The "Allies"—especially Britain and France—encouraged Hitler's rise and takeover of the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in the hopes that the Nazis would attack and overthrow the then-communist Soviet Union, meaning the anti-communism of the European capitalist powers made WWII and the Holocaust inevitable. The Soviet government tried time and again to get an agreement of "collective security" against the Nazis with the major European powers, but was always turned down. The relevant memoirs and diplomatic records of the time are quoted at length.
Author(s): Alvin Finkel; Clement Leibovitz
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Year: 1997
Language: English
Pages: 326
City: Halifax, N.S.
Introduction by Christopher Hitchens
Preface - 1
Chapter 1 The Myth of Appeasement - 5
Chapter 2 An Obsession with Communism - 25
Chapter 3 Heil to the Dictators - 41
Chapter 4 Letting Hitler Rearm: Evolution of the Free Hand (From 1933 to the Nazi Occupation of the Rhineland) - 65
Chapter 5 Preparing for a Formal Deal: From the Rhineland to the Abandonment of Czechoslovakia - 101
Chapter 6 Formal Collusion: The Chamberlain-Hitler Meetings - 141
Chapter 7 From Munich to the Fall of Prague: Trying to Maintain "The Deal" - 177
Chapter 8 Trying to Save the Deal: From the Guarantee of Poland to 1940 - 225
Chapter9 A Confusion of Enemies - 269
Appendix The Historians and the Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion - 291
Index - 321
