He therefore
loosened his commitments to Britain and France and began to think about ways to
reach an arrangement with Hitler. The Soviets may not have become a reliable ally of
the western powers anyway, at least not before Hitler's attack in 1941, but Britain, in
particular, did nothing to keep Stalin in line.
Conclusions:
In spite of Hitler's aggressive and criminal final aims, his foreign policy until 1938 was
peaceful and extremely successful. What made his successes possible? First, Britain,
as the most powerful European state, was so concerned with Japanese expansion in
East Asia that it was willing to grant Hitler concessions in Europe hoping to preserve
peace there. The Japanese threat also reduced American interest in Europe, which had
never been large after the war. Until 1938 the British felt they had not made too many
concessions. After all, the Austrians had wanted Anschluss already in 1918, and the
Sudetenland was settled by ethnic Germans who also wanted to join the German state.
This all conformed with the principle of national self-determination proclaimed at
Versailles!
As long as Germany and the Soviet Union neutralized each other in Eastern Europe,
Britain did not feel threatened much by either power. Therefore the British pursued
appeasement, hoping to satisfy Hitler's territorial appetite soon. Neither the British nor
most Germans were aware of Hitler's radical long-term goals. However, a GermanBritish alliance, which Hitler still desired, did not materialize, and it became clear to him
that the British did not want to give him the free hand he desired in Eastern Europe.
This was the only failure of his foreign policy so far, but it was no more obvious than his
ultimate goals.
Second, France experienced severe domestic crises, both political and economical.
Considering the wartime losses, the French people was thoroughly pacifistic. France
tried to increase security by allying with the Soviet Union and by commiting Britain and
initially also Italy to closer cooperation. But as long as the Germans were not
threatening them directly, the French were willing to support the British appeasement
policy.
Third, Hitler won Italy as an ally. The attack on Ethiopia and Mussolini's involvement in
the Spanish civil war alienated him from the western powers and left him no choice but
to seek Hitler's friendship. Mussolini could have avoided this, but he felt in need of
foreign success to stabilize his dictatorship. For years he had preached expansion, and
at some point he had to produce more than boasting rhetoric. He did not take into
account the gap between his wild claims and Italy's poor resources and thus became
increasingly dependent on Germany. With Mussolini as an ally, Hitler encountered no
resistance to Anschluss and was able to intimidate France.
Ever since the thirties, appeasement has been severely criticized. In retrospect, it
seems as if Chamberlain and his French colleagues gave far too much to Hitler and that
they should have fought Nazi Germany long before 1939. Their gradual concessions

seemed to have increased the dictator's appetite, and their repeated acceptance of
obvious treaty violations made him believe that they would never fight. Retrospective
judgments are easy. But if we criticize appeasement we have to bear two things in mind.
First, for reasons decribed above, both Britain and France hoped to avoid a European
war as long as possible. Historians later claimed they should have attacked Germany
early. But recent research has shown that even in Hitler's first two years the French and
British would have had a hard time subduing Germany. Brning had already started a
rearmament program, which was immediately intensified when Hitler came to power. At
the same time, Britain and France made decisions that weakened their military striking
potential. By 1938 the balance of power seems to have tipped in Germany's favor.
Although France had an initially overwhelming superiority in aircraft and tanks, the
Germans had the more effective and modern models and knew how to make better use
of them. To attack and subdue Germany, France would have needed to risk severe
losses, and Britain would have had to commit most of its forces to Europe. This would
have encouraged Japan to act even more aggressively in East Asia.
Second, foreign diplomats, like most Germans, did not understand that Hitler was dead
serious about his racial policies and the conquest of living space in the East. These
goals seemed too fanciful, too unrealistic, to be taken seriously. Foreigners and most
Germans alike saw Hitler as a revisionist politician, more radical and aggressive than
Stresemann or Brning, but essentially concerned about the same limited and
predictable goals. That Hitler's vision was radically different from either Stresemann's or
Brning's goals emerged only gradually after 1938.
Finally, circles in the government and the public in France and England had come to the
conclusion that the Treaty of Versailles in some ways was arbitrary and unjustly harsh.
The Treaty had postulated that German disarmament ought to be followed by
international disarmament; since little had happened to this effect in the victor countries
it seemed hypocritical to insist on German disarmament to the point of going to war over
it. Moreover, one could protest against the way Hitler merged Austria and the
Sudetenland with Germany. But in both cases he took over territories settled by ethnic
Germans. Few among them seemed to resent being citizens of the new Greater
German Empire. That Austria had been forbidden to merge with Germany in 1919 was a
blatant violation of the principle of national self-determination (democratically legitimated
assemblies of both countries had decided for unity).
And there were still two questions in eastern Europe that Hitler could hope to settle
peacefully to Germany's advantage: the "international" status Danzig, populated
predominantly by Germans, violated the principle of national self-determination, and so
did the fact that many territories mostly settled by Germans belonged to Poland. As the
Sudeten Germans, the German minorities in Poland had frequently complained about
repression, and even the Allies admitted that the drawing of the German-Polish border
in 1918-1921 had consistently favored Poland over Germany. Had Hitler wanted, he
could probably have joined Danzig to Germany, redrawn the Polish-German border to
Germany's advantage, and linked East Prussia, since 1918 an exclave, with the

German mainland - all without going to war. The French press, for example, asked
whether it was worth for Frenchmen to die for Danzig, and there was no doubt what the
answer was.
Source: Professor Scheck, Colby College

German Foreign Policy 1933-39

The Nazi empire was created by violence, lived by violence and was destroyed by
violence. In contrast to other empires created by armed might, which bequeathed art
and literature that are still widely admired, or administrations, customs, languages and
legal codes that Europeans and non-Europeans still adhere to, from Ireland to India, the
tawdry Nazi anti-civilization left nothing of any worth behind, except perhaps its
contemporary function as a secular synonym for human evil. . . . Nazism was literally
"from nothing to nothing": with its powerful imaginative afterlife curiously disembodied
from its pitiful achievements. Rarely can an empire have existed about which nothing
positive could be said, notwithstanding the happy memories of wartime tourism. . . .
Even in the limited terms of its own aesthetic politics, the Nazi "New Order" was merely
the universality of ugliness. (Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (2000, p.
481)
Because of his experiences in Vienna, World War One, the Mnich putsch and in
prison, Adolf Hitler dreamed of building a vast German Empire sprawling across Central
and Eastern Europe. Lebensraum could only be obtained and sustained by waging a
war of conquest against the Soviet Union: German security demanded it and Hitler's
racial ideology required it. War, then, was essential. It was essential to Hitler the man as
well as essential to Hitler's dream of a new Germany. In the end, most historians have
reached the consensus that World War Two was Hitler's war (for more on Hitler, see
Lecture 9 and Lecture 10). Unfortunately, although most western statesmen had
sufficient warning that Hitler was a threat to a general European peace, they failed to
rally their people and take a stand until it was too late. In this respect, you could argue
that the responsibility for World War Two ought to remain on the shoulders of Britain,
France and the United States.
Following 1933 -- the year when Hitler consolidated his power as Chancellor through
the Enabling Act -- Hitler implemented his foreign policy objectives. These objectives
clearly violated the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler's foreign policy aims
accorded with the goals of Germany's traditional rulers in that the aim was to make
Germany the most powerful state in all of Europe. For example, during World War One,
German generals tried to conquer extensive regions in Eastern Europe. And with the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) between Germany and Russia, Germany took Poland,
the Ukraine and the Baltic States from Russia. However, where Hitler departed from this

traditional scenario was his obsession with racial supremacy. His desire to annihilate
whole races of inferior peoples marked a break from the outlook of the old order. This
old order never contemplated the restriction of the civil rights of the Jews. They wanted
to Germanize German Poles, not enslave them.
But Hitler was an opportunist -- he was a man possessed and driven by a fanaticism
that saw his destiny as identical to Germany's. The propaganda machine that Hitler
adopted, however, was perhaps the most important device at his disposal. With it he
was able to successfully undermine his opponent's will to resist. And propaganda, after
winning the minds of the German people, now became a most crucial instrument of
German foreign policy as a whole. There were upwards of 27 million German people
living outside the borders of the Reich. To force those 27 million into support for Hitler,
the Nazis utilized their propaganda machine. For example, they made every effort to
export anti-Semitism internationally, thus feeding off prejudices of other nations. Hitler
also began to promote himself as Europe's best defense against Stalin, the Bolsheviks
and the Soviet Union (on Stalin see Lecture 10). In fact, the Nazi anti-Bolshevik
propaganda convinced thousands of Europeans that Hitler was also Europe's best
defense against all Communists.
Hitler was a shrewd statesman. He anticipated, for instance, that the British and French
would back down the moment they were faced with his direct and willful violations of
Versailles. He knew that any threat of war would drive the Anglo-French into a defensive
posture. The reason for this should be pretty clear -- Britain and France would have
done anything to avoid another conflict and this defensive position managed to win a
vote of confidence from public opinion.
The British believed that Germany had been treated too harshly by the provisions of
Versailles and because of this, they were willing to make concessions to the Germans.
The French, with the largest army on the Continent, refused to contemplate an offensive
war, as was their position in World War One, and decided instead to protect their
borders at all costs. The United States, meanwhile, stood aloof from any European
conflict because they had their own problems to deal with, namely, the Great
Depression. To top it all off, the British and French no longer trusted Russia, so the
hopes of establishing an alliance along the lines which developed during the Great War
was just not possible. So the British introduced their policy of appeasement. They
hoped that by making concessions to Hitler, war would be avoided. They also held on to
the illusion that Hitler was, once again, Europe's best defense against Soviet Russia.
The British appeasers certainly missed the boat -- even with Mein Kampf in their hands,
they failed to understand Hitler's foreign policy aims. Hitler could be reasoned with, they
argued. Meanwhile, Germany grew stronger and the German people began to look to
Hitler as their messiah.
Hitler needed a strong army to realize his war aims. According to the provisions of the
Versailles Treaty, the Germany army was to be limited to 100,000 soldiers. The size of
the navy was limited as well. Germany was also forbidden to produce military aircraft,
tanks and heavy artillery. The General Staff was dissolved. These were harsh

provisions. How did Germany get by these conditions? Well, actually it was quite easy.
In March 1935, Hitler declared that Germany was no longer bound by the provisions of
the Versailles Treaty. He began conscription and built up the air force. France protested,
weakly, and Britain negotiated a naval agreement with the Germans. One year later, on
March 7, 1936, Hitler marched his troops into the Rhineland, a clear violation of
Versailles. His generals cautioned Hitler that such a move would provoke an attack.
Again, Hitler judged the Anglo-French response correctly. The British and French took
no action. The British sat back. The French saw the remilitarization of the Rhineland as
a grave threat to their security. With 22,000 German soldiers standing along the French
border, why didn't the French act? The first reason was that France would not act alone
and Britain offered no help at this point. Second, the French over-estimated German
forces who marched into the Rhineland. Again, their posture was decidedly defensive.
And lastly, French public opinion was strongly opposed to any confrontation with Hitler.
Meanwhile, European fascism was winning another war in Spain between 1936 and
1937. Mussolini and Hitler both supported Franco's right-wing dictatorship and as to be
expected, the French refused to intervene. The Spanish Civil War was decisive for Hitler
for it was here that he was able to test new weapons and new aircraft which would
eventually make their appearance when World War Two finally broke out in 1939. And
then in 1938, Hitler ordered his troops to march into Austria, which then became a
province of Germany. The Austrians celebrated by ringing church bells, waving
swastikas and attacking Jews. The Anschluss was yet another violation of Versailles.
Why had so many people missed the boat? In Mein Kampf, Hitler had made it quite
clear that Austria must be annexed to Germany, Did anyone listen? Did anyone make
any effort to prevent Anschluss? No! Britain and France both informed the Chancellor of
Austria that they would not help if invaded by Germany. Once again, non-intervention
paved the way for Hitler's foreign policy aims.
Hitler used the threat of force to obtain Austria and a similar threat would give him the
Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. More than three-quarters of the population of the
Sudetenland were ethnic Germans. The area also contained key industries and was
vital to the protection of Czechoslovakia. Without this area heavily fortified
Czechoslovakia could not hope to withstand German aggression. Sudentenland
Germans, encouraged by the Nazis, began to denounce the Czech government.
Meanwhile, Hitler's propaganda machine accused the Czech government of hideous
crimes and warned of retribution. He ordered his generals to plan an invasion of
Czechoslovakia. At this point, the British Prime Minister NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN
decided to intervene and Hitler agreed to a conference with him. The opinion of British
statesmen was that the Sudetenland Germans were being deprived of their right to selfdetermination. The Sudetenland, like Austria, was not worth another war, they
reasoned. Once the Germans were living under the German flag, the British argued,
Hitler would be satisfied. And so the fate of Czechoslovakia was sealed in September
1938.

Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier, the Prime Minister of France, signed the
MNICH PACT and agreed that all Czech troops in the Sudetenland would be replaced
by German troops. The British hailed Chamberlain -- the French hailed Daladier. While
Chamberlain returned to England with a piece of paper in his hand, Hitler was laughing.
What Britain and France had shown was their own weakness and this weakness
increased Hitler's appetite for even more territory. With the Sudetenland annexed, Hitler
plotted to annihilate the independent existence of Czechoslovakia. And so, in March
1939, Czechoslovak independence came to an end. After Czechoslovakia, Germany
turned to Poland. Hitler demanded that the Polish port town of Danzig be returned to
Germany. Poland refused to hand over Danzig since it was vital to their economy.
Meanwhile, France and Britain warned Hitler that they would come to the assistance of
Poland. On May 22, 1939, Hitler and Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel and promised
one another mutual aid. One month later, the German army presented Hitler with battle
plans for the invasion of Poland.
While all this was going on, negotiations were under way between Britain, France and
Russia. The Soviets wanted mutual aid -- but they also demanded military bases in
Poland and Romania. Britain would not give in to their demands. And of course, while all
this is going on, Russia was conducting secret talks with Germany. The result of all this
was that on August 23, 1939, Ribbentrop and Molotov signed the NAZI-SOVIET PACT
of non-aggression. One section of this Pact -- even more secret than the Nazi-Soviet
Pact itself -- called for the partition of Poland between Germany and Russia. The NaziSoviet pact served as the green light for the invasion of Poland and on September 1,
1939, German troops marched into Poland. Britain and France demanded that Hitler
stop his forces but Hitler ignored them and so Britain and France declared war on
Germany. Using the Blitzkrieg or lightening war, Poland succumbed to Germany on
September 27, 1939.
Source: Historyguide.org