# Why did most of Europe just lay down for Germany at the start of WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233 "2010-11-29T01:02:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/41 "2010-11-29T18:10:07Z")
Meh. I’m not entirely convinced that the governments of Europe _really_ knew what Germany was doing, although I’m sure they knew that there were factories here and there producing _verboten_ hardware. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/42 "2010-11-29T18:10:15Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > IF Swiss had been attacked by Germany, I, for one, certainly would not want to be in the Nazi military or German police back in WW2 assigned to arrest armed Swiss citizens . Except in Western Europe, the Germans didn’t use the Nazi military or German police to arrest local citizens. They used the local police force. The Jews in the West were small minorities, and while anti-semitism varied throughout Western Europe, it was present to some level everywhere. There is a massive difference between invading troops going door to door to arrest the entire population, and the local police being used to round up what was often an unpopular minority group. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/43 "2010-11-29T18:37:47Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Meh. I’m not entirely convinced that the governments of Europe _really_ knew what Germany was doing, although I’m sure they knew that there were factories here and there producing _verboten_ hardware. You simply cannot hide the sheer number of resources Germany was buying and transporting that could only be used for the construction of military hardware. In fact, the scale of Germany’s industrial ramp-up for building the army was providing lucrative contracts to businesses throughout Europe and elsewhere, and those businessmen were part of the force pressuring politicians to ignore Germany’s buildup. There was a lot of money on the line. Hell, Charles Lindbergh was visiting Germany military aviation factories in 1936, and Hermann Goering bragged to him at the time about how powerful the Luftwaffe had already become. Hitler had publicly announced Germany’s re-armament in 1935. It had been underway since the 1920’s, and was an open secret. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/44 "2010-11-29T18:42:18Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > I also would not want to be a member of a foreign army occupying and going house -to-house in Isreal or Alabama where behind every door is a citizen with a loaded rifle trying to shoot me. I just had a wild idea. What if governments conscripted every able bodied male at the age of 18, gave them a rifle and a year or two military training and then placed them in the reserves. They could even have them organized in armies with all of the accoutrements of war like tanks, planes, and artillery. We could call it universal conscription, you’d think someone would have thought of this before and Europe would have been doing it since the Napoleonic Wars or something. Imagine how differently WWII would have gone if nations had done this! ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/45 "2010-11-29T19:17:24Z")
Never mind! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/46 "2010-11-29T19:54:29Z")
The short answer: nobody took Germany seriously-till it was too late. There were TONS of opportunities to stop Hitler and the Nazis: -when the Germans sent their troops into the Rhineland: the French Army had 90,000 men in Lorraine-had they marched in, they would have routed the Germans 9and toppled Hitler) -France and GB signed away Czechoslovakia: at that time, the Czechs had an excellent army of 40 divisions, and good tanks. Had the Allies made an alliance with e Czechs, they could have stopped the Germans cold. -Mussolini (before he went over to the Germans) proposed an Italian-French-British alliance-had that happened, there nver would have been a war. Had the Frecch mobilized their army, and used their excellent Char-B tanks to invade Germany, Hitler would have been overthrown by the German generals-no WWII. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/47 "2010-11-29T19:58:22Z")
Going back to the OP, others have covered the specific questions but one thing to keep in mind is that Basil Liddell Hart - although a fascinating read - is not a neutral observer. He has a strong axe to grind particularly against those he believed ignored his advice between the wars and during WW2. He’s not keen on Churchill - nor the Americans as you’ll see later in the book - and his views about the blitzkrieg style of warfare are very one sided. Having been one of the original proponents of the idea he refused to see its limitations against a determined, well equipped and well led opponent of comparable size. For a more balanced view try Martin Gilbert or John Keegan’s single volume histories of WW2. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/48 "2010-11-29T20:33:32Z")
I hadn’t noticed the book was Lidell Hart’s. He also has the problem of not recognizing (like many of his class in fact) the central role played by NCO’s in the early German stormtrooper attacks of 1918. Germany, with a large professional army, and reserves who had served as conscripts, had large numbers of fully trained NCOs. Britain, with a tiny peace time army by comparison, did not. The sort of small unit, interconnected combat that ther German’s used in 1918, and Hart called for from the British in that war, simply wasn’t possible given the resources available. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/49 "2010-11-29T20:39:43Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > **Why did most of Europe just lay down for Germany at the start of WWII?** I dunno, I guess it was the whole “bad boy” thing, combined with a charming German accent and, oh, yes! Those **uniforms!** ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/50 "2010-11-29T20:56:21Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > I also would not want to be a member of a foreign army occupying and going house -to-house in Isreal or Alabama where behind every door is a citizen with a loaded rifle trying to shoot me. The fact that weapon ownership is\* very common among Iraqis hasn’t stopped us from doing largely as we please in Iraq. Nor did it help them resist Saddam. Fact is, armies beat civilians; organization is more important than weapons. - Or _was_ common; amusingly for a bunch of guns-are-good types like us, we have been rounding up the Iraqi’s personal weapons. I guess gun ownership is only good for Americans. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/51 "2010-11-29T21:11:11Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > “The Poles attacked tanks with horse cavalry and lost.” > > This was German propaganda. Poland still had cavalry but they were more intended as mobile infantry: > > [Charge at Krojanty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Krojanty) > > “The incident became notable as reporters visiting the site soon after saw the dead bodies of horses and cavalrymen which lead to false reports of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks. Nazi propaganda[3] took advantage of this…” > > Otara The story was also heavily played up by Soviet propaganda looking to divert attention from/justify their own land grab and subsequent oppression of Poland. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/52 "2010-11-29T23:50:28Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > 1. Even more so. Guerrilla warfare is much more effective when the guerrillas are widely scattered and spread out among millions of other people. Guerrillas everywhere, anywhere, would be the nightmare. 10 million scattered armed Jewish guerrillas would be tremendously harder to conquer than a 10 million man army lumped together all in 1 place. > 2. There is a BIG!!! difference between a couple rare small and contained incidents of resistance here and there, involving a few thousand people, and on the other hand, a major widespread opposition of 10 million armed Jews all shooting back at you. I think you are indulging in fantasy. [First of all, the entire Jewish population of Europe was less than 10 million.](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005161) Only about half a million lived in Germany making up less than 1% of the population. Plus their ability to blend in the local population and hide would be non-existent. The Jews were a small minority in a country that at the time embraced Hitler and the Nazis (or at least tolerated them) and widely disliked the Jews. Who is going to smuggle them weapons and ammo? Where will they find safehouses to hole up in? So what you have in reality are half a million scattered and marginalized Jews in a country of 67 million people against the entire political, military and police aparatus of the Nazis, backed by the support or at least the tacit compliance of most of the country. As for the mentality of Europe’s political leaders, it’s not difficult to understand. They had just come through what up until that time had been the worst war in the history of mankind. Clearly they were not in any hurry to get into another one nor did they believe that Hitler would either. ---
**Author:** ![tingbudong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tingbudong/32/520_2.png) [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/53 "2010-11-30T02:54:19Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > The answer is that they did fight and lost very quickly. The Germans perfected a new form of warfare, mechanized warfare that they called blitzkrieg (lightening war) that quickly overwhelmed opponents who had never seen it. I agree that the Wehrmacht employed mechanized tactics to a level of perfection never seen before, however, an often overlooked fact was that the Wehrmacht was far less mechanized than either the British or French armies in 1940. Apparently only [10% of the Army was mechanized](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France#Germany) at the start of the Invasion of France. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/54 "2010-11-30T03:07:09Z")
Originally Posted by Susanann I also would not want to be a member of a foreign army occupying and going house -to-house in Isreal or Alabama where behind every door is a citizen with a loaded rifle trying to shoot me. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The fact that weapon ownership is\* very common among Iraqis hasn’t stopped us from doing largely as we please in Iraq. Nor did it help them resist Saddam. Fact is, armies beat civilians; organization is more important than weapons. You are entirely missing the point. The French army was armed, but they chose not to fight. Not only does a people have to be armed, they also have to be completely willing to shoot invaders. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/55 "2010-11-30T03:10:57Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I recall from reading _Auschwitz_ and incidence where Nazis were shooting Jews and dumping the bodies into mass graves. One Jewish guy attacked a German with a knife. He died in the attempt, and then the Germans switched to killing the Jews with axes. After you are arrested and after you are disarmed and after you are put into a concentration camp, then it is too late to try to resist. People who choose to resist at such a late date, is where the word “dumb” comes from. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/56 "2010-11-30T03:20:48Z")
Originally Posted by Susanann IF Swiss had been attacked by Germany, I, for one, certainly would not want to be in the Nazi military or German police back in WW2 assigned to arrest armed Swiss citizens . > [@villa](#): > > Except in Western Europe, the Germans didn’t use the Nazi military or German police to arrest local citizens. They used the **local police force**. The Jews in the West were small minorities, and while anti-semitism varied throughout Western Europe, it was present to some level everywhere. There is a massive difference between invading troops going door to door to arrest the entire population, and the local police being used to round up what was often an unpopular minority group. You are missing the point. If every Jew shot local police who came to the door to arrest try to put them into cattle cars, there would not be any\*\* “local police”\*\* remaining in just a very short time. Whether you are talking Jews, or whether you are talking about entire countries like France, the point is the same. If a country, or a person, is unwilling to resist, then that country/person will be enslaved. The Jews, and most of the people of Europe (excepting Switzerland and Russia, and maybe also excepting England) chose to NOT resist an aggressor, and they chose to lay down and become slaves. The answer to the OP is very simple. The Europeans, most of them, simply made a choice to become enslaved, and then got lucky when America and Stalin saved them in spite of themselves. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/57 "2010-11-30T03:26:56Z")
> [@tingbudong](#): > > I agree that the Wehrmacht employed mechanized tactics to a level of perfection never seen before, however, an often overlooked fact was that the Wehrmacht was far less mechanized than either the British or French armies in 1940. Apparently only [10% of the Army was mechanized](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France#Germany) at the start of the Invasion of France. Much of the German armor during the invasion of Poland was light tanks and armored cars. For the Battle of France they managed to bring about 350 medium tanks into the fight. The bulk of France’s armor was slower light tanks meant to support the infantry. It was the tactics and the mobility they provided that was key, coupled with the finest air force in the world at that time. Ironically, it was the Soviets who provided the Germans an opportunity to develop their armored doctrines by letting them conduct training and maneuvers in Russia during the interwar period. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/58 "2010-11-30T03:31:26Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > IF Swiss had been attacked by Germany, I, for one, certainly would not want to be in the Nazi military or German police back in WW2 assigned to arrest armed Swiss citizens . Yes, the Swiss certainly are tough in wars they never actually fought. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/59 "2010-11-30T03:33:47Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > IF Swiss had been attacked by Germany, I, for one, certainly would not want to be in the Nazi military or German police back in WW2 assigned to arrest armed Swiss citizens . If I were Swiss, I would bear in mind that Nazi police might not be sticklers about arresting me. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/60 "2010-11-30T03:39:52Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > After you are arrested and after you are disarmed and after you are put into a concentration camp, then it is too late to try to resist. People who choose to resist at such a late date, is where the word “dumb” comes from. That kinds presumes (among other things) that you know where it is these people with guns are taking you, and what plans they have in store for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233.md?page=4)