Friday, January 20, 2012
To what extent was was the appeasement of Germany before to WW II motivated by anti-soviet or pro-fascist?
I don't think this is supported by the evidence. For a start Hitler had had a non-aggression pact with Russia so supporting Hitler could not be seen in any way as fighting communism. In the UK there was some pro-fascist feeling, but Moseley and his black shirts really didn't get that much support from the ordinary person in the street and none from the government, though they were Conservatives. People admired Hitler for putting Germany back on its feet and, as is so often true, just turned a blind eye to the parts of his policy they didn't like. People used to say of Mussolini, "Well at least he made the trains run on time." The other thing you must remember is that neither France nor Britain were ready for a war. France showed this in its rapid defeat once the war started. The last reason for them not going into war quickly was the memory of the first world war, millions of young men dead, millions more injured. War for any party was not something to be entered into lightly. Neville Chamberlaine said, when Hitler occupied the Sudatenland, "Do we want to go to war over people who live so far away and we don't know?" (a paraphrase). It wasn't because he supported Fascism. One last reason for the great delay in acting was that Germany had been so badly treated by the Treaty of Versailles and so the British govt, especially felt that the occupation of Sudantenland and other places were only fair. They truly thought that once Hitler had the greater Germany back he would stop. This was a foolish hope but we are back to ignoring what we don't want to see.
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