have no iAppeasement was the honourable policy of recognising that a country has grievances, which should be addressed so that negotiations can be brought around to avoid war. Britain really wanted to avoid war after the damage …

Hitler’s becomes chancellor – aims and first steps

/>As a matter of fact, when Hitler became chancellor there was no fundamental change in German foreign policy: the key factor remained the revision of the Versailles Treaty, an aim which the moderate Streseman and Hitler’s predecessor, Brüning, had already commenced. What was different, though, was the pace at which Hitler proceeded.

According to Alan Bullock, Hitler combined, “consistency of aim with complete opportunism in method and tactics.” Whether or not Hitler essentially desired to initiate a war remains disputed – some historians argue that the historically debated “Hossbach Memorandum” (in which Hitler clarifies his intentions to invade Czechoslovakia and Austria, even in the event of war) clearly shows that Hitler desired to launch a general war, but others like AJP Taylor, believed it no more than, “day dreaming, unrelated to what followed in real life,” as the aim of the meeting had been to discuss the armaments programme, not foreign policy.

His minimal aims, as noted by himself in “Mein Kampf” were certainly to a) relieve Germany of the burden of Versailles, this meant to b) start re-armament and make German recover her international position and c) unite all the German-speaking people (Sudetenland, Austria, Danzig in particular) and incorporate them into the Reich; also, Hitler d) desired “Lebensraum”, that is, living space in the east, for the German people to live (this required an expansion into the Ukraine and the Soviet Union).

In any case, his first step was, at the Disarmament Conference at Geneva, to demand parity with the other powers and, after France rejected this on grounds of fear of vulnerability in case of a German expansion, decided to withdraw Germany both from the Conference and the League of Nations (October 1933).

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