GERMANY BETWEEN THE WARS, 1918-39

Hitler's Foreign Policy

  A   Introduction

      i   Hitler had always been an intense nationalist and a bitter opponent of the Versailles Treaty. He aimed to build up a powerful German state and to break up the Versailles settle- ment. He was a great dreamer and a great talker and though, when one looks back, his foreign policy appears to follow a master-plan, it is probably much nearer the truth that he was essentially an opportunist. Bluff and threats were his weapons and 'He exploited events far more than he followed precisely coherent plans' (A. J. P. Taylor). 

  B   The Attack on the Versailles Treaty, 1933-6

      i   Hitler withdrew from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations in 1933. Since Britain would not guaran- tee French security, the French insisted that Germany must wait four years before being granted equality of armaments with the other two powers. Hitler withdrew from the Con- ference which thus achieved nothing. 

      ii   In 1935, Hitler won back the Saar after a plebiscite and he de- fied the Versailles Treaty by introducing conscription and announcing the creation of an Air Force (March 1935). He made the Anglo-German naval agreement with Britain in 1935, which upset France and as a bilateral treaty was a violation of the Versailles settlement. 

    iii   Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia was a piece of good fortune for Hitler. It broke up the Stress front, and divided Mussolini and the Western democracies, who; with the League of Nations, were badly discredited by the Abyssinian affair. 

  C   The Invasion of the Rhineland, March 1936

      i   Hitler took full advantage of Mussolini's triumph over the democracies and sent his forces into the Rhineland in open defiance of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler had no real army at the time when compared with French forces, and his officers marching into the Rhineland had scaled orders to turn back if they met real opposition. France had one of her many 'care- taker' governments under Sarraut at the time and, failing to get British support, took no decisive action. Even Hitler wondered what would happen and his generals trembled. Nothing did happen to the Germans. The first great bluff had succeeded. 

  D   The Rome-Berlin Axis, 1936-7

      i   Hitler recognized the full sovereignty of Austria in July 1936, and promised not to interfere in her affairs. Ciano visited Berchtesgaden in October 1936 and the result was the agree- ment between Germany and Italy known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. In the following year Goering, Blomberg and Neurath visited Rome, and Mussolini paid a visit to Germany. The Axis agreement contained a secret protocol laying down com- mon lines of foreign policy for the two countries. In 1937, Mussolini joined Germany in the Anti-Comintern Pact and Hitler had nowdefinitelydrawn Italyaway from the democracies. 

  E   The Spanish Civil War, 1936-9

      i   The Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, also helped to bind Italy to Germany. Mussolini's intervention in Spain further strained relations with France and Britain just when these two countries were hoping to repair the damage done by the Abyssinian War. Hitler gave just enough help to Franco to ensure his ultimate victory and to keep the war going, a war which divided France internally and was an embarrassment to Britain . 

  F   Rearmament and the Hossbach Memorandum, 1936-7

      i   In April 1936, Goering was put in charge of a Four-Year Plan which, on Hitler's orders, was to make the German economy and armed forces ready for war in four years. A meeting on November 5, 1937, between Hitler and his advisers which is recorded in a Memorandum made by Major Hossbach, Hitler's Adjutant, revealed Hitler's plans to seize greater living space in Europe by force if necessary. Austria and Czecho- Slovakia were the immediate objectives, according to the Memorandum. The authenticity of the Hossbach document is discredited by A. 1. P. Taylor in his book The Origins of the Second World War, though he states that most European nations including Germany began to take rearmament more seriously as from 1936. 

      ii   Whatever Hitler's real plans were, and he was always a diffi- cult man to pin down regarding his intentions, there was cer- tainly a shake-up in the top military and government posts in 1938. Generals Blomberg and Fritsch, both generals of the old military school, were removed from their posts. A new High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der War- macht) was set up to which the three fighting services were sub- ordinated. Hitler became its supreme Commander with General Keitel as his Chief of Staff. Ribbentrop replaced Neurath at the Foreign Office, and Funk took over from, Schacht as Minister of Economics. Hitler now had complete power including full control over the Generals and the Army'

G   The Union With Austria, March 1938

      i   Nazi activity continued in Austria in spite of Hitler's promise of non-interference in 1936. Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chan- cellor, complained to Mussolini in vain and then turned to Papen, the German Ambassador in Vienna, who suggested a visit to Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Schuschnigg visited Hitler in February 1938, only to be bullied and ordered to put Seyss-Inquart, the local Nazi leader, in his Cabinet. The Austrian Chancellor refused and courageously announced a plebiscite for March 12 for Austria to decide whether she wished to remain independent of Germany. Since he gained no support from Italy, Britain or France he abandoned the ple- biscite and resigned. President Miklas of Austria refused to accept Seyss-Inquart in Schuschnigg's place, but 'The German Government today handed to President Miklas an ultimatum ordering him to nominate as Chancellor a person designated by the German government ... otherwise German troops would invade Austria' (Schuschnigg's final broadcast, quoted by Schirer). 

      ii   President Miklas finally gave in. Seyss-Inquart was made Chancellor but German troops had already been ordered to move into Austria on March 11, 1938. Hitler arrived at Linz on March 12 and decided on complete union with Austria. which became a province of the German Reich with Seyss- Inquart as the local Nazi governor. 

  H   Czecho-Slovakia and Munich, September 1938

      i   Plans for a German attack on Czecho-Slovakia leaked out in May 1938. They had the typical ambiguity of a pronounce- ment by any oracle. 'It is not my intention to smash Czecho. Slovakia by military action in the immediate future,' Hitler's directive began, 'without provocation or unless the Czechs force the issue.' Much more to the point was the note on propaganda warfare by which the Czechs were to be worn down by threats, and the national minorities in Czecho-Slovakia, especially the Sudeten Germans under their leader Henlein, were to be instructed how to support the military operation and to 'influence the neutrals in our favour' (Directive, quoted by Schirer). 

      ii   Tension mounted in the Sudetenland during May 1938, with reported movements of German troops near the Czech fron- tier. The Czechs manned their frontier posts and called up their reservists. Hitler was said to have fixed the date for the in- vasion of Czecho-Slovakia for October 1. In August, Chamber- lain sent Runciman to Prague to mediate with the Czechs. In September, Benes, the President of Czecho-Slovakia, summoned the Sudeten leaders and granted all their demands. German pressure and bellicose speeches continued and a rising in the Sudetenland was put down by the Czechs. Henlein, who escaped into Germany, now demanded the cession of the Sudeten areas to Germany. 

    iii   Chamberlain flew to Munich on September 15 and visited Hitler at Berchtesgaden. They discussed the problem of the German minorities in Czecho-Slovakia. Chamberlain flew home and persuaded the Czechs and the French to agree to cede to Germany all Czech territory with a population which was more than half German. He came back to Germany and met Hitler at Godesberg (September 22). Hitler now demanded the occupation of the Sudetenland by German troops by October 1. This meant practically immediate military occupa- tion of a large part of Czecho-Slovakia which had certainly not been agreed to by the Czechs. The crisis worsened and prepara- tions for war were made in Britain and France. On September 29, 1938, a Conference was held at Munich between Chamber- lain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler. The Czechs were not in- cluded. In the main Hitler was given his Godesberg demands. The German army was to move into the Sudetenland on . 

    iv   Chamberlain's honest efforts to keep the peace and to meet the legitimate demands of the German minorities in Czecho- Slovakia had ended by handing over to Germany a large part of Czecho-Slovakia, a part which included all the natural fortifications and defences of the country. When Hitler broke faith again by occupying the remainder of Czecho-Slovakia, in March 1939, no one, not even Chamberlain could trust him any longer. Munich was the climax of Chamberlain's appease- ment policy which has since been strongly condemned. Could he really have corrected in 1938, however, the mistakes of 1935 and 1936? 

  I   Poland, September 1939

      i   The eclipse of Czecho-Slovakia had opened up the path into Eastern Europe which Hitler wanted, but the road was not yet quite clear. In October 1938, Ribbentrop aired the idea of a German-Polish agreement over Danzig and the Polish Corridor, together with a joint policy towards Russia, on the basis of the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Poles refused. They would have nothing to do with either Germany or Russia. 

      ii   It has been said that Hitler had already made up his mind for war, to humiliate Britain and Poland, to overcome economic difficulties at home, to deal with Russia before she became too strong, and in a rearming Europe to get his blow in first. It is much more likely that he expected concessions again. If it had to be war it was to be a local war against an isolated Poland. The breakdown of negotiations for mutual aid between Russia, France and Britain which dragged on from May to July 1939, and the signing of the Soviet-German Pact of non-aggression on August 23 brought from Hitler the remark, 'Now the probability is great that the West will not intervene.' The Pact between Germany and Russia had, in fact, the opposite effect and Britain signed the Polish Alliance on August 25. Negotia- tions, however, continued and Hitler asked for a Polish pleni- potentiary to discuss Danzig and the Corridor as late as August 29. The Poles remembered what had happened to the Czechs and refused. Mussolini proposed a European Con- ference on August 31, but fighting had already started before he could get his meeting together. The Germans invaded Poland on September 1, but it was not to be a local war. The British ultimatum went to Germany on September 3, and the French followed suit the same day. A World War, not a local war, had begun. 

7      The Causes of the Second World War

  A   The Peace Settlement and Germany

      i   The basic aim of the Versailles settlement was to prevent another war. It broke up the Austrian and Turkish Empires, two danger areas in the years before 1914. It tried to remove the problems of national minorities by adopting the principle of national self-determination and by setting up new nations in Eastern Europe. It established an international body, the League of Nations, to prevent wars by settling international disputes by peaceful means. 

      ii   Germany, however, remained united and the major post-war problem was how to fit the German republic into the new Europe. The old balance of power, dating back to the days of Bismarck, was gone. Russia had withdrawn into isolation and her internal Communist struggle weakened her for many years. The new states, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland and Jugo- Slavia, were weak and small. It was impossible to hold Germany down permanently: the whole of the reparations question quickly showed this. In fact, to secure the pacification and prosperity of Europe, Germany had to be built up again, a point which Britain and the U.S.A. quickly grasped once the immediate post-war emotions had cooled off. What was per- haps not so clearly realized outside France was that once restored, Germany could be relatively a much stronger power in the Europe of 1918 to 1939 than she was in the more balanced Europe of the early twentieth century. Whether Europe was going to have peace or war was going to be decided by whether Germany could be restored to power in a spirit and atmosphere of international co-operation based on an acceptance and respect for international agreements. 

    iii   The solution of the German problem by peaceful means was possible up to 1929, but the World Trade Depression of 1929- 31 and the break-down of parliamentary government in Italy and Germany, together with the weakness of successive French governments, created a Europe in which national aggression, lawlessness and violence, rearmament and political extremism, personal rule and the destruction of personal liberties became the most noticeable features. It was in this new atmosphere that the attempt by Britain and France to conciliate a vastly stronger Germany failed, and it was the persistence of the democracies with this policy up to 1939, and its abandonment in that year, which finally brought war. Hitler's policy of bluff, threats and specious promises ended by trapping himself and the democracies into war. 

  B   The World Trade Depression, 1929-31

      i   International trade went through a post-war boom which lasted until 1921, when a severe slump set in. For the remainder of the nineteen-twenties there was a definite improvement in trade and German recovery was built up by short-term loans from America. 

      ii   In 1929, a depression hit the U.S.A. which was to alter the whole situation in Europe. A decline in the demand for American wheat, due to greater grain output in Europe, caused the American farmer to cut down his purchases and this passed a decline in demand and a loss of confidence on to American industry. The U.S.A. was going through a specula- tive share boom on Wall Street which made her economy par- ticularly vulnerable. Prices of shares on Wall Street rose by 25 per cent in 1928 and by a further 35 per cent in 1929. This did not represent real industrial expansion but mere buying and selling of shares to make quick gains on the Stock Market. 

    iii   The fall in confidence passed from agriculture to industry, burst the bubble of speculation and share prices dropped disastrously in the last week of October 1929. American in- vestors lost 40 million dollars, and agricultural prices went on falling. Growers of wheat, coffee, cotton, cocoa and sugar were ruined by the low level of prices and the nations which depen- ded on the sale of their foodstuffs and raw materials could no longer buy the manufactured goods which the industrial nations wanted to sell them. As a result international trade shrunk disastrously all over the world. 

      i   The financial collapse in the U.S.A. not only stopped American financial aid to Europe but also resulted in the calling in of the short-term loans which had been made to European countries, especially Germany, and the fragile recovery so carefully built up between 1924 and 1929 was destroyed. The depres- sion hit Germany and Austria in 1931 with the collapse of the Kredit Anstalt, Austria's largest bank, and was passed on to Britain where an enormous budget deficit led to the setting up of a National Government in 1931 to save the country by a policy of rigid deflation and to deal with the rising wave of unemployment which in the summer of 1931 reached nearly three million. 

      ii   In Germany, Bruning followed Strescmann and his policy of economy and deflation together with rising unemployment paved the way for Hitler to take over the government. France had more than a million unemployed by 1933 and was grappling with the problems common to all Europe, except Soviet Russia, of budget deficits, economies and falling trade. 

    iii   Governments tried to find a remedy for depression in policies of economy and deflation, in self-sufficiency, in high tariffs and in greater control of industry and agriculture by the state. These policies caused international trade to shrink still further and nations sought help in bilateral trade agreements and even in trade by barter. The mechanism of international trade had broken down. Credit dried up and national curren- cies wcrc discredited. Many countries lost confidence in democracy, in capitalism and in international co-operation. Economic nationalism and totalitarian politics were the most vital and tragic results of the great depression of the early thirties. America became more firmly isolationist. Britain turned for help to her Commonwealth and Europe was left huddled behind protective tariffs. 

  C   The Breakdown of Parliamentary Government

      i   The 1914-18 War was won by three major democratic powers, Britain, France and the U.S.A., and democracy and parlia- mentary government became the vogue in post-war Europe. Even Germany turned to a parliamentary republic in order to become respectable. The old authoritarian Empires bad been destroyed. The new Parliaments, however, proved singularly ineffective in dealing with post-war problems of economic recovery and the maintenance of order. Only Britain and the U.S.A. with their two-party systems and decisive parliamentary majorities could give parliamentary government the authority it needed to work in the changed post-war world. 

      ii   In Italy and Germany the decline and fall of parliamentary government followed almost identical patterns. Parliaments based on proportional representation, and containing many parties failed to secure any real agreement on political or economic measures and at best provided a series of short-lived. unstable, coalition governments. Both the Liberal and Social- ist parties, even with considerable support from the people and holding large numbers of seats in the Chamber, still failed to put up a real and united front against the growing menace from the two extremes of Communism and Fascism. Mussolini was called to power as Prime Minister with only 35 seats in the Chamber. Hitler was invited to become Chancellor of Germany because there was no alternative parliamentary coalition or government which could rule or get the popular support to rule. In France, where parliament had deeper roots, the democratic system was kept going but it failed to provide good government at home and was out-manoeuvred by the dictators in every crisis from 1935 to 1939. 

  D   The Breakdown of International Law

      i   At home, both Hitler and Mussolini established regimes based on personal rule, violence and the all-powerful state. They made personal freedom and the rule of law a mere charade. They brought the same features into their foreign policy and the spirit of pacification and arbitration represented by the work of Briand, Chamberlain and Stresemann was removed from Europe. These three statesmen had given the League of Nations some meaning. Hitler and Mussolini at first ignored the League, then defied it, and finally destroyed it. 

      ii   By 1939, Europe was littered with broken pacts and disre- garded agreements. Corfu, Abyssinia and Albania were Musso- lini's contribution. Hitler came later on the scene but quickly outstripped his partner with the Rhineland, Austria, Czecho- Slovakia and Poland. The dictators joined together in the Spanish Civil War to disregard in a flagrant manner the Non- intervention Agreement which they had both solemnly agreed to support. Across the world, Japan, the third partner in the Anti-Comintern Pact, followed the same pattern of aggressive force and invasion against her neighbour China. 

  E   Why Did Britain and France Fail?

      i   In 1933, Britain and France were still in control of Europe. Six years later both nations in the light of what was to happen in 1940 were as near total disaster as any nation could get and still survive. The democracies stood for the defence of their settlement in Europe, for the defence of the status quo with modifications. Their governments could make concessions but they could not make war. They could rearm only with diffi- culty and the popular support on which the governments depended was strongly pacifist. They were told to support the League, but only by measures which stopped short of mili- tary force. Both Britain and France tried to give the League some 'teeth' in 1924 and 1929, but there was no general sup- port for military sanctions against an aggressor. The dictators were not hampered by public opinion, were not troubled by pacifism. Their regimes glorified war, made rearmament a national priority, and liberation from the 'slavery' of Versailles an excuse for aggression. 

      ii   However indignant the other nations of the world, including the U.S.A., might get over appeasement, the burden of defend- ing Europe and the world against the dictators fell squarely and solely on the shoulders of Britain and France. Their basic mistake was that they failed to agree upon a concerted and united policy. The dictators formed a united front certainly from 1937; the democracies had to go into war to find unity. In 1935, with a little more support from France, Britain might have taken more decisive action against Italy. In 1936, with aid from Britain, even Sarraut's government might have stood up to Hitler. These were the last two occasions when the League of Nations, collective security and the peace of Europe might have been saved by firm united action on the part of Britain and France. 

    iii   From 1919 the two democracies had been somewhat out of step. France was obsessed with her problem of national security and her fear of Germany. Britain wanted to rebuild Europe and to fit Germany into it, and this shaped the British attitude, together with a traditional dislike of becoming too in- volved in Europe, towards events in the Rhineland, Austria and Czecho-Slovakia. France feared Germany through all the years between the wars. Her weak governments and her lack of unity at home, her defensive military policy and her failure to build up effective alliance: with the nations of Eastern Europe made it more and more difficult for her either to take a lead in Europe or to take positive action against Germany. In the end Daladicr simply followed Chamberlain in his vain attempt to woo Mussolini and to conciliate Hitler.