How can we understand appeasement in context?

Britain – Appeasement, 1930-1939

In this course, Professor Julie Gottlieb (University of Sheffield) explores appeasement in the run up to the Second World War. In the first lecture, we think about how to understand appeasement in the context of the time. In the second lecture, we think about the responses to appeasement in the 1930s. Next, we think about potential alternatives to appeasement which were proposed at the time. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about the response by the general public to appeasement and the impact of different contemporary resources on our retrospective view of appeasement.

How can we understand appeasement in context?

In this lecture, we think about understanding appeasement in context, focusing in particular on: (i) the Munich Agreement (1938), wherein Germany, Britain, France and Italy permitted the German annexation of the Sudetenland; (ii) the dominance of foreign policy in discussion in the late 1930s; (iii) the role of the media in polarising foreign policy in Britain; (iv) the polarisation of retrospective views on this period between support for Neville Chamberlain’s decisions and support for Winston Churchill’s; (v) appeasement as one of the most written about topics in modern British history; (vi) contemporary examples where discussions around appeasement have arisen; (vii) defining appeasement as the concessions made to the German government to achieve peace; (viii) examples of Nazi activities which were appeased by Britain and its allies on the run-up to the Second World War; (ix) Konrad Henlein’s claim in 1938 that Sudeten Germans were being mistreated by the Czechoslovakians; (x) Chamberlain’s failed ‘bargain’ with Hitler in September 1938, offering that the Czech’s give up their territory to Germany; (xi) Chamberlain’s speech on the 27th of September 1938; (xii) the absence of representatives from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia from a meeting of powers in Munich, resulting in the Munich Agreement on September 30th 1938; (xiii) Chamberlain and Hitler’s Anglo-German Declaration, representing ‘peace in our time’; (xiv) Neville Chamberlain’s popularity in Britain after the signing of the Munich Agreement.