Why were the Countries of Europe so Helpless and Did Nothing to Resist Nazi Germany?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I am somewhat incredulous we’re twenty posts in and no one has noted that the OP is plainly wrong. Europe did not entirely just “Roll over.” The other leaders were not all clinically depressed. The UK and Soviet Union were undoubtedly part of Europe and did rather a lot in defeating Germany.

The reason most of the countries conquered by Germany were easily conquered is simply that they were smaller and weaker. There is simply nothing a country like Denmark or the Netherlands can reasonably do; they are much smaller, less populous, less capable nations, and were up against the biggest armed forces in Europe except for Russia.

The idea that all Germany’s victims didn’t try to fight back is ahistorical and utterly insulting. Poland fought back, and Greece fought back, and France fought back (albeit far, far less effectively than anyone anticipated) and Norway fought back and Belgium fought back. Countless men fought Germany courageously and many of them died doing it. If you think the Poles had any hope in hell of winning the war, though… I mean, it’s like asking Urkel to win a fistfight with Mike Tyson.

22

And several countries managed to remain officially neutral throughout the war. Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Andorra. They received refugees (some moved on, some stayed), they served as backgrounds for espionage and counterespionage and more of that spying stuff, Spain used collaboration with the Nazis to get rid of “undesirables”*, Swiss banks took anybody’s gold without too many questions (business as usual), Sweden allowed the use of several air fields to the Allies at the end of the war without ever officially joining them, Portugal was very very happy to have Spain between them and France and to have the UK officially not ask for their help (which the Brits were entitled to, but having Portugal officially neutral was more useful than making it a target), Andorra was very happy to stay out of history books as they’ve been doing since their foundation thank you very much.

  • the Blue Division got its ranks from two main sources: True Believers who were way too fascist for Franco’s taste, and men with leftist backgrounds who volunteered as a way to put their families back home on firmer ground.
23

I don’t think the OP is asking about the military resistance to Hitler when the shooting finally did start, though - he seems to be asking about the pre-war phase, such as Hitler’s demand that Germany be permitted to swallow the Sudetenland, etc.

24

Likewise. I read the OP as asking why European leaders allowed it to get that far (German military buildup, Sutenland, other provocative acts) rather than asking why countries fell when the war began in earnest.

25

There are a lot of things, not only about the question itself, but how it was phrased, that I find objectionable. I’m still waiting on clarification from the OP for what he meant by certain (in my view loaded) terms.

With that said, I’ll add that I find the notion that France and the UK did nothing but appease Hitler until they were forced to act to be the product of flawed post hoc analysis. Monday Morning Quarterbacking combined with a fallacious belief that certain historical events were inevitable. As in, the historical record shows that France and the UK went to war over Poland, therefore they could not possibly have refused to go to war over Poland either unilaterally or as allies (as in, Hitler made the decision for them, they had no say and had no agency in the matter: WWII was bound to break out in Europe in September of 1939 no matter what France and the UK decided to do).

I beg to differ. That they chose to go to war over Poland directly refutes, IMHO, the notion that they did “nothing” and just let Hitler have his way. Someone previously described the outbreak of another war in Europe as Hitler’s goal for 1939. I’m not sure this is true. I was under the impression that Hitler, or at least his less delusional military leaders, were hoping to hold off on war with France and the UK for a few more years at least as they continued to build up their forces and their industrial capabilities.

26

It was actually much more harsh than the Treaty of Frankfurt. Let us just take territory lost: Germany had to give up 6,500,000 hectares, France 1,447,000 hectares. Germany 7 million people, France 1,597,000 inhabitants. Germany also had to basically totally demilitarize, to the point it couldnt even defend itself. Also $33B vs about $1Billion.

27

European countries learned from the Franco-Prussian war that because of the railroad and other improvements in logistics, it was imperative to not get beaten getting your army into the field. This led to country’s having hair triggers because they did not want to be the last to declare war. WW1 was a war nobody really wanted to happen but country’s let happen because they did not want their enemies to get a jump on them. This led to the most destructive war in the continent’s history. The allies lost 6 million military deaths.

Thus the generation after WW1 was determined not to let that tragedy happen again. Thus they did everything within their power to appease Germany and not start another war

28

The formula for reparations used at Versailles was the same formula the Germans had used at Frankfurt. If the total amount was higher, it was because the total amount of damage was higher.

As for the people and territory lost, there’s the issue of who they legitimately belonged to. The lands and people Germany lost in 1918 had been captured in earlier wars. These lands had been treated by Germany as occupied territory not part of Germany. And the populations were not Germans and did not have German citizenship.

The argument that Germany couldn’t defend itself is questionable. Who was supposedly threatening to attack Germany? The whole point of this thread is about how nobody wanted to fight another war with Germany. The 100,000 man army Germany was allowed under Versailles was adequate to defend Germany from the non-existent threat.

29

I find it difficult to blame the Allies for irrationally bellicose German resentment of the treaty.

I haven’t read Bouverie’s “Appeasement” but am looking forward to it. Andrew Roberts’ review in the WSJ has this appraisal:

*"it is refreshing that Tim Bouverie, a bright young British historian, should devote his debut book to debunking many of the pro-appeasement myths and reminding us that, in fact, it should be the anti-appeaser Winston Churchill who deserves the laurels, not the members of the British establishment…because Chamberlain desperately wanted to save the world from another debilitating global war only a quarter of a century after the previous one, and because Churchill looked like a warmonger, the British establishment closed ranks behind appeasement. Some of its members were weaned off it only days before the war broke out. One of the policy’s high priests, Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Germany, even wanted the Poles to acquiesce to Nazi demands after the German invasion on Sept. 1, 1939, and a senior foreign office official, R.A. Butler, complained bitterly that his colleagues were displaying “absolute inhibition” toward a policy that would force the Poles to negotiate (that is, capitulate)…

As Mr. Bouverie shows, the 1930s offered opportunity after opportunity to stop—or at least slow—the Nazi advance, but each chance was cast aside. The Versailles Treaty, for all its obvious flaws, could have prevented Germany becoming a military great power if its provisions had been strictly enforced. Germany’s ever more glaring instances of anti-Semitic outrages and human-right abuses, such as Kristallnacht—the pogrom of November 1938—were explained away as domestic matters. The Rhineland was remilitarized by German troops in March 1936 with barely a batsqueak of protest from Britain and France…
Mr. Bouverie is excellent at knocking away the appeasers’ ex post facto arguments about how the British Empire and public opinion didn’t want war in 1938, how the armed forces needed the extra year to rearm, how no one knew how untrustworthy Hitler was until he marched into Prague, and so on. In fact, the Germans—who in 1938 had only three tank divisions and enough ammunition for a six-week campaign—used the extra year between Munich and the outbreak of war far better than the Western powers, while Czechoslovakia was taken out of the Western alliance altogether. “The British Government consistently refused to give a lead to public opinion,” Mr. Bouverie writes, “but chose, instead, to shelter behind it. Had Britain’s political leaders spelled out the nature of the German threat and the need to resist it—as Churchill did—then public opinion could have appeared very different.” As it was, Mr. Bouverie notes, 43% of Britons were opposed to the appeasement of Hitler at the start of the Munich Crisis, with only 22% in favor…Mr. Bouverie believes that if Chamberlain had built up Britain’s defenses and alliances earlier, and kept them both far stronger, war might have been deterred, and he is surely correct. The appeasement story and its lessons are ones for the ages."*

http://wsj.com/articles/appeasement-review-what-were-they-thinking-11572619353

(link probably requires subscription)

30

The argument relevant to the OP that Bouverie makes is that the appeasers believed that Versailles was too harsh and that they believed that it led to Germany’s actions in the 30s. He emphasizes that they were wrong and specifically points out times where English officials were misinterpreting German actions because they held this belief. And in general their misapprehension led them to think they could offer Germany something to prevent war.

So it’s not that the Allies caused what was going on in Germany, but that their belief about the treaty was one of the things that blinded them about what was actually happening.

31

Cite?

Yes, and who did they legitimately belong to? Alsace had a lot of Germans and had been part of Germany. But not, the lands germany lost were not those they had taken during the war, they were lands that were german pre-war.

In the west, Germany returned Alsace-Lorraine to France. It had been seized by Germany more than 40 years earlier. Further, Belgium received Eupen and Malmedy; the industrial Saar region was placed under the administration of the League of Nations for 15 years; and Denmark received Northern Schleswig. Finally, the Rhineland was demilitarized; that is, no German military forces or fortifications were permitted there. In the east, Poland received parts of West Prussia and Silesia from Germany. In addition, Czechoslovakia received the Hultschin district from Germany; the largely German city of Danzig became a free city under the protection of the League of Nations; and Memel, a small strip of territory in East Prussia along the Baltic Sea, was ultimately placed under Lithuanian control. Outside Europe, Germany lost all its colonies. In sum, Germany forfeited 13 percent of its European territory (more than 27,000 square miles) and one-tenth of its population (between 6.5 and 7 million people).

Only Alsace-Lorraine was captured territory. For example Eupen, given to Belgium, had been part of what was to become germany since 1815, it had NEVER been part of Belgium (it had been part of the Holy Roman Empire). Silesia had also been part of the old Holy Roman Empire, it had been part of what was to become germany since the early 1700’s. etc, etc. So the Allies were just cutting off pieces of germany and handing them out.

Actually Poland had threatened war vs germany.

32

In retrospect, clearly Britain and France did not adopt the right course of action in the 1930s, and stopping Germany earlier would have made the world a better place.

That’s easy to say now, though. To characterize the approach to Germany as merely rolling over and doing nothing is just ridiculous. It was an error, but an understandable They tried to navigate through a number of crises without starting a catastrophic war, which is how virtually all countries throughout history have tried to deal with crises. Going to war with Germany in 1936 or 1938 look like great decisions now, but did not at the time. Again, it was a mistake not to stop them earlier, but it was not equivalent to mere cowardice.

As ASL has pointed out, much of the Monday morning quarterbacking of the decision process relies on the odd but obviously incorrect assumption that all decisions happened either on September 3, 1939, or before that date; that in effect the “before the Second World War” part of history HAD to end at that point. But in fact there was nothing preventing Britain and France from refusing to fight at that point; they could have allowed Poland to be invaded, on the assumptions that it would be conquered anyway (which of course was true) and that maybe the Nazis and Communists would just eat each other (also true.) That they chose instead to go to war would suggest they were not as cowardly as the OP suggests.

33

One could argue France building the Maginot line was proof they they were doing…something.

34

That’s what historical analysis is all about - to analyze past decisions and hopefully learn from mistakes.

By the way the passage you quoted as coming from me actually is from the review of “Appeasement” by Andrew Roberts.

35

I agree. Look at the Cold War period as an example. There were plenty of people who were saying that a war between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitably going to happen at some point. So they argued the United States should start that war at a time that was advantageous to us. And when successive administrations refused to launch a war with the Soviets, they were condemned by some as weak and cowardly and short-sighted.

Or look at 1991 when a lot of people were condemning the Bush administration for not continuing the war by going into Iraq, toppling Saddam, and “finishing the war”. Twelve years later, the United States tried that and as James Baker drolly noted he soon stopped hearing criticisms of the 1991 decision.

36

Very good posting.

Regarding Versailles, you could regard it as relatively even-handed, given that everybody complained about it. The problem was that the empires were broken up into their former constituent countries, but also on the basis of linguistic majorities. These often did not coincide with historical kingdoms. The new Czechoslovakia was 23% German-speaking on a national basis, and in the Sudetenland in northern Bohemia it was up to 97% in the town of Cheb. Miuch the same in the Balkans, where just about every country felt hard done. Especially, the Hungarians, who lost heavily through the Treaty of Trianon. do they remember it? They certainly do, and in recent years they have been getting very vocal about it.

As stated already, Europe at that time was hit by multiple catastrophes, including hyperinflation that wiped out people’s savings in several countries. Postwar Europe tended to slide into totalitarian or authoritarian governments of one kind or another, so the Nazis were just more of the same at first. Most of the European countries weer economically wrecked by the war and did not have the money to rearm to the extent that was needed, or politically acceptable, until too late. Germany financed its own rearmament through debt financing and what we would now call junk bonds. It all worked well for a while, but Germany was going bankrupt by 1938.

Plus, there was a lack of unity, whether nationally or internationally. France was torn apart by bitter political infighting, countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia or Hungary and Romania had border disputes. The countries that did not become pro-Axis were too small and disorganized to stand up when it came to the crunch.

Munich. Chamberlain is derided as being weak and spineless, but it is necessary to see the whole thing in context. Britain and France had no commitments to Czechoslovakia, which was a brand-new country to them, and France refused to back up Britain if it came to the military option. Nor could Chamberlain rely on the support of the British public if push came to shove. In the end he had to pull off the best deal that he could in the circumstances. Perhaps he underestimated Hitler and his integrity, but then did everybody else until 1939.

Last but not least, the perceived Communist threat. Stalin showed that he too was not averse to brinkmanship and snapping up some unconsidered trifles when people were not looking. Many of the smaller countries felt they had to ally themselves with one of the major powers, but found that Britain and France could not or would not deliver the goods.

Hollywood loves to show films of the second half of the war, but very little of its disastrous start, or the diplomatic and political maneuvering that preceded it.