Why Would Anyone Want to Appease Hitler?

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0:15Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and we're just goose-stepping to Jerry's orders like usual here on Stuff You Should Know. No, no, no. Thank you. I'm glad you cleared that up for the new listeners who are like, oh, these guys are Nazis? I hadn't realized. No, I really enjoyed studying this one because I, as you know, am not the biggest student of war. So I never sat around and watched the History Channel, and this one is very much a History Channel type of episode. So I feel like I have a much better understanding of the lead up to World War II. and also it's amazing how much this reflects modern times and what's going on with Russia and Ukraine.

0:59For real, for real. I kept going like, oh, oh, oh. Yeah. I mean, it's, there's a very clear line you can draw between what the allies did to appease Hitler and what a lot of people are concerned that the West is doing to appease Putin right now. And you can also see, though, I think there's another lesson to be learned too, where once you kind of understand what the allies did pre-World War II and why they were trying to appease Hitler, which in retrospect from our position here in history seems like the dumbest, most cowardly thing you could have done. Yeah. If you understand what their actual reasoning was for that and also that they didn't have the benefit of hindsight.

1:36Yeah. Then you can kind of understand a little more like what a weird position we're in right now, you know, or why people would even consider doing that to Putin now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I guess broadly, we should just say that appeasement was an official policy leading up to World War. Or, you know, they didn't know there was going to be a World War II. But looking back, once again, leading up to World War II, that the Western allies took were, in a nutshell, they were basically like, you know what? Let's sort of let Germany. And we need to point out, we're going to over and over, that they did not know Hitler was the madman.

2:13We know him now. No, they mistook him terribly. Yeah, they were like, let's let Germany, I think Hitler just wants to kind of get Germany back on footing after World War I and after the Treaty of Versailles kind of wrecked Germany. And we need a strong Germany in Europe and like, let's give him what he wants. And he says he'll stop there. And we believe him. Yeah. And like you said, they took Hitler to be just like any other statesman leading a European power, which was that he was a patrician colonizer who at the end of the day answered to the aristocracy of his country. Yeah. And that really he was more a threat to other people, lesser people throughout the world whose lands he wanted to turn into colonies.

2:57And we just needed to bring him into the normal European way of doing things and Germany will be back on its feet again. That was the kind of the darker explanation of appeasement. Another explanation was they had just been through World War I. Yeah. A dozen years before when all this really kind of started. And no one was in the mood for a second World War. So appeasement was the official policy by the UK and France and then some of their supporters over time that said, if we give you the stuff you're asking for now, we're hoping that eventually you're going to reach your limit. You're going to get what you wanted and you're just going to be calm and everything's going to be cool from that point on.

3:37We won't have to get in your way militarily. Thus, we'll avoid a war. So let's try this instead. So ultimately, it was a way to prevent World War II. That was the entire point of appeasement, really, from the outset. Well, yeah, because, I mean, at the time, like you said, after World War I, none of these countries, what would end up being the Western allies, were in a great position. They were still trying to build up armaments, some slower than others. Germany wasn't in a great position. So it's kind of interesting at the end. We're going to go over a couple of, like, alternate histories of different tacks that could have played out or different plans that they could have taken.

4:14and who knows how it would have worked out. But I guess we should start with the Treaty of Versailles, right? Yeah, for sure. So this was after World War I, and the Treaty of Versailles came along and was signed, and it really pounded Germany. And some historians even say it went too far as far as being punitive. Germany had to reduce their army from 1.9 million troops to 100 ,000. They had to get rid of most of their Navy, and they had to hand back territories that it had taken over the last hundred years and then pay hundreds of billion dollars in reparations. Yeah. So not only was it like financially strapping them.

4:55Remember, this is the time when German hyper reinflation happened during the Weimar Republic, which is between World War I and II. This is why. And then also it was like demoralizing. It was meant to basically smack Germany down and be like, you're lesser now. we're punishing you. And so I saw a quote, I forgot to send it to you. I don't remember who said it, but essentially they said, this is not a treaty. This is an armistice for 20 years. And it was somebody who looked at this in 1919 and 20 years later, World War II broke out because it was so punitive. There was no way that the German people were not going to eventually rise up in retaliation for this when we were going to have a second world war.

5:34So a lot of people point to that treaty as being the thing that didn't necessarily directly lead to World War II, but it laid all the groundwork to create a populace that was in a vengeful mood that would be willing to support somebody like with such nationalistic fervor as Hitler. Yeah. And that's what Hitler was cooking up from the beginning. He was basically like, hey, we we want to get Germany back together. We need to get all of our rightful lands basically where any Germanic peoples are and where anybody is speaking German. And also, as we'll see, help out any German minorities to our east, you know, which is Russia and the Soviet Union at the time, because they're going to come into play.

6:15And he whipped up this nationalistic fervor that everyone in Germany got behind. And that's, you know, what eventually would, of course, lead to World War II. but I guess we should take it sort of chronologically because there were a series of appeasements starting in 1935, kind of one after the other until finally, you know, they could take no more. Yeah, and just bear this in mind while you're hearing all of these like high points of how we moved toward World War II thanks to Germany, Hitler followed this awareness or this belief by the UK and France that what Germany really wanted to do was climb back out from under the Treaty of Versailles and just get back to where they were before.

6:59So Hitler followed that to a T. All of his demands, all of the aggressions that he made were based on the Treaty of Versailles. And yet, in retrospect, now we realize, no, he was always going to try to go way further than that. He was just playing upon the suppositions of the allies at the time. Oh, God. I mean, after studying all this stuff, he played them for such suckers. He did. And what makes it a little worse, though, too, is he wrote all this stuff out in 1925. In Mein Kampf, it's all laid out. That push to the east you're talking about where he wants to make more room for German nationals that are outside of Germany, the Lebensraum, which basically says we're going to Russia eventually.

7:41Like they knew this for 10 years before he really became a huge problem and everybody just ignored it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's like, I wrote a book about it. And I guess you guys don't read German because I basically said what I was going to do. Right. All right. So 1935 was the first sort of wave of appeasement. And this was the Anglo-German naval agreement, basically where Britain said, you know what, we know that you're breaking the Treaty of Versailles because we know you're building up your navy, even though you were supposed to scuttle your navy and go ahead and build a new fleet. A lot of people saw that as just sort of an initial surrender to what Hitler wanted.

8:18But Britain knew that they were cheating already. They had MI6 on the ground, specifically an agent named Carl Kruger in their U-boat design office, which was, you know, a secret program at the time. And they thought, hey, maybe we can get them to build fewer U-boats by endorsing them building these really big expensive battleships that cost a lot of money and a lot of raw materials. And it'll kind of kill their U-boat program. It didn't exactly work. They were supposed to build 72 submarines and ended up building 54. But I don't know if they were like, you know, hooray about that. So, yeah, that in and of itself is a problem.

8:58Like this grand policy of like making them spend resources, it really didn't lead to that big of a reduction. But geopolitically speaking, it basically said the U.K. was endorsing now Germany breaking the Treaty of Versailles by agreeing with them that Germany could build its navy back up. Yeah. There was also another thing that had nothing to do with Germany but really played into this later on. France was led by a couple of different appeasement, pro-appeasement prime ministers or premiers during this time. And they were good friends with Italy. And Italy invaded Ethiopia, as you'll remember from our Haile Selassie episode in 1935.

9:39And France said, you know what? Go with it, Italy. We don't care about that. Just promise us that if things go down, if the S hits the fan or le S hits le fan, you will be on our side against Germany. And Italy said, yes, definitely. You got it 100%. And then they just went and ravaged Ethiopia. Yeah. And we all know how that turned out in the end. Exactly. So in 1936, those first two were 35. In 1936, Germans West, the Rhineland, they wanted to remilitarize that area. That, again, went against the Treaty of Versailles because that was supposed to be a buffer zone, the western part of Germany.

10:20And there was a chance here to forcefully respond here because they had Czechoslovakia and Romania saying like, hey, you know, we got your back if you want to do anything. But France and Britain basically did nothing. No. Again, France just kind of said, nah, we're kind of busy with our own stuff as we'll see, right? And a lot of people also who were heading the politics in Western Europe at the time were like, yeah, good on them. Germany, they got that taken away from them in the Treaty of Versailles. Let them have it back. That's Germany, you know? There was also the Anschluss, which was a different category after the remilitarization of the Rhineland because this was where they annexed Austria.

11:03Austria was a sovereign nation. It was not a part of Germany before World War I. As far as I know, please, God, don't let me be wrong about that one. And Germany just said, Austria, you're now part of Germany. You guys are Germanic by heritage, so you're just part of Germany now. And the world just turned their heads and said, yeah, I guess that's fine, too. You know, Germany's doing its Germanic thing. Yeah, and, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about public opinion here and there. But at the time, this was March 1938, and this was Nebel Chamberlain, SPM in Britain. And the Brits didn't want to get involved.

11:39There was about 25 percent in a survey were in favor of, you know, a determent policy. So, you know, I guess it's not aggression, but determent. Yeah, most people were in favor of continuing to just kind of go along with Germany, restabilizing or regaining what it had before the Treaty of Versailles. Because, again, this is what people are thinking. But if you'll notice, we started to pick up speed a little bit here. Like bigger things are starting to happen. That was March of 1938 when they took over Austria. And then in September, Hitler had been basically making speeches where he was saying, hey, there's this part, he called it the rump of Czechoslovakia that butts up against Germany.

12:19That's really actually Germany. It's called the Sudetenland. And it's just basically this mountain range. Czechoslovakia doesn't care about it, but we care about it because we're reuniting Germany again. So we want that. And we're going to go take it whether you want us to or not. and Neville Chamberlain and PM Eduard Dedalier all ran to Munich to meet with Hitler on his own ground and said, here, what do you want? Let's make a deal. Yeah. And Hitler said, well, I've told you what I want. I want this northwestern part of Czechoslovakia. We call it the Sudetenland. And they said, all right, you can have that, but you've got to promise.

13:00Put your hand on this Bible, raise your right hand, and you've got to promise you're not going to do anything else in Czechoslovakia. That's it. It stops there. And this is where things are really, I feel like, echoing what's going on in Ukraine. Like, hey, Putin, you know, eventually you're going to get this stuff that you've conquered, but you're going to stop there, right? And that's what happened back then. The Czechs were an ally to France and Britain at the time. They were not even invited to the summit, again, echoing things that we see going on today. And at the time, there were even some German generals that thought, like, early on in September of 1938 when this happened, they were like, hey, listen, if the Allies get behind Czechoslovakia here, we could be in trouble.

13:43So there was some kind of bluff calling happening, basically. But Britain kind of said, no, let's let them do this. And they steered France to do the same and pressured Czechoslovakia to submit. And that's what happened. Yeah. And Czechoslovakia was like, fine, they can have the Sudeten land. And we weren't even invited, but we'll go along with it because our ally, France, is telling us to. Keep in mind, an ally is not just like, we're friends with you. We think you're pretty cool. An ally means like you usually have some sort of documents or treaties saying, like, if somebody tries to take part of your country, we're going to come back you up militarily.

14:16And when the chips came down, France said no because Great Britain was steering them. And one other point about all this that's kind of hidden in there, Great Britain was in a position to steer France. because you could make an argument that it was still the world's superpower. The empire was on the wane, but still by the 30s, 25 % of the global population and 20 % of the Earth's landmass were under British control. So Britain was in a global position to basically set the stage of how to deal with Germany. And the UK decided appeasement was the way to go. So everybody else kind of followed along.

14:54Yeah. All right. So that's September of 38. They give them that, you know, they say you can have this portion of Czechoslovakia as long as you promise not to go in. Seven months later, in March of 1939, he went into the rest of Czechoslovakia, just like he wrote in his book, basically. So, you know, Hitler reneged on that promise, of course, to leave Czechoslovakia, the rest of it alone. And that was like the real decisive moment, because I think I feel like that's when Hitler was probably like, man, these guys are cowards and they're letting me do whatever I want. And very quickly thereafter, that was March of 39.

15:29September of 39 is when he invaded Poland. And then it was on. Yeah, and even before he invaded Poland, once he reneged on the Czechoslovakian deal, the Munich Agreement, he showed the world, like, I'll tell you whatever you want to hear. I'm not going to back it up. So he immediately destroyed the policy of appeasement. Like, appeasement policy had about as much traction as, like, yesterday's non-winning lotto ticket that you'd find in the gutter covered in gum, maybe a little bit of blood from somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was appeasement after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I got there eventually.

16:08Yeah. But, you know, Poland was invaded, and that's really what kicked off like the beginnings of World War II. Hitler tried to provoke war with Poland by saying, hey, I want Danzig, not the band. No, but still. The city of Danzig and Prussian territory that was granted to you in 1919 after World War I that we feel like is ours. And Britain and France, you know, they made guarantees to Poland at the time. But in August, it was pretty shocking at the time. The Nazis and the Soviets signed a pact to partition Poland out and basically said, you come in from the east. We'll come in from the west. And Poland is ours.

16:47And two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Yep. And I think that is a great place to stop. Yeah. Boy, what a robust setup. We'll be right back.

17:21So, Chuck, where we left off, Hitler had just invaded Poland and the UK and France declared war on Germany. Wow, that took a lot. What that showed everybody was that appeasement was dead. The whole policy had just shifted now to either containment or out-and-out war now that they had declared war. But there was a lot of reasons for appeasement to have been tried. We talked about some of them. But a big one was the U.K. was really holding on to that world's greatest superpower status as hard as they could. And another world war put that in like real jeopardy. It put him in a precarious position.

18:07Yeah, I mean, they were, you know, everybody was trying to rearm themselves. Like I said earlier, since World War I, some a little quicker than others. I think the United States, as we'll learn, wasn't making the greatest rearmament effort because Congress was kind of chilling the purse strings back when they could do stuff like that. But the writing was on the wall for the U.K. They were like, we're not in any position, even though we're supposedly the world's greatest superpower, to fight Germany, Japan, and Italy all at the same time to prevent them from expanding their territories. Like, that's just not a possibility.

18:42And we might have to enter an alliance with the U.S. If worse comes to worse, we might have to enter into an alliance with the USSR. And that's just going to make them, I mean, that's going to lessen their stance and their power worldwide if they have to do stuff like that. Yeah, and with their prestige or power lessened, like on the world stage, that's the kind of thing that can spark decolonization movements. So they were worried about Jamaica. They were worried about India. They were worried about Nigeria all of a sudden being like the UK has overextended itself. Now's the time to declare independence from the UK.

19:19And not just the prestige that was lost, but more to the point, the resources, the raw materials, all the stuff that Great Britain extracted from these colonies, that would be lost as well. So what Great Britain wanted was no war, please, at least in part to preserve its empire. Other people who were in the British parliament and government basically said, we're going to have to go to war. It's inevitable. But we're supporting appeasement right now because we need to stall for time to rearm ourselves, like you were saying. Right, which, as we'll see, also allowed Germany to do the same, either through rearmament by building things or by storming Czechoslovakia.

20:00And all of a sudden they had all their stuff. But appeasement was popular for a long time. Throughout most of the 1930s, the public didn't want to go to war. Again, they were shaking off a World War I hangover still. No one wanted to go to a war that was more technologically advanced, like pretty rapidly since the end of World War I. For a second World War, I think in 1937, 62 % of British men said they wouldn't volunteer, and 78 % of women said they would not urge their husbands to go fight. And even after the Munich Agreement, when Czechoslovakia was left hanging out to dry, 75 % still approved of appeasement in Great Britain.

20:44Yes. And so there was like a lot of anti-war anxiety. Apparently people had died by suicide. There were mental health problems. All of the appeasement, pro-appeasement sentiment was also bolstered by the times. And I believe the BBC, too, which portrayed Hitler as a moderate, basically saying, like, it could get way worse than this guy. Let's just deal with this guy. And then the reason why this matters is because at the time, Britain had recently enfranchised its women. Like, more and more people were voting. So the public opinion about stuff mattered more and more to the people calling the shots politically.

21:20And we'll also see that also turned the politicians' views against appeasement as public opinion changed on appeasement, too. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, there was a string of PMs that were all for it. Neville Chamberlain was the third British PM. He was in there from 37 to 40 during this time of appeasement. So it wasn't just Chamberlain. I think he's kind of, there's two things I feel like from Great Britain that are remembered as, and, you know, it depends on how you want to look at it. But I think a lot of people eventually frame Neville Chamberlain as a coward and Winston Churchill as a hero.

21:58because he was one of the only ones that was like, this guy Hitler, like, I don't think you guys see the writing on the wall here. He's not going to stop, and this appeasement thing is no good. Yeah, and he also, I mean, he stood alone basically in his party. The conservatives were like, yeah, we're all pro-appeasement, at least at the time. So he definitely stood on his own. In France, France also had lost a lot of people and a lot of money in World War I and was not very eager to do a redo of it. But they were still anti-Germany. Like France was not a friend of Germany. They did not want to be friends with Germany.

22:35Their alliances were against Germany. But ultimately, and this is what's crazy to me, it was racked by far right and far left internal political conflict at the time. Yeah, yeah. They were kind of in an inter stalemate almost. Right. And so they were, whether they wanted to be or not, They were fairly drawn into domestic affairs rather than foreign affairs. And it wasn't until Edouard Deladier, who became prime minister, that they really started to branch back out into foreign affairs. But even then, they were pretty pro-appeasement. So they didn't really have much of a stomach for going into a Second World War, understandably.

23:15But they didn't feel like they were in a place to do anything. So essentially, they just went on the defense. They did not they weren't going to go into a policy of containment or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. As far as the U.S. goes at the time, we had FDR in there. Roosevelt was in there and he endorsed appeasement like officially. He endorsed the Munich agreement. They were into isolationism at the time and trying to stay neutral. And we were also in no position militarily because, like I mentioned, we were kind of, you know, We were also depleted by World War I and moving along a little slower than even other eventual allied countries because Congress was kind of pulling those purse strings a little tight as far as building the military back up.

23:59Yeah, and I think that you can make a case that any country that was involved in World War I really lost its appetite for war after that. Yeah. To an amazing degree. Understandably. For sure. And then there was another group of pro-appeasers who was Britain's aristocracy. And the reason why is because they wanted things to just basically, let's just go back to where we colonize other places. And really, it's the aristocracy running things. And we're all related. And I'm your cousin. You're my cousin. And we're all three somehow married. But we all run everything. We're all just crazy rich. Let's keep doing that.

24:34And they saw Hitler as somebody who could help keep that kind of status quo or get back to that kind of status quo. So the group that was opposed to Hitler, though, they were the Soviets and they were communists. And the aristocrats who enjoy wealth inequality do not typically like communism or communists. So they wanted to steer Britain away from any kind of alliances with the USSR that could support communists or socialists in Britain and their causes. And more toward Hitler, because Hitler's policies kind of jobbed with the aristocracy's views a little more. Yeah. And I mean, they were sort of actively courting one another because they saw Hitler as somebody who could, you know, like you were saying, kind of let them keep their lifestyle in check.

25:19Right. And Hitler and Germany did nothing to make them think otherwise. You know, they were playing on the spheres of communism for sure. True. They're like, you know, you got a lot of dough. You know what happens when communism happens. And that, you know, sent a chill through the British aristocratic scene. Yeah. They were known to say, crikey.