WWII The Complete History Episode 2 The End of Illusion
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00:30It is 1938 and the pace of history is accelerating. The continent of Europe
00:39spirals towards war with an ever-increasing ratcheting tension. 20
00:46years previously, World War I had ended. The war to end all wars had been the
00:52product of deep tensions between the nations of the continent. The new nation
00:57in Europe, Germany, the most powerful, the most populous, the most industrious,
01:02jostled for its place as a great power. The older great powers, France, Russia and
01:10Great Britain, resented the newcomer. Rivalries and resentment burst into a
01:15terrible war. Europe was to mourn the loss of an entire generation of the
01:21young, of the best, and the bravest.
01:28When the war ended, it ended not cleanly, not finally, not decisively, but in a way
01:35that meant a major war would soon return to Europe. Germany collapsed in defeat,
01:41but remained the largest, the strongest, and the most powerful nation-state in
01:47Europe. Germany believed its army had not been defeated. The German people had
01:53not seen their country invaded. Their cities, their towns, their countryside was
01:58not devastated. Germany's soldiers had marched home in good order, not as
02:04pathetic defeated rabble. The myth grew of a stab in the back, of betrayal by
02:10enemies within Germany. The Peace Treaty of Versailles was not a peace settlement.
02:16It punished Germany with loss of territory. It punished with reparations,
02:21tremendous sums of money that were to pay for the war, pay to rebuild France,
02:26pay the debt European countries owed to their American ally. It punished Germany
02:33by destroying the nation's proud armed forces. The German army was to be a
02:38fraction of its pre-war strength, and deprived of the most modern weapons.
02:45The settlement did not destroy Germany as a threat, as a rival, and it provided
02:50Germany with yet new grievances. The new map of Europe created a patchwork of
02:57small, weak countries on Germany's eastern border, countries with which
03:01Germany now had scores to settle. Versailles kept the war alive in the
03:07mind of every German. In a Germany resentful of history, in a Germany
03:12suffering endless economic crisis after economic crisis, a movement and a leader
03:18arose that gave voice to those resentments and promised action. A
03:24movement that promised rescue, a leader who promised redemption and renewal of
03:31German destiny. Hitler and the Nazis rose to power through the structures of
03:37German democracy, and then abolished those same freedoms. Nazi Germany
03:44proceeded to systematically destroy the post-World War I settlement, and the
03:49structure it defined for Europe. All over the continent, and all over the world, the
03:55pace of change, the flow of events accelerated.
04:01Japan began on a path to militaristic rule, based on a belief in Japanese
04:09racial supremacy. The Second World War, really beginning perhaps in 1937, with
04:16Japan's brutal, furious, and avaricious attack upon China. War returned to
04:24Europe in Spain, as the civil war tore the nation limb from limb. The fires of
04:30war, fueled by the extremes of fascism and communism, with the democracies
04:36standing in impotent neutrality. The second fascist power in Europe, Italy,
04:42embarked on a war of conquest, annihilating the independent African
04:47country of Abyssinia. The lesson to the world was that violence was the means to
04:53the end, and would be unopposed. Hitler unpicked Versailles, rearming the
04:59German nation, turning with hungry and aggressive eyes to his weaker neighbors.
05:04Germany was united with Austria, a move that made Germany even stronger.
05:13The democracies were torn. America retreated behind the oceans, in
05:19isolation. France, in cynical defeatism, built the Maginot Line as a shield
05:24against aggression, but feared to renew the war. Britain had no desire for war,
05:30and saw justice in Hitler's demands. The democracies aimed to resolve the problem
05:37of Germany without resort to war, to use diplomacy, negotiation, and fair
05:42compromise. The word history has come to use of these times is appeasement. It is
05:50the autumn of 1938, and Hitler has turned his gaze to Czechoslovakia. A conference
05:57of nations is called in Germany, at Munich.
06:13After the Anschluss, all of Europe knew that something else was going to happen,
06:19and knew that Czechoslovakia was going to be that something else. In October
06:251938, the leaders of the great powers of Europe gathered at Munich in Germany, for
06:30what was, perhaps, the first modern summit meeting. But this was no stately
06:35diplomatic conference held in a palace. The leaders flew to a conference held
06:41before the newsreel cameras of the world, under the gaze of the public eye. The
06:46leaders speaking soundbites for the media.
07:05They met to resolve the problem of Czechoslovakia.
07:10Czechoslovakia was a democratic state, a state allied to the French. Czechoslovakia
07:16was a thorn in the side of Hitler's state, physically thrusting into the right,
07:21politically challenging both the ideas and beliefs of Nazism. Czechoslovakia was
07:28an isolated state, with Germany between her and her French ally, and surrounded
07:33by states that were unfriendly. If the conference failed, if Hitler and the
07:39Nazis chose to act against Czechoslovakia, there could be no half
07:44measures on the part of Britain and France, no sanctions that would help, no
07:49supply of arms. To protect Czechoslovakia from Nazi aggression would need full
07:56general war in Europe.
08:10The nation whose future lay on the table at Munich had a modern army, but was not
08:15a fundamentally strong state politically. Czechoslovakia was not a state of Czechs.
08:21The modern democratic society contained minorities of Slovaks and Hungarians, and
08:26above all, Germans. The Sudeten Germans, a three million strong minority living in
08:33the areas adjacent to Germany. The Austrian Anschluss set these people afire
08:40with excitement. They were aflame, ungovernable, stirred by a call of
08:45history, destiny, and blood. The citizens of Austria abandoned democracy for
08:51nationalism. The Germans of Czechoslovakia went the same way. Hitler
08:57did not foment the nationalism in the Sudeten Germans, he simply tapped into
09:01passion and desire that already existed. Of course, Hitler sought to liberate his
09:07fellow Germans, but he also wished to eliminate the Czech nation as an ally of
09:12the French, and add Czechoslovakia's modern industrial economy to Germany. As
09:18the leaders gathered, both sides had differing goals. Both Hitler and Czech
09:24President Benes wanted matters brought to a head. Hitler and Benes did not want
09:30to compromise. The Czechs knew that any concession to the German minority would
09:35bring demands from their other minorities. Hitler wanted total success.
09:41The French and the British wanted a compromise. They did not want to risk war
09:46or humiliation. In negotiation, the British, led by Chamberlain, actually thought the
09:52Sudeten Germans were a minority whose rights were ignored by the Czechs. The
09:57French had an alliance with Czechoslovakia, an alliance the French
10:01made for French benefit to threaten Germany with war on two fronts. Now they
10:08realized they were impotent to aid their ally, and desperately needed to avoid the
10:13humiliation of breaking their promises to the Czechs.
10:16Chamberlain reluctantly said, if Germany did decide to destroy Czechoslovakia, I
10:23do not see how this can be prevented. The objective of Britain and France at Munich
10:30was not to restrain Germany, not to counter Hitler's ambition. It was to make
10:36the Czechs give ground, to make concessions that would prevent a general
10:40European war. The Czechs aggressively opposed concession. At one point, in the
10:47spring of 1938, they had mobilized their entire army and placed it against the
10:52German border, terrifying Britain and France. All throughout the summer of 1938,
11:00the great powers of Europe had circled around each other, guessing each other's
11:04intentions. Benesch thought that by defiantly raising the stakes, he could
11:10make Britain and France threaten war, and so make Hitler back down. Hitler, knowing
11:16Britain and France's reluctance to go to war, insisted on having his way,
11:21rejecting compromise after compromise, angrily accusing the Czechs of
11:27attempting to ethnically cleanse the Sudetenland, and insisted that the
11:31Sudeten people would only be safe as part of Germany. Chamberlain was certain
11:39of Hitler's good faith when the German promised that he had no further demands
11:44of Czechoslovakia than the liberation of the Sudeten Germans. The issue came to
11:50head with the international summit meeting held at Munich on September 29th.
11:54Hitler made no demands at this meeting. He waited for the proposals to be
12:00offered. The Anglo-French offer to Hitler was everything he asked, the Sudetenland
12:06to be incorporated. Chamberlain firmly believed that the incorporation of the
12:12Sudeten Germans was the right thing to do, and believed Hitler when he said that
12:16he had no desire to rule the Czechs. The Czechs were told that if they did not
12:21accept, they, the Czechs, would be responsible for the war, and could expect
12:26no help. The Czechs signed, and the Sudetenland became part of the German Reich.
12:33Many years later, as the war ended, President Benesch was to look at Prague
12:50as a city that had remained intact throughout the war. Benesch said,
12:57The Munich conference is regarded in history as the definitive appeasement,
13:09and has made that word synonymous with betrayal. Yet, as we judge with the
13:15benefit of history, would we have gone to war? Or would we have seen, as did
13:21Chamberlain, principle and fairness coming together with expediency? Perhaps
13:27the words for which the Munich crisis is most remembered are not those of the
13:31agreement reached over Czechoslovakia. When that agreement had been made,
13:36Chamberlain requested another meeting with Hitler. He presented Hitler with the
13:41draft of a statement. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be
13:47the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two
13:51countries. We are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources
13:57of difference, and thus assure the peace of Europe. Hitler happily and
14:03enthusiastically signed. It was this piece of paper that Chamberlain proudly
14:09waved to the crowds in London. It was of this that he was to say, this is the
14:14second time that there has come back from Germany peace with honor. I believe
14:19it is peace for our time. If the French and British leaders had betrayed the
14:26Czechs, if they had foolishly given in to Hitler's lies, it was a betrayal that was
14:31welcomed. It was a set of lies that the populations of both democracies
14:36believed. In the streets of London and Paris, crowds reveled in the news that
14:42war was not to return to Europe. In the Sudetenland, the German population equally
14:48enthusiastically welcomed the advancing and occupying forces of the Third Reich.
14:52The democracies thought Munich a new Versailles, an epoch-making event that
14:58would establish a new order in Europe, a new system of security and peace
15:02throughout the continent. A settlement that killed Versailles for good, removing
15:08the tensions, the mistrust and the resentment, replacing a European order
15:12directed at Germany and German ambitions with one that was based upon fairness
15:17and justice. Hindsight, knowledge of what follows, makes us see the whole affair as
15:24a fraud. The events at Munich were logical. They followed on from events
15:30which had gone on before. The French had abandoned each clause of Versailles
15:34without a fight. The French did not fear military defeat. They had absolute faith
15:40in the Maginot Line, but they saw no point in going to war over minor issues
15:45and abandoned their ally when it threatened to bring war. The United
15:50States was not present at Munich. In later years, America would congratulate
15:55itself at having had no part in the affair and condemn the other democracies.
16:02The lesson America drew in the medium term, when Munich went quickly sour, was
16:08that they should withdraw even more from world affairs. Yet Roosevelt's words on
16:13the agreement made by Chamberlain were simple, good men. It's a pointless
16:17speculation to wonder what if America had lent its way to the cause of
16:22democracy at Munich. The Russians resolved that Britain and France could
16:27not be trusted as allies against Nazism and that the USSR should seek an
16:32understanding with Hitler. Britain worked from a moral position. Britain's position
16:39was that Germany did have a moral right in the Sudeten Territory. They saw the
16:44Europe that Munich created as a safer, more stable place. Once the authority of
16:50the Czech government was broken by the transfer of the Sudetenland, the state
16:54of Czechoslovakia fell apart along its own fracture lines. The Slovak minority
17:00came up with its own demands for independence and autonomy. The Nazis
17:04supported and patronized the Slovaks. The Czech government in Prague proposed
17:10occupying Slovakia with troops. Hitler promptly recognized the independence of
17:16Slovakia. The Czech state was destroyed, unviable.
17:21Hitler summoned President Hacha, Benes's successor, and instructed him to sign
17:27away the independence of Bohemia, the rump of Czech lands, which on March 15th,
17:331939, became a German protectorate. Britain's government did not see the
17:40German occupation of Prague as a break in the new order, supposedly established
17:45at Munich. As German troops brought Nazi rule to the Czechs, the British
17:50government held that the events simply proved that the Czech state was unviable,
17:55fractured by nationalities, and that Europe was made a safer place by its
18:00absence. Where the events really shifted, where history took a new path, was in a
18:06groundswell of public opinion. Perhaps in reaction to the joy of Munich, British
18:11attitudes in the streets, the views of ordinary people, changed. Hitler would
18:17never be trusted again. The British media turned against appeasement and called
18:22for Hitler to be opposed. If we seek a pattern, a rationale for the way history
18:29unfolded in the 1930s, we can see that all Hitler's ambitions looked to the
18:33East, not to the West. Germany had lost territory to France in the West, Alsace
18:40and Lorraine, but there was no clamor for these areas to come under German rule. In
18:46the South, Germans lived in Italy, but there was no demand for a return of
18:51these lands. There was no call for southern Germans to return to the
18:55homeland. All the avarice, all the ambition, was directed East, to Austria
19:02and Czechoslovakia. Hitler believed it to be the destiny of the German people to
19:08expand eastward. The peculiar Nazi view of the world envisaged a future world
19:13that was largely agricultural, and saw a German-Aryan territory spreading out
19:19eastwards into living space, Liebendraum.
19:26This spreading of Germany would displace other peoples. Hitler saw this expansion
19:33as eastward into the vast spaces of Russia and the Ukraine. When the Nazi
19:38troops completed the annexation of Czechoslovakia on March 15th, 1938, within
19:43days German diplomats renewed demands of Poland that the city of Danzig be
19:48returned to Germany, and that Germany be given a rail and road link to East
19:53Prussia, a German corridor across the Polish corridor. Danzig was a German city.
19:59The corridor was German land, lived in by Germans, given to the new state of Poland
20:05at the end of World War I. The Poles rejected the German demands out of hand.
20:11The British government almost immediately offered Poland an alliance.
20:16Previously, Britain had avoided making formal promises and commitments against
20:20the Nazis. The alliance, though committed Britain, restricted the options open to
20:26the British government. France had made alliances in order to threaten Germany,
20:31but found itself in danger, not safer. Britain made its alliance as a gesture,
20:37as a warning to Hitler. It was a complete reversal of British foreign policy since
20:43the First World War. However, to what sort of country had Britain joined France in
20:49alliance?
20:52The lands which were occupied by Poland were territories fought over, shared and
20:58re-shared by German states Austria and Russia. The Polish government was not a
21:05democracy in the same mold as Britain or France. The Polish government was
21:09dominated by the military. The ruling party, the cleansing movement, attempted
21:14to dominate all aspects of Polish life. Poland was an aggressive country that
21:20sought to punch above its weight. It refused to contemplate a compromise. The
21:25Polish government was headed by men with the same appetites for bluff, who gambled
21:30on intimidating opponents, as did Hitler.
21:36World War II was the unfinished business that remained from World War I. Much of
21:42that unfinished business lay between Germany and her former enemies, and
21:45between Germany and the smaller countries in the east. Poland had its own
21:50unfinished business with Russia, or rather the Soviet Union. The eastern
21:55border between Russia and Poland was not defined, and in the end was established
22:00in a series of armed confrontations in the early 1920s. If Hitler had ambitions
22:06in the east, it would be true that Poland equally looked to Soviet territory with
22:11envy. The climate of aggression was hardening all over the continent of
22:18Europe. In the spring of 1939, Italy invaded and occupied Albania. Mussolini
22:24always keen to emulate Hitler, always driven by envy of Germany, and resentful
22:30of the success and dominance of what he thought the junior fascist power in
22:34Europe, mounted an attack on his neighbor across the Adriatic. The victory of the
22:40Italians was easy. Albania, with a population of barely 1 million, was the
22:45most primitive state in Europe. Politically a tribal monarchy, driven by
22:50feudal clans and factions, the country was taken over in days with almost no
22:55fighting. Annexed to become Italian territory, the King of Italy declared the
23:01King of Albania.