An overheard conversation

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I was at a pig roast tonight and overheard a great conversation between two WW2 vets. The phrase that stuck with me best was "Knowing now what evils Germany was going to commit, would anyone today have blinked an eye if Stanley Baldwin (British prime minister) had invaded Germany in 1933 and stopped the German war machine from ever being built?"

 

Good point. But the overall opinion would probably have pictured him as a warmongering psychopath.

 

Quiet interesting. Leaves only the small practicallity with what army ?

 

It wouldn't have taken a huge invading force in 1933 to put the hammer on germany. Officially they didn't even have an army.

Weapons inspectors perhaps ?

 

Yeah, but it obviously would need a military force to move over there. Quiet a task for a country in a huge financial distress, near bankruptcy (sp ?). Judged as bad debitor, a disintigrating empire in the back and big slump.

But the second point, yes, couldn't let it go. Had to build it up again.

 

Well, therefore it's good that now there is someone willing, and has the power to do things like that.

 

How long ? The UK once was a creditor nation which became a debitor nation. Reminds of something.

 

And what would happen then?

An even more disgruntled German population, whose pride is again broken by some "idiots" who think Germany would become a danger
(Note that we are discussing second hindsight)

And what then? The USSR would become restless because of a war so close to their borders, Red Alert anyone?

Oh and BTW, the english didn't first take action against Germany, because Germany was blocking the USSR

 

Yeah, i realize this can become an endless conversation. The germans were only disgruntled because of the bad economy though. I don't think it would have made any difference for them who would have provided food and jobs, just as long as it was being taken care of. And Hitler took care of it in this case, we all know the rest.

But just imagine the British took care of the German economy. There wouldn't have been an "endlosung" and the Jews wouldn't have to flee Europe in ships to what we know know as the state of Israel. There wouldn't have been an explosive situation in the middle east, the whole story between the US and Iraq would have probably never happened..... erm... i'm getting a little carried away now.

 

Actually it wouldn't take all that much of armed force to take care of Nazi Germany in 1939, for example when their army was busy in Poland. The French wouldn't have seen any serious resistance.

Anyway, preemptive strike - just in case - is not justifiable. Of course, if the enemy is obviously preparing for a war and amassing offensive arsenal for that purpose, especially soon after a concluded war and bound by peace treaty to limit his army, then things look different. Before WWII, Polish intelligence service knew what was going on and in 1935 Field Marshal Pilsudski even proposed joint intervention in Germany to the French, but they refused.

 

Wouldn't it be more worth to accept the lesson itself instead of trying to claim it was unnecessary?

You should see the problems in Iraq and Israel and lessons as well, most of the people are just to daft to learn it

 

I tend to disagree. The problem with those two countries was/(is), that Germany is way bigger then France. And ..... (thousands of reason, mainly economy, demographics, situation after WW1) the French army wasn't big enough to do anything against the German army 1939. That's why it was the phoney war, the UK and France hadn't enough troops to launch a campaign. Well, they actually started an offense, but it was (given the sizes of the troops of the foes) to small to matter.

Maybe the "defensive mindset" played a role. Or that Belgium became neutral, which made the maginot line too short. The point still is, France could not field enough armies. Nor could the UK.

And not to forget, the traditional balance to keep Germany in check was Russia, UK, France. But Russia was isolated at that time, which shifted things in favour of Nazi-Germany, which suddenly didn't face the traditional encirclement.

Strangely enough, I read recently a book about the two world wars, and I am under the impression, that losing WW1 nothing changed at the dominance of Germany over the continent in the first half of this century. Well, at least, they made it first out of the big depression. Which actually had nothing to do with the competence of a certain party, but they were, coincidence, already on the way out and the certain party only implemented economical recovery programs, planned by the former administrations.

But what srikes me the most is, that Japan and Germany went into a kind of armament race way beyond any rationality. Well, they never planned to feed their people. Either go to war and win or all hell breaks loose in their own countries, because they burdened their economies way too much. That was the gamble.

[ July 28, 2003, 02:03: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Chevalier is right. During the Septemper of 1939 in the french-german borders Wehrmacht had 43 infantry divisions. From them, according to general Formann only 11 could be considered of some quality. In addition, none of these divisions was mechanized, they didn't even have a single tank. On the other side of the borders the French had 90 infantry divisions and 2000 tanks plus the 300.000 troops of british army.

 

I tend to agree and to disagree.

A. It is propably true that the German forces left in the west were rather weak. But that was a gamble, I guess, knowing that neither French nor British were likely to be able to exploit that weakness.

B. There even exisited a plan by de Gaulle, to act, rather than wait at the line to react. But de Gaulle proposed also to change the French army to a more mobile army. Which was turned down. (And not to forget, it was Chamberlain who started the reform of the British troops, particularly building up the RAF, which would enable them to fight off Germany later) So there was no logistical capabilitiy to actually move them fast enough forward and they would have come soon to a halt. They never planed it, they never prepared it, so neither the British or the French actually could do it 1939.

C. The same thing can be speculated from the other side. Wouldn't it have been smarter, not to aid Poland, but wait a year, in which the armies would be enabled to attack, instead of starting a war on the wrong foot.

http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/WWII.html

 

Pac man

I agree that there wouldn't have been an endlösung, but palestine was a troublespot in the 1920s already and short of civl war in 1939 as a british report at that time lined out. Not sure about if it had prevented a middle east crisis, it might have delayed it.

As for british aid: The british were broke. They only were able to live their golden 20s on US credits, as well as WW-II. The time of the empire was over.
The US could have helped then, but The Wilsonian spirit was gone and the US preferred to be isolationist again. US aid could have saved a lot then.

The key problem for germany were the n the french. France especially insisted on the harsh reparations, eventually seizing the Ruhrgebiet to ensure their payment - a further humiliation - one of the key symbols for the nazis was the black french colonial soldier guarding a railway coalcar.
It was a blessing that france after WW-II had a de Gaulle who was to smart to make that mistake again and instead forging the coalition with Adenauer. That changed everything.
I think the really demoralising part for the german population was that the credo of the imperial time: "When you work hard, and save your money you'll have a decent old age" was crushed by the two hunger winters of 1919 and 1920, that went into history as the rutagaba winter, followed by the inflation. People were left with nothing.

Of course there was the uncertainty of beeing left alone, no emperor anymore, a humiliating peace treaty at versaille - that fuelled the communists - and the extreme right which grinded the Weimar republich to rubble while fighting each other, first on the streets and then on the streets and in parliament.

So, coming back to the initial question: It would have been smarter to stop the french form enforcing Versaille, that wouldn't have left a country with germany's potential in a hopeless situation - that you can only do with third world ones. In hopeless situations people do silly things.

Hitler first of all offered the long wanted stability after the more or less open street fightings of the late 1920s - one communist of that time, Erich Mielke, who later became head of the east-german Stasi - shot a cop then and was accused for that deed in 1993 or so (murder cannot lapse here) - that was commonplace then. The people who weren't communist were afraid of them, hearing the gruesome rumours from the east.

The parliament was frozen because the nazis and the commies were minorities strong enough to block everything. Once Hitler got his empowerment laws through the nazi Reichstag, disabling the constitution, he could have only be stopped by killing him or from outside - with war.