How did the policy of appeasement affect ww2?

Answer 1

Generally,if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk. Appeasement was the policy of the West of avoiding confrontation with Nazi Germany. After WWI, Europe was devastated economically, physically, and emotionally. They did not want to be dragged into another conflict so when Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by reoccupying the Rhineland and expanding the German army past the limit, they did nothing. Meanwhile, in Spain, a civil war and Fascist revolt threatened the democratic government. Despite Germany and Italy supporting the Spanish Fascists, Britain and France refused to fight a proxy war by supporting the Communist government. At Munich, British, French, and German leaders met to discuss Germany reoccupying the Sudetenland of Czech. . They agreed to German control because it was German speaking as long Hitler stopped there. Hitler then took the rest of Czech. but the Allies again did nothing. Finally, on Sept. 1, 1939 and Britain and France declared war on Germany. Despite this common explanation, there is another possibility.

After WWI, Russia became Communist despite the Allies best efforts. Communism quickly became a scary topic and a Red Scare even greater then the one of the 50s took place. During the twenties and thirties, conservatives in Britain and France saw Fascism, not as an evil, but a cure for Communism. (There are numerous quotes by high ranking Allies supporting this fact.) Britain saw Fascist Germany as a way to eliminate Communist Russia. (Hitler described his work Mein Kampf) Britain encouraged Nazi eastern expansion. They saw Hitler as the best way to eliminate Stalin. At Munich, the Soviet Union was not involved in the decision to give up he Sudetenland. However, when Hitler gave a portion of Czech. to Austria as a gift, Britain realized that Hitler might attack France BEFORE attacking the Soviet Union. Look into this, its pretty interesting.

add. Indeed the Fascict party was set up in Italy to oppose Communism, which had great appeal to the impoverished. The actual symbol of this was the fascisti - a bundle of sticks bound so as to give them strength greater than one stick. This symbol was borrowed from the Romans, and appears on Italian coins of the time. Of course, communism pre-dates the Russian Revolution. Fascism intended to present a joining-together of peoples for a common purpose.

Mussolini possibly struck the first blow of WWII when he invaded Abyssinia, though this was a minor conflict. It however symbolized the failure of the League of Nations which had been formed after WWI.

Without going further into war detail, I believe that Chamberlain's 'Triumphant return from Munich' was a big PR campaign - Britain had realized concretely that war was on the horizon and after this she swung thoroughly into preparing her Air Force and Navy for war. The "Peace in out Time" appeasement was just to give time to build up. Of course, there was a lot of pro-German feeling in Britain, and Germany probably did not really think that Britain would join in war.