Thursday, April 20, 2017

If you were Neville Chamberlain, how would you have handled Hitler’s remilitarization of Germany?

In 1938, Adolf Hitler annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia after Hitler claimed Czech police attacked Germans living in the area. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, flew out to have a conference with Hitler to ask about Hitler's land grabs. Hitler assured Chamberlain that Germany did not desire any more territory. Chamberlain, trying to avoid war, believed Hitler and flew back to Britain where he infamously claimed that Britain had achieved "peace in its time." This was appeasement—Chamberlain gave in to what Hitler wanted.
Before one judges Chamberlain too harshly, remember he had a tough job—the British people had finished WWI within the last twenty years and no one wanted a new fight with Germany. Also, Britain was part of the worldwide financial depression. The British people probably did not want to fight a war to defend a foreign country. If I were Chamberlain, I would have led a propaganda effort showing Hitler as a European madman. This campaign would appear in newspapers and movies.  I would show the Sudetenland's residents' reactions to the takeover and I would have Czechoslovakia appear to be the victim. I would also increase military preparedness by increasing the size of the military budget. I would tell the British people that I was sending arms to Czechoslovakia so Czech people could defend themselves. I would also find a neutral third party to look into whether German citizens were really attacked in the Sudetenland. Of course, my reaction would be different than yours; for example, you may also consider sanctions similar to what the United States did against Russia after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.  

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