[dfwgator]

Hitler gave orders that if the French so much as fired a shot when the Germans marched into the Rhineland, that his troops were to turn back. It never happened, and from the point on, Hitler knew Britain and France wouldn’t lift a finger to stop him.

[r9etb]

Yup. And we faced exactly the same situation on September 11. If nothing else, President Bush seems to have avoided the sort of paralysis that characterized the rise of the Third Reich.

Our present war is a result of Bush's having to decide between the Chamberlain and Churchill approach to the problem -- and I think history will conclude that he chose right.

Had France acted against Germany, one supposes the situation would have been at least as messy as the one in Iraq today; and it's difficult to claim that Germany wouldn't have tried to re-militarize in some other way. (After all, they had been secretly, if slowly, doing so since 1919....)

[mainepatsfan]

Hitler was so nervous he couldn’t sleep the night before.