Republicans like to talk about appeasement and the word was used a lot during the 2008 election. In fact, the GOP suggested if Obama were elected president, the US would follow a foreign policy of appeasement.
Prior to World War 2, Adolf Hitler wanted to consoldiate all German speaking area of Europe into Germany as part of his lebensraum (living space) policy. British PM Neville chamberlain agreed to let Hitler annex the German speaking Sudentanland form Czechoslovakia with the hopes the German aggression would cease.
Chamberlain was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, after signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, which ceded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.
When Adolf Hitler continued his aggression and invaded Poland, Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and Chamberlain led Britain through the first eight months of World War 2.
What many Americans don't know is that the GOP didn't want the US to enter the war and had an isolationist 'America First' policy. The US was forced into the war when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the US four days later. There was also an American Nazi movement at the time called the Bund which has many similarities to the Tea Party movement.
Many American believe that Chamberlain was some sort of weak kneed liberal who appeased Hitler. In fact, Chamberlain was a conservative.
Did a liberal or labor leader in the UK appease Hitler. No, a conservative made this historical blunder.
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2 comments:
Just to mount a defense of Neville Chamberlain that is contrary to most historical evaluations, we should keep in mind that the British Army of 1938 was weak and spread out across nearly every continent.
Chamberlain realized a few things: 1.) The British people weren't prepared, in terms of morale or weaponry, to go to war in 1938; 2.) to collect the kind of army needed to fight a land war in Europe, it would have meant dismantling the British Empire and calling in troops from far and wide, which also wouldn't have been a popular move, especially with the Japanese threatening Asia, Australia and the Pacific; 3.) technologically, the Brits (and the US) were far behind behind Hitler's war machine -- they were still using WWI-vintage tanks and rifles, for example. As Dunkirk proved in 1940, the British Army were not ready to take on the modern German Wehrmacht and Chamberlain was aware of this fact. He had no choice but to appease Hitler and bide his time, or fight a losing war against Germany that might have resulted in losing the British Isles themselves.
The French, who were supposed to have the best Army in Europe, said the Brits weren't ready for war. The French actually had better tanks than the Germans, but their Air Force was unable to stop the German Stukas from destroying the French tanks. The French actually attacked first and invaded Germany, but they were eventually repelled.
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