Hitler’s Germany - 1938
Hitler’s Germany - 1938
In March 7, 1936, Hitler sent his troops into Rhineland, provoking the greatest European crisis since 1919. By terms of the peace treaties the Rhineland zone was to have been demilitarized in perpetuity. Germans resented this “inequality” between themselves and the other powers. Hitler, by invading Rhineland, automatically tore up the Treaty of Locarno, which had been a bastion of European peace since 1925, through its guaranty by Britain and Italy of both sides of the Franco-Belgian-German frontier. Hitler ignored this treaty and Europe started showing major cracks.
Hitler’s justification for this act, was a protest against a Franco-Soviet pact of mutual assistance, which was about to be ratified in Paris, and his belief that this pact was a violation of the Treaty of Locarno.
Hitler accepted an academic rebuke fro the League of Nations in exchange for a “peace” plan he submitted.
The Peace Plan proposed (a) a twenty-five years’ non-aggression pact between Germany, France , and Belgium, (b) a western air pact, (c) “moral” disarmament, (d) an eastern security pact including Lithuania, but excluding Soviet Russia, (e) return to the League of Nations by Germany if these and other conditions were fulfilled, (f) abolition of heavy tanks and heavy artillery.
Amazingly, the European leaders led by Britain, in a gesture of appeasement, bought into it.
However, a careful scrutiny of the plan showed that its inner value was dubious. Non-aggression pacts have not proved to be effective. Mutual assistance pacts Hitler eschewed because they might be effective. The pacts he proposed would have two effects: to allow him to take on enemies one by one, and to freeze the western frontiers so that his hands would be free for the East (Soviet Union). The “moral disarmament” included suppression of publications and educational books making for bad feelings between France and Germany. Hitler and his Germany did not like to be criticized by the French. A western air pact was an impossibility and it was more of a symbolic gesture. Abolition of tanks and heavy artillery by all other countries was requested because Germany didn’t have any at that time or rather she was the weakest.
Hitler, in effect, promised not to violate any more treaties immediately after flagrantly tearing one up and at the same time denying that he had done so.
When everything was settled and Hitler got what he wanted, Mr. Eden of Britain sent him a questioner in which Hitler was asked politely if he was ready to include Soviet Union in his eastern pact. Hitler never responded to this letter.
Here is a sentence from one of Hitler’s speeches in 1936:
“I do not believe that there can be peace among the nations until they all have the same law and system of law. That is why I hope that National Socialism will one day extend over the world. That is no fantastic dream, but an achievable object” - Hitler
The best reference book I found is Inside Europe by John Gunther, a time capsule, the 1938 edition. 
