Is Chamberlain or Hitler more to be blamed for the outbreak of World War 2?

Question

long answers pls? thnku.

Answer 1

Out of those two I would have to say Hitler.
Chamberlain is blamed for not stopping him and trying to appease him but if he had been more aggressive it probably would have led to war anyway.
Hitler invaded sovereign states and started the aggression.

The bigger picture is that the French treatment of Germany after WW1 left the country in ruins financially and left it wide open for an extremist party to take power and lead the people to war.

gandamack1 - The Battle of Britain was over long before the US decided to join in. The British were able to hold off the might of Germany without your help. The fact that Hitler attacked the USSR before he had defeated Britain had more to do with Germany's eventual downfall then the US entering the war did. Chamberlain, somewhat naively, honestly believed that by diplomacy he could avoid another large scale war in Europe, which was still recovering from the last one.

Answer 2

Hitler is to blame for the war without question. Chamberlain was horrified by the thought of another war in Europe, so he did all he could to keep Hitler happy in the hopes that he would settle down. Hitler played Chamberlain for all he was worth. His goal was world domination from the start. All Chamberlain's appeasement accomplished was delaying the allies' declaration of war on Germany by a year or two. If he had had more backbone, the war would have begun sooner and things might've been much worse for the allies. Those extra years gave England time to build up its military and most importantly its air force. If England had entered the war earlier the British Expeditionary force might've been defeated in detail instead of saved at Dunkirk. That would have changed the whole picture when the Germans came to attack England. I know, its all speculation, but even with Chamberlain's spinelessness, I think things turned out as good as they could have under the circumstances.

I also agree with timmn. The Treaty of Versailles was horribly cruel on the Germans (from their point of view). It had bankrupt the country and driven a large percentage of the population into unemployment and poverty. This created fertile ground for Hitler's rhetoric about a revived and strong Fatherland. So.....its the French's fault!! Just kidding. Actually the harshness of the treaty is the fault of the allies (the US included). The French wanted the harsh terms and the Brits went along. Woodrow Wilson resisted but ended up caving. The rest is History.

Answer 3

Hitler came to power in Germany because the Germans felt they got a raw deal at the end of WW1. Hitler promised the German people that he would make Germany a world power again. He started by ignoring the 1919 Versailles treaty that essentially blamed the Germans for WW1, took land from Germany and forced them to make war reparations payments. He stopped the payments, then started to reclaim land taken by the treaty by diplomatic means (threats) and/or by force.

WW1 was such a long war, that even in the late 1930s most governments were still war-weary, making things more difficult was the world-wide depression that started in 1929.

Chamberlain tried to keep the peace by appeasing Hitler, this just made Hitler more bold and he started to invade the rest of Europe.

On the surface, if you had to blame either Chamberlain or Hitler for the start of WW2, it would have to be Hitler, but the 1919 Versailles treaty laid the groundwork for him to be able to come to power.

Answer 4

Both Chamberlain wanted to be Hitler's "friend" and look the other way while Hitler was invading other countries. He signed a deal that basically gave Hitler Czechoslovakia in the Munich Accords. Brittan had the power to stop Hitler early, but because they let Germany grow into a large power, with fresh supplies and even troops from the conquered countries they were harder to defeat.

Answer 5

Hitler should take most of the blame. Chamberlain made a lot of mistakes by appeasing Hitler, but WWII would have started sooner or later anyway.

Answer 6

Hitler for sure...No matter who governed Britain, he couldnt stop Mr. Adolf from raging a warfare because he was so determined to start a war

Answer 7

The Axis wanted to control Europe...all Chamberlain did was try to keep Britan out of it and he failed....but he did give Britian time to arrange to borrow enough stuff from America to save their asses til we could get over there and fortify their little island for them

Answer 8

Check your history books. WWII was basically well underway before Great Britain got involved. Germany was invading and taking over countries right and left and then was headed after Great Britain.