Question for Gawdzilla

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Actually, not so much. The US began to ramp up armament production and greatly enlarge the armed forces after the fall of France. For example, 11 Essex-class aircraft carriers were ordered in 1940. One reason the Japanese attacked when they did was they knew it was then or never.

Conspiracists are forever claiming that FDR was looking for any excuse to enter the war; in fact, his military advisors were urging him to delay entering the war as long as possible, in order to give them more time to prepare. They also had to dissuade him from lend-leasing so much war materiel to the Allies that there wouldn't have been enough left to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding Army and Navy.

In the Pearl Harbor Hearings there is a letter from the heads of the Army and Navy pleading with FDR to delay the start of hostilities as long as he could, "sixty days if possible." This was in November, 1941.

And there's this one from Nov. 27th.

 

[Tolls]

Conspiracists are forever claiming that FDR was looking for any excuse to enter the war; in fact, his military advisors were urging him to delay entering the war as long as possible, in order to give them more time to prepare.

This is similar to the situation in 1938 for Chamberlain, though he was no doubt happier to delay than Roosevelt.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This is similar to the situation in 1938 for Chamberlain, though he was no doubt happier to delay than Roosevelt.

FDR was looking to get into the war, he believed it was better to fight the Nazis somewhere other than the Atlantic seaboard. The idea that he would do so at "any cost" has fueled the LIHOP school of Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories.

 

[Corsair 115]

FDR was looking to get into the war, he believed it was better to fight the Nazis somewhere other than the Atlantic seaboard.

An interesting foreshadowing of the "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" line from some years back.

 

[Craig B]

FDR was looking to get into the war, he believed it was better to fight the Nazis somewhere other than the Atlantic seaboard.

So that's why the Atlantic seaboard was a shooting gallery for U boats when the US entered the war, with merchant ships sailing past un blacked out cities, back lit in silhouette, and no preorganised convoys? That's why nothing seems to have been prepared for such a contingency as an Atlantic war with Germany even though the USA was already engaged in action against German u boats?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So that's why the Atlantic seaboard was a shooting gallery for U boats when the US entered the war, with merchant ships sailing past un blacked out cities, back lit in silhouette, and no preorganised convoys? That's why nothing seems to have been prepared for such a contingency as an Atlantic war with Germany even though the USA was already engaged in action against German u boats?

Two different topics there. FDR wanted to get into the European War to save England and prevent us from eventually having to fight the Fascists here. The convoy problem was bad management on the part of the Navy.

 

[ddt]

This is similar to the situation in 1938 for Chamberlain, though he was no doubt happier to delay than Roosevelt.

It's only too bad he forgot to make a good assessment of the Czech capabilities of fighting the Nazi war machine. The war could have been mightily different if the Nazis had run up first against the Czech defences.

 

[HansMustermann]

Probably even worse that building those Czech forts helped make a case that actually there is a Sudetenland crisis. You know, all that relocation, expropriation, and plain old taking the money of German nationals there. Someone had to pay for those forts, and apparently someone had to be expropriated and relocated, 'cause God knows that if you speak German near the border you're already a traitor.

It's catchy to remember it as appeasing Hitler, and yeah, that was a lot of the motivation too. It's apparently harder to remember that another large factor was that there actually was an ethnic problem there.

I could go into the whole debate about that, but let's just say that when a majority of those would rather live under Hitler's slavery than under the Czechs, you know you have an actual problem there.

So, yeah, the Czechs built some nice fortifications there... and it only cost creating the problem that would cause them to lose the area where those forts were. Nice move, really

 

[Craig B]

... I could go into the whole debate about that, but let's just say that when a majority of those would rather live under Hitler's slavery than under the Czechs, you know you have an actual problem there.

Ethnic Germans were in many cases, most unfortunately, seduced by Nazi blandishments into the belief that they were superior to their Slavic neighbours. They lived in a democracy - a flawed, but real one - where they were no longer part of the German speaking elite, but part of the mass; and Hitler promised to restore their pre-eminence. Just as Austrians fell for it in 1938, so did the Sudetenland Germans, in large measure. They too voted in favour of the Nazi régime.

... on 4 December 1938 there were elections in Reichsgau Sudetenland, in which 97.32% of the adult population voted for NSDAP. About a half million Sudeten Germans joined the Nazi Party which was 17.34% of the total German population in Sudetenland (the average NSDAP membership participation in Nazi Germany was merely 7.85% in 1944). This means the Sudetenland was one of the most pro-Nazi regions of the Third Reich. Because of their knowledge of the Czech language, many Sudeten Germans were employed in the administration of the ethnic Czech Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well as in Nazi organizations (Gestapo, etc.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, yeah, the Czechs built some nice fortifications there... and it only cost creating the problem that would cause them to lose the area where those forts were. Nice move, really

So, you think the Nazis wouldn't have rolled in and taken the territory if the forts hadn't been built?

 

[HansMustermann]

Ethnic Germans were in many cases, most unfortunately, seduced by Nazi blandishments into the belief that they were superior to their Slavic neighbours. They lived in a democracy - a flawed, but real one - where they were no longer part of the German speaking elite, but part of the mass; and Hitler promised to restore their pre-eminence. Just as Austrians fell for it in 1938, so did the Sudetenland Germans, in large measure. They too voted in favour of the Nazi régime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland

Well, that's kinda the point. In Austria you didn't see 97% voting for their NSDAP variant. And as your quote says, actual party membership was higher than in Germany.

Something was awfully wrong there.

And actually Allied observers said so. E.g., here's what Lord Runciman wrote on scene: "I have great sympathy for the cause of the Sudeten Germans. It is difficult to be governed by a foreign nation, and my impression is that Czechoslovak rule in the Sudetenland displays such a lack of tact and understanding, and so much petty intolerance and discrimination, that dissatisfaction among the German population must inevitably lead to outrage and rebellion."

THAT was also a factor in the British decision. People make it sound like Chamberlain just took a random piece of Czechoslovakia and gave it to Hitler, just to appease him.

The more mundane other factor, though, is that they had waved around the people's right to self-determination when they dismembered their enemies after WW1. And a lot of the pieces taken had essentially been gerrimandered with surrounding territories where people actually didn't really want to go to another nation. (Check out the historical borders of Transilvania vs what was awarded to Romania after WW1 for an EXTREME case of padding it with extra territories and people who didn't want to secede from Hungary in the first place.) In Czechoslovakia's case, 3 million Germans, and areas where they (in some cases) were up to 90% of the population, were forced to be part of Czechoslovakia, although they said from the start -- and all along -- that they don't want to. Where was THOSE people's right to self-determination?

Well, now it turned out that those people are subject to discrimination and intolerance, and keep asking for that right to self-determination too. Could you tell for example the Croats in the '90 to just <bleepin'> stay in Yugoslavia, as they had been assigned? Well, that's the moral dilemma that existed in '38 about the Sudeten Germans. It was increasingly hard to say with a straight face that in the name of the people's right to self determination, those people don't have that right.

And yeah, I'll say it was a flawed democracy. One of the "unacceptable demands" that Hitler told the Sudetenland NSDAP to demand, in order to destabilize the situation was... equal rights with the Czechs.

Mind you, not that I'm saying Hitler was a good guy or actually giving a rat's anus about equal rights for minorities. But, you know, something has to be awfully wrong when he starts to look like the good guy to a minority.

 

[HansMustermann]

So, you think the Nazis wouldn't have rolled in and taken the territory if the forts hadn't been built?

Probably they would have at least tried, but it might have been a lot harder to convince the UK and France to essentially side with Hitler there. I mean, in '38 an alliance with the UK and France might have actually worked, at least for a while, especially since without that partition, the USSR would have also been less inclined to look for an alliance with Germany. (Which really is what paralyzed everyone in the invasion of Poland.)

Plus, even if they wanted SOME forts, they didn't have to go all out for building an equivalent of the Maginot line faster than the French did. Keep it tame, don't splurge money confiscated from minorities on it, and you might have SOME defense and not lose it in a treaty.

I mean, the way they did it, they still didn't end up with forts in the end, did they? Seems to me like their way plain old didn't work.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You have an alternative for them?

 

[HansMustermann]

Err... I just wrote one, but do I even need to have one? I wasn't aware that expecting people to be nice to minorities is conditional of it being convenient, and it not getting in the way of other things that could be achieved by being a dick to minorities.

 

[Craig B]

Err... I just wrote one, but do I even need to have one? I wasn't aware that expecting people to be nice to minorities is conditional of it being convenient, and it not getting in the way of other things that could be achieved by being a dick to minorities.

Most sources appear to be slightly less kind to Runciman. Even his wiki bio has this to say

Neville Chamberlain, sent him to Czechoslovakia to see if he could obtain a settlement between the Czechoslovak government and the Sudeten Germans in the Sudetenland. In the beginning of his mission he had reasonable hope to achieve a kind of automomy for the Sudetenland within Czechoslovakia, following the Swiss model. Due to a propaganda campaign, fueled from Hitler's Germany, the majority of the frustrated German population, however, wanted the Sudetenland to become part of Germany. Runciman's final report supported this solution and thus led to the Munich Agreement.

My bold.

 

[HansMustermann]

1. Even that quote doesn't say that his report was wrong. It says the propaganda agitated the local German population, not that he was somehow misled by it or anything.

2. I'd be curious how Hitler's propaganda could have worked there in 1919 or in the 20's, since those guys didn't want to be a part of Czechoslovakia all along.

3. True, the NSDAP propaganda helped bring things to a boiling point, but I'd point out that even in Germany during the economic crisis or in Austria that propaganda didn't work THAT well. You can fool some people, but you don't fool 97% of the people unless they do have a problem.

4. Seems to me like "right to self determination" does include the right to fall for propaganda or otherwise make bad decisions. The opposite point of view is basically paternal autocracy: people can't make their own informed choices, and must be ruled by someone who knows better what they need. And honestly, if that's hard to support with a straight face for an individual autocrat, why is it ok for nations?

5. The report did mention that the Czechs are not really nice there. Not just that the Germans want to secede.

6. Be it as it may, nevertheless, even your quote says that report played a role. It wasn't just giving Hitler some land to appease him.

 

[Craig B]

... 3. True, the NSDAP propaganda helped bring things to a boiling point, but I'd point out that even in Germany during the economic crisis or in Austria that propaganda didn't work THAT well. You can fool some people, but you don't fool 97% of the people unless they do have a problem.

Then the Austrians had a problem too. An even bigger one, by that measure, as shown in the Anschluss referendum. Not a mere 97%!

The result was reported as 99.73% in favour, with a 99.71% turnout.

Must we say that Vienna groaned beneath the yoke of Austrian occupation until Hitler rescued it? Or may we accept that the Austrians and the Sudeteners succumbed to Nazi ethnic supremacism? The behaviour of many of them in subsequent years indicates that the latter supposition is not void of merit.

 

[Tolls]

It's only too bad he forgot to make a good assessment of the Czech capabilities of fighting the Nazi war machine. The war could have been mightily different if the Nazis had run up first against the Czech defences.

The staff had made an assessment, and it was no different than that wrt Poland the following year.
They felt the Czechs wouldn't last more than a matter of weeks.

 

[ddt]

And actually Allied observers said so. E.g., here's what Lord Runciman wrote on scene: "I have great sympathy for the cause of the Sudeten Germans. It is difficult to be governed by a foreign nation, and my impression is that Czechoslovak rule in the Sudetenland displays such a lack of tact and understanding, and so much petty intolerance and discrimination, that dissatisfaction among the German population must inevitably lead to outrage and rebellion."

THAT was also a factor in the British decision. People make it sound like Chamberlain just took a random piece of Czechoslovakia and gave it to Hitler, just to appease him.

Yes, there was institutionalized discrimination going on against the Sudeten Germans. Wiki also mentions as a significant factor that unemployment was much, much higher than in the Czech heartland, mainly because the economy of Sudetenland relied much more on export - to Germany - than the economy of the Czech-speaking parts.

Do you have a reference that expropriation etc. for the fortress line was another factor?

The more mundane other factor, though, is that they had waved around the people's right to self-determination when they dismembered their enemies after WW1. And a lot of the pieces taken had essentially been gerrimandered with surrounding territories where people actually didn't really want to go to another nation. (Check out the historical borders of Transilvania vs what was awarded to Romania after WW1 for an EXTREME case of padding it with extra territories and people who didn't want to secede from Hungary in the first place.) In Czechoslovakia's case, 3 million Germans, and areas where they (in some cases) were up to 90% of the population, were forced to be part of Czechoslovakia, although they said from the start -- and all along -- that they don't want to. Where was THOSE people's right to self-determination?

To nitpick, the right of self-determination was Wilson's hobby horse, not so much that of the UK and France.

Well, now it turned out that those people are subject to discrimination and intolerance, and keep asking for that right to self-determination too. Could you tell for example the Croats in the '90 to just <bleepin'> stay in Yugoslavia, as they had been assigned? Well, that's the moral dilemma that existed in '38 about the Sudeten Germans. It was increasingly hard to say with a straight face that in the name of the people's right to self determination, those people don't have that right.

That seems a flawed comparison. Czechoslovakia got the Bohemian crown lands with the borders that had existed since 980 or so. Yugoslavia was also dismembered along existing borders of federal states. The Serbs in the Krajina would be a better comparison.

And yeah, I'll say it was a flawed democracy. One of the "unacceptable demands" that Hitler told the Sudetenland NSDAP to demand, in order to destabilize the situation was... equal rights with the Czechs.

You're right that that should have been a superfluous demand, in that it should have been the case from the start. IIRC, the Czech government acceded to several demands from Hitler and Henlein, then to be confronted by additional demands.

 

[ddt]

The staff had made an assessment, and it was no different than that wrt Poland the following year.
They felt the Czechs wouldn't last more than a matter of weeks.

That sounds a bit vague. The German army command inspected the fortifications and said they were glad they were not up against that.

Hasn't anyone made a wargame of it - either as a game or as a military exercise - with the real strengths of the German and the Czechoslovak armies and fortifications?