WEBVTT - Why Would Anyone Want to Appease Hitler? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.560 Chuck and we're just goose stepping to Jerry's orders like 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.079 usual here on stuff you should do. Oh no, no, no, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.360 thank you. I'm glad you cleared that up for the 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:26.440 new listeners who are like, oh, these guys are Nazis. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:27.440 They hadn't realized. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.720 No, this is I really enjoyed studying this one because I, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.680 as you know, am not the biggest student of war, 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.760 so I never like sat around and watched the History Channel, 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.120 and this one is very much a History Channel type 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.880 of episode. So I feel like I have a much 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.959 better understanding of the lead up to World War Two. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.280 And also it's amazing how much this reflects modern times 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.560 and what's going on with Russia and Ukraine for real, 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.120 for real, I kept going like, oh, oh, oh. 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.400 Yeah, I mean it's there's a very clear line you 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.760 can draw between what the Allies did to a peace 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:06.920 Hitler and what a lot of people are concerned that 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.720 the West is doing to appease Putin right now. And 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.759 you can also see, though, I think there's another lesson 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.280 to be learned too, where once you kind of understand 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.440 what the Allies did pre World War Two, why they 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.280 were trying to appease Hitler, which in retrospect from our 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.360 position here in history, seems like the dumbest, most cowardly 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.760 thing you could have done. Yeah, if you understand what 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.320 their actual reasoning was for that, and also that they 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.280 didn't have the benefit of hinde in sight, yeah, then 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:35.280 you can kind of understand a little more like what 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.880 a weird position we're in right now, you know, or 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.520 why people would even consider doing that to putin. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:45.200 Now, Yeah for sure. Yeah, so I guess broadly we 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.200 should just say that appeasement was an official policy leading 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:51.760 up to World War or you know, they didn't know 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.000 there was going to be a World War Two. But 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.120 looking back once again, leading up to World War Two 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.200 that the Western Allies took where in a nutshell they 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.440 were basically like, you know what, let's sort of let Germany, 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.240 and we need to point out we're going to over 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.800 and over that they did not know Hitler was the madman. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:09.840 We know him now, but. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:11.280 No, they mistook him terribly. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.480 Yeah, they were like, let's let Germany. I think Hitler 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.440 just wants to kind of get Germany back on footing 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.000 after World War One and after the Treaty of Versailles 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.680 kind of wrecked Germany, and we need a strong Germany 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.360 in Europe, and like, let's give him what he wants 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.959 and he says he'll stop there, and we believe him. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.680 Yeah, And like you said, they took Hitler to be 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.480 just like any other statesman leading a European power, which 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.560 was that he was a patrician colonizer who at the 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.760 end of the day answered to the aristocracy of his country. Yeah, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.799 and that really he was more a threat to other people, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.200 lesser people throughout the world whose lands he wanted to 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.280 turn into colonies. And we just needed to bring him 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.960 into the normal European way of doing things and Germany 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.360 will be back on its feet again. What was the 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.280 kind of the darker explanation of appeasement. Another explanation was 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.960 they had just been through World War One, yeah, a 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.320 dozen years before when all this really kind of started, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.560 and no one was in the mood for a second 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.080 World war. So appeasement was the official policy by the 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.919 UK and France and then some of their supporters over 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.520 time that said, if we give you the stuff, you're 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.280 asking for now, we're hoping that eventually you're going to 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.040 reach your limit, you're going to get what you wanted, 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.800 and you're just going to be calm and everything's going 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.840 to be cool. From that point on, we won't have 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.720 to get in your way militarily, thus will avoid war. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.480 So let's try this instead. So ultimately it was a 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.280 way to prevent World War Two. That was the entire 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.560 point of appeasement really from the outset. 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.440 Well, yeah, because I mean, at the time, like you said, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.680 after World War One, none of these countries what would 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.480 end up being the Western Allies were in a great position. 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.520 They were still trying to build up armaments, some slower 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.280 than others. A Germany wasn't in a great position. So 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.080 it's kind of interesting. At the end, we're going to 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.480 go over a couple of like alternate histories of different 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.200 tacks that could have played out, or different plans that 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.760 they could have taken, and who knows how it would 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.800 have worked out. But I guess we should start with 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.360 the Treaty of Versailles, right, Yeah, for sure. So this 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.920 was after World War One and the Treaty of Versailles 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.000 came along and was signed, and it really it really 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.560 pounded Germany, and some historians even say like it went 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.680 too far as far as being punitive. Germany had to 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.599 reduce their army from one point nine million troops to 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.920 one hundred thousand, They had to get rid of most 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.560 of their navy, and they had to hand back territories 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.000 that it had taken over the last hundred years and 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.280 then pay hundreds of billion dollars in reparations. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.320 Yeah. So not only was it like financially strapping them, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.719 remember this is the time when German hyper reinflation happened 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.200 during the Weimar Republic, which is allion World War one 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.159 and two. This is why. And then also it was 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.400 like demoralizing. It was meant to basically smack Germany down 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.080 and be like you're lesser. Now we're punishing you. And 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.800 so I saw a quote I forgot to send it 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.480 to you. I don't remember who said it, but essentially 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:14.520 they said, this is not a treaty, this is an 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.440 armistice for twenty years. And it was somebody who looked 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.200 at this in nineteen nineteen and twenty years later World 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.120 War two broke out. Because it was so punidle, there 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.560 was no way that the German people were not going 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.880 to eventually rise up in retaliation for this, and we 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.800 were going to have a second World War. So a 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.080 lot of people point to that treaty as being the 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.880 thing that didn't necessarily directly lead to World War two, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.080 but it laid all the groundwork to create a populace 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.839 that was in a vengeful mood, that would be willing 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:47.000 to support somebody with such nationalistic fervor as Hitler. 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.480 Yeah, and that's what Hitler was cooking up from the beginning. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.440 He was basically like, Hey, we want to get Germany 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.880 back together. We need to get all of our rightful 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.520 lands basically where any Germanic peoples are and where anybody 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.880 is speaking German. And also, as we'll see, help out 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.320 any German minorities to our east, you know, which is 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.240 Russia and the Soviet Union at the time, because they're 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.160 going to come into play. And he whipped up this 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:18.159 nationalistic fervor that everyone in Germany got behind, and that's 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.800 you know what eventually would of course lead to World 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.880 War Two. But I guess we should take it sort 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.719 of chronologically, because there were a series of appeasements starting 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.560 in nineteen thirty five, kind of one after the other 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.039 until finally, you know, they could take no more. 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.800 Yeah, and just bear this in mind. Well, you're hearing 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.679 all of these like high points of how we moved 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:45.200 toward World War two thanks to Germany. Hitler followed this awareness, 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.640 or this belief by the UK in France that what 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.080 Germany really wanted to do was climb back out of 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.440 from under the Treaty of Versacience, just get back to 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.520 where they were before. So Hiller followed that to a t. 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.040 All of his demands, all of the aggressions that he 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.400 made were based on the Treaty of Versailles. And yet 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.800 in retrospect now we realize now these were he was 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.040 always going to try to go way further than that. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.560 He was just playing upon the suppositions of the Allies 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:13.240 at the time. 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.680 Oh god, I mean, after studying all the stuff, he 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.080 played them for such suckers he did. 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.480 And what makes it a little worse though, too, is 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.800 he wrote all this stuff out in nineteen twenty five, 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.840 and top it's all laid out that push to the 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.200 east you're talking about where he wants to make more 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.920 room for German nationals that are outside of Germany, the 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.520 lebens Schrom, which basically says we're going to Russia eventually, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.240 Like they knew this for ten years before he really 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.760 became a huge problem, and everybody just ignored it. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.200 Yeah, oh yeah, he's like I wrote a book about it, 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.520 and I guess you guys don't read German because I 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.240 basically said what I was going to do, right, all right. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.760 So nineteen thirty five was the first sort of wave 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.920 of appeasement, and this was the Anglo German Naval Agreement, 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.960 basically where Britain said, you know what, we know that 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.120 you're breaking the Treaty of Versailles because we know you're 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.080 building up your navy even though you were supposed to 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.040 scuttle your navy and go ahead and build a new fleet. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.520 A lot of people saw that as just sort of 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.800 an initial surrender to what Hitler wanted. But Britain knew 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.880 that they were cheating already. They had six on the ground, 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.880 specifically an agent named Carl Krueger in their U boat 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.720 design office, which was a secret program at the time, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.280 and they thought, hey, maybe we can get them to 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.040 build fewer U boats by endorsing them building these really big, 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.120 expensive battleships. It costs a lot of money and a 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.000 lot of raw materials, and it'll kind of kill their 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:43.319 U boat program. It didn't exactly work. They were supposed 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.880 to build seventy two submarines and ended up building fifty four. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.720 But I don't know if they were like hooray about that. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.960 So yeah, that in and of itself is a problem. 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.960 Like this grand policy of like making them spend resources, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:58.760 it really didn't lead to that big of a reduction 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.640 politically speaking. It basically said the UK was endorsing now 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.280 Germany breaking the Treaty of Versailles by agreeing with them 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.760 that Germany could build its navy back up. Yeah, there 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.199 was also another thing that had nothing to do with Germany, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.840 but really played into this later on. France was led 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.360 by a couple of different appeasement pro appeasement prime ministers 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.560 or premiers during this time, and they were good friends 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.520 with Italy, and Italy invaded Ethiopia, as you'll remember from 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.360 our Holly Selassie episode in nineteen thirty five, and France said, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.200 you know what, go with it, Italy, we don't care 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.839 about that. Just promise us that if things go down, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.120 if the S hits the Fan or le S hits 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.520 Lifhan you will be on our side against Germany, and 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.280 Italy said, yes, definitely, you got it one hundred percent, 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.760 and then they just went and ravaged Ethiopia. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.200 Yeah, and we all know how that turned out in the. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:58.240 End, exactly. 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:02.720 That was those first two were thirty five. In nineteen 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:09.199 thirty six, Germans west the Rhineland. They wanted to remilitarize 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.320 that area. That again went against the Treaty of Versailles, 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.640 because that was supposed to be a buffer zone the 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.400 western part of Germany. And they had there was a 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.160 chance here to force fully respond here because they had 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:26.680 Czechoslovakia and Romania saying like, hey, you know, we got 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.240 your back if you want to do anything, but France 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:30.520 had Britain basically did nothing. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.880 No Again, Frances kind of said, nah, we're kind of 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.160 busy with our own stuff, as we'll see, right, And 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.120 a lot of people also and who were heading the 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.040 politics in Western Europe at the time, were like, yeah, 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.280 good on them. Germany. They got that taken away from 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:46.520 him in the Treaty of Versailles. Let him have it back. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:47.600 That's Germany, you know. 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:48.640 Yeah. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.280 There was also the Anschluss, which was a different category 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.560 after the remilitarization of the Rhineland because this was where 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.240 they annexed Austria. Austria was a sovereign it was not 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.400 a part of Germany before World War One as far 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.240 as I know, Please God, don't let me be wrong 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.920 about that one. And Germany just said, Austria, you're now 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.680 part of Germany. You guys are Germanic by heritage, so 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.520 you're just part of Germany now. And the world just 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.280 turned their heads and said, yeah, I guess that's fine too. 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.520 You know, Germany's doing it's Germanic thing. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.160 Yeah, and you know, we're going to talk a little 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.920 bit about public opinion here and there. But at the time, 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.360 this was March nineteen thirty eight, and this was Nebel 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.320 Chamberlain as PM in Britain, and the Bridge didn't want 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.520 to get involved. There was about a twenty five percent 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.840 in a survey were in favor of, you know, a 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.120 determinate policy, so you know, I guess that's not aggression, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:45.000 but determine. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.520 Yeah, most people were in favor of continuing to just 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.079 kind of go along with Germany restabilizing or regaining what 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.680 it had before the Treaty of Versailles. Because again, this 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.880 is what people are thinking. But if you'll notice, we 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.200 started to pick up speed a little bit here, like 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.600 bigger things are so var to happen. That was March 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.280 of nineteen thirty eight when they took over Austria, and 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.160 then in September Hitler had been basically making speeches where 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.640 he was saying, hey, there's this part. He called it 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.520 the rump of Czechoslovakia that butts up against Germany. That's 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.640 really actually Germany. It's called the Sudan Land, and it's 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.520 just basically this mountain range. Czechoslovakia doesn't care about it, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.040 but we care about it because we're reuniting Germany again. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.440 So we want that and we're going to go take it, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.319 whether you want us to or not. And Neville, Chamberlain 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:37.880 and PM Edouard de Dalier all ran to Mudich to 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.280 meet with Hitler on his own ground and said here, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.000 what do you want. Well, let's make a deal. 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.360 Yeah, And Hitler said, well, I've told you what I want. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.160 I want this northwestern part of Czechoslovakia. We call it 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.760 the Sudetan Land. And they said, all right, you can 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.440 have that, but you got to promise, like, you know, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:58.440 put your hand on this Bible, raise your right hand, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:00.760 and you got to promise you to do anything else. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.800 In Czechoslovakia. That's it. It stops there. And this is 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.160 where things are really I feel like echoing what's going 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.640 on in Ukraine like a putin. You know, eventually you're 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.040 going to get this stuff that you've conquered, but you're 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.959 going to stop there, right, And that's what happened back then. 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:20.800 The Czechs were an ally to France. In Britain at 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.520 the time, they were not even invited to the summit, 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.400 again echoing things that we see going on today. And 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.440 at the time there were even some German generals that thought, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.439 like early on in September thirty eight when this happened, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.320 they were like, hey, listen, if the Allies get behind 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.880 Czechoslovakia here, we could be in trouble. So there was 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.160 some kind of bluff calling happening basically, but Britain kind 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.440 of said no, let's let them do this, and they 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.360 steered France to do the same and pressure Czechoslovakia to submit, 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:51.080 and that's what happened. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.640 Yeah, and Czechoslovakia is like, fine, they can have the 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.920 sue date and land. We weren't even invited but we'll 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.360 go along with it because our ally, France is telling 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.360 us to keep in mind, an ally is not just 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.360 like we're friends with you, we think you're pretty cool, 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.800 and ally means like you usually have some sort of 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.200 documents or treaties saying, Okay, somebody tries to take part 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.000 of your country, we're going to come back you up militarily. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.080 And when the Chips came down, France said no because 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.040 Great Britain was steering them. And one other point about 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.400 all this that's kind of hidden in there. Great Britain 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.040 was in a position to steer France because you could 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.800 make an argument that it was still the world's superpower. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.880 The Empire was on the wane, but still by the thirties, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.800 twenty five percent of the global population and twenty percent 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.960 of the earth's land masks were under British control. So 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.680 Britain was in a global position to basically set the 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.720 stage of how to deal with Germany, and the UK 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.680 decided appeasement was the way to go, so everybody else 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:49.680 kind of follow it along. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.280 Yeah, all right, So that's September of thirty eight. They 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.000 give them the you know, they say you can have 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.160 this portion of Czechoslovaki as long as you promise not 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.520 to go in seven months later in March of nineteen 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.120 thirty nine, and he went into the rest of Czechoslovakia 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.360 just like he wrote in his book basically, so you know, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.760 Hitler renigged on that promise of course to leave Czechoslovakia 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.280 the rest of it alone. And that was like the 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.640 real decisive moment because I think I feel like that's 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.680 when Hitler was probably like, man, these guys are are 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.520 cowards and they're letting me do whatever I want. And 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.440 very quickly thereafter that was March of thirty nine. September 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.480 of thirty nine is when he invaded Poland, and then 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:28.040 it was on. 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.360 Yeah, and even before he invaded Poland, once he renegged 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:36.120 on the Czechoslovakian deal, the Munich Agreement, he showed the 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.640 world like you like I'll tell you whatever you want 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.760 to hear, I'm not going to back it up. So 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:46.560 he immediately destroyed the policy of appeasement. Like appeasement policy 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.960 had about as much traction as like yesterday's non winning 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.600 lotto ticket that you'd find in the gutter, covered in 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:58.240 gum and maybe a little bit of blood from somewhere Yeah, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.320 like that was appeasement. After we'll put after the invasion 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.359 in Czechoslovakia, I got there eventually. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.080 Yeah, but you know, Poland was invaded, and that's really 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.760 what kicked off. Like the beginnings of World War two. 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.840 Hitler tried to provoke war with Poland by saying, hey, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:18.360 I want Danzig, not the band, no, but still the 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.400 city of Danzig and Prussian territory that was granted to 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.880 you in nineteen nineteen after World War One. We feel 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.880 like it is ours. And Britain and France, you know, 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.400 they made guarantees to Poland at the time. But in August, 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.760 it was pretty shocking at the time, the Nazis and 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.640 the Soviets signed a pact to partition Poland out and 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.800 basically said you come in from the east, we'll come 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.560 in from the west, and Poland is ours. And two 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.000 days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.720 Yep, and I think that is a great place to stop. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.320 Yeah, boy, what a robust set up. 0:16:53.440 --> 0:17:19.080 We'll be right back, So chuck where we left off. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:25.200 Hitler had just invaded Poland and the UK and France 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:32.080 declared war on Germany. It took a lot what that 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.840 showed everybody was that appiasement was dead. The whole policy 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.399 had just shifted down to either containment or out and 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.040 out war now that they had had declared war. But 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.360 this was like there was a lot of reasons for 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.680 appeasement to have been tried. We talked about some of them, 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.199 but a big one was the UK was really holding 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.080 on to that that world's greatest superpower status as hard 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.080 as they could, and another world war put that in 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.440 like real Shepard put him in a precarious position. 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.520 Yeah, I mean they were, you know, everybody was trying 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.760 to rearm themselves, like I said earlier, since World War One. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.159 Some a little quicker than others. I think the United States, 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.600 as will learn, wasn't making the greatest rearmament effort because 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.719 Congress is kind of chilling the purse strings back when 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.879 they could do stuff like that. But the writing was 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:25.960 on the wall for the UK. They were like, we 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.119 were not in any position, even though we're supposedly the 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.959 world's greatest superpower to fight Germany, Japan and Italy all 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.639 at the same time to prevent them from expanding their territories. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.639 Like that's just not a possibility. And we might have 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.480 to enter an alliance with the US. If worst comes 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:45.560 to worse, we might have to enter into an alliance 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.720 with the USSR. And that's just gonna make them, I mean, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.359 that's gonna lessen their their their stance and their power 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.280 worldwide if they have to do stuff like that. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.679 Yeah, and with their their prestige or power lessened like 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.880 on world stage, that's the kind of thing that can 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:07.080 spark decolonization movements. So they were worried about Jamaica, they 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.639 were worried about India, they were worried about Nigeria. All 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.720 of a sudden, being like the UK has overextended itself, 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.960 now's the time to declare independence from the UK. And 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.359 not just the prestige that was lost, but more to 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.359 the point, the resources or aw materials, all the stuff 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.359 that Great Britain extracted from these colonies that would be 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.199 lost as well. So what Great Britain wanted was no 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.120 war please, at least in part to preserve its empire. 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.359 Other people who were in the British Parliament and the 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.840 government basically said, we're going to have to go to war, 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.960 it's inevitable, but we're supporting appeasement right now because we 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.399 need to stall for time to rearm ourselves, like you 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:47.159 were saying. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.679 Right, which, as we'll see, also allowed Germany to do 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.960 the same yea, either through rearmament by building things or 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.919 by storming Czechoslovakia and all of a sudden they had 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:02.080 all their stuff. But appeasement was popular for a long time. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.280 Throughout most of the nineteen thirties. The public didn't want 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.680 to go to war again. They were shaking off of 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.040 World War One hangover. Still, no one wanted to go 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.879 to a war that was more technologically advanced, like pretty 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.200 rapidly since World War At the end of World War One, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.320 for a second World War, I think in nineteen thirty seven, 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.760 sixty two percent of British men said they wouldn't volunteer 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.359 and seventy eight percent of women said they would not 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.720 urge their husbands to go fight mm hm. And even 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.440 after the Munich Agreement, when Czechoslovakia was left hanging out 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:39.040 to dry, seventy five percent still approved of appeasement in 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:39.760 Great Britain. 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.280 Yes, and so there was like a lot of anti 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.600 war anxiety. Apparently people had died by suicide, there were 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.680 mental health problems. All of the appeasement pro appeasement sentiment 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.480 was also bolstered by the Times and I believe the 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.600 BBC two, which portrayed Hitler as a moderate, basically saying 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:00.960 like it could get way worse than that, let's just 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.000 deal with this guy. And then the reason why this 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.959 matters is because at the time Britain had recently enfranchised 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.719 it's women, like more and more people were voting, so 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.240 the public opinion about stuff mattered more and more to 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.320 the people calling the shots politically. And we'll also see 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:22.119 that also turned the politician's views against appeasement as public 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:23.760 opinion changed on appeasement. Two. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.080 Yeah, for sure, and you know there was a string 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.040 of pms that were all for it. Neville Chamberlain was 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:34.000 the third British PM. He was in there from thirty 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.879