I think everyone knew war was coming, but there were still people in denial. Look at John Gunther’s article datelined from Riga. In the article he mentions that Poland is ready to fight, but those comments are always juxtaposed with the comments that “Hitler has miscalculated Polish resolve” or words to that effect.
It appears that Gunther, based on the “informed sources from the region,” was taking the line that all the saber-rattling over Danzig was a bluff on Hitler’s part. It’s an assumption that Hitler didn’t really want to go war. Today, we all know that Hitler did indeed want to go to war; he insisted on it. What Homer hasn’t posted yet from “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” were Hitler’s FEARS at this time of another “Munich.” Yes, he actually was afraid he’d be coerced to the bargaining table. Even if a Polish Munich handed him all the territorial concessions he demanded of Poland, he still would not have gotten what he wanted. He wanted a war. He got one.
By the way, these articles show why Hitler was so successful; with one notable exception, nobody had a clear read on the man. Everything he said was so bombastic that it was dismissed as bombast. But it was all really true. He even fooled Stalin right up to June 22, 1941. Stalin, in his paranoia, as far as I know, only trusted one person. He trusted the last person on earth he should have trusted; Adolf Hitler. The exception was Winston Churchill; he saw right through Hitler from the beginning.
What’s scary is that today, we have bombastic loons like Chavez, Kim Jong Il and Achmedinijah who act the same way. Bombast, or statements of true intent? You make the call.