(1) Clearly, Hitler sought his “lebensraum” in the Soviet Union which he we went to war with anyway in 1941.
(2) Hitler had no desire to go to war with the West or with Poland. On the contrary, it was Britain and France that declared war on Germany, and who turned the conflict into a world war, and who dragged America into the conflict.
(3) In the narrative of German evil, Bohemia which had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries and Prague which had been the capital of the Holy Roman Empire was an “aggressive conquest” by “militarist Germany.”
In this narrative, the fact that Slovakia seceded from Czechoslovakia (twice) and Poland (the official good guy) also invaded Czechoslovakia is ignored, as is the invasion by Hungary.
(4) Pat is right on the facts: Hitler wanted to go to war with the Soviet Union and the war with Poland was not part of any grand design on the part of Germany, but rather it was a response to the diplomatic situation that arose after Chamberlain gave the Poles that war guarantee.
If Chamblerlain had not given the Poles the war guarantee, they would have ceded Danzig to Germany, and the Polish-German Non-Aggression Pact would have kept Poland (like Sweden) out of the war between the Germans and the Soviets.
Hitler would have gone to war with Stalin. There would not have been a war in Poland, or a war with Britain and France, or a war between Japan and the United States, or a war that raged everywhere from the Balkans to Italy to North Africa to Northern Europe and the Netherlands.
Instead of there being a world war that destroyed Europe, there would have been a Nazi-Soviet War, which would have crippled Nazism and Communism.
Think about it: there wouldn’t have been a Vietnam, there wouldn’t have been a Communist China, there wouldn’t have been a Cuban Revolution, there wouldn’t been a triumph of liberalism in Europe, etc.
WilliamHouston, if you are going to claim that Danzig is the lynchpin of all history, you are setting yourself up for a higher level of proof than you have offered, Please show a shred of proof that Danzig was more important to the whole world than everything else. In your theory, it is the pivot to all history. A lot of other things were going on between 1918 and 1939. I guess the Depression, Nazi ideology, advancing technology, all geopolitics not related to Danzig, etc. pale in comparison to Danzig. And Danzig was so important that Nazi Germany was justified in taking ANY action in getting it back. To anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history, you and Mr. Buchanan’s theory is preposterous.
On what planet do you have to be from to believe that Hitler's 1941 invasion of Russia proves that he didn't want to invade France & England? Winston Churchill did not become Prime Minister May 1940. Germany had already invaded at least 7 countries on the Western Front. England had declared war on Germany, but had not taken any significant offensive action. There was no indication they would, if Germany had stayed status quo. Any British leader in history, would not allow Germany to control all of France. It's basic geopolitics. Germany did not have to invade all of Western Europe to keep Danzig, Which they already controlled anyway. There is not theory of war or geopolitics that says that was necessary. Also, they had a long-developed plan to invade France. Why did they need that, if they had not intention to invade France.