Was appeasement really such a bad policy?

Wasn't that basically the Allied strategy in reality? They may have declared war, but otherwise they did what you describe: let Germany take Poland, and then plan to wait them out behind the French defenses for a couple of years and build up enough of a superiority to launch a final crushing offensive. The only problem was the French defense didn't hold.

Except that they fumbled that. They were less ready than Germany, comparatively. Every year after that would have seen the Germans further behind.

Equally, it's doubtful that they could have invaded Germany with their forces as of 39 and 40, had they made an earnest effort. And if they had materially helped Poland, it's likely those forces would be a write off.

>Equally, it's doubtful that they could have invaded Germany with their forces as of 39 and 40
Really? If the French had launched an offensive in September 1939 like they promised the Poles, they would have been facing only 23 German divisions in the West versus 110 of their own. The German military leaders were terrified the French would do this, and really surprised when they just marched a little bit within the German borders and then withdrew unforced

Obviously since it didnt work

>Really? If the French had launched an offensive in September 1939 like they promised the Poles, they would have been facing only 23 German divisions in the West versus 110 of their own.

Not him, but

A) the French didn't have the logistical capability to put all 100+ of their divisions on an offensive footing. The Saar attack used 40 divisions on paper, but only about 6 of them moved more than 10km.

B) The Germans were mobilizing extremely rapidly. They called up about 70 divisions by the end of October, which would be enough to almost certainly contain the French even if they did somehow move all of those troops.

> and really surprised when they just marched a little bit within the German borders and then withdrew unforced

German intelligence was terrible and would remain so for pretty much the entire war.

You're not wrong, it could have worked. But I think it would have required updated doctrine, this is something that seems easy, but there is no way to develop it without experience.

The French were interested in blunting a German attack and counter-attacking. I doubt this would have been their strategy in War 42, or if it were, they would have a Maginot to the Channel, and be able to blunt the attack.

The point isn't that they would have won the war right then and there or anything, but rather that they could have at least pushed further before the Germans fully mobilized, devastating parts of Germany's industrial heartland along the way and forcing the Germans to expend men and resources pushing them back while the Allies themselves marshaled their (greater) resources

Oh and I forgot to add that even if their beliefs were the product of faulty intelligence, the fact that the German leadership was worried about this could be itself significant, as they might panic and pull troops from the East, potentially helping Poland last longer.

Hitler didn't want war with France or GB and thought they would pussy out. This is according to Shirer, though I think Shirer's book is shit. Since he wrote the most-anti hitler book ever we can assume that this is atleast true.

He was a dick for lying about 'muh last territorial demand' and honestly should have continued for a diplomatic solution to the polish question because a large minority in both Britian and France felt he was right on the matter.

The Polish government was friendly with Germany until about 1936 or so and for some reason I havn't read about the new government was both anti-german and anti-Russian and wanted nothing to do with the anti-comintern pact and pic related.

It makes no sense to me at all which is why I suspect we don't have access to the full picture or atleast nobody bothered to find out what the fuck Poland was thinking trying to play neutral inbetween internationalist Russia and Angry Germany who wanted its lost Versailles territory back.

When Poland refused to talk to Germany Hitler sperged the fuck out and decided the polish government had to go. Which, technically it rejected giving the polish corridor the democratic vote to decide which country it wanted to be part of and thus gave Germany a casus belli. Then again it was a huge mistake to attack Poland because Stalin really won from it.

Then it was a mistake for Britian to guarantee Poland when she refused to talk to Germany.

Then it was a mistake for France not to take up the ITalian offer of a second munich.

Then it was wrong for Britian to declare war over backwater port town.

The whole thing was just as stupid a debacle as Franz Ferdinand's death causing WWI.

>The point isn't that they would have won the war right then and there or anything,

And my point is that they wouldn't even "devastate parts of Germany's industrial heartland" or "force the Germans to expend significant amounts of men and resources to push them back. They'd be a nuisance, little more.

The French don't have the supply infrastructure or the command infrastructure to rapidly funnel out even if they do defeat the border defenses, which are tougher than I think you're giving them credit for: Everyone remembers the huge maginot line, but the Siegfried line opposite it didn't give up much in terms of hardness of the points; there's a reason why the Saar offensive took relatively huge casualties.

You'd need to go much further and faster than the French were capable of doing to do any significant damage to the Germans, and advancing on a narrow front (necessary if you can't move that many divisions at once) always leaves you at the risk of being cut off as you advance and swallowed up. And so what if they fight 5 miles over the border instead of in Benelux? Remember, the way the French think things are going to develop, you're going to have a big old repeat of WW1, and the likely candidate for the battlefield is Flanders once again. Why take a risk, cost yourself and put your army under risk, to fight in the middle of Saarland instead of Belgium?

>Since he wrote the most-anti hitler book ever we can assume that this is atleast true
This is shoddy logic. If Shirer was, as you say, shit (meaning his research was poor), that means we shouldn't treat him as a credible source on anything, even if it goes against his bias.

Plenty of reputable historians disagree and argue Hitler wanted war with the West in September 1939. He was even eager for it at the time of Munich and mildly peeved that Mussolini and Chamberlain gyped him out of it.

>Oh and I forgot to add that even if their beliefs were the product of faulty intelligence, the fact that the German leadership was worried about this could be itself significant, as they might panic and pull troops from the East, potentially helping Poland last longer.

You're underestimating how difficult it is to pull troops out, espeically engaged troops. You had about 60 divisions earmarked for Fall Weiss. About 3/4 of them would be engaged come September 7th, most of them quite successfully.

Why would you pull them out instead of just calling up the new guys and committing them to this new front? And why should the French commit to a plan that hinges on the enemy making a stupid mistake?

Not to mention that by September 7th, Poland was already in a VERY bad way.

Perhaps. You seem to know more about it than I do, so I defer to you. My main source was Franz Halder's war diary, where expresses fear about a French offensive in the West, and surprise when it turned out be basically nothing.

I'm not saying his research was shit, I think its quite good and he interviewed a lot of people who were there.

I Think he wrote his book though as a journalist and not a historian. He made up personalities and motives for people and then picked the evidence to meet his version of them.
Which makes for a great read desu.

However, in reality he hated hitlers guts, which is fine, but not great for history. His book is full of name calling, fat jokes, and flat out bias.

Literally every person in his book who worked against the Nazis is 'intelligent, bright, and good natured' and everybody who admired hitler and was loyal was 'a toady, crony, stupid, of low intelligence, thug, gangster, fat, ugly etc.'

How the fuck would he know if minor players in the government were intelligent?

He assumes everything Hitler says is a lie because his book has the character of Hitler being a manipulative lying conqurer. Anything that Hitler does that doesn't fit this narrative is a lie by Hitler to cover up his true intentions.

Its just annoying to me to have this guy make such bold assumptions instead of letting the facts speak for themselves.

So basically what I'm saying is, if Shirer, who took every opportunity he could to call Hitler a warmongering menace to the world said Hitler didn't want war over Danzig it means there was probably really good evidence tha the didn't.

And I think in this case evidence came from the Goebbels Diaries where Hitler specifically tells Goebbels he was confident the west wouldn't do anything, as naturally the General Staff was freaking the fuck out about getting attacked by the allies.

Gamelin advised the French government that France had to play defense until 1942 because it was incapable of an offensive attack and they weren't planning on attacking at all.

The airforce wouldn't be ready until then and I assume more tanks, and they were confident the Maginot line would rain German manpower.

Again, makes you question the whole point of declaring war to save Poland if it was logistically impossible.

France really fucked that one up.

>And I think in this case evidence came from the Goebbels Diaries where Hitler specifically tells Goebbels he was confident the west wouldn't do anything
It was my impression he thought this early in the crisis, but then the Western position became clear, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed, he then decided that he wanted war with the West after all, saying his only fear was that "that at the last moment
some Schweinhund will present me with a mediation plan", suggesting he did not want another Munich.

i've come to realise something
a united germany will always try to unify europe through force

if it means getting rid of gypsies and having a great economy then why not

>Again, makes you question the whole point of declaring war to save Poland if it was logistically impossible.
They didn't declare war to save Poland though, that was just an excuse. They weren't ready for an offensive until 1942, but there were advantages to being at war instead of at peace in the meantime: it allowed them to blockade Germany, and they hoped, as you say that "the Maginot line would rain German manpower" in the meantime. Waiting to declare war until they were ready to go on the offensive defeats the whole point of the defensive strategy, which is to make your enemy exhaust themselves attacking you and then attack.

The comments on Hitler not wanting war with the allies come from july august after the Molotov pact.

Hitler thought Molotov Ribbentrop bought him time from the threat of the USSR which in his mind had expansionist aims and took away the west's hope of Russia solving the problem for them.

I wish I could remember the source of this.

But basically the gist was the general staff having a meltdown, and Hitler believing the west would pussy out again.

Hitler was characteristically volatile during this period. He wanted a deal with Poland to get Danzing and the corridor and Poland to become and ally, which Poland rejected. After talks went on and sputtered out Hitler responded emotionally and enraged decided the polish government shouldn't even exist.

Don't ask me why, this isn't in Mein Kampf or an attitude he necessarily had for most of his time in power because he wanted Poland as a friend and ally. For most of his time as Chacnellor he sought a Polish, Hungarian, Yugoslavian axis. He just sperged out and decided to destroy Poland.

After the conquest according to Goebbel's Diaries and Peter Longrich the plan was to split Poland into annxed territories, an independent Polish government (idk how independent that really meant) for 'Germanic poles' and a polish protectorate out of the eastern portion for Jews and Slavic poles which was basically some kind of big labor camp. Obviously the promise to destroy the existing polish government in this case was planned to be fulfilled.

But after Britian did declare war everyone was in shock and Hitler was on the verge of a nervous breakdown until the phoney war revealed itself and even then he was apparently insufferable to be around during Norway/Denmark up until the success in France when he then became cocky and hot headed.

But France didn't really want war. They wouldn't have done it if Britian didn't do it first.

I just don't get the motivation here. They weren't ready for it, the why die for danzig people were a large enough group that there wouldn't have been a massive political fall out, Poland was fucked with or without the declaration.

>The comments on Hitler not wanting war with the allies come from july august after the Molotov pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed at the end of August (23rd), so if it was in July it would definitely be before.

>I wish I could remember the source of this
My sources are Zara Steiner's The Triumph of the Dark: European International Relations, 1933-1939 and Hitler by Joachim Fest.

>But basically the gist was the general staff having a meltdown, and Hitler believing the west would pussy out again
Could he not have lied to the general staff to calm them down, while in reality he realized that war was coming?

>Hitler was characteristically volatile during this period
This is definitely true. His attitude shifted wildly day by day. According to Ian Kershaw in his biography of Hitler, at times he was dismayed by things like the British declaration of war, but this was temporary and he returned quickly to an optimistic attitude. Relevant quote:
>Hitler’s reply on 29 August, when Göring suggested it was not necessary to ‘go for broke’, was, therefore, absolutely in character: ‘In my life I’ve always gone for broke.’329 There was, for him, no other choice.
The gambler has to think he will win. Hitler’s dismay on 3 September at hearing of the British ultimatum quickly gave way to the necessary optimism. Goebbels was with him that evening. Hitler went over the military situation. The Führer ‘believes in a potato-war (Kartoffelkrieg) in the West,’ he wrote.

Kershaw also writes that:
>All his actions during the Polish crisis can be seen as a response to the defeat he felt he had suffered personally in agreeing to pull back at the end of September 1938. His comment to his generals that he wanted at all costs to prevent ‘some swine’ from interceding this time; his determination to prevent Mussolini mediating; and his increase of the stakes to avoid negotiation at the last were all reflections of his ‘Munich syndrome’.

Yes but negotations were happening since earlier that summer if I'm correct. And it was a tightly kept secret on Hitler's part.

I havn't read it but I will check it out, I think the diplomacy is the most interesting part.

He could have lied to them and did often try to have the 'positive leader' attitude but my understanding was he was in more of a condescending, who are you to question me the political genius, type of attitude rather than a 'it will all work out guys!' attitude.

I don't remember that line, although it is interesting that he told Goebbels the optimistic view and I remember Goebbels being pretty upset at the news and recording that the public wasn't really behind Hitler.

I think I would agree with Kershaw that Poland wasn't really a grand strategy he had been carefully plotting for years but really just Hitler having a petty emotional response.

But I don't think that Hitler wanted a second world war with total war on the scale it ended up being. I think he fucked up and found himself in one.

Goebbls wrote that Hitler thought conflict with France would have to happen but that it would be a smaller conflict more like Franco-Prussia where Germany was allowed some breathing room to be a power on the continent. He said he didn't want war with Britian, and obviously that Russia was the end goal.

>great economy
the german economy was literally in free fall. Nepotist deals with higher ups to monopolize certain industries, half of the industrial centers in flames; and the end plan was to enslave large portions of eastern europe to sustain the economy.

>He was even eager for it at the time of Munich and mildly peeved that Mussolini and Chamberlain gyped him out of it.
This is what I've read too, an it's argued that Hitler did desire a war at the earliest convenience conceivable, to be at his youngest for the war that was fated to come according to him.
Maybe he was right to wish for the war to start earlier than in 1939, considering that his age betrayed him around 1943, when was afflicted by Parkinsons, and being weakened by age.

...

It would have been fine if Britain hadn't gone all autistic and let germany take some territory in the east. Germany was an advanced scientific country, not some backwards shithole. It had the right to an empire if France and Britain had one, especially in german majority lands.