Chapter 6. Know Your Enemy: Britain and the Appeasement of Hitler

Dominic D. P. Johnson

Chapter

Requires Authentication

Chapter 6. Know Your Enemy: Britain and the Appeasement of Hitler

Dominic D. P. Johnson
Dominic D. P. Johnson

Search for this author in:

De Gruyter De Gruyter Brill | Google Scholar

or

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00

Published by

View more publications by Princeton University Press

To Publisher Page

This chapter is in the book Strategic Instincts

[ 145 ]chapter sixKnow Your Enemybritain and the appeaseMent of hitlerPerhaps it can be argued that for most of the 1930s Britain was at peace with Germany precisely because the British did not understand Hitler. When, in September 1939, the penny fi nally dropped, Britain declared war on Germany.— John garnettOh well, if you don’t make one mistake, you make another.— lord halifa xa striking exaMple of failing to correctly understand the intentions of an adversary is provided by assessments of Hitler in the 1930s. Eventually, of course, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States realized the colossal danger that Nazi Germany posed and fought a long and costly war to defeat it. However, it took a remarkable length of time to fully appreciate this threat and react accordingly, rendering them unprepared for war and inducing them to concede significant ground to Hitler in the meantime. Britain, in par-ticu lar, failed to arm adequately or rapidly enough and was still not ready to fight when war broke out in 1939. Moreover, Prime Minister Neville Chamber-lain insisted to the very end that Hitler could be brought to terms, a belief that led to the capitulation of Munich— arguably the worst foreign policy disaster of the century.Underpinning these failings was a serious underestimation of the “dis-positional” character of Hitler’s goals and Nazi Germany as an expansion-ist state— something the fundamental attribution error (FAE) should have not only made salient but exaggerated. Instead, Chamberlain and other key decision- makers in the British government saw Germany’s be hav ior as more “situational,” forced by social and economic circumstances to reaffirm itself

You are currently not able to access this content.

Not sure if you should have access? Please log in using an institutional account to see if you have access to view or download this content.

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00

[ 145 ]chapter sixKnow Your Enemybritain and the appeaseMent of hitlerPerhaps it can be argued that for most of the 1930s Britain was at peace with Germany precisely because the British did not understand Hitler. When, in September 1939, the penny fi nally dropped, Britain declared war on Germany.— John garnettOh well, if you don’t make one mistake, you make another.— lord halifa xa striking exaMple of failing to correctly understand the intentions of an adversary is provided by assessments of Hitler in the 1930s. Eventually, of course, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States realized the colossal danger that Nazi Germany posed and fought a long and costly war to defeat it. However, it took a remarkable length of time to fully appreciate this threat and react accordingly, rendering them unprepared for war and inducing them to concede significant ground to Hitler in the meantime. Britain, in par-ticu lar, failed to arm adequately or rapidly enough and was still not ready to fight when war broke out in 1939. Moreover, Prime Minister Neville Chamber-lain insisted to the very end that Hitler could be brought to terms, a belief that led to the capitulation of Munich— arguably the worst foreign policy disaster of the century.Underpinning these failings was a serious underestimation of the “dis-positional” character of Hitler’s goals and Nazi Germany as an expansion-ist state— something the fundamental attribution error (FAE) should have not only made salient but exaggerated. Instead, Chamberlain and other key decision- makers in the British government saw Germany’s be hav ior as more “situational,” forced by social and economic circumstances to reaffirm itself

You are currently not able to access this content.

Not sure if you should have access? Please log in using an institutional account to see if you have access to view or download this content.

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00