We interrupt the modern teaching of history as a means to de-legitimize the constitutional, economic, and social foundations of the United States to bring you an actual important lesson today: The lands ceded to despots in order to “keep the peace” invariably require even more death, destruction, and suffering to liberate in the future.
While Stonewall and Tulsa are the hot new historic topics, Saarland, Rhineland, the Anschluss, Sudetenland, Bohemia, Moravia, and the East Prussia Corridor provide us the greatest insight into the threats facing us today. And I can tell by the blank looks on your faces that you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about. So let’s try to get you up to speed as quickly as possible and make up for where your history teachers let you down.
To many Americans, World War II started when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Those who paid a little attention to history classes taught before the 2000’s likely think the war started when Germany invaded Poland in September of 1939. Those with degrees in European history will bore you to death with tales of nationalism dating back to the days following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century.
But for out discussion here let’s focus on January of 1935. At the end of World War I in 1919, a tiny industrialized portion of Germany called Saarland was taken away from the country and made a free-state by the League of Nations. The thought was that if Germany couldn’t build tanks and guns, they couldn’t start another war. But 16-years later, Germany–led by Hitler–launched a propaganda campaign that convinced the League to hold a referendum in Saarland to determine if they wanted to remain a free-state or to rejoin the Third Reich. Not surprisingly, 90% of the vote favored re-unification–and Hitler had his first territorial conquest (and industrial base for war production).
Emboldened with getting his way in Saarland, Hitler then set his sights on violating another major requirement in the Treaty of Versailles–the de-militarization of Rhineland. The idea there was to keep the German war machine away from it’s western neighbors, France and Belgium. But in 1936, Hitler returned troops and tanks and re-established bases and defensive lines–all on the argument that Germany needed to “defend itself” against the West. And nobody in the international community did a thing about it.
Sensing international weakness, Hitler next set his sights on his homeland, Austria. And in 1938 he managed to convince that entire country to just turn itself over to him–in what is known as the Anschluss, or “joining”. There was no vote, there were no shots fired. There was actually going to be a vote on unification with Germany, but Hitler threatened to send in the tanks if the vote didn’t go his way–so the Austrian Chancellor just quit, opened the borders, and the tanks rolled in anyway–where they were met with open arms by the Austrians, and not a peep from the international community.
Actual concern wasn’t raised until September of 1938 when Hitler started claiming that parts of Czechoslovakia belonged to Germany. The Sudetenland had been a part of the country prior to World War I–but was taken away after the war. And Hitler claimed that the German-speaking residents there were being treated as second class citizens by the Czechs and wanted to return to their fatherland. France and Britain were ready to draw the line at Sudetenland and it looked like they would use military force to make their point. But Hitler promised this would be his last request to expand his power. And then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came back from meeting with Hitler in Munich posing with a piece of paper signed by the Fuhrer while claiming that he had secured “peace in our time”.
So that lasted until March of 1939, when Hitler basically annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia–renaming it the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia”–claiming that in doing so, he was protecting his borders from attacks in the east. And again, the international community did nothing.
And then came September of 1939, and Hitler–again claiming the mistreatment of German-speaking people in western Poland was an affront to his country–demanded that Germany be given the corridor along the Baltic Sea to reconnect with East Prussia (a portion of Germany separated by Polish territory left over from the World War I redrawing of international boundaries). This time, Britain and France actually mobilized soldiers and threatened a declaration of war against Germany if it moved into Polish territory unprovoked. “Coincidentally” that was followed by “insurgent attacks by Polish forces” into German territory. Those German-speaking Poles were being rounded up, persecuted, tortured and killed–with no outside verification. And those poor farmers were being driven from the land and their crops burned in the fields. Hitler had all the “justification” he needed and unleashed the Blitzkreig. Joined by his useful idiot ally Stalin moving in from the East, Poland no longer existed just a few weeks later–before her allies could even get troops and supplies on the ground.
So why are these events so historically significant today? Is Crimea the next Saarland? Is Belarus the next Austria? Is Ukraine the next Sudetenland? Or will it be the next Poland? One thing we can definitely say is that if Vladimir Putin is given the land he wants now, it will take a lot of blood to win back what he is going to take next.
