I will be the first person to agree that the Versailles Treaty was unjust and a mistake. But that in no way excuses the action of the Nazis. Versailles aside, Germany had no right to Austria or Czechoslovakia. That had nothing to do with the Treaty. Austria had a far longer tradition and existence than Germany.
“I will be the first person to agree that the Versailles Treaty was unjust and a mistake.”
You are defending the Versailles Treaty which was rejected as a vindictive and punitive treaty by the United States.
It was the Versailles Treaty that created that clusterfuck in Europe and it was British and French foreign policy that tried to preserve the unsustainable and which made the war inevitable.
If Danzig had simply been returned to the Germans (it was 95 percent German, everyone in Germany including the communists agreed that it was German),l then there would have never been a war with Poland.
“But that in no way excuses the action of the Nazis.”
Why was Hitler so popular? Because everyone in Germany - liberals, conservatives, Nazis, communists, moderates, monarchists, democrats - agreed that Danzig was a German city and that it should be annexed to Germany.
The Polish position was ridiculous. Danzig was 95 percent German. Its people were German and the city had been part of Germany. It should have been returned to Germany.
Instead, it was separated from Germany by the British and the French which allowed it to become the occasion of a world war.
“Versailles aside, Germany had no right to Austria or Czechoslovakia.”
“Czechoslovakia” wasn’t a real country. It was a tyranny dominated by the Czechs (like “Yugoslavia” in the Balkans) that had been created to reward the “good guys.”
Slovakia didn’t want to live under Czech rule. Neither did the German, Hungarian, or Polish minorities. Even today, Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist.
Austria was a German state that had been destroyed by the Western Allies after WW1. The Austrians were hardly oppressed and their union with Germany was a sensible arrangement.
“That had nothing to do with the Treaty. Austria had a far longer tradition and existence than Germany.”
Yeah, the Habsburg Empire came out of WW1 being punished by an even more stupid and vindictive and unwise treaty than the one that had been forced upon Germany.
Just look at what happened to “Yugoslavia.”