The Rhetoric of Appeasement: Hitler's Legitimation and British Foreign Policy, 1938–39

AbstractFew grand strategies have been more scrutinized than Britain's decision to appease Nazi Germany. From 1933 to 1938, Britain eschewed confrontation and attempted to settle German demands. However in the five months following the negotiations at Munich, the British abandoned appeasement and embraced a policy of confronting the German state. The roots of both appeasement and confrontation can be found in Germany's legitimation strategies. Until the Munich crisis, Adolf Hitler justified Germany's aims with appeals to collective security, equality, and self-determination—norms central to the European system established by the Treaty of Versailles. After Munich, in contrast, German politicians abandoned these legitimation strategies, arguing instead that expansion was justified as a matter of German might, and not international rights. As Britain came to see German demands as illegitimate, so too did they decide this revisionist state was insatiable, impervious to negotiation, and responsive only to the language of force. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSFor comments on previous drafts, I thank Charles Glaser, Ronald R. Krebs, Paul MacDonald, John Mearsheimer, Jonathan Mercer, Jennifer Mitzen, Jack Snyder, Steve Walt, Bill Wohlforth, and Keren Yahri-Milo. I also benefited tremendously from feedback from several workshops, including seminars at the University of Washington, Princeton University, Harvard University, George Washington University, the University of Chicago, and participants in the International Studies Association's 2011 workshop, "Language and the Politics of Grand Strategy." I am also grateful to Security Studies' anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful comments.NotesThe literature on appeasement is too voluminous to cite in its entirety. It can be divided into three schools of historiography: a "traditionalist" school, which largely condemns appeasement as irrational; a "revisionist" school, which sees appeasement as, if not completely effective, a generally rational response to Germany given strategic constraints; and a "post-revisionist" school, which questions the rationality of appeasement. For a traditionalist account, see Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1: The Gathering Storm (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1948); "Cato" [Michael Foot, Peter Howard, and Frank Owen], Guilty Men (London: Penguin, 1998). Revisionist historiography is often argued to have begun with A. J. P. Taylor's, The Origins of the Second World War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995). Other revisionist accounts, more steeped in documentary evidence, include W. N. Medlicott, British Foreign Policy since Versailles, 1919–1963 (London: Methuen, 1968); D. C. Watt, "1939 Revisited: On Theories of the Origins of Wars," International Affairs 65, no. 4 (Autumn 1989): 685–92; David Dilks, "Appeasement Revisited," University of Leeds Review 15 (1972): 28–56; Dilks, "'We Must Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst': The Prime Minister, the Cabinet and Hitler's Germany, 1937–1939," Proceedings of the British Academy 73 (1987): 309–52; Paul M. Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), 99–100; Brian McKercher, "'Our Most Dangerous Enemy': Great Britain Pre-eminent in the 1930s," International History Review 13, no. 4 (November 1991): 751–83. For examples of the counter-revisionist school, see R. A. C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993); Parker, Churchill and Appeasement: Could Churchill Have Prevented the Second World War (New York: Macmillan, 2000); Neville Thompson, The Anti-Appeasers: Conservative Opposition to Appeasement in the 1930s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). For a succinct recent overview of the historiography, see Patrick Finney, "Introduction," in The Origins of the Second World War: a Reader, ed. Patrick Finney (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), 12–17.Paul M. Kennedy, "The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy 1865–1935," British Journal of International Studies 2, no. 3 (Autumn 1976): 195. See also Paul W. Schroeder, "Munich and the British Tradition, "Historical Journal 19, no. 1 (Spring 1976): 223–43.For accounts that blame individuals, and particularly Chamberlain's, assessment, see Churchill, The Gathering Storm. For more recent accounts, see Erik Goldstein, "Neville Chamberlain, the British Official Mind, and the Munich Crisis," Diplomacy and Statecraft 10, nos. 2–3 (July 1999): 276–92; Keren Yahri-Milo, "In the Eye of the Beholder: How Leaders and Intelligence Communities Assess the Intentions of Adversaries," International Security 38, no. 1 (Summer 2013): 7–51. For a general theory of domestic politics and "underbalancing," see Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats : Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006). On domestic constraints in Britain and their influence on grand strategy, see Schroeder, "Munich and the British Tradition"; Kevin Narizny, "Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament," American Political Science Review 97, no. 2 (May 2003): 203–20.Churchill, Gathering Storm, 293 ("long series"), 273 ("policy tantamount").See for example Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time?: The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security 33, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 148–81; Ripsman and Levy, "The Preventive War that Never Happened: Britain, France, and the Rise of Germany in the 1930s," Security Studies 16, no. 1 (January 2007): 32–67; John J. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 185; Christopher Layne, "Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Revisited," Security Studies 17, no. 3 (Autumn 2008): 397–437.See for example, Ripsman and Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time."See for example, Robert Jervis, Logic of Images (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 177; Layne, "Security Studies and the Use of History"; Yahri-Milo, "In the Eye of the Beholder," 42.Roger Eatwell, "Munich, Public Opinion, and Popular Front," Journal of Contemporary History 6, no. 4 (October 1971), 139.As discussed in detail below, historians have attributed this change to British revulsion towards a number of events in Germany, including the events of Kristallnacht and increasing persecution of the Jews. Here, I focus on the rhetoric that emerged from Hitler's propaganda campaign following Munich. My focus on language is thus consistent, though perhaps more narrow, with the counter-revisionist historiography on the change in British foreign policy. See for example, Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 679–80; Gerhard L. Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 1933–1939 (New York: Enigma Books), esp. 677–85; Eatwell, "Munich, Public Opinion, and Popular Front," 131.Zara Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 83.See "British Policy Towards Germany," Foreign Office, FO 371/19885, 20 February 1936; "Germany's Return to the League of Nations," FO 371/18848, 18 July 1935; "German Foreign Policy," FO 371/19884, 22 January 1936.For annexing, see Lord Lothian's proposal to cede these territories on 3 June 1937, published in J. R. M. Butler, Lord Lothian, 1882–1940 (London: Macmillan, 1960), 215, 354–62. Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Berlin, also promoted territorial concessions in the East. See Sir Nevile Henderson, "Anglo-German Relations," FO 371/20736, 12 July 1937. For a discussion about these proposals, see "Anglo-German Relations," FO 371/20736, 20 July 1937. Halifax would raise the possibility of altering the boundaries of the Sudetenland, Memel, and Danzig in his meetings with Hitler in November 1937. See the summary of these meetings in "Foreign Office: Private Office Papers of Sir Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs," FO 954/10A, November 1937. As discussed below, questions about whether to cede Eastern European territory to Germany would continue after Munich. For Czech boundaries, see "Foreign Office: Private Office Papers of Sir Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs," FO 954/10A, November 1937. For a discussion of this conversation, see also Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 338.See for example, "Germany's Contributions toward General Appeasement," PREM 1/330, 22 January 1936; "Peace Plan of the German Government of March 31, 1936 handed to the British Government by Ambassador von Ribbentrop on April 1, 1936," FO/954/10A, 2 April 1936; "German Foreign Policy," FO 371/19884, 22 January 1936.On the unity of British opinion after Munich, see for example Eatwell, "Munich, Public Opinion, and Popular Front."On the expanded bombing campaign see "Conclusions of a meeting with a Cabinet held at 10 Downing Street on Monday, 7 November, 1938," Cabinet Papers, CAB 23/96. On the voluntary national service campaign, see "Germany and the Return of Colonies," Times, 24 January 1939. On expansion of the rearmament effort, see for example, Cabinet Meeting 8(39), FO 371/22929, 22 February 1939. For a discussion see Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 683.House of Commons Debate, Hansard, 6 February 1939, vol. 343, col. 623.Some scholars argue that the British remained reluctant to form an alliance with the Soviet Union, even through the summer of 1939. See for example, Michael Jabara Carley, 1939: The Alliance that Never Was and the Coming of World War II (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1999); Louise G. Shaw, The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2007). Certainly part of the reason an alliance was not pursued more fervently was British distrust of Soviet motives. Yet Keith Nielson and others make a convincing argument that impediments to an Anglo-Soviet alliance rested not only or even primarily in anti-Bolshevism, but in more mundane quarrels about alliance structure, particularly guarantees to the Eastern European states. For a summary of difficulties with the Eastern European states, see "Negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the Soviet Government, March–May 1939," FO 371/23065/C7010/3356/18, 7 May 1939. For an analysis, see Nielson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 315.Nielson, Britain, Soviet Russia, and the Collapse of the Versailles Treaty, 262.Quoted in ibid., 265.See for example, CAB 23/99, 10 May, 1939.Donald Lammers, "From Whitehall After Munich: the Foreign Office and the Future Course of British Policy," Historical Journal 16, no. 4 (Winter 1973): 856.Ripsman and Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time," 156.Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 99–100.As discussed below, this view of appeasement as an end in and of itself is a cornerstone of the post-revisionist historiography on British grand strategy. See for example, Steiner, Triumph of the Dark; Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement.Sarah Wilkinson, "Perceptions of Public Opinion: British Foreign Policy Decisions about Nazi Germany, 1933–1938," PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2000, 283."Meeting of the cabinet to be held at No. 10 Downing Street, S. W., on Monday 31st October, 1938," CAB 23/96. See also "Joint Declaration between German Chancellor and Prime Minister," FO 371/21658, 4 October 1938; "Interview between Mr. Chamberlain and Dr. Seibert," FO 371/21658, 5 October 1938.For the definitive assessment of the military balance of power in this period, see Williamson Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–1939 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). As Steiner states, "the existing balance of power in terms of comparative military strength had moved against Britain and France." Steiner, "British Decisions for Peace and War," in History and Neorealism, ed. Ernest May, Richard Rosecrance, and Zara Steiner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 137.As Steiner argues, when debating the merits of confrontation most elites "did not think of balances; they just assumed that Britain and its empire would prevail." Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 1035.On the shift in public opinion, see Daniel Hucker, Public Opinion and the End of Appeasement in Britain and France (Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2011); Sarah Wilkinson, "Perceptions of Public Opinion," 282–319.For an example of this shift in cabinet discussions, see Halifax, "Cabinet: Committee on Foreign policy," FO 371/21658, 23 November 1938. For a discussion about the lack of strategic thinking in post-Munich Britain, see Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, esp. 772, 1035; Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 682–83.For an argument about Britain's rational uncertainty about Hitler's intentions, see Layne, "Security Studies and the Use of History."Ibid.; see also Dilks, "'We Must Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst.'"Such "buckpassing," as Snyder and Christensen argue, was individually rational, but it produced a collective nightmare, undermining Britain's ability to present a credible deterrent to Hitler's expansionist aims. See Thomas J. Christensen and Jack L. Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity," International Organization 44, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 137–68.See James D. Morrow, "The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation," in International Politics," in Strategic Choice and International Relations, ed. David A. Lake and Robert Powell (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 771.As Finney summarizes, these historians argue that "when Hitler proved in March 1939 that he could not be trusted, Chamberlain's policy became one of deterrence and resistance, and his careful handling of affairs through his whole premiership ensured that war came at the best possible conjuncture with the nation united and prepared." Finney, "The Romance of Decline: The Historiography of Appeasement and British National Identity," Electronic Journal of International History 1 (June 2000): 1471–43. Security studies scholars have adopted this timeline as well. Layne, for example, argues that Hitler's real aims remained "shrouded in ambiguity until the period between Munich and Prague," without explaining what costly action revealed Hitler's intentions during that time period. Layne, "Security Studies and the Use of History," 33.Schweller, "Unanswered Threats," 11.Narizny, "Both Guns or Butter."Schweller, "Unanswered Threats."Talbot C. Imlay, Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics, and Economics in Britain and France 1938–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 187.Ibid.See the analysis in ibid.; Hucker, "Public Opinon between Munich and Prague: The View from the French Embassy," Contemporary British History 25, no. 3 (September 2011); Wilkinson, "Perception of Public Opinion," 282–319.Documents Diplomatiques Francais, 2nd ser., vol. XI, no. 492, Charles Corbin to Georges Bonnet, 30 September 1938. For discussions of British public opinion after Munich, as well as elite interpretation of public opinion, see ibid.Times, 1 October 1938.See for example, Jon Elster, "Strategic Uses of Argument," in Barriers to Conflict Resolution, ed. Kenneth Arrow (New York, NY: Norton, 1995): 236–57; Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).This argument is associated with work on "cheap talk." For an excellent rationalist account of cheap talk during a crisis, see Robert F. Trager, "Diplomatic Calculus in Anarchy: How Communication Matters," American Political Science Review 104, no. 2 (May 2010): 347–68.James G. March and Johan Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: the Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989). On legitimacy and constructivism, see for example, Ian Hurd, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics," International Organization 53, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 379–408; Erik Voeten, "The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force," International Organization 59, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 527–57.This is not always the case. Some constructivists argue that legitimacy augments material power (see for example, Voeten, "The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force"; Richard Little, "British Neutrality versus Offshore Balancing in the American Civil War: The English School Strikes Back," Security Studies 16, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 68–95.Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Janice Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics: Identity, Crisis, and Representational Force (London: Routledge, 2004).This discussion draws from my previous work on rhetoric and underbalancing. See Stacie E. Goddard, "When Right Makes Might: How Prussia Overturned the European Balance of Power," International Security 33, no. 3 (Winter 2008/2009): 110–42.G. John Ikenberry After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Ikenberry, "America's Imperial Ambition," Foreign Affairs 81, no. 5 (September/October 2002): 44–60; Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: the Global Response to American Primacy (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005); Mlada Bukovansky, Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).Ronald R. and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson Krebs, "Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric," European Journal of International Relations 13, no. 1 (March 2007), 45.Kelly Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced and Foreign Policy NY: University Press, discussion is with a in international and theory more that argues that for in the public See most Elster, and in (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, The of Foreign Review of International Studies no. 2 and Daniel "The on Politics no. 4 2013): and Jackson, "Twisting a discussion of security, see Jennifer Mitzen, Security in World Politics: State and the Security European Journal of International Relations no. 3 (September for example, Charles Glaser, of and the World Politics 44, no. 4 (Summer in Security Security Studies no. 1 (Winter of the Security and the of International Security 31, no. 2 (Fall and as in The of American of no. 1 (Spring constructivists on as a to explaining and others See most and European International Organization no. 3 (Summer E. and in International Politics NY: University, and and Political International Organization no. 4 (Autumn A. and European Journal of International Relations no. 1 (March 2001), Richard the Civil International Organization no. 3 (Summer argument is in with and that a itself to a it is to from the and see for example, and in and International Organization 59, no. 4 (October 2005): a summary of post-revisionist see Finney, the to World War II (New York: Routledge, the counter-revisionist see 1 and of this from and with German foreign on the aims of German foreign policy," FO 371/19885, February of by FO 30 January from and with German foreign on the aims of German foreign policy," FO 371/19885, February of by FO 30 January from and with German foreign on the aims of German foreign policy," FO 371/19885, February 1936.For and analysis of Hitler's see Foreign Office "Anglo-German Relations," FO 23 November of Chancellor Hitler's at Times, October was Hitler's at on 6 November, 1938. For of the at the Foreign Office and analysis of Hitler's see Foreign Office "Anglo-German Relations," FO November Relations," November at 6 November, to Halifax, FO 371/21658, 24 October Relations," FO November of Chancellor Hitler's at arguing had abandoned his to and his to to the of his in the Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, See also Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, Relations," November for example, Weinberg, Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, Weinberg, "Munich after Foreign Affairs no. 1 (Fall Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, Jackson, France and the Nazi in Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, Office to FO 371/21658, 23 November 1938. to Halifax, "German on British Rearmament," FO 371/21658, 24 October 1938. See also "German on Prime and German on Mr. FO 371/21658, 4 November 1938. "German on British to German FO 371/21658, 7 November 1938; "Anglo-German Relations," FO November, "Cabinet: Committee on Foreign Policy," FO 371/21658, 23 November by "Anglo-German Relations," FO 3 to Sir John FO January Hitler's see CAB 20 March For the see and in in British Foreign Policy, 2, vol. November Office "Anglo-German FO 12 June response to from Nevile "Anglo-German Relations," FO 371/20736, 20 July in Parker, Chamberlain and to Lord Halifax, Prime Office 1/330, April Britain, Soviet Russia, and the Collapse of the Versailles accounts, as and talk about Britain's to the League as or of through which Hitler's and German rhetoric was the analysis these largely by both Nielson and Steiner to the language of than I that the is to most British politicians Germany's legitimation strategies as would if this an would be more in elites Germany's a discussion of Britain's of itself as see M. L. and Brian McKercher, and of the Balance of Power and on British Foreign Policy," Diplomacy and Statecraft no. 2 (June 2001), and Future British Foreign Policy," FO June at FO October 1937. Lord of of of League of Nations," FO September "Security FO 371/19884, February remained of in this "British Decisions for Peace and War," for example, Wilkinson, "Perceptions of Public Opinion," Future Course of British Policy," FO October German by the Secretary of State for Foreign a number of with the of German action in the FO January of British grand in the Foreign Office after Munich in Future Course of British Policy," FO October and from and For an analysis, see Lammers, From Whitehall After Munich: the Foreign Office and the Future Course of British Cabinet discussions in "Cabinet: Committee on Foreign Policy," FO 371/21658, 23 November Triumph of the Dark, to Future Course of British Policy," October Churchill and by Robert and Future British Foreign Policy," FO 23 May of the for an alliance with the Soviet Union came from the Office, with with the Soviet the Office was of the work with the Soviet Union more to see for in the of the German following discussion draws from Foreign Office Hitler's of May, FO 30 May by in from and with German Foreign on the of German Foreign Policy," FO February by R. "Anglo-German FO 12 June Thompson, The Anti-Appeasers: Conservative Opposition to Appeasement in the 1930s (Oxford: Press, 1971), in Parker, Churchill and by Foreign Office and the to which the United FO July July in Thompson, The Churchill and by and and Future British Foreign Policy," 23 May discussion draws primarily from the found in Future Course of British Policy," FO October with Mr. on International Affairs in on FO Facing the Second World War, for example, ibid., discussion in this draws from Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, to January 1939, with the Conservative Conservative University of Oxford, in Imlay, Facing the Second World War, Halifax in of the Foreign Office of an FO 371/20736, 1 Crisis," FO September 1938.See for example, Charles and the of Security in British Foreign The of the Historical 5 Nielson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles G. "The of and British Appeasement in the 1930s," Diplomacy and Statecraft 19, no. 3 (September 2008): as in and and to Halifax, FO 7 April of Chancellor Hitler's at Times, October of Hitler's at in on World to Times, 7 November, Hitler on Times, November, German for example, British policy in as and by Lord "Foreign Office at FO October, to Course of British of by Winston Churchill to Chancellor be Times, October Churchill and Germany," Times, November Triumph of the Dark, The Crisis, (New York: that Germany's with could be a of to British it was League Britain to make this as it was and in with general See by on by "German Foreign Policy," FO 371/19884, 22 January

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