ww2 cuases - appeasment

What’s appeasement

• was the name given to britains policy in 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand the German territory unchecked → to avoid WW2 → this is now viewed as a weak policy

• Associated with Neville chamberlin

→ THe US was absent bcs it adopted an isolationist foreign policy to avoid European conflict

Geopolitical background

• Germany, Italy & JApan → threatened world peace (1936-37) → danger increased when they became allies

→ best hope was to preserve the peace → League of Nations had failed

• Germany wanted allies with Britain & Italy

Geopolitical background - Foerign policy aims of Nazi germany

• overturn TOV & reclaim territory lost under the treaty

• take territory from the Slavic ‘racial inferiors of Soviet Union

• Destroy communism

• Control sources of raw material for economy

• Unite all German people in third reich

Steps of appeasement

March 1935: Hitler announced that Germany had an air force and was reintroducing conscription.

June 1935: the Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed Germany a navy 35% the size of Britain’s Royal Navy

March 1936: Britain and France failed to act when Hitler marched 20,000 troops into the demilitarised Rhineland.

March 1938: German army invaded Austria and received a warm welcome. Germany then annexed Austria. In April Britain recognised the enlarged Germany.

October 1938: at the Munich conference, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to Hitler’s demand for immediate control of the Sudetenland.

1938-1939: Hitler used false claims that Germans were being persecuted in Czechoslovakia to take over the country.