Is there a need to suppress Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in western histories?

[Bankotsu]

The history of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies of letting Hitler go east to destroy the Soviet Union is being suppressed in western historiography.

Is there really a need to suppress this history and propagate a falsified version of history to general public and students?

What purpose does the suppression of true history serve? Is it healthy for falsified history to be propagated?

[whore]

what suppression? when i when through school, in both general classes, and specialised history classes for smarter people, this information wasn't suppressed.

it is generally (or at least, when i was at school), considered a major cause of ww2. well, maybe not a cause exactly, but a contributing factor.

i was taught that if britain (and france) had been firmer with the german government, especially around the czeckslovak issue, they would have backed down. the chunk of czeckslovakia that was taken apparently had excellent defences.

[Chambered Word]

I hope this is a joke thread.

[Bankotsu]

it is generally (or at least, when i was at school), considered a major cause of ww2. well, maybe not a cause exactly, but a contributing factor.

That is where the suppression comes in. The anti-bolshevik factor was the main factor. But it is taught in most schools in the west as a contributing factor.

All sorts of secondary and irrelevant rubbish factors and reasons are discussed, while the main driving force, the desire to see Nazis wiping out USSR and destroy bolshevism is suppressed.

And they also suppressed the fact that Chamberlain wanted Hitler to expand eastwards. He wanted Czechoslovakia to be dismembered by Hitler.

They also suppressed the four power pact proposal by Chamberlain. They also suppressed the secret anglo-german talks to divide up spheres of influence in 1939. They lie about Chamberlain changing his policy to oppose Hitler in 1939.

They distort the facts about the negotiations with USSR to stop German aggression in 1939.

They distort the reasons why Chamberlain declared war on Germany. The phoney war and the secret allied plans to attack Russia in 1940 are also mostly suppressed.

[Invader Zim]

what suppression? when i when through school, in both general classes, and specialised history classes for smarter people, this information wasn't suppressed.

it is generally (or at least, when i was at school), considered a major cause of ww2. well, maybe not a cause exactly, but a contributing factor.

i was taught that if britain (and france) had been firmer with the german government, especially around the czeckslovak issue, they would have backed down. the chunk of czeckslovakia that was taken apparently had excellent defences.

Banky here is upset because I pointed out to him that there is no evidence to support his theory, and pulled apart every source he could muster to defend it. His responce to this has been to proclaim that the 'history' has been 'suppressed' and British historians are incapable of producing a coherant examination of this topic because the 'truth' is purportedly an embarrisment to us.

[Bud Struggle]

I'm sure Chamberlin had heard about the Soviet Union but I doubt he could have found it easily on the map. :rolleyes:

Seriously, the disposition of the Soviet Union at that time was nothing that the British cared about one way of the other.

[Bankotsu]

Banky here is upset because I pointed out to him that there is no evidence to support his theory, and pulled apart every source he could muster to defend it. His responce to this has been to proclaim that the 'history' has been 'suppressed' and British historians are incapable of producing a coherant examination of this topic because the 'truth' is purportedly an embarrisment to us.

That is nonsense. You know it. I know it. Everyone here knows it.

[Bankotsu]

I'm sure Chamberlin had heard about the Soviet Union but I doubt he could have found it easily on the map. :rolleyes:

Seriously, the disposition of the Soviet Union at that time was nothing that the British cared about one way of the other.

That is also bullshit.


Tudor wrote to Churchill on 4th August 1936:

The situation in Europe certainly seems to be getting worse. Spain is a new complication.

If the rebels win the Fascist group will be strengthened in Europe, and Spain may line up with Italy and Germany.

If the red government wins Bolshevism will come very near us. With Spain Bolshie, France half Bolshie, and Russia subsidising our communists are we going to line up with them and Russia?
I know how important even vital our friendship with France is, but I feel many in England would rather make a strong western pact with Germany and France and let Germany settle Russia and Bolshevism in her own way.

No doubt Germany would eventually be stronger after defeating Russia but in the meantime we and France would have time to get our defences right; and it would take years before Germany would be in a position to make war again, nor do I suppose she would want to having got a satisfactory expansion. Even Germany cannot like war.

Russia deserves what is coming to her as she will never stop undermining capitalistic governments in every way she can. If she is left alone, in 10 years or so she would be the strongest power on earth and she may want to take in India and may be a more dangerous enemy than Germany.

Churchill's reply on 16 August 1936:

I have as you divine, been much perturbed in my thoughts by the spanish explosion. I feel actuely the weight of what you say... I am sure it represents the strong and growing Conservative opinion, and events seems to be driving us in that direction.


http://books.google.com/books?id=MTPzJRV9hhgC&pg=PA52&dq=tudor+wrote+on+4+august+1936&sig=tHxdxYsrTs_EaknIMD8WiiCx2rk



Neville Chamberlain was "fiercely anti-Bolshevik" (Jonathan Haslam).

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LM7hpv5nwmv212n0fsFhj bjvpgZ1BT3BbB6m10bhCy (http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LM7hpv5nwmv212n0fsFhj bjvpgZ1BT3BbB6m10bhCyvD9G1stbph%21-852814118%21-1986555990?docId=5006660083)


Contrary to Mr. Rothstein, the “Western democracies” were not at all slow to recognize Hitler’s threat as long as this was understood as a threat to Bolshevism. Early on, Great Britain saw Nazism as defending the broader interests of European capitalism, even if it did have a somewhat roughneck character. In 1937, the Committee of Imperial Defense (CID) in Great Britain looked benignly on German expansion to the East. Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Minister, gave the Fuhrer fulsome praise for making his country a “bulwark against Bolshevism” that year.


A year later Neville Chamberlain described England and Germany as “the two pillars of European peace and buttresses against communism.”


http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/fascism/page/2/




Carley knocks most of the props out from the apologists' defences, demonstrating that Neville Chamberlain in Britain, Edouard Daladier in France, their respective foreign ministers, and many other leading government figures were indeed, in their correspondence, rather obviously fixated with anti-communism.

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/50/br_28.html



Most conservative and right wing sections within the Western Allies, including Neville Chamberlain were venomously anti-communist; though they had failed to win support for their war against the Soviet Union from their war weary countries in the 1919-20 interventions; they encouraged and supported right wing fanaticism in buffer states like Germany and Poland and tacitly supported fascism by starving its opponents of supplies and weapons in the Spanish Civil War. They saw in Fascism a force that would militarily oppose the Soviet Union as proxy for Western Capitalism, the fact that Britain and France constantly betrayed their European alliances particularly Czechoslovakia...

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/causes-of-world-war-ii/causes-of-world-war-ii-in-europe.html


In order to carry out this plan of allowing Germany to drive eastward against Russia, it was necessary to do three things:

(1) to liquidate all the countries standing between Germany and Russia;

(2) to prevent France from honoring her alliances with these countries; and

(3) to hoodwink the English people into accepting this as a necessary, indeed, the only solution to the international problem.

The Chamberlain group were so successful in all three of these things that they came within an ace of succeeding, and failed only because of the obstinacy of the Poles, the unseemly haste of Hitler, and the fact that at the eleventh hour the Milner Group realized the implications of their policy and tried to reverse it...

http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/quigley/anglo_12b.html

[Invader Zim]

And as we can all see, this is just the kind of laughable nonsense we have come to expect Banky to produce as evidence of his position. Rather than quote cabinet minutes, SIS documents, or the private writings of senior ministers, he quotes a retired Major General living on the otherside of the world, and a back-bench M.P. as evidence of a government plot to force germany and the USSR into a war.

Do you really not see why that is laughable bankotsu?

[Bankotsu]

How about diaries of Eden?


Eden noted in his diary after talks with Hitler:"Only thing Hitler wants is Air Pact without limitation. Simon much inclined to bite at this....I had to protest and he gave up the idea.... Simon toys with the idea of letting Germany expand eastwards. I am strongly against. Apart from dishonesty it would be our turn next"(cited in Dutton 1994, 50)...

http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=UyMXon0JmBsC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=eden%27s+diary+1935+hitler+simon+&source=web&ots=A58iIH7xr6&sig=IChZUDHy4vJ-mJ8C112mq56Mfks&hl=en


And also:

Neville Chamberlain 1937:


As he declared in July 1937, if Britain 'could get on terms with the Germans I would not care a rap for Musso' because 'the best way of countering the...Ultimately, this meant direct negotiations with Germany 'to find out what she wants', while

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...


http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=rCQ7s9MjkkwC&pg=PA278&dq=As+he+declared+in+July+1937,+if+Britain&client=firefox-a#v=onepage&q=As%20he%20declared%20in%20July%201937%2C%20if%20 Britain&f=false




Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin#Later_life



This idea of bringing Germany into a collision with Russia was not to be found, so far as the evidence shows, among any members of the inner circle of the Milner Group.

Rather it was to be found among the personal associates of Neville Chamberlain, including several members of the second circle of the Milner Group.

The two policies followed parallel courses until March 1939. After that date the Milner Group’s disintegration became very evident, and part of it took the form of the movement of several persons (like Hoare and Simon) from the second circle of the Milner Group to the inner circle of the new group rotating around Chamberlain.

This process was concealed by the fact that this new group was following, in public at least, the policy desired by the Milner Group; their own policy, which was really the continuation of appeasement for another year after March 1939, was necessarily secret, so that the contrast between the Chamberlain group and the inner circle of the Milner Group in the period after March 1939 was not as obvious as it might have been.

http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/quigley/anglo_12b.html


Simon toys with the idea of letting Germany expand eastwards.



Mao: We are prepared for it to come, but it will collapse if it comes. It has only a handful of troops, and you Europeans are so frightened of it! Some people in the West are always trying to direct this calamity toward China. Your senior, Chamberlain, and also Daladier of France were the ones who pushed Germany eastward.

Heath: I opposed Mr. Chamberlain then.

http://english.pladaily.com.cn/special/mao/txt/w24.htm (http://english.pladaily.com.cn/special/mao/txt/w24.htm)




There has frequently been expressed a desire in the House that we should endeavour to get Germany and Russia involved in war so that we could sit back and look at them destroying one another.

Is it not because we have a Government which has been concerned all along with pursuing its own Imperialist policy first, and in trying to direct Germany against the Soviet Union?

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1939/oct/03/war-situation#S5CV0351P0_19391003_HOC_350



If hon. Gentlemen opposite are hugging the delusion that Germany, if allowed to become a dominant Power in Europe, will attack the Soviet Union and destroy that great Socialist Power, they had better wake up before it is too late. Germany will have no hesitation in breaking any word that was given and taking advantage of this country. The National Government are not isolating Soviet Russia. They are isolating Britain. I do not care what armaments you have, if Britain is alone her position is impossible and the position of this Empire is impossible. The one policy for the people of this country is to have unity with the peace peoples of all other countries and to make appeal after appeal to the peoples of Germany and Italy on that basis.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/oct/04/european-situation#S5CV0339P0_19381004_HOC_66





A key factor in Britain and France's attitude towards Hitler was a desire to steer his ambitions eastwards and into war with Russia. In that way, it was hoped, the two perils could eliminate each other.


Stanley Baldwin, who preceded Chamberlain, was fairly frank. In 1936, he told Tory MPs alarmed about Hitler, that it would not 'break his heart' if the tensions in Europe led to 'the Nazis fighting the Bolshies'.


The diaries of Foreign Office chief Sir Alexander Cadogan, shine a light on Chamberlain's outlook.

The Russians had been calling for a strong stand against Hitler on every occasion he pushed forward his military ambitions - reintroducing conscription, occupying the Rhineland, annexing Austria and threatening Czechoslovakia.


On every occasion, the despairing Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov got the brush off from London on the grounds either that Soviet offers of aid were insincere or impractical.


Nevertheless the British chiefs of staff eventually came round to favouring what Cadogan called a 'whole hog alliance with Russia'.


He added, significantly, that the idea 'annoyed' Chamberlain.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1066952/Andrew-Alexander-Its-just-rich-risk-bank-meltdowns.html#ixzz0cPRi6DRG




Severely weakened by the Great Depression and in no position to make military threats, Chamberlain and Daladier hoped to push Hitler's ambitions eastward.

The one unifying belief all four leaders shared was their fanatical hatred of the Soviet Union and anything remotely related to International Communism.

A strong and well-armed Nazi regime in Central Europe, they believed, was a necessary buffer to Soviet power. And with their own domestic economic crises and their labor unions going communist, France and England focused their attention not on the threat of fascism but on the growing influence of the Soviet Union. (Their positions on the Spanish Civil War bear this fact out.)

France and England hoped Germany would spark a shooting war with the Soviet Union and then they could sit back and watch the fascists and communists tear each other apart. It didn't work out that way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/george-w-bush-and-appease_b_102039.html



Sotskov believes that the declassified documents make it possible to take a new and deeper look at the role the world leaders played in the late 1930s in Europe.

"The documents received after the Munich conspiracy are particularly valuable. They analyze the post-Munich situation in Europe and clearly show that Britain was trying to draw Germany and the Soviet Union into active hostilities," Sotskov emphasized in an interview with RIA Novosti.


Later, on November 25, Grippenberg reported his conversation with a British government member who assured him that Britain and France would not interfere in Germany's eastward expansion.


"Britain's position is as follows: let's wait until Germany and the U.S.S.R. get involved in a big conflict," the document reads.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080929/117271264.html



Come on, I don't have to go on. Let's end this silly denial. It's senseless to me.

[Invader Zim]

How about diaries of Eden?


Eden noted in his diary after talks with Hitler:"Only thing Hitler wants is Air Pact without limitation. Simon much inclined to bite at this....I had to protest and he gave up the idea.... Simon toys with the idea of letting Germany expand eastwards. I am strongly against. Apart from dishonesty it would be our turn next"(cited in Dutton 1994, 50)...

http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=...mq56Mfks&hl=en (http://www.anonym.to/?http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=UyMXon0JmBsC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=eden%27s+diary+1935+hitler+simon+&source=web&ots=A58iIH7xr6&sig=IChZUDHy4vJ-mJ8C112mq56Mfks&hl=en)

Two things, suggesting that britain allow Germany expand east is not the same as suggesting that they wished to instigate a war between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Rather granting concessions to Germany's territorial ambitions, following the loss of territory at Versailles, was at the heart of appeasement.

Secondly, the quote comes from 1935, before Chamberlain was leader of the government, and before the extent of Nazi expansionist policy was understood. So, no you fail again.



Neville Chamberlain 1937:


As he declared in July 1937, if Britain 'could get on terms with the Germans I would not care a rap for Musso' because 'the best way of countering the...Ultimately, this meant direct negotiations with Germany 'to find out what she wants', while

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...

As i stated above allowing 'expansion' does not equate to attempting to instigate war. Secondly, the most important aspect of that quote is "if we are willing to let her expand at all" which suggests that there is no coherant policy, and that Chamberlain was faced with a dilemma.

And of course you have totally strippe that quote of context and failed to note what the author of the work you cited stated immidiately below, which shoots down your idiotic argument in a ball of flames.

"Chamberlain's problem, however, was that Hitler's true ambitions could not be established definitively until all the legitimate grievences arising from the Treaty of Versailles had been redressed. [...] Chamberlain believed he had little choice but to seek negotiated settlement of existing german grievances. Again, it was a case of hoping for the best while prepariring for the worst."




Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin#Later_life (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin#Later_life)

To quote my previous retort to this foolish argument of yours:

"Two points, firstly baldwin retired in 1937. What he had to say after that time is irrelevent. Secondly that quote comes from Middlemas and Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography (1969), p. 1047. It is unreferenced, so we have not only to take the biographers word for it, but we also have to take Hinchingbrooke's word for it. Third the context of the comment came immidiately after Munich during which time Baldwin feared for the destruction of Britain, and his comment to Hinchingbrooke appears as a throw away comment spurred by the light of events, hardly an analysis of government policy."


This idea of bringing Germany into a collision with Russia was not to be found, so far as the evidence shows, among any members of the inner circle of the Milner Group.

Rather it was to be found among the personal associates of Neville Chamberlain...

http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/78...anglo_12b.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/quigley/anglo_12b.html)

And as i showed earlier, Quigley drew his assumption without the facts that are now available to historians, and he was stepping outside of the area he was qualified as an expert to be taken seriously. Furthermore his book has led to a catalogue of unfounded conspiricy theories that have been debunked; yours included. You continue to parrot these lines from discredited sources.



Mao: We are prepared for it to come, but it will collapse if it comes. It has only a handful of troops, and you Europeans are so frightened of it! Some people in the West are always trying to direct this calamity toward China. Your senior, Chamberlain, and also Daladier of France were the ones who pushed Germany eastward.

Heath: I opposed Mr. Chamberlain then.

http://english.pladaily.com.cn/special/mao/txt/w24.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://english.pladaily.com.cn/special/mao/txt/w24.htm)

And of course in your mind, undergraduate students and foreign dictators are privy to the inner thoughts of British prime ministers and their cabinet.

Like I said banky, you are incapable of bringing a single credible source to bear in support of your assertions. All you can manage are discredited conspiricy theorists, historians wring before they had access to the sources, foreign dictators and backbench MPs. You can't provide me a single source from a contemporary government minister stating explicity that the Chamberlain and the cabinet's sole aim in following the appeasement policy was to bring the USSR and nazi Germany to war. indeed you can't provide any evidence that it was an aim at all. All you have succeeded in doing is showing that there was a small cadre of violently anti-soviet Conservatives, outside of the government, who considered the idea.

[Robert]

That is nonsense. You know it. I know it. Everyone here knows it.

Dude, honestly, almost no one here "knows it."

Tell you what: why don't you write an article about it, and if it gets banned or you get arrested or something, we'll talk. Otherwise, you wanna move on?

[Bankotsu]

All you have succeeded in doing is showing that there was a small cadre of violently anti-soviet Conservatives, outside of the government, who considered the idea.

Chamberlain was anti-bolshevik, he wanted to let Germany expand eastwards towards Russia.



Neville Chamberlain 1937:


As he declared in July 1937, if Britain 'could get on terms with the Germans I would not care a rap for Musso' because 'the best way of countering the...Ultimately, this meant direct negotiations with Germany 'to find out what she wants', while

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...




Later, on November 25, Grippenberg reported his conversation with a British government member who assured him that Britain and France would not interfere in Germany's eastward expansion.


"Britain's position is as follows: let's wait until Germany and the U.S.S.R. get involved in a big conflict," the document reads.

[Bankotsu]

Dude, honestly, almost no one here "knows it."



The suppression of true history MUST end. I am quite firm on this point.

[Robert]

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...

Well sure, but you could say that about every foreign policy of every nation in history. There's nothing peculiarly anti-Soviet or anti-Bolshevik about it in principle.

"If we are willing" doesn't mean "we really want Germany to kill Russians." It's just a basic cost-benefit analysis.

[Bankotsu]

Well sure, but you could say that about every foreign policy of every nation in history. There's nothing peculiarly anti-Soviet or anti-Bolshevik about it in principle.


That's true. But Chamberlain was anti-Soviet. Hitler was anti-soviet.



A year later Neville Chamberlain described England and Germany as “the two pillars of European peace and buttresses against communism.”

[Invader Zim]

Chamberlain was anti-bolshevik, he wanted to let Germany expand eastwards towards Russia.



Neville Chamberlain 1937:


As he declared in July 1937, if Britain 'could get on terms with the Germans I would not care a rap for Musso' because 'the best way of countering the...Ultimately, this meant direct negotiations with Germany 'to find out what she wants', while

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...




Later, on November 25, Grippenberg reported his conversation with a British government member who assured him that Britain and France would not interfere in Germany's eastward expansion.


"Britain's position is as follows: let's wait until Germany and the U.S.S.R. get involved in a big conflict," the document reads.


Chamberlain was anti-bolshevik, he wanted to let Germany expand eastwards towards Russia.



Neville Chamberlain 1937:


As he declared in July 1937, if Britain 'could get on terms with the Germans I would not care a rap for Musso' because 'the best way of countering the...Ultimately, this meant direct negotiations with Germany 'to find out what she wants', while

'deciding ourselves the direction in which we can best afford to let her expand at the expense of others if we are willing to let her expand at all'...


I've already demolished your inept reading of this source, and i see that Robert has too.


Later, on November 25, Grippenberg reported his conversation with a British government member who assured him that Britain and France would not interfere in Germany's eastward expansion.


"Britain's position is as follows: let's wait until Germany and the U.S.S.R. get involved in a big conflict," the document reads.

Of course we don't know who this Government Minister is, their position, or anything about them; furthermore this 'source' isn't confirmed or corroborated by a single other source. But we do know that they (the unnanmed source), assuming the conversation ever actually happened (which I doubt), were wrong because less than six months later Britain offered an unprecendented guarantee to Poland as a means of preventing further German expansion.

[Bankotsu]

I've already demolished your inept reading of this source, and i see that Robert has too.



Of course we don't know who this Government Minister is, their position, or anything about them; furthermore this 'source' isn't confirmed or corroborated by a single other source. But we do know that they (the unnanmed source), assuming the conversation ever actually happened (which I doubt), were wrong because less than six months later Britain offered an unprecendented guarantee to Poland as a means of preventing further German expansion.


It is really that big a deal to say that Chamberlain wanted Hitler to go east to destroy USSR, Invader Zim?

[Invader Zim]

It is really that big a deal to say that Chamberlain wanted Hitler to go east to destroy USSR, Invader Zim?

Not at all, if the evidence supported that conclusion Banky; but as proven, you can't provide a single shred of evidence that supports your assertion.

Is it really that big a deal for you to admit that you haven't any evidence to go with the near religious fixation you have for this debunked myth?

[Bankotsu]

Not at all, if the evidence supported that conclusion Banky; but as proven, you can't provide a single shred of evidence that supports your assertion.

That's right, it's not a big deal.

And it's not anything new and most of the non western world knows about it too.

That's why there is no point in suppressing it.

It's just nonsense.



Statement by His Excellency Mr. Adam Daniel ROTFELD, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. Fifty-ninth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War:

We are told sometimes that the criminal plot of the two dictatorships – Stalin’s and Hitler’s – was legitimate under the international law of the time. What’s more, it constituted a justified or even essential defense in view of the Munich Agreement concluded in September 1938 among Nazi Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and France. That treaty was designed to channel German aggression eastward. True, it was a shameful Agreement conceived to appease the aggressor at the expense of Czechoslovakia.

http://www.polandun.org/templates/statementRotfeld09may.html



In 1937, Neville Chamberlain became Britain’s Prime Minister. He had three choices: pursuing a policy of collective security through the League of Nations, creating alliances against the Axis powers outside the League of Nations, or pursuing a policy of appeasement. Chamberlain chose the third option.

We must say that before Chamberlain’s rise to power, the term “appeasement” had a different meaning than the one acquired later. Stanley Baldwin spoke of the “appeasement of Europe,” but his successor narrowed the meaning to the “appeasement of dictators.” There were both subjective and objective reasons for this. Appeasement was the personal brainchild of Chamberlain, who blindly believed in “salon diplomacy” and in its ability to change the historical course of events through private conversations and meetings. But it was certainly the emanation of the political class’s fears and passions, a class which hated Bolshevik Russia, that resulted in suspicion of France and the mistaken belief that Britain’s insular position would guarantee its safety or at the very least that Britain would be able to stay on the sidelines, if not completely above a major fight in continental Europe.

We must also say that before the Munich agreement, Chamberlain’s foreign policy had more supporters in the country than opponents. The only alternative that was envisioned was war, which few people wanted. Even Lloyd George, having visited Hitler in September 1936, returned with a high opinion of him, although that soon changed. One of the most popular places among the English upper class from 1936-1938 was the German Embassy in London under Ribbentrop, who constantly held aristocratic balls. Lord Halifax, Simon (Treasury Minister) Hoare (Interior Minister) and Neville Henderson, Britain’s ambassador to Germany, actively supported Chamberlain in his policy.

How events further developed is well known. Hitler won back new concessions and pieces of land, and each time London thought that it would be the last time.

In March 1938, the Anschluss of Austria took place, after which Germany began to threaten Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain again and again put all the cards on the negotiating process, each time conceding his position. Such were the British Prime Minister's talks with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Bad Godesberg, and then in Munich. After the talks in Munich, Chamberlain returned to London as a victor, stating from the steps of the plane that “peace in our time is guaranteed.” However, the mentality of “doing something at the expense of others” - strengthening the security of one’s own country while taking it away from another - led to disastrous consequences.

Sometimes they write that Chamberlain tried, as Stalin, to win time and allow Britain to better prepare for war. However, minutes of Cabinet meetings from the time fail to confirm this thesis.

In March 1939, with Hitler’s seizure of Prague, the policy of appeasement collapsed like a house of cards, and Chamberlain was disgraced. London, now pinned to the wall, was forced to assume its obligation to protect Poland and enter into negotiations on mutual assistance with the Soviet Union. However, even in these extreme circumstances, a serious deal with the Soviet Union made the political class in Britain sick, especially as it held the deep conviction that if a great war were to come, the first to be sent to fight Hitler would be the Soviet Union, and as a very last resort, France. Domestic opposition in Britain and France to a close alliance with Moscow led the latter, along with other factors, chief of which was to insulate itself for a time from a German attack, to enter a nonaggression agreement with Berlin. So did Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, as well as Poland itself before anyone else in 1934.

The Second World War was the expression of national egoism on the part of all major European states, both in the West and in the East. The idea of collective security in those conditions was impossible. Britain must share in the blame for the outbreak of this major war. As for the idea of collective security in Europe, it continues to live in the beginning of the 21st century. Let us recall that it was in Berlin in June 2008 that President Medvedev took the initiative of convening a European conference on security. Let us hope that the lessons of the past mean something and that the fate of the idea of collective security in our time will be better than what happened in 1939.

http://russkiymir.org/en/publications/index.php?id4=11026

[rednordman]

@Invader Zim: No offence here, but why are you going full fledge to try and prove Bankotsu's claim wrong? Seriously, I cannot see any serious reason why Chamberin wouldnt have been very worried about the disposition of the Soviet Union at the time. Afterall, he was a conservative. And at the time, alot of people where leaning towards the hard-left within the UK aswell.

He, like Hitler, wanted the SU and communism confined to the dustbin of history, no matter what. He just wanted Hitler to do the dirty work for him because he knew hitler was mad enough to invade the SU, and that he could save face in the process. It was also a hell of a lot better for them to go eastwards, than to the west in his eyes.

I suppose the evidence is not totally obvious, but Chamberlain wasnt an idot either. He knew what he was doing, especially with Czekoslovakia. Whether he was trying to push the Nazis eastward or not, he would have loved to see the Soviet Union destroyed. Simple as.

[Demogorgon]

@Invader Zim: No offence here, but why are you going full fledge to try and prove Bankotsu's claim wrong? Seriously, I cannot see any serious reason why Chamberin wouldnt have been very worried about the disposition of the Soviet Union at the time. Afterall, he was a conservative. And at the time, alot of people where leaning towards the hard-left within the UK aswell.

He, like Hitler, wanted the SU and communism confined to the dustbin of history, no matter what. He just wanted Hitler to do the dirty work for him because he knew hitler was mad enough to invade the SU, and that he could save face in the process. It was also a hell of a lot better for them to go eastwards, than to the west in his eyes.

I suppose the evidence is not totally obvious, but Chamberlain wasnt an idot either. He knew what he was doing, especially with Czekoslovakia. Whether he was trying to push the Nazis eastward or not, he would have loved to see the Soviet Union destroyed. Simple as.
I think what some people might be missing with this theory is that while Chamberlain would have been very keen to see the Soviet Union gone, he was probably less keen for Germany to have access to its industry and natural resources before it turned its eyes towards Britain and France.

[Robert]

Another viewpoint, from a U.S. nativist who may be projecting onto Chamberlain his own (Buchanan's) aversion to U.S. involvement in Europe's problems. But as an avid student of the geopolitics of WWII, I can't imagine why he wouldn't at least hypothesize in passing as to some malevolent "side benefit" (attack on the USSR) that appeasement of Hitler over the Sudetens would bring. Instead, he says simply that Britain was unprepared for war. Frankly, I find his brief convincing. But who cares?

He feared that if war broke out between Czechs and Germans, and Prague invoked its French alliance, a Franco-German war might follow, dragging Britain in as it had in 1914 ....

Why did Chamberlain not tell Prague to defy Hitler and commit Britain to fight for a Czech Sudetenland?
Because Britain was utterly unprepared for war. The Brits had not a single division in France, no Spitfires, no draft, and no allies save France. Britain's World War I allies were gone. Italy was with Hitler. Japan was now hostile. Russia was lost to Bolshevism. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa were unwilling to fight, if the issue was keeping Germans under Czech rule....

And the Americans had gone home. Indeed, FDR had warned, "Those who count on the assured aid of the United States in case of a war in Europe are totally mistaken."

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13526

[Bankotsu]

I can't imagine why he wouldn't at least hypothesize in passing as to some malevolent "side benefit" (attack on the USSR) that appeasement of Hitler over the Sudetens would bring. Instead, he says simply that Britain was unprepared for war.

Chamberlain appeasing Hitler so as to let him go east and attack USSR; let the two fight it out and kill each other is like the elephant in the room.

It's so bloody obvious that it cannot be mentioned.

It is ridiculous to suppress such an obvious and logical reason for appeasement.

http://calonline.cusd.com/worldhistory2/module07/07image/MapOfEurope.jpg


And by this date, certain members of the Milner Group and of the British Conservative government had reached the fantastic idea that they could kill two birds with one stone by setting Germany and Russia against one another in Eastern Europe.

In this way they felt that the two enemies would stalemate one another, or that Germany would become satisfied with the oil of Rumania and the wheat of the Ukraine.


In order to carry out this plan of allowing Germany to drive eastward against Russia, it was necessary to do three things:

(1) to liquidate all the countries standing between Germany and Russia;

(2) to prevent France from honoring her alliances with these countries; and

(3) to hoodwink the English people into accepting this as a necessary, indeed, the only solution to the international problem.

The Chamberlain group were so successful in all three of these things that they came within an ace of succeeding...

http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/quigley/anglo_12b.html

[ComradeMan]

I didn't believe it was suppresed, learnt it at school. albeit at school level.

[Invader Zim]

but why are you going full fledge to try and prove Bankotsu's claim wrong?

I'm not. If anything it is he who is proving himself wrong because the sources s/he has provided simply do not suggest what he claims of them. All I'm doing is highlighting his errors, which is hardly "full fledge". Consider it this way, examine Banky "evidence" in the post above yours. It consists of a quote from a modern Polish politician, and a quote from a Russian webpage that actually directly contradicts Bankotsu's argument, stating:

"Hitler won back new concessions and pieces of land, and each time London thought that it would be the last time."

Presumably if the author of the piece thought that London's plan was to actually drive Germany east, then that is the last thing they would have thought.

Now I hope you can see that neither of those are primary sources providing concrete evidence of Chamberlain's plan to drive Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union into a war; and nor does it take any particular effort to see that. If you want to see 'full fledge', there is a discussion between myself and Comrade Om on the subject of appeasement in the history forum.


Seriously, I cannot see any serious reason why Chamberin wouldnt have been very worried about the disposition of the Soviet Union at the time.

He was very worried about the disposition of the USSR, but for the exact opposite reason you think. He was worried about the weakness of the USSR especially after the purge of the Red Army, and for that reason (in addition to ideological mistrust) he dismissed forming an alliance with the Soviet Union which he believed would begin a war in which the USSR would collapse and then the British and French would be left fighting a war which they would lose.


He, like Hitler, wanted the SU and communism confined to the dustbin of history, no matter what. He just wanted Hitler to do the dirty work for him because he knew hitler was mad enough to invade the SU, and that he could save face in the process. It was also a hell of a lot better for them to go eastwards, than to the west in his eyes.

That sounds all very nice, but we return, as ever, to the issue of evidence; and the fact that there isn't any to support that conslusion. And that I'm afraid, is how historical study operates; conclusions are drawn from the evidence, not from our ideological views regarding Chamberlain's cabinet in the 1930s.

[Robert]

That sounds all very nice, but we return, as ever, to the issue of evidence; and the fact that there isn't any to support that conslusion

There's lots of evidence, but it has been suppressed.

[Bankotsu]

That sounds all very nice, but we return, as ever, to the issue of evidence; and the fact that there isn't any to support that conslusionThere's loads of evidence. But one has to accept them.

Whether you want to deny facts or not Invader Zim, I think the left should make a bigger effort to destroy the lies and suppression of appeasement history propagated by the west.

Do you agree?




Until the war began in September 1939, powerful factions of the French and British ruling class hoped that Hitler would attack the USSR and thereby eliminate their main enemy without them firing a shot.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/slau-n02.shtml

What was the real situation in the 1930s? The appeasement policy was not the result of some failure to stand up to the dictator Hitler, but involved a very definite set of calculations. British accommodation to the Nazi regime was based on the hope that Hitler would carry out the program outlined in his book Mein Kampf and launch a war against the Soviet Union, from which British imperialism would be able to benefit.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/nbww-n18.shtml
In order to understand U.S. maneuvers and advances through the Second World War, it is necessary to consider the positions, goals, and strategies of the other great powers. The British strategy for dealing with Germany found initial expression in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's 'appeasement' policy.

The purpose of Chamberlain's 1938 Munich agreement to give the Sudetenland to Germany was, in fact, to push the Germans to the east and into confrontation with the Soviet Union...

http://rwor.org/a/076/ww2-en.html (http://rwor.org/a/076/ww2-en.html)


Up until the late 1930s, the ‘appeasers’ still hoped that German expansionism would be directed eastwards and therefore not directly threaten British imperialist interests; with any luck it would result in a war between Germany and Russia, thus removing two military rivals....

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/283_churchill.htm
They even tried to sic the Nazis onto the Soviet Union. Chamberlain's hope after Munich was that the Nazis would attack Russia and destroy a "communist" state that was still pathologically feared and hated by British capital. They did not want a war with Germany that, it was feared, would "Bolshevise" Europe and eliminate a vital "bulwark" against communism.

In the Winter of 1939-40, there was a last ditch effort by the Tories to breathe life into the "free hand" policy and launch an anti-Bolshevik crusade under the guise of "assistance" to Finland. This is what is called "appeasement".

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/08/appeasement.html


However, influential leaders of the capitalist powers believed that Germanfascism was the only bulwark against Bolshevism. They confidently expected that a re-armed Germany would sweep to the East and destroy the centre of the Red contagion the USSR...

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg02659.htmlhttp://www.palgrave.com/masterseries/lowe/questions/image009.gif


Russian cartoon about Munich: Chamberlain and Daladier act as traffic policemen; the sign-post reads 'Left - Western Europe, Right - USSR'


THE FALSIFIERS
http://english.ruvr.ru/2009/07/03/267993.html


Falsifiers of History
http://web.archive.org/web/20050616080438/agitprop.org.au/lefthistory/1948_falsifiers_of_history.php


It's time to smash the lies of history!

[rednordman]

That sounds all very nice, but we return, as ever, to the issue of evidence; and the fact that there isn't any to support that conslusion. And that I'm afraid, is how historical study operates; conclusions are drawn from the evidence, not from our ideological views regarding Chamberlain's cabinet in the 1930s.One of the reasons that I do believe this is because of how Hitler was perceived across, Europe before started invading Europe. I think alot of wealthy people across Europe really did buy into his whole 'the good fight against communism' notion. And for this reason, I think that alot of people with power in Europe didnt actually have an idea about the real nature of his dictatorship.

In that sense, I find it very hard not to see it ideological lines. From what my Grandparents say, the working class knew that fascism and nazism was the enemy and a threat, But the wealthy didnt see it like that at all. They can even clearly remember how open all of these rich people where to showing favour to nazi germany. They only payed attention to the properganda and saw it as a sort of extreme conservative ally. And thus, Chamberlain was acting in the wealthys interests.

Obviously, this changed for the most part after Hitler invaded Poland and Skandinavia. Anyhow thanks for the thorough response.

[Bankotsu]

But the wealthy didnt see it like that at all. They can even clearly remember how open all of these rich people where to showing favour to nazi germany..

That's true.



In France, fear of war was rampant. Moreover, in France, even more obviously than in England, fear of Bolshevism was a powerful factor, especially in influential circles of the Right.

The ending of the Soviet Alliance, the achievement of a four-Power pact, and the termination of Czechoslovakia as "a spearhead of Bolshevism in central Europe" had considerable appeal to those conservative circles which regarded the Popular Front government of Leon Blum as "a spearhead of Bolshevism" in France itself.

To this group, as to a less vociferous group in Britain, even a victory over Hitler in war to save Czechoslovakia would have been a defeat for their aims, not so much because they disliked democracy and admired authoritarian reaction (which was true) as because they were convinced that the defeat of Hitler would expose all of central, and perhaps western, Europe to Bolshevism and chaos.


The slogan of these people, "Better Hitler than Blum," became increasingly prevalent in the course of 1938 and, although nothing quite like this was heard in Britain, the idea behind it was not absent from that country.

In this dilemma the "three-bloc world" of the Cliveden Set or even the German-Soviet war of the anti-Bolsheviks seemed to be the only solution.

Because both required the elimination of Czechoslovakia from the European power system, Czechoslovakia was eliminated with the help of German aggression, French indecision and war-weariness, and British public appeasement and merciless secret pressure...

http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/13.html



In France, as in Britain, there were changes in the foreign policies of the Right and the Left after Hitler came to power in Germany (1933). The Left became more anti-German and abandoned Briand's policy of conciliation, while the Right, in some sections, sought to make a virtue of necessity and began to toy with the idea that, if Germany was to become strong anyway, a solution to the French problem of security might be found by turning Germany against the Soviet Union.

This idea, which already had adherents in the Right in Britain, was more acceptable to the Right than to the Left in France, because, while the Right was conscious of the political threat from Germany, it was equally conscious of the social and economic threat from Bolshevism.

Some members of the Right in France even went so far as to picture France as an ally of Germany in the assault on the Soviet Union...

http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/06.html



Rothermere urged Hitler to invade Romania

The former owner of the Daily Mail wrote to Adolf Hitler congratulating Germany on its annexation of Czechoslovakia, and urging the Führer to march into Romania, British secret service files, released by the National Archives for the first time today, reveal.

The former owner of the Daily Mail wrote to Adolf Hitler congratulating Germany on its annexation of Czechoslovakia, and urging the Führer to march into Romania, British secret service files, released by the National Archives for the first time today, reveal.

(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rothermere-urged-hitler-to-invade-romania-485296.html)http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rothermere-urged-hitler-to-invade-romania-485296.html

[ComradeMan]

There were a lot of Nazi sympathisers in Britain. My Grandmother told me about the fights at the brown shirt rallies that used to go on...

[Bankotsu]

The problem is that the british have problems coming to terms with the truth.

They have a huge problem and mental block against the truth about how Britain built up Germany as a bulwark against Soviet Union and wanted Hitler to go east to destroy the Soviet Union.

British historians never admit that that was the main factor. The main driving force.

They simply cannot handle the truth.

Well, if they can't handle the truth, we from the left have to do our job and educate people on the truth and smash all forms of lies, all forms of falsified history, all forms of distortion.

Whenever any fucker comes up to you and spread some rubbish or nonsense about Nazi-Soviet pact or some Chamberlain appeasement crap, just tell them the truth.

The Truth is simple.

The merit of truth is that it explains everything. It is logical.

Chamberlain appeased Hitler so as to let him go east to destroy USSR.

That is the truth.