Did Hitler have an end goal during the "appeasement" phase, or was he just picking a fight?

score:13

Accepted answer

Hitler wanted Germany to take a place on the world scene which was appropriate to the Herrenvolk.

This required 3 stages:

  1. Taking Alsace-Loraine from France
  2. Taking Lebensraum from the Slavs in the East
  3. Re-taking colonies from Britain and France

Obviously,

  1. 1 and 2 could be achieved in any order, but 3 probably required 1 & 2.
  2. Both 1 & 2 required a war.

Thus Hitler did not much care whether his actions would bring a war or not, he, apparently, believed his own propaganda and thus thought that Germany would win any war. Thus he was trying to strengthen his position ahead of the inevitable conflict, and if that lead to immediate hostilities, so much for the better.

I don't think he had a very clear understanding of the British and French attitudes, and he did not realize that after he took the non-German parts of Czechoslovakia, the Entente had resolved to go to war. However, even if he did, that would probably not have changed his policies.

Note that he always pretended to be a peacemaker and claimed the Entente to be the warmongers (the line repeated by the Soviet propaganda until 1941).

Upvote:2

Hitler's foreign policy goals were best spelled out in "Mein Kampf" "If we speak of the soil of Europe, we speak of the soil of Russia and her vassal border states...Never tolerate the establishment of two continental powers in Europe. See an attack on Germany in any such attempt to organize a military power on the frontiers of Germany."

Apart from Russia, he saw France as the greatest obstacle to German rearmament, and expansion, and sought alliances with England and Italy (France's historical enemies). Only Italy "bought in." But Hitler sought to destroy Russia and neutralize England and Italy so that Germany could be the dominant European power.

Some people see the so-called Hossbach Memorandum as a description of Hitler's attempts to annex Austria and the Czech Republic, while France was "otherwise engaged." But this is a document kept of a meeting between Hitler and his generals by a staff colonel, while "Mein Kampf" is Hitler's autobiography/life philosophy.

Upvote:4

The two are not mutually exclusive.
The "apeas*m*nt" had the purpose (and effect) to blunt and slow the military readiness of Germany's future enemies, while allowing Germany to build up its own armed forces to the levels needed for the upcoming campaigns.
It also gave Germany, through diplomatic means, access to the industrial capability and natural resources of Austria and the Sudetenland, important for her war industry, without having to fire a shot (and especially in case of Austria with overwhelming support from the local population).
It allowed Germany to pick and choose the moment to unleash the war it was seeking, was sure would be inevitable in the end, rather than have that moment dictated to them by outside forces.
And having the treaty with the USSR ensured both that there'd be no second front until such a time as Germany chose there to be one (though in the end suspicions about possible Soviet buildup may have sped up the plans for operation Barbarossa) and Soviet support during Germany's build up, both in the form of supplies (Ukrainian grain and Russian steel) and logistics (many German troops were trained in the USSR, especially those that would fall foul of the Versaille restrictions).

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