Paralysis

last time we were talking about the rise of Hillary and we discussed his early moves within a few months he had managed to eliminate all opposition parties all were outlawed he started by banning the Communist Party they remember the people who actually put it into power by forming an alliance so that the two of them together had a majority in the Reichstag then he got the Socialists in the Reichstag to support him and then turned around got the Reichstag actually the fact the enabling act which meant that he and his cabinet had complete total power they were capable of creating legislation keep in mind that in system governments like ours the idea is supposed to be that the legislature actually passes laws the executive signs them and or maybe took them but then has charge of enforcing them and the judicial branch makes judgments under that enforcement well basically what Hitler managed to do is collapse all of those into himself in a small soft group of people all the legislative authority got transferred to the executive power and so Hitler really had absolutely control within just a few months he backed that up by creating three different security systems see three real police forces I suppose you could say in addition to the German army that served to be a kind of enforcement mechanism for the will of the Fuhrer which is what he called himself leader there were three of these historians have called this a kind of institutionalized Darwinism they competed against each other for Hitler's allegiance and so there was a kind of natural survival of the fittest type of thing there were three of these groups the essay the brown shirts the SS the black shirts and then the Gestapo which were really a subset of the SS so first of all the SA bigger the brown shirts au typical uniform this picture there they were run by room over a hundred million people were in this organization by the fall of 1933 rotary took power in March of 1933 so this is not very long there were three and a half million in reserve well I said Marx really officially by the end of January thirty no they practice brutal open street violence okay anybody was suspected of opposing the Nazi Party they would simply beat up stabbed etc they became so powerful that Hitler began to feel threatened by room and his troops that after all you've got three and a half million people in addition to the 1 million who are actually active in this group this is a huge internal army and so Hitler's started to thinking that a number of people connected with this we're becoming too powerful and that he had the seize control so on July 2nd 1934 when it's called the white night of the Long Knives he had roamed Strasser and other political opponents shop between five and seven thousand people we're simply assassinated in their beds at night oh I'm up one night okay so he took control personally then of the SA this was what convinced Stalin you didn't have to play all these complex mind games just have your bonus shot okay notice Hitler didn't bother trying to set Strasser against Rome or vice versa all the bat he didn't take years to deal with these people one night boom they were gone okay five to seven thousand dead the SS was the second and much more elite group Heinrich Himmler was in charge of the SS the Blackshirts they were a highly trained elite their uniforms of pitch pictured here they're much more military in style there were fifty two thousand of these in 1933 as opposed to the one million in the SA so this was a much more tightly controlled group really people got into this by either excelling in the military or excelling in the police or that type of things so it was a difficult group to join and then there was a small subset of that which was really Hitler's personal security guards they were the Gestapo here they are running through the streets with bugs in pursuit of a suspect they could stop over the most feared the SA might beat you up the SS if they capture you are going to interrogate you and you're gonna be in real trouble but if the Gestapo seizes you then it's over okay the Gestapo were among the most serious of these groups by far in March 1933 so just after he had taken power Hitler had already established a concentration camp the very first one opened at Dachau for five thousand prisoners all of whom were charged rather vaguely with suspicion of activities inimical to the state these camps were at this point not death camps they were places where is political opponents went but they were incredibly harsh people could be flogged or put to death for doing things like holding meetings and making speeches for me please loitering we're collecting any information about the camp's so essentially if you were in one of those camps and caught talking to people or but writing anything down you would be executed let's turn to Churchill's book for gathering storm in it he describes how a condition of you might say the countries of the world recognizing the horrors of war and striving for peace at the end of World War one turned into World War two and so here is his monitor how the english-speaking people's through their unwisdom carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm notice through their unwisdom so he's making a moral criticism here carelessness yes but also good nature people wanted to believe they wanted to cooperate they wanted to believe that other people were like they were in seeking peace in trying to advance their interests but doing so peacefully and so he samuel imparted they were really careless in part they were unwise they've let him or have all sorts of advantages they should not have permitted him but on the other hand they did it partly because they were good-natured people they wanted peace they assumed that people on the other side were also seeking peace seeking justice and that was a very serious mistake here is this a picture of this in the eyes of the Nazis this is Gibble's giving a briefing in April 1940 explaining his amazement basically at what had happened during 1930s WH Auden the poet referred to the 1930s as a low dishonest decade and indeed in this sort of history that we're about to review it was here is Goebbels breathing up to now should I do this in a German yeah up to now yes succeeded in leaving the enemy in the dark concerning Germany 3 of course justice at what 1932 a domestic post never saw very McCoy or that possibly now that he was just a trick we want them to come from power legally but we did not want to use power leading okay so he's seeking to come to power through ordinary democratic means through political coalition's and so on but the moment they have power law goes out the window they could have suppressed us they could have arrested a couple of us in 1925 and that would have it not ya know they tell us through the dangers that's exactly how it was in foreign policy to in 1933 a French premier ought to have said in a French premier I will Excel it the new Reich Chancellor is the man who robbed my calf which says this about this man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity he disappears or we march but they didn't do it they left us alone and let us slip through the risk is on and we were able to stand around or sail around all dangerous reefs and when we were done and wet and better than they then they started the war okay now Google is absolutely a stamp Hitler as we'll see throughout the 30s pulls off bluff after bluff amazing trick after trick basically all of his generals are saying look this is insane this is crazy don't do this you're gonna get us into deep trouble we don't have the strength they're going to attack we're gonna be over and Hitler keeps saying to them essentially chill out all right okay and he turns out to be right time after time and here is gurbles one of his chief lieutenants just expressing amazement of that what on earth with the Allies thinking why did they not do something what it would have been incredibly easy to do well that's what we're going to investigate here was Hitler's plan to gain control of Germany to destroy the Versailles Treaty to make journey too cheap our Central Europe and as you can see by 1933 at number one checked off but destroy the Versailles Treaty well we're going to see that throughout the 30s that step-by-step make Germany the chief power of Central Europe yes step-by-step then destroy the Soviet Union after that establish a continental Empire basically have Germany in control all the way from Portugal up to Siberia and then finally he thought long after his death Germany would have to fight the United States for world domination so his thought is that all of these steps can be done in the 1930s this is a task for nineteen forties and then this he thought will really have to wait until some point he kind of vaguely hints around the year 2000 there we have another great war between Germany in the United States of course things didn't quite go as planned this one got moved up and that caused serious trouble for them in any event let's go back to the conditions in the late twenties before Hitler seized power the countries of Western Europe are trying to eliminate the possibility of another world war and so people gather to negotiate what becomes known as the kellogg-briand pact and here is Solomon's picture of the negotiators there as you can see there are amused by a small camera saying look you see a picture well here is what the pact said it was a pact to outlaw war the High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of the respective peoples that they can then recourse to war for the solution of international controversy so pronounce it as an instrument of national policy in the relations with one okay so they all promise not to fight not to go to war the utterly renounce war as the solution of any international controversy article to the High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or whatever origin they may be which may arise one that shall never be solved except by Pacific means so they're all promising never to fight one another in the general to renounce war and in particular to seek methods of conflict resolution that don't involve armed conflict that don't involve force so they're going to do nothing but negotiate appeals to the League of Nations things like that no well yes you find out the nations of the world have just come together love all of them but many of them come together and agreed to outlaw war they've agreed they will not fight wars is this a great accomplishment or what well our a first point is it didn't work look what happens actually in 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria in 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia Germany seized the Rhineland of an Austrian the Czechs pacquiao in the years 1936-39 the swiss people died but it's formed yeah but there is an advantage to this ok so it didn't work in fact all of you said oh yeah we'll never fight with woman ma we renounce conflict we will not use force of arms the moment it becomes can be in turn around dudes but on the other hand it did something that I think has a kind of lasting importance it established a legal framework according to which war criminals could actually be prosecuted for example it established a certain set of expectations it was really the basis on which the Nuremberg trials for example were held that amped together with some German laws that Hitler didn't bother to overturn he simply ignored but it was a way of then finding those who are guilty of aggression and war crimes guilty it also set a certain kind of standard that is to say it's a this is all unacceptable and it helped to mobilize world opinion so that when those examples of aggression occurred people were horrified and denounced them now on the one hand that didn't do people in Manchuria Ethiopia much good right the world disapproved well a lot of good that is on the other hand that was something at least there was a declaration here that warfare wasn't just part of the normal course of events warfare was not just politics by other means as Clausewitz had said no warfare was something that was morally illegitimate and problematic now let's go back to 1933 we've seen that this pact was supposed to eliminate war but fighter 1933 there also there several examples where it failed McDonald Prime Minister of Great Britain what's really the first Prime Minister who is not of the ruling classes really the first working class Prime Minister labour prime minister he puts forward with the Macdonald plan what it would do is reduce the French army from five hundred thousand to two hundred thousand it would allow the Germans to increase the size of their army to two hundred thousand so in other words what he was saying is France will shrink its army and Germany will be allowed to increase it so that France and Germany now are just as powerful as each other the Germans already had reserves of over 1 million which the French did not so actually that equality was somewhat wellness it restricted new guns to just 4.2 inches and it reduced their forces to 500 planes so it basically said there will be a limit on the power of artillery and naval guns there will be a limit to air forces and we'll all have the same size arm how about that now you are let's say a politician in France or a politician in Britain and McDonald puts forward this plan I've got an idea let's forget about the Versailles Treaty and it's grasped restrictions on the German military will allow Germany to be as powerful as France or as the United Kingdom do you vote yes or no okay you both know now it's very easy in retrospect right what's really remarkable about this is this Hitler himself voted mode Churchill said this was like he smothered by a featherbed but in any case Hitler rejected this outright he said basically said no nein Germany seeks military superiority not equality we don't want any part of this he was through from the disarmament conference and the League of Nations and basically made it clear he was not about the cooperation well that wasn't the reaction that we call him or anyone else in Britain really expected expected but what was the response you might think the response would have been to say wait a minute we've tried to cooperate with this Hitler guy and give him equality set up something fairer than the outcome of the Treaty of her side and he's rejected it that's a bad sign right we better be on our guard but in fact the reaction was the opposite I want to remind you of Forester in the Bloomsbury group who said I hate the ideas causes by to choose between betraying my country and betray my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country that reveals a kind of attitude that's partly a philosophical attitude about the very foundational sources of value and personal relationships but it's partly indicating that patriotism is in a very high consideration right look I'm willing but my friend has defected my friend is a spy oh well then I'll betray my country rather than betray my friend and it indicates a set of attitudes that really leads to a general pacifism that's some attitude about patriotism turns into pacifism which then later sort of in the students of this group becomes loyalty to Stalin and even Soviet espionage let's take a look at some prominent examples of this pacifist attitude that became really dominant in Britain for 1930's here is George Lansbury a Labour Party leader pictured there in June of 1933 so just a few months after Hitler has come to power I would close every recruiting station disband the army of me disarm the Air Force and then bought the whole printful equipment of war and say to the world do your worst ok well he didn't last that long as a Labour Party here but come to that Lee who replaced him said we are ultimately opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament ok so basically the Labour Party and its leaders are saying we favor disarmament unilateral disarmament here's the way to keep the peace give up the weapons of war now suppose you do that suppose you say we're going to disarm and indeed people threw up at various points in history of our future so suppose the United States today just said let's disband the military disband the Air Force save the world do your worst I mean we're insane with that accent but suppose we sent them right what would the result be yeah ah yes if you think back to Kipling and his attitudes you know it's a tongue go out there right so this is something like the tiger going belly-up and saying I won't use my clothes in fact I've gone over to some concrete's and I have scratched them off and I will purposely keep my mouth closed do you ask what happens in the jungle to an animal that does yeah it dies ok nothing good and so to the edit it from the point of view of somebody like Kipling or somebody like Winston Churchill this is absolutely insane how do you keep yourself and your people safe by being well armed basically by being able to protect yourself if you purposely weaken yourself especially with people like Hitler in the neighborhood who have already shown themselves unwilling to cooperate with you you're in real danger nevertheless Churchill was a voice crying in the wilderness around all this period he was out of power he was immensely unpopular when he said look this is insane people laughed at him they mocked him the dominant attitude was actually that of lands for Aryan aptly they were the ones who seemed to be enlightened opinion we've seen where war gets us what we must do is renounce war renounce all of the weapons of war that will lead the world to be a safer place well that's the argument now Hitler meanwhile was making speeches actually my grandfather had a shortwave radio and used to listen to Hitler's speeches even though he didn't know German my grandfather was a very strange man this was not my German grandfather this was the Serbian grandfather but he just said look the reason he didn't is that the excitement of the speeches was so tremendous and eat some that he was a Nazi it was just a phenomena I mean Hitler would be screaming to these huge crowds hundreds of thousands of people okay they would go on and on they were like tremendous rallies Hitler was in part inspired by father and this idea of a grand opera he was interested in the arts in theater and they were huge theatrical productions very oppressive theatrical productions so and he would say all sorts of aggressive things Germany must become the meeting power of Europe the German people must expand they need space to live our country must expand and one of the times of london say about this is mere rhetoric intended for home consumption simply to restore german pride we needn't whether the Oxford Union in 1933 debated the question but this house refuses in any circumstances to fight for king and country that it made occurred that it passed by a margin of about three to one Hitler himself was really swamped by that one for one thing these Oxford Union debates were a very big deal for about this wasn't just a bunch of students gathering a small room I mean in a way it was but but nevertheless that was huge press attention given to this and it was quite striking that at Oxford University three-fourths of the student body essentially said I will not fight for king and country under any circumstances Hitler basically said look we can do anything we want the French the British will do nothing to counteract us and he turned out to be right for a very long time in 1934 early in the year Britain France and Italy gave their support to Austrian independence one of the things Hitler was saying in these speeches is that all the people who spoke German and were ethnically Germans should be united in a greater term well where were the people who were speaking German and were ethnically German all over the world but in large concentrations well Austria right next so we started applying the Austria really should properly be understood as part of Germany so Britain France and Italy hearing this even though some opinions are say Heil ignore it it's just for home consumption nevertheless they declared look we're going to protect our Austrian independence the very next month Italy Hungary and Austria has never signed the Rome protocols that pledged basically to preserve Austrian independence and Lee was promising to come to Austria and Hungary defense if anything should happen Mussolini and June met Hitler invents and they were not yet buddies his reaction to Hitler was this know me okay I don't want he doesn't please a garrulous monk okay that's what he thought of him garrulous what does that mean talk yeah he's a monk who won't show it so Mussolini had no use for so notice here Britain France and Italy together with austria-hungary were all on the same side well July 2nd that was the night of the Long Knives that was where Hitler kills five to seven thousand of his opponents took full control of the SA and was undisputed master of all three of those security systems later that same month German agents assassinated the Austrian Chancellor Louis Dolphus was himself a fascist by the way he was a close ally of Mussolini and in fact when he was assassinated his wife and children were staying at Mussolini's villa Mussolini was the one who informed his wife and children that he had been burned okay so Mussolini was outraged at this it seemed a very direct assault it was obvious that it was German agents who were behind it and so you might have thought given what had been happening this would already lead to war that Italy that Hungary perhaps Britain and France as well would say this is unacceptable but shortly thereafter there was a clash between Italian and Ethiopian soldiers at wall wall on the borders of Ethiopia and Somalia essentially what was then called Somaliland now who was at fault in this border clashes unclear the facts are vague but many events the paul johnson is said it's at the essence of geopolitics to be able to distinguish between different degrees of evil what does he mean well mussolini was furious over this border clash and promised to invade evey over the rest of europe was astounded by this this seemed like a minor border skirmish more an excuse to go to war in fact most people thought the italians must have started it otherwise why that's gross overreaction but many event the puzzle became how should Britain and France respond to this well events started happening more and more frequent On January 13 1935 Hitler won the Tsar Club site remember the Tsar was this region of Germany that was basically put under international control for ten years and then would be allowed to vote on whether it wanted to be part of France or Germany it voted overwhelmingly ninety percent to 10 percent to join Germany March 7th Hitler repudiated the Versailles Treaty officially up till then he had been skirting its provisions and violating this one violating that one at this point he just said we're not abiding by it anymore he just admitted it flat June 18th there was an anglo-german naval tree it gave Germany the right to 35% of British naval strength and parity in submarines now keep keep in mind in 1935 the British Navy was the largest Navy in the world by far much larger than the American maybe the Japanese Navy and so on so 35% doesn't sound like that much until you realize but that was the largest maybe in the world that would put Germany in the top five certainly have naval powers in the world and Hitler also subtly my disease reach air force parity with Britain now I say behind the scenes Churchill knew very well and kept giving speeches in Parliament saying look who we've got intelligence that tells us the size of the dirt yeah Germany was not supposed to be building any air force at all but now they not only have an air force they have one it's large as the British Air Force however it fell on deaf ears in parchment well that summer Italy prepared for its invasion of Ethiopia and here you can see this was British Somalia here's the Italian Somaliland which was an Italian possession and was somewhere here on order and so missile Mussolini decided to launch an invasion Hitler instituted the draft which he was not supposed to do okay Britain warned Italy and threatened sanctions now yet October Italy went ahead with the attack hey it was honor to read the plans burry the public said do you West resigned as head of the Labour Party man was replaced by a flea well the problem really is what to do about this I can't imagine the or a member of parliament Britain and that Mussolini has said he's going to attack you feel yeah you've said don't do it look this border storage isn't skirmish isn't enough to justify that but he makes it very clear he's going to do it and any actually does what do you do I mean one option is to do nothing right one option is actually supportive saying we're with you Mussolini another option is to say we disapprove of this action but do nothing material about it a fourth option is to impose sanctions I suppose a fifth option would be to actually go to war against Italy for this aggression and this violation of the kellogg-briand pact well I suppose there's a sixth option which is going to war in favor of Muslims they will attack you yes but nobody considered that now which would you support all right sanctions now that's impact what Stanley Baldwin who is the Prime Minister decides upon sanctions any other possibilities keep in mind the circumstances this Hitler guy is getting weird Italy is so far on your side you've got a treaty with diplom and they have a treaty with Austria and with France yeah they're an ally right but they're doing something pretty bad yeah all right well you might not know right you're look you look back to the First World War and here's why it's not so I mean this is a hard puzzle for us now right which state one I don't know this is this is tricky but think about it from their point of view at the time everybody is trying to avoid a replay at World War one and how did World War One come about well it started off with an assassination and a Balkan country that nobody but the Serbs really cared much about and then it ballooned and it fell into that and pretty soon all of Europe was at war and it turns to be an incredibly bloody war so all of these politicians are thinking you never know when a seemingly small conflict can ignite a world war so they're all thinking do you want to go to order this no they're looking for some way of expressing disapproval they realized look we've set up this structure right the League of Nations and the kellogg-briand pact to keep Wars from happening here Italy goes violating its dome uh-huh they feel as if they've got to disapprove of that in order to actually keep that structure alive they aren't willing to actually do anything military because it risks igniting another war so indeed they decide upon sanctions but Churchill mustace Churchill says the Prime Minister declared that sanctions meant all sick of me he was a result that must be no war and said that he decided upon sanctions okay and that actually those brother nicely captured the bizarreness of it both knew that sanctions basically put Britain on the other side against Italy alienated Italy but of course he didn't want to do it in a very serious way so we excluded oil and other things that actually might have been it of use to the Italian war effort only things Italy didn't need we're actually included in the sanctions so what does Britain have that Italy might want yeah I don't know whatever it was it covered things that had no relevance to the war effort at all well that didn't pay for the war effort of course in fact it stimulated the italian war spirit the italians were watching but what the predator against us well we'll show the british and so it also is more crucially extreme estranged italy italy went from being an ally of the french and the british to being an ally of hitler hitler was putting out feelers already and hitler the moment they announced plans to invade ethiopia said yeah i'm with you do it that's the right thing to do okay we can't allow our european powers to be attacked by random countries no you've got to respond forcefully so hitler made it clear he was on who's on the inside from the very beginning yeah well he had earlier right when Mussolini met Hitler he thought he was complete jerk but now but Mussolini's in trouble well I said it in trouble he's in this delicate international situation the people he thought was a lies for all denouncing him and imposing sanctions but Hitler this guy he thought was a jerk and an enemy is actually saying hey I'm on your side okay and so Mussolini starts thinking maybe I'm on the wrong team here right it's the guys on the other team who are actually cheering what I'm doing and supporting me the people I thought were my teammates they are actually denouncing me and opposing exactions yeah well all of that sort of thing happened during the war months later but but so the most private only is telling a Judy screaming no I mean Italy and Germany were allies throughout the Second World War from really this point on now what happened is that Mussolini did become an enemy and in fact yeah oh there that's my picture Hitler went to visit Mussolini and you can see them getting along famously now standing side by side so it changed the balance of power dramatically with in 1936 Hitler read militarized the Rhine remember the Rhineland this area France was to be demilitarized there were to be no troops there no military facilities no bases or anything of that sort Hitler violated treaties by sending troops into that region now he admitted if the French had marched into the Rhineland we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs he knew the German army was not yet capable of fighting the French the German generals thought he was insane to do this they basically said look this is crazy we're sending troops into the Rhineland this is the area right on the border of France this is going to make the French things we're about to start another world war don't do it they're going to send troops in we're going to have to withdraw this is going to be immensely embarrassing and the generals thought this was just an appalling mr. Hitler sit relax the French will do nothing the British will do not and indeed turned out to be right British politicians French politicians military leaders to set their lunch as German troops went over the bridges went into the Rhineland didn't really raise a peep now that not only suggested to the Germans they could get away with whatever they want but it also strengthened Hitler's hands against his own generals his generals had unanimously opposed this move they all said this is crazy we're going to lose this is going to be immensely destructive and Hitler turned out to be right the generals in short kept thinking the people in Britain and in France surely irrational they're gonna realize we're much weaker than they are they can stamp us out easily they'll do it Epis it no they won't and he turned out to be right this was one of many times he turned out to be right so the generals who kept saying look this is a bluff don't do it they're gonna call her Bluff so this is very risky he said relax and he turned out to be correct now what on earth were the British and French thinking there was David Lloyd George a leading British politician who had been one of the people who helped to craft the Treaty of Versailles and actually was in a minority at that time he kept arguing against these heavy sanctions heavy war debts being imposed on Germany and so on here was his judgment on this in my judgment hey Hitler's greatest crime was not the breach of the treaty because there was provocation now what provocation what on earth did he have in mind he wasn't the only person in Britain and France to react this way they said well yes there was provocation I probably was really unfortunate what is he talking about yeah exactly he's talking about the debt he's talking about the terms in short of the Treaty of Versailles he's basically saying look I admit the Treaty of Versailles was unjust to Germany and so what is Hitler doing he's reclaiming things that were unjustly imposed on him at the end of the First World War so no loaning him personally good on Germany so go back and look at some of these events that have been taking place you could say 1934 well that's not much but he's a moment but all right Germany gets back to this bizarre region well fine I had been part of Germany he denounces the Versailles Treaty well it was unjust anyway so we can understand that he wants to be able to go up his Navy well Germany was always a strong country yeah I was pretty unjust of us to basically say you couldn't have a military and then the draft yeah again we told him he couldn't have a draft but hey we have a giraffe's so that's okay really and then we get up to this point well the Rhineland is part of kurma D so it's really unfair to tell them they can't have troops in that perfect Germany etc so in short lloyd George's I think my Matic here of most British politicians at the time and most French politicians who said we admit the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were unjust so far all Hitler is doing is reclaiming what was really just lead German germany's anyway and so they don't take any action partners because they just think well so yes we look the other way that becomes the idea no they might be right about right the Treaty of Versailles was a very harsh treaty it probably was very unfair to Germany in this terms on the other hand when you have people in charge of a country who don't believe in that country's position who don't actually believe in the justice of their cause you've got a very dangerous situation it's the kind of thing I was warning about with respect to the Bloomsbury intellectuals they train a generation of leaders who no longer believe in their own position there's a joke a liberal I think Mark Twain exercises a liberal is someone too broad minded to take his own side and but lloyd-george wasn't one of the liberals in in britain really buddy not in our use of liberal um it was really much more general most of the conservative party was also on that side they all basically weren't willing to take their own side in a quarrel with germany because they thought their own side was unjust and so you've got a development here where people on one side are really paralyzed that's why i call this lecture paralysis really they don't believe in their own position and so they aren't willing to defend it they allow Hitler to make move after move because they really think well he's really just reclaiming what was rightfully Germany's however Britain had the good sense to begin constructing radar stations on the coast knowing that there was now a German air force and that they better be careful on May 21st Hitler declared that Germany had no interest in Austria this is very bad night when Hitler says he has no interest in you you're in deep trouble okay in July he signs a pact with the Austrian government agreeing not to interfere in the internal affairs of course they had already assassinated the Chancellor then he ordered the most of Austrian Nazi Party to step up its activities not even notice that happens within five days well November he signs the Rome Berlin access for analyzing the treaty agreement with Mussolini and the alliance he also makes a pact with Japan and so the Axis powers Japan Germany and Italy are now lined up and I've already shown you those pictures so well the Spanish Civil War I'm gonna just ignore that leaves us some great paintings very important I don't have time I never have time you know this is the sixth time I've taught this course and I never have time to talk about that every time I think this time will be different it's never different anyway that stinks but oh well 1938 the generals kept telling Hitler look you're crazy don't do this don't do that don't you're bluffing ba ba ba ba ba fighting he decides to get rid of a bunch of them so he fires 18 generals and he takes control of the army personally on March 11th be honest German troops - Austria and an exit as part of Germany the Austrians do not resist there is no actual military conflict the tanks sibling and purposively roll into Austria and take control here you see an Austrian woman crying as she is giving what she feels is that forced salute to the German soldiers coming in that was only the beginning there was a crisis in Czechoslovakia by the way how many of you seen The Sound of Music yeah that's about the unselected Germans moving into Austria so that proves it's great music perpetual oh well if you like that it'll buy sits alone okay now by the way my daughter the music major just hates the sound of music I like it but but she thinks it's stupid so I understand anyway yes July and August the crisis in Czechoslovakia a significant number of the people in what is today the Czech Republic in the part of Czechoslovakia that is closest to Germany are ethnically German and speak German and so Hitler's vision of a greater Germany includes not only Austria but those parts of Czechoslovakia so the german-speaking students in that area called the Sudetenland near germany demand independence they basically saved we're German we deserve to be in control of ourselves remember at the end of the First World War the principle is self-determination people should have the right to self-determination and so they say look we have our own ethnic identity we're being dominated by the Czechs in this country we demand independence well the sedate leader ended up leading to German and Chamberlain decided to fly to Munich Chamberlain was it by this point the British prime minister and he sees a crisis taking place Germany is threatening to go to war to cease the shooting man it's the checker if Czechs lucky will not give it up and so basically Chamberlain sees the possibility of another world war resulting from all of this if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia he thought there would be a very serious war and France were allies of Czechoslovakia and so he decides he's going to fly to the eunuch to meet with him and he meets with him and says here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word trusted Hitler completely now here is the amazing story in the background yeah that very thing that very did when Chamberlain announced his decision to fly to Munich to meet with Hitler to try to resolve this crisis the German generals those who had been dismissed but also those who remained said enough okay Hitler has played one Bluff after another and amazingly so far nothing disastrous has happened but this is two months invading Czechoslovakia that's too great a risk to take now by the way heat today it's easy to think wait the Czech Republic that doesn't seem like a major world power but at the time this region of Czechoslovakia near Germany had Europe's largest armaments factories the Czech army was one of the largest in Europe Czech Czechoslovakia was actually a major power basically equal to France or Britain and so this was a huge deal now the German generals basically said attacked Czechoslovakia you've done it be kidding their factories are larger than our factories their army is larger than our army we cannot win this fight and if Britain and France get involved after all they're bound by treaties to get involved we're sunk so they had made the decision to arrest Hitler that very evening there was a plan they were they knew where Hitler was they were going to send in troops to arrest him and imprison him and they were going to take control of Germany and reconstitute the government there was inch for that very night going to be a military coup but Chamberlain says it about four o'clock in the afternoon I will fight to Munich the German generals said we better wait and see what happens a chance to avoid the entire country was missed that by in fact all Chamberlain would have had to do is wait one more day and there would have been no hits but one more day but instead he flies to Munich September 28 through 30 is the music unit conference where he meets with Hitler he comes back saying triumphantly I believe this is peaceful our time okay Hitler publicly said this is the last territorial plane I have to make in Europe very famous T are my last territorial plane privately he said our opponents are little worms okay we have the transcript of the online version of the course person heard that is my opponents are little girls he did not say little girls little workers now this shows you what was at stake the green area is here with in Czechoslovakia are the German speaking soon a clan and what happened is basically the agreement was to take the sedating land which included almost all of the armament factories and give that to Germany so Czechoslovakia was to become this little gerrymandered part of what's today the Czech Republic together with well most of Slovakia it turned out how Hungary quickly moved in and took part of Slovakia so here we see people actually at this meeting there's Chamberlain on the left there is Hitler there's Mussolini you see all sorts of people in the background who are leading officials of those governments Chamberlain comes back announcing that it's peace for our time it says how horrible fantastic incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of who we know nothing I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul he tells this to purple know a distant far away people with whom we know nothing Czechoslovakia was an ally there was a treaty between them okay forever how far is it from London to Prague about the same distances from Austin to Atlanta or from Atlanta to Washington DC I mean I mean imagine someone in Georgia saying Texas well Texas Washington DC those are far away places which we know nothing okay and so something absolutely absurd about what he says and there he is a third getting off the plane saying its peace for a time you see the news media gather around he was hailed as a hero in Britain to this now Churchill but this was absolutely appalling but again Churchill is a voice in the wilderness everybody's in on time yes now notice by the way these negotiations take place between who hit who selenium and Chamberlain where are the Czechs okay the people in Czechoslovakia like wait you just gave away most of our country and in fact the part that actually had all the like factories in it I'd have all the military bases and it's on and without ever consulting us - absolutely astounding but yes it was an incredible missed opportunity but when Hitler again proved to be right that the British and French and even the Czechs would do nothing they were absolutely astounded and so from this point on Hitler was undisputed master the generals were going to do whatever he said because they were getting ready to arrest him they thought my god this is leading us to disaster and then it's like he's right somehow he's like this guru who gets everything right even though it seems amazing Churchill was one of the only voices against this who said we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat but that was a very unpopular opinion at the time in any case this was a crucial turning point why because Czechoslovakia really was a very powerful country with a very powerful military and also huge works the Skoda works which were large armament factories but in general this was one of the most industrialized regions in the world so here's why it was a turning one Britain plus France lost Czechoslovakia vastly stronger than Germany even after Hitler's attempts of rearm enough but Germany plus Czechoslovakia even just those regions of China Slovakia stronger significantly than Britain and France so this was a chess piece that it basically went from one side to the other and completely tipped the balance of power in military terms the Czech army had 21 divisions 15 second line divisions a plus it required the deployment of 30 German divisions on the border take that away and all of a sudden those German troops together with all those tech divisions can be moved elsewhere so suddenly you've got what is that there's 66 divisions that are not freed up to do something else and oppose the British in the French that is a huge shift in the balance of power the Skoda works as I mentioned they were the second most important Arsenal in Central Europe they were equal to all the British war production so moving Czechoslovakia to what brought one side together was the equivalent movie Britain from one side to the other okay this was a hugely powerful nation and it was just really given away well at this point you might guess what happens it was only a few months later that Hitler would decide he wanted the rest of Czechoslovakia and once that happened Chamberlain had a sudden change of heart we'll see all of that in the future however but you probably already have a sense that things are not going well not only for Britain in France but for the causes

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

Views: 7,978

Rating: 4.8387098 out of 5

Keywords: 1930s (Event), Adolf Hitler (Author), Neville Chamberlain (Politician)

Id: ARIX01ePSho

Length: 48min 40sec (2920 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2013