World War II analysis
War came to Europe in 1939 when Hitler failed to turn Poland into its subordinate state. Since Poland had rejected his demands, the alternative for him was war; he would not be cheated out of this war as he had been at Munich. Hitler must assume chief responsibility for the war of September 1939. He did not stumble into war with Poland by mistake. Instead, he ordered his generals to carry out the pledge that he had made to them to use Germany’s power to seize living space (Weinberg, 1995).
To the German public, however, Hitler had promised to regain lost German territory and to restore his country to its rightful place in the world. Poland had received German territory through the Treaty of Versailles, the document that Hitler had pledged to revoke. This argument for persecuted German minorities was one that he relied on to dissuade the British and French from fighting for Poland (Balkoski, 1989).
After Hitler achieved an agreement with Austria, the balance of power shifted in Germany’s favor; it shifted even more when Czechoslovakia fell. But the appeasers no longer felt as generous as they had in the past. After Munich, appeasement was on its way out. Hitler, feeling overconfident from his victory, did not realize that Britain and France were capable of any other policy but appeasement, and so he believed that he could take Poland without any interference. Hitler could not understand that events since September 1938 had so shaken British politicians that there had been a revolution in British policy (Conquest, 1991). All parties had finally resolved to go to war if necessary. Hitler not only had forced unity on British opinion, but he had driven the House of Commons to rebel against appeasement. As far as he could see, Britain and France could be counted on to respond to his takeover of Poland in the same way they had responded to the loss of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain’s offer of concessions presented through secret contacts in late August 1939 only confirmed Hitler’s beliefs that the men of Munich would not stand up to him (Conquest, 1991). It was his failing that he simply could not grasp the immense effect that the fall of Czechoslovakia had had on his foes. No longer would the British and French swallow his tales of mistreated German minorities. His claim that only Germans should be gathered into a greater Reich had been re¬vealed as a trick.
Since 1939 some historians have argued that, if nations had acted earlier, there would have been no war. If the League had fought Japan over Manchuria, they claim, or if the League had defended Ethiopia in 1935, then Hitler would not have attacked Poland (Hart, 2001).
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