Why Is The Munich Agreement An Example Of Appeasement

Chamberlain`s direct manipulation of the BBC was sustained and blatant. [62] For example, Lord Halifax told radio producers not to insult Hitler and Mussolini, and they acquiesced by censoring anti-fascist comments from Labour and Popular Front MPs. The BBC also removed the fact that 15,000 people protested against the prime minister in Trafalgar Square on his return from Munich in 1938 (10,000 more than welcomed him at 10 Downing Street). [63] BBC radio producers continued to censor news of Jewish persecution even after the outbreak of war, as Chamberlain still drew attention to a swift ceasefire and did not want to warm the atmosphere. [64] As Richard Cockett noted, today, the Munich Accords are widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become “the quintessence of the futility of appeasement of totalitarian expansionist states.” [5] The agreement was generally well received. French Prime Minister Daladier did not believe, as one scholar put it, that a European war was justified “to keep three million Germans under Czech sovereignty.” But the same argument applies to Alsace-Lorraine – unlike the alliance between France and Czechoslovakia against German aggression. Gallup polls in Britain, France and the United States showed that the majority of people supported the deal. President Beneš was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939. [52] Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls for a policy of confrontation at the European level to counter the threat of radical Islam, comparing a policy of non-confrontation with Neville Chamberlain`s appeasement of Hitler. [89] Since the policy of appeasement could not prevent war, those who advocated it were quickly criticized.

Appeasement was seen as something that should be avoided by the diplomatic officials of Britain or any other democratic country. In contrast, the few who opposed appeasement were seen as “voices in the wilderness whose wise counsel was largely ignored, with almost catastrophic consequences for the nation in 1939-40.” [33] More recently, however, historians have questioned the correctness of this simple distinction between soothing and anti-appeasers. “Few soothing people were really ready to seek peace at all costs; Few, if any, anti-appeasers were prepared for Britain to resist the aggression, regardless of the circumstances and where it took place. [33] Some leftists have said that Chamberlain is looking forward to a war between Germany and Russia. [11] Labour Party leader Clement Attlee claimed in a political speech in 1937 that the national government had mocked German rearmament “because of its hatred of Russia.” [47] The British Communists argued, following the party line defined by Joseph Stalin,[52] that appeasement was a pro-fascist policy and that the British ruling class had preferred fascism to socialism. Communist MP Willie Gallacher said that “many prominent representatives of the Conservative Party who speak on behalf of powerful land and financial interests in the country would welcome Hitler and the German army if they believed that this was the only alternative to the establishment of socialism in this country.” [53]. . .

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