Give Appeasement a Chance

Pat Buchanan:

Chamberlain's negotiated deal with Hitler averted a European war -- at the expense of the Czech nation. That was appeasement.

German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson's 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

Later:

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

You read that right: The deadliest war in human history was started because the Poles refused to appease Hitler!

Fools can often see that appeasing a monster only increases the appetite of the beast, yet Buchanan extracts the exactly wrong lesson from history.

James Taranto:

One wonders if there is any point at which Buchanan would have said, "This time, Herr Fuehrer, you've gone too far!"

Apparently not.

Links via LFG.

Comments

[Francis W. Porretto]

Buchanan is a smart, well educated man, but his premises have forbidden him to see even the plain facts of the historical record. A fine summary of the Nazi encroachments and the "diplomacy" of the pre-war years, including many quite revealing statements by Hitler and Goering in the presence of other statesmen, is available in Herman Kahn's blockbuster On Thermonuclear War. Historian John Keegan has also covered this area quite thoroughly. It's quite clear from the record that Hitler had his aims set on the conquest of Europe from very early in his ascendancy. The cessions of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and so forth only encouraged him to reach for more, in growing confidence that he would meet no opposition.

[MikeT]

He does have a point about Poland. Had the Polish never gotten themselves into the problem by annexing German lands, or had given it back to Germany, Hitler would have had a hard case to make for invading Poland. People underestimate how bitter the Germans were about the Treaty of Versailles, and the systematic looting and dishonoring their country took as a result of it. Weaker countries like Poland were idiots for ever getting involved with it.

[Saul Wall]

"Buchanan is a smart, well educated man"

I can't speak for his education which seems to be in Journalism (snicker) but I must respectfully disagree with the "smart" assessment. He is a protectionist leftist who pretends to be a Reagan conservative by virtue of being a Christian theocrat.

But the new Hitler fan club is not limited to Pat. I will not be surprised to one day see news magazine articles saying "Einstein lied, (about Nazi nuke projects) people died!" and books being printed assailing "warmongers" like Churchill for chaotic interventionism leading to millions of deaths. If Che and Castro can be heroes then surely Hitler will have his time in the sun. Now that all of his policies are back in vogue it was probably inevitable.