APPEASEMENT

The name of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin is inexorably linked by history with the appeasement of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany. But it wasn’t Chamberlin and England that allowed Hitler his remarkable sting of foreign policy achievements. It was the capitulation of Germany’s neighbors, many in the face of crises that Hitler manufactured, that solidified Hitler with the German people.

Hitler created two crises. First was the need for “lieberstruam”- living room, for the German people. Although Germany was sufficiently large for the German people, Hitler saw Germany being closed in by foreign races on all sides. The German people needed room to live. Concomitant with that was the need for Anschluss- or reunion  of the German people who lived outside of Germany.

First up was Austria in 1938.  Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, bullied by Hitler during a meeting at Hitler’s retreat home in Berchtesgaden, agreed to a greater Nazi presence within Austria. He appointed a Nazi minister of police and announced an amnesty for all Nazi prisoners. Schuschnigg hoped that agreeing to Hitler’s demands would prevent a German invasion. But Hitler insisted on greater German influence on the internal affairs of Austria-even placing German army troops within Austria. When  Schuschnigg repudiated the agreement signed at Berchtesgaden German foreign minister Hermann Goering then faked a crisis by engineering a “plea” for German assistance from inside the Austrian government (really from a German agent). On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria. Hitler announced his Anschluss and Austria was now a nameless entity absorbed by Germany.  

Next up was Czechoslovakia and the Hitler manufactured crisis of the Sudeterland- an area of Czechoslovakia populated by Germans. Hitler claimed there was a crisis of Germans being oppressed in Czechoslovakia.

I am asking neither that Germany be allowed to oppress three and a half million Frenchmen, nor am I asking that three and a half million Englishmen be placed at our mercy. Rather I am simply demanding that the oppression of three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia cease and that the inalienable right to self-determination take its place.

— Adolf Hitler's speech at the NSDAP Congress 1938

The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany that began on October 1st, 1938 left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak, and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation. Part of the borderland region known as Zaolzie was occupied and returned to Poland. On March 15, 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia as Hitler watched from Praque Castle.  Czechoslovakia now ceased to exist.

Next up was Poland. Poland had signed a mutual defense treaty with England and France. If Hitler invaded, France and England were bound to come to the aid of Poland. Once again, it was a manufactured crisis. SS troops dressed in Polish Army uniforms attacked a German radio station on the border. Hitler faked outrage, and declared a “defensive action” to protect Germany.

France and England declared War on Germany. Germany responded in kind. Chamberlin was replaced by Churchill, and the rest was history.  

The lesson from pre-world war II Germany is that bullies will go as far as the nations around them allow them to go. Dictators  will manufacture a crisis, and then seek to resolve it, earning the praise of their citizens.  

Item: President Trump declares an “emergency” at the US/Mexican border. Claiming there is a crisis, Trump threatens ruin upon the Mexican economy, threatening to raise tariffs 5% a month on Mexican products unless Mexico capitulates to Trump’s demands.  Over the weekend, the Mexican President appeased Trump, acquiesing to his demands. 

 The thing about history is that you never know where a dictator that manufacturers a crisis will pop-up. Even, tragically, as President of the United States. What we do now will be judged as harshly by history, as history now judges Chamberlin and other European leaders in 1938-1939.