Topic > The politics of appeasement - 873

This essay analyzes the responsibility of Neville Chamberlain and his controversial theory of appeasement which hypothetically prevented the outbreak of the Second World War. The policy of appeasement embodied by the Munich Agreement is a pact signed in 1938 between Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, which allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia (area along the Czech borders) to prevent the outbreak of a major war. Appeasement has been drastically criticized as it ended in “humiliating failure” when Germany attacked Poland in 1939 (McDonough, 2002). This essay also evaluates two significant assessments of the Munich Agreement, described in McDonough's (2002) comprehensive book: a first, which states that it was an absolutely unhealthy policy of despicable capitulation and a second, instigated by "revisionist historians". – exemplified by Taylor's Controversial Book (1963) – which regards it as an elaborate policy allowing Chamberlain to prevent an impending war while he was conveniently preparing for it (McDonough, 2002). This essay simultaneously criticizes and evaluates these assessments of Chamberlain's controversial acts, since each of them implies a consequential solution that could have prevented the sudden outbreak of war. Two fundamental solutions are therefore criticized below: first, that Chamberlain should have initially limited Hitler's desire for Lebensraum (the German desire to expand their living space) and, second, that Chamberlain should have maintained his pacification politics (McDonough, 2002). 1961) and Bullock (1998) (both cited in McDonough, 2002) state in their analytical and comprehensive books that dealing with Hitler earlier could have avoided war, pacification... The Second World War therefore depends on whether Hitler had the genuine intention to conquer the world (“hitlocentric interpretation”) or was simply a master of opportunism (“revisionist historians”). While some argue that appeasement and the Munich Agreement caused the outbreak of the war, "revisionist historians" claim that the radical change in policy that occurred after the invasion of Poland was a great opportunity that Hitler did not hesitate to seize. This assessment is therefore more ideological than empirical since the lack of convincing evidence prevents historians from reaching a consensus. However, blaming Chamberlain for starting the war is unreasonable since he did not have access to the information we have: the interpretation of the passage could be influenced by the moral judgments some would have when examining Hitler's actions (Taylor, 1963).