Lesson of Munich

In international relations, the Lesson of Munich refers to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler at the Munich Conference in September 1938. In order to avoid war, France and the United Kingdom permitted the German annexation of the Sudetenland. The policy of appeasement underestimated Hitler’s ambitions and believed sufficient concessions would secure a lasting peace.[1] Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Germany, and a huge diplomatic triumph for Hitler. The agreement facilitated the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, and caused Hitler to believe the Western allies would not risk war over Poland the following year.

The foreign policy of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has become inextricably linked with the events of the Munich Crisis and the policy of appeasement, resonating through the following decades as a parable of diplomatic failure. [2] Together with "Waterloo" and "Versailles", the Munich Conference has come to signify a disastrous diplomatic outcome.[3] The lessons of Munich have profoundly shaped Western foreign policy ever since. US Presidents have cited these lessons as justifications for war in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.[4] Following the bombing of Libya, US President Ronald Reagan argued, "Europeans who remember their history understand better than most that there is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil."[5]

Although appeasement, conventionally defined as the act of satisfying grievances through concessions with the aim of avoiding war, was once regarded as an effective and honorable strategy of foreign policy, it has since the Munich Conference symbolized cowardice, failure, and weakness, with Winston Churchill describing appeasement as "one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."[6]

The policies have been the subject of intense debate ever since. Historians' assessments have ranged from condemnation for allowing Germany to grow too strong to the judgment that Germany was so strong that it might well win a war and that postponement of a showdown was in Britain and France's best interests. The historian Andrew Roberts argues in 2019 regarding British historians, "Indeed, it is the generally accepted view in Britain today that they were right at least to have tried."[7] In the same vein, Robert Williamson noted, "Britons and French were deeply traumatized by the horrors of the First World War, and felt quite correctly that their leaders in 1914 had let themselves be drawn, far too easily, into terrible war. The Munich Agreement made sure that no one would think so again. In 1940, when Londoners had to endure the intensive German bombing, no one could say that Britain did not try to avoid this war.... Indeed, Czechoslovakia was abandoned. But when Britain and France did go to war in 1939, they were still unable to save Poland from being conquered and occupied. Clearly, had they gone to war a year earlier, they would not have been able to save Czechoslovakia, either." [8]

Sources
  • Robert J. Beck. "Munich's Lessons Reconsidered." International Security, Vol. 14, No. 2. (Autumn, 1989), pp. 161–191.
  • Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein, The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II (Oxon:Frank Cass, 1999)
  • Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security 33/2 (Fall 2008): pp. 148-181.

References
  1. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security 33/2 (Fall 2008): 148.
  2. Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein, The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II (Oxon: Frank Cass, 1999), 276
  3. Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein, The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II (Oxon: Frank Cass, 1999), iv
  4. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security 33/2 (Fall 2008): 148
  5. Robert J. Beck, "Munich's Lessons Reconsidered," International Security 14/2 (Fall 1989): 161.
  6. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security 33/2 (Fall 2008): 149
  7. Andrew Roberts, "‘Appeasement’ Review: What Were They Thinking? Britain’s establishment coalesced around appeasement and bared its teeth at those who dared to oppose it" Wall Street Journal Nov. 1, 2019
  8. Dr. Robert D. Williamson, lecture in Munich - Fifty Years Later, 1988 International Symposium.
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