{"id":72362,"date":"2025-05-12T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/ich-fuerchte-es-wird-sich-ein-weiteres-muenchner-abkommen-anbahnen\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T09:44:58","slug":"i-fear-another-munich-agreement-is-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/i-fear-another-munich-agreement-is-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201eI fear another Munich Agreement is in the making\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In his book \u201cAppeasing Hitler\u201d (\u201cMit Hitler reden\u201d)<\/a>, British historian Tim Bouverie<\/strong> examines the road to World War II, focusing primarily on the British and, to some extent, French reactions to Nazi Germany. In an interview with our author Till Schmidt, Bouverie reveals the parallels he sees between history and how Putin is being dealt with today.<\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=\u201d.vc_custom_1747041931919{border-top-width: 5px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 5px !important;border-left-width: 5px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #BDEDE0 !important;border-radius: 10px !important;border-color: #BDEDE0 !important;}\u201d]Tim Bouverie, born in 1987, studied history at Christ Church College, Oxford. He worked as a political reporter for the BBC and writes for The Spectator, The Observer, and The Daily Telegraph, among others. Bouverie lives in London. \u201cTalking to Hitler\u201d is his first book and became a bestseller. His second book, \u201cAllies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler\u201d, was published in 2025.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=\u201c\u201d]<\/p>\n

You have studied a period that we all know how it ended. Keeping that in mind, how was it like for you, Tim Bouverie, to write this book?<\/em><\/p>\n

We all know that appeasement ended in the most catastrophic war in human history. But people at the time didn\u2019t know that. Reading the diaries of leading British politi\u00adcians, journalists, and diplomats from that period felt like following a Greek tragedy.<\/p>\n

What makes your approach special?<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea behind the book was to give readers the feeling of living through the 1930s from a British or French perspective\u2014including the moral and political dilemmas of the time. My book draws on an enormous amount of contem\u00adporary material, such as private diaries and diplo\u00admatic corre\u00adspon\u00addence. This allows me to recount the history in minute detail, right up to specific highlights such as Austria\u2019s annex\u00adation by the German Reich in 1938 and the Munich Agreement in the same year. It brings to light the enormous uncer\u00adtainties, the lack of infor\u00admation, the competing views and the debates that took place at the time.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to focus on the very unusual phenomenon of amateur diplomats. They were all members of the British ruling elite and were sent on various fact finding or peace missions to Germany in the 1930s. I also question some of the arguments that are still used today in order to defend appeasement. One of these is the idea that Prime Minister Chamberlain sought to delay the war through the Munich Agreement in order to give Britain time to prepare for war. But histor\u00adi\u00adcally this is untenable.<\/p>\n

How did the British perceive the Munich Agreement at that time?<\/em><\/p>\n

The perception exists that the British only awoke from their appeasement slumber when Hitler renounced the Munich Agreement and invaded the whole of Czecho\u00adslo\u00advakia in March 1939. However, my research has shown that the Munich Agree\u00adment\u2019s luster had faded much earlier. At first, people were simply relieved that Britain and France would not go to war in September 1938. But it quickly became clear that there had been no need to prepare for a German attack by queuing up for gas masks and digging trenches in public parks. People also quickly realized that it was the weakness of Great Britain and France that made the Munich Agreement possible.<\/p>\n

The first in a series of important events you examine is the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. What makes this war \u2013 and the inter\u00adna\u00adtional response to it \u2013 so significant?<\/em><\/p>\n

The Abyssinian War of 1935\/\u200b36 destroyed the credi\u00adbility of the League of Nations. The lackluster response of Britain and France, which consisted of imposing only a few mild sanctions on Italy, showed that democ\u00adracies would bow to violence and aggression. If Britain and France had stood up to Mussolini \u2013 which they could have done very easily, for example by blockading the Suez Canal or preventing Italian ships from supplying Italian troops or even trans\u00adporting them to Abyssinia \u2013 Hitler might have thought twice about remil\u00adi\u00adta\u00adrizing the Rhineland in March 1936. Instead, in the wake of the Abyssinian War, Britian and France only showed how weak they were. I think that is a timeless lesson. If a dictator can commit an illegal war or terri\u00adtorial seizure without being punished and without facing conse\u00adquence \u2013 because the law-abiding parts of the world do nothing about it or no serious conse\u00adquences follow \u2013 than it only encourages other dictators or would-be rulers to do the same.<\/p>\n

How did Hitler respond to the Italian aggression?<\/em><\/p>\n

Until World War II, Hitler had often tried to emulate Mussolini. It was Mussolini\u2019s successful march on Rome in 1922 that inspired Hitler\u2019s attempted coup in Munich in 1923. The Italian invasion of Abyssinia was also something Hitler admired and wanted to emulate. The German remil\u00adi\u00adta\u00adrization of the Rhineland in 1936 was a huge gamble. The French could have easily pushed back the few German troops that entered the demil\u00adi\u00adta\u00adrized zone. Hitler was aware of this, but he had observed how democ\u00adracies failed to prevent Mussolini from taking Abyssinia. Instead, they had tried to appease Mussolini with an agreement. Mussolini was rewarded for his aggression with the cession of two-thirds of occupied Abyssinia.<\/p>\n

How do you explain the reactions of Great Britain and France to this event?<\/em><\/p>\n

In both countries, there was a clear conviction that the public had no interest in a British-French inter\u00advention in Abyssinia. In the 1930s, the British faced three potential enemies: Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. The chiefs of staff constantly warned the British cabinet that it would be impos\u00adsible for the empire to face all three enemies at once. It was believed that Mussolini posed the least threat amongst these enemies. Only Germany, which was considered the most threat\u00adening nation to Western European democ\u00adracies at the time, would benefit from a serious conflict or war between Italy, Great Britain, and France. Moreover, the Italian invasion was simply not as shocking to parts of the British ruling class: A colonial war in distant Africa seemed less of an immediate threat to British and French interests than a war in Europe.<\/p>\n

However: What Britain and France failed to recognize was the connection between all these actions. Do you see any parallels with today?<\/em><\/p>\n

I would say that Putin\u2019s Abyssinia or Putin\u2019s Rhineland was the occupation of Crimea and parts of Donbass in 2014. Putin waited to see what the West would do. And the West did nothing. That is precisely why Putin was reasonably confident that the West would not take any action even when he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But, like Hitler, who thought that the British and French would always respond with appeasement, Putin\u2019s assumption proved to be wrong.<\/p>\n

Those who have pursued appeasement for a long time find it difficult to convince dictators and aggressors that they will eventually resist. This can lead to serious misjudg\u00adments on the part of dictators as well \u2013 just as the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a serious misjudgment on Putin\u2019s part. The invasions of Nazi Germany in Poland and later in France were also enormous miscal\u00adcu\u00adla\u00adtions because Hitler assumed that the democ\u00adracies would either not fight or that the British would surrender once France had been defeated.<\/p>\n

Your book clearly shows that events in Germany and further devel\u00adop\u00adments under the Nazi regime were closely followed abroad from an early stage. What trends can be seen in the corre\u00adspon\u00addence of diplomats and in the reports of media reporters who traveled to Nazi Germany? What did they perceive\u2014and what did they fail to perceive?<\/em><\/p>\n

There are two impres\u00adsions that are almost diamet\u00adri\u00adcally opposed. There was very strict censorship in Germany. Never\u00adtheless, there was extensive reporting abroad on the disman\u00adtling of German democracy and the estab\u00adlishment of an author\u00adi\u00adtarian dicta\u00adtorship, on the perse\u00adcution of Jews and, increas\u00adingly, on militarism. That caused great concern, especially among centrists and leftists in Great Britain. However, between 1934 and 1936, visitors from both the British right and center-left were extremely impressed by the self-confi\u00addence of a nation that had been defeated in World War I and had subse\u00adquently suffered greatly from the global economic crisis. They admired the way streets had been cleaned up, that homeless had been cleared away, and that unemployment appeared to have been tackled. However, what these reports failed to take into account, was the fact that unemployment was being combated primarily by boosting the German war economy.<\/p>\n

What ideological distor\u00adtions did these reports involve?<\/em><\/p>\n

In the 1930s, the fear of communism was far greater than the fear of fascism. Most people in France were alarmed, but perhaps even more so in Britain, where private property is considered a corner\u00adstone of democracy and freedom, as well as of successful capitalism. Most Britons found the treatment of German Jews distasteful and abhorrent. Only very few sympa\u00adthized with it. The Reich\u00ads\u00adpogrom\u00adnacht in November 1938 led to an uproar in all parts of society. Those on the right who despised communism admired Nazism in many ways and were ambivalent about anti-Semitism or even anti-Semitic themselves. In the wake of the November pogroms of 1938, however, many right-wingers in the British estab\u00adlishment declared publicly for the first time that Britain could not possibly expect to have normal relations with a country that behaved so barbar\u00adi\u00adcally. It is very inter\u00adesting that a German atrocity in their own country convinced former defenders of Nazism in Britain that recon\u00adcil\u00adi\u00adation with the Hitler regime was no longer possible.<\/p>\n

Hitler\u2019s \u201cMein Kampf\u201d was published in its original German version in 1923 and became required reading for Germans after the Nazis came to power ten years later. How was \u201cMein Kampf\u201d perceived and discussed by British diplomats and journalists?<\/em><\/p>\n

It is aston\u00adishing how little \u201cMein Kampf\u201d was read by British and French politi\u00adcians and diplomats. However, some studied the book carefully. Britain\u2019s first ambas\u00adsador to Berlin during the Nazi era, Sir Horace Rumbold, wrote a masterful dispatch based on his reading of \u201cMein Kampf\u201d in which he very accurately predicted the devel\u00adopment and ambitions of the Hitler regime. In his book, Hitler writes not only about his well-known desire to acquire so-called Leben\u00adsraum in Eastern Europe and Russia, but also about Germany\u2019s need to settle accounts once and for all with its old antag\u00ado\u00adnists, Great Britain and France. Hitler owned the copyright to \u201cMein Kampf\u201d, which allowed him to control its publi\u00adcation. The trans\u00adlated version was a third shorter than the original and contained less inflam\u00admatory material.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, British diplomats or visitors to Nazi Germany asked about \u201cMein Kampf,\u201d saying, \u201cWell, your leader says he wants a war of revenge, that the nation must be in a permanent state of war, that he glorifies war.\u201d They always received the same answer: \u201cOh, don\u2019t pay any attention to that. He wrote that when he was very young and in prison.\u201d This concept is familiar to us today from other heads of state. It is often said that they would no longer be so radical once they came to power, as the system would protect them from their more extreme state\u00adments made while in opposition. It is irritating that British diplomats and visitors were told to dismiss \u201cMein Kampf\u201d as juvenilia, when it was required reading in Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

What role did this naivety and credulity play in diplo\u00admatic dealings with Hitler?<\/em><\/p>\n

The British ambas\u00adsadors to Germany got worse and worse. Sir Horace Rumbold was very perceptive but had to retire in July 1933. He was replaced by Sir Eric Phipps, who wrote some very good dispatches but tended toward appeasement. His successor, Sir Neville Henderson was a complete disaster as a diplomat. Many diplomats actually believed Hitler when he said he did not want war. In reality however, Hitler tried as long as possible to hide his ambitions from the West in order to lull it into a false sense of security. And indeed, Hitler did not want war with the British Empire. But the price for all of this was that Britain had to allow German hegemony in Europe.<\/p>\n

One of the most important \u2013 and at the same time most tragic \u2013 protag\u00ado\u00adnists in your book is British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Who was this man? What is his legacy?<\/em><\/p>\n

The common image of Neville Chamberlain is that of a weak prime minister who appeased Hitler and was ineffective in doing so. As a person, however, he was a very strong and deter\u00admined prime minister who had a broad parlia\u00admentary majority behind him and was absolutely convinced that he was right and knew what he was doing. Chamberlain was deter\u00admined and resolute. He also acted extremely ruthlessly. As prime minister, he used the secret services to spy on his political opponents and resorted to dirty tricks to discredit people like Winston Churchill, who were critical of his appeasement policy, within the Conser\u00adv\u00adative Party.<\/p>\n

Neville Chamberlain was a man of peace. He had not fought in World War I like Churchill, for example. Chamberlain found war completely abhorrent and incom\u00adpre\u00adhen\u00adsible. Chamberlain simply could not under\u00adstand Hitler. He simply could not under\u00adstand anyone who wanted war. He could not comprehend how a man who had also been in the trenches during World War I could really want war. Before becoming prime minister, Chamberlain had been mayor of Birmingham and had led a rather provincial life. One of his opponents within the Conser\u00adv\u00adative Party quipped after his death: \u201cThe problem with Neville Chamberlain is that he never met anyone in Birmingham who was like Adolf Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another histor\u00adi\u00adcally important figure in your book is someone who still remains somewhat in the background: Winston Churchill. In today\u2019s Britain, his legacy is contro\u00adversial given his involvement in British colonial rule as a politician, soldier, and former war corre\u00adspondent. What is his legacy?<\/em><\/p>\n

Winston Churchill contra\u00addicts our current, often sancti\u00admo\u00adnious moral sensi\u00adbil\u00adities on numerous issues. Like most of his political contem\u00adpo\u00adraries, Churchill had Victorian ideas about race and was an imperi\u00adalist. That is one side of his person\u00adality, which can certainly be criti\u00adcized. However, unlike many of his contem\u00adpo\u00adraries, he did not harbor anti-Semitism. And one of the reasons why Churchill was able to recognize National Socialism as such a great threat and as a sinister ideology at an early stage was the anti-Semitic character of that regime.<\/p>\n

Churchill was able to under\u00adstand someone like Hitler, partly because of his historical imagi\u00adnation and his war mentality. Even before Hitler came to power, Churchill believed that Germany could start a war to avenge the humil\u00adi\u00adation of Versailles. He was almost alone among British conser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtives in this view.<\/p>\n

Britain did not win the Second World War. The support of the United States and the heroism of the Red Army were necessary to defeat Germany. But in my opinion, Churchill and the British people denied Hitler victory: Hitler came closest to victory when the war cabinet in London debated negoti\u00ada\u00adtions with Hitler in the face of France\u2019s collapse. Churchill rejected this. Peace at that point would have made it almost impos\u00adsible to overthrow the Nazi regime. Hitler would have subse\u00adquently under\u00admined the British Empire and then threatened areas of the world where the United States was active. If Britain had surren\u00addered in 1940, it would have been very difficult to save the world from Nazism.<\/p>\n

How can a comparison between the British appeasers and anti-appeasers of that time help us to better under\u00adstand the current geopo\u00adlitical changes and challenges?<\/em><\/p>\n

The British appeasers claimed that Eastern and Central Europe had never been a concern of Great Britain. As a maritime and world power, the British should be much more concerned with events in Ceylon than with events in Slovakia. Poland, it was said, was not even strate\u00adgi\u00adcally worth the bones of a single British grenadier.<\/p>\n

The anti-appeasers, on the other hand, had a very strong awareness of Britain\u2019s history \u2013 not only as an empire, but also as part of Europe. For them, British policy had been guided by a single principle for several hundred years: namely, to prevent a single power from dominating the continent. That was why Britain fought against the French revolu\u00adtionary armies and Napoleon; that was why Britain fought against the German Kaiser in World War I; and that was why Britain and France finally went to war in 1939 to prevent Nazi Germany from dominating the continent.<\/p>\n

Dictators must be stopped at some point. If Chamber\u00adlain\u2019s assessment of Hitler had been correct, then the Munich Agreement of 1938 would have made sense, even if it may have been immoral and dishon\u00adorable. Chamberlain returned from his three meetings with Hitler believing his promise that he did not want all of Czecho\u00adslo\u00advakia and was only inter\u00adested in bringing the German-speaking population into his empire. For Chamberlain, the partition of Czecho\u00adslo\u00advakia was better than another European war.<\/p>\n

Today, with Putin, one has to ask whether he is really prepared to stop his expansion in view of the agree\u00adments proposed by Trump. If it could be guaranteed that the annex\u00adation of Crimea and Donbass would be the end, then perhaps there would be something to be said for an agreement, however immoral it might be. But I have serious doubts that Putin will stop. I think an agreement would only be a respite.<\/p>\n

What funda\u00admental lessons can be learned from the period of appeasement?<\/em><\/p>\n

Analyze your opponents, potential opponents, or aggressors clearly, realis\u00adti\u00adcally, and thoroughly. What are their true goals? What are they trying to achieve, and what is their long-term goal? Does this corre\u00adspond to what they are currently claiming? So, can Putin be trusted in a possible peace agreement in Ukraine? Will this agreement be another Munich Agreement, or is it a genuine cessation of hostil\u00adities? I fear that another Munich is in the making.<\/p>\n

Secondly, do not neglect your own defense. As wrong as Donald Trump is about most things, he is right when he says that Europe has neglected its defense for far too long. Now is the time to rebuild it.<\/p>\n

And thirdly, don\u2019t take your allies for granted. The world has become much smaller since World War II. Many of the threats we face as a planet and as a species \u2013 from climate change to pandemics to cyber\u00adwarfare \u2013 can only be addressed at the multi\u00adlateral level. Allies are very important, even if they can sometimes be annoying. As Winston Churchill said, \u201cThere is only one thing in the world worse than a powerful enemy, and that is a weak ally.\u201d Even the United States may soon realize this.<\/p>\n

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