Second World War 1939: The Political Road to War — Versailles, Hitler, Appeasement & Poland // Log 030
I approach the road to war through the decisions that eventually turn political pressure into military reality. From a service perspective, treaties, guarantees, rearmament and deterrence are not abstract once they begin determining what forces are built, where they are positioned and what governments are prepared to order them to do. That is how I read this period, not as a claim that military experience provides privileged insight into 1930s politics.
The Second World War in Europe did not begin because the Treaty of Versailles somehow made another war automatic. The post-1918 settlement created grievances and instability, the Great Depression damaged democratic politics, and other powers made serious errors. But the immediate road to war was shaped above all by the choices of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state: dictatorship, racial expansionism, rearmament and a deliberate willingness to use force to overturn Europe’s borders.
This is the political parent article for the Gallus Second World War series. Log 031 follows the global military campaign; the Normandy, D-Day, prisoner-of-war and home-front articles sit beneath those two parents.
1919: Versailles and the post-war settlement
The Treaty of Versailles imposed territorial losses, military restrictions and reparations on Germany. German politicians across the spectrum criticised aspects of the settlement, and the claim that Germany had been unfairly humiliated became politically powerful.
Yet Versailles alone does not explain 1939. Germany’s borders and treaty obligations were already being revised through diplomacy before Hitler’s most aggressive moves, and many states dissatisfied with the post-war order did not launch a continental war of conquest. The critical question is how grievance was mobilised by a dictatorship with explicitly expansionist and racial aims.
Weimar democracy under pressure
The Weimar Republic survived revolution, political violence, inflation and attempted coups in its early years, then experienced greater stability during the mid-1920s. The Great Depression after 1929 shattered that fragile recovery. Unemployment rose dramatically and support grew for parties promising radical solutions.
The Nazi Party combined nationalism, antisemitism, anti-communism, rejection of Versailles and the promise of national revival. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933 through a constitutional process shaped by conservative elites who believed they could control him.
They were wrong.
1933–34: dictatorship
After the Reichstag fire, emergency measures dismantled civil liberties. The Enabling Act allowed Hitler’s government to legislate without normal parliamentary control. Trade unions and opposition parties were destroyed, political opponents were imprisoned and Germany became a one-party dictatorship.
Nazi racial ideology was not separate from foreign policy. The regime’s vision of Lebensraum — living space — was tied to conquest in eastern Europe, racial hierarchy and the destruction or subjugation of populations defined as enemies.
Rearmament and the testing of the settlement
Germany left the League of Nations and accelerated rearmament. Conscription was restored in 1935 in open violation of Versailles. Britain, France and other powers protested, negotiated and sometimes accepted revisions they believed might be limited or legitimate.
In March 1936 Hitler sent German troops into the demilitarised Rhineland. The move was a calculated risk. France did not intervene militarily. The success strengthened Hitler domestically and weakened the credibility of the post-war restrictions.
Appeasement: what it was trying to do
“Appeasement” is often used as a synonym for cowardice. The real policy was more complicated. Britain and France faced public memories of the First World War, economic constraints, imperial commitments, uncertainty about allies and genuine doubts about which German grievances justified resistance by force.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed negotiated settlement could remove legitimate causes of conflict and buy time for rearmament if it failed. Critics argued that repeated concessions taught Hitler that threats worked and weakened states that might otherwise have resisted Germany.
Both points matter when judging policy. The key fact is that Hitler’s ambitions did not stop when individual grievances were met.
March 1938: Anschluss with Austria
German forces entered Austria in March 1938 and Austria was incorporated into the German Reich. The annexation was presented by the Nazi regime as national self-determination, but it was achieved under intense coercion and followed immediately by political repression and antisemitic persecution.
The Sudeten crisis and Munich
Hitler next focused on Czechoslovakia, using the grievances of ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland as the immediate issue. Czechoslovakia possessed significant industry, modern defences and alliances, but Britain and France feared a wider war.
At Munich in September 1938, Britain, France, Germany and Italy agreed that the Sudeten territories would pass to Germany. Czechoslovakia was not an equal participant in the decision over its own territory.
Chamberlain returned believing the agreement could form part of a durable settlement. Hitler had already demonstrated that his objectives were wider.
March 1939: the destruction of Czechoslovakia
German forces occupied Prague in March 1939 and the Czech lands became the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia became a formally independent state closely tied to Nazi Germany.
This was a decisive political turning point for Britain. The occupation could no longer plausibly be described as simply incorporating German-speaking populations into Germany. Britain and France then gave guarantees to Poland.
Poland and the Danzig question
Hitler demanded the return of Danzig and changes affecting the Polish Corridor while also preparing for war. Poland rejected demands that it believed would reduce its sovereignty and leave it strategically vulnerable.
Britain and France made clear that a German attack threatening Polish independence would trigger support. But their ability to provide immediate military assistance to Poland was limited by geography.
23 August 1939: the Nazi-Soviet Pact
The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact shocked Europe because Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were ideological enemies. A secret protocol divided spheres of influence in eastern Europe, including the intended partition of Poland.
For Hitler, the pact reduced the immediate risk of fighting the Soviet Union while attacking Poland. For Stalin, it postponed direct conflict with Germany and created territorial opportunities while negotiations with Britain and France had failed to produce an alliance.
1 September: Germany invades Poland
German forces invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 using air power, armoured formations and conventional infantry in a campaign often later compressed into the label Blitzkrieg. The invasion was not a spontaneous response to a border incident. German preparations and manufactured provocations preceded the attack.
The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on 17 September under the arrangements created by the secret protocol.
3 September: Britain and France declare war
Britain issued an ultimatum demanding German withdrawal. When it expired, Britain declared war. France followed.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced the decision to the British public by radio. Britain’s declaration did not save Poland from immediate defeat, but it transformed Germany’s invasion into a wider European war.
Key political figures
German dictator and leader of the Nazi regime. Expansion, racial conquest and destruction of the post-1918 order were central to his politics. Image source and rights information.
British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. He pursued negotiation at Munich but also accelerated British rearmament and ultimately declared war after the invasion of Poland. Image source and rights information.
French Prime Minister at Munich and when France entered the war in September 1939. Image source and rights information.
Soviet dictator. The 1939 pact with Germany included secret arrangements dividing spheres of influence in eastern Europe before the later German invasion of the USSR in 1941. Image source and rights information.
Polish Foreign Minister. He rejected terms that Poland believed would reduce its sovereignty under German pressure. Image source and rights information.
Why war came
Economic crisis, nationalism, the weaknesses of collective security and failures of deterrence all mattered. They shaped the environment in which decisions were made. But they should not blur the central agency of Nazi Germany in the European war’s immediate outbreak.
The sequence from rearmament to the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland shows an expanding pattern of coercion and conquest rather than a single disputed border question that unexpectedly got out of hand.
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