After Germany’s economic recovery and Hitler’s success in establishing Nazi control of society, he turned to the next item on his agenda: aggressive territorial expansion. He camouflaged his plans at first, for the Treaty of Versailles limited Germany’s army to only a hundred thousand men. Thus, while Hitler loudly proclaimed his peaceful intentions, Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations in October 1933 indicated its determination to rearm. When in March 1935 Hitler established a general military draft and declared the “unequal” Versailles treaty disarmament clauses null and void, leaders in Britain, France, and Italy issued a rather tepid joint protest and warned him against future aggressive actions.

But the emerging united front against Hitler quickly collapsed. Britain adopted a policy of appeasement, granting Hitler everything he could reasonably want (and more) in order to avoid war. British appeasement, which practically dictated French policy, had the support of many powerful British conservatives who, as in Germany, underestimated Hitler. They believed that Soviet communism was the real danger and that Hitler could be used to stop it. The British people, still horrified by the memory, the costs, and the losses of the First World War, generally supported pacifism rather than war. Some British leaders at the time, however, such as Winston Churchill, bitterly condemned appeasement as peace at any price. After the war, British appeasement came to be viewed as “the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else’s expense.”23 Beginning in the 1990s some historians have argued that British leaders had no real choice but to appease Hitler in the 1930s, because neither Great Britain nor France was prepared psychologically or militarily to fight another war.24 In March 1936 Hitler suddenly marched his armies into the demilitarized Rhineland, brazenly violating the Treaties of Versailles and Locarno. France would not move without British support, and Britain refused to act. As Britain and France opted for appeasement and the Soviet Union watched all developments suspiciously, Hitler found powerful allies. In October 1935 the bombastic Mussolini attacked the independent African kingdom of Ethiopia. The Western powers and the League of Nations condemned Italian aggression, but Hitler supported Italy energetically. In October 1936 Italy and Germany established the so-called Rome-Berlin Axis. Japan, which wanted support for its occupation of Manchuria (see “Japan Against China” in Chapter 29), also joined the Axis alliance.

At the same time, Germany and Italy intervened in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), where their support helped General Francisco Franco’s Fascist movement defeat republican Spain. Republican Spain’s only official aid in the fight against Franco came from the Soviet Union.

In late 1937 Hitler moved forward with his plans to crush Austria and Czechoslovakia as the first step in his long-contemplated drive to the east for living space. By threatening Austria with invasion, Hitler forced the Austrian chancellor in March 1938 to put local Nazis in control of the government. The next day German armies moved in unopposed, and Austria became two provinces of Greater Germany (Map 30.1).

Simultaneously, Hitler demanded that the pro-Nazi, German-speaking territory of western Czechoslovakia — the Sudetenland — be turned over to Germany. Democratic Czechoslovakia was prepared to defend itself, but appeasement triumphed again. In September 1938 British prime minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) flew to Germany three times in fourteen days. In these negotiations Chamberlain and the French agreed with Hitler that the Sudetenland should be ceded to Germany immediately. Returning to London from the Munich Conference, Chamberlain told cheering crowds that he had secured “peace with honour . . . peace for our time.”25 Sold out by the Western powers, Czechoslovakia gave in.

Hitler’s armies occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. This time, there was no possible rationale of self-determination for Nazi aggression, because Hitler had seized the Czechs and Slovaks as captive peoples. When Hitler used the question of German minorities in Danzig as a pretext to confront Poland, Chamberlain declared that Britain and France would fight if Hitler attacked his eastern neighbor. Hitler did not take these warnings seriously and pressed on.

Through the 1930s Hitler had constantly referred to ethnic Slavs in the Soviet Union and other countries as Untermenschen (inferior people), and relations between the two countries had grown increasingly tense. War between Germany and the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, and, indeed, Stalin believed that Great Britain and France secretly hoped the Nazis and Bolsheviks would destroy each other. In an about-face that stunned the world, especially fervent Communists everywhere, sworn enemies Hitler and Stalin signed a nonaggression pact in August 1939. Each dictator promised to remain neutral if the other became involved in war. An attached secret protocol divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet zones “in the event of a political and territorial reorganization.”26 Stalin agreed to the pact for three reasons: he distrusted Western intentions, he needed more time to build up Soviet industry and military reserves, and Hitler offered territorial gain.

For Hitler, everything was now set. He told his generals on the day of the nonaggression pact, “My only fear is that at the last moment some dirty dog will come up with a mediation plan.”27 On September 1, 1939, the Germans attacked Poland from three sides. Two days later, Britain and France, finally true to their word, declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun.