“Danzig was a free city, not part of Poland, and it was undemocratically controlled by Nazis after 1933. You might as well asked why Poland didn’t cede control of Jupiter.”
That’s utter nonsense.
The so-called “Free City of Danzig” was under the control of neither Germany or Poland, but both states had rights to the city, and the war came about because Germany was determined annex Danzig after 1938 and Poland refused to cede its rights to the city.
“Since Nazis already controlled Danzig in 1939, when they invaded Poland, it was obviously a nonsensical pretext to invade Poland.”
Again, this makes no sense at all: Poland had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany just a few years before, and Poland had invaded Czechoslovaka with Hungary.
“Don’t you get that? They were taking Danzig, which was already controlled by an nonDemocratic Nazi government, they were taking Poland.”
If Poland had ceded its rights to Danzig and acquiesced in the annexation of Danzig by Germany, then Hitler would have never invaded Poland and treated Poland like just another one of its satellites like Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia.
You have no proof Hitler never would have invaded. If Germany had merely not allowed Poland access to Danzig, then maybe you could make that argument. If Germany just wanted Danzig, and that's all, they had no need to carve up Poland with the USSR. The U.K. would most likely NOT have intervened in that circumstance. The fact is Hitler toadies were ALREADY running Danzig. Germans weren't being oppressed by Poles. At most, Poles were given an access to a port. But all Hitler had to do was say the word and that would have ended. Hitler, in effect, already controlled Danzig.
I will be the first person to agree that the Versailles Treaty was unjust and a mistake. But that in no way excuses the action of the Nazis. Versailles aside, Germany had no right to Austria or Czechoslovakia. That had nothing to do with the Treaty. Austria had a far longer tradition and existence than Germany.
By the way, I notice you have studiously avoided the Catholic question. You can’t acknowledge Pacelli or Pius XI, because your whole argument would fall apart. Will you accuse the Catholic Church of being a warmonger, because they were way out in front of Churchill in identifying Nazi Germany. Pius XI called Hitler, “an insane and arrogant prophet,” although the phrase was probably written by Pius XII. Pacelli was in Germany since 1917, and saw Hitler first hand. He obviously didn’t agree that Hitler just wanted a little German territory and he would go away. Meanwhile, he was suppressing the Catholic Church in Germany.