The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich 1933-1939

Every phase of the Third Reich’s foreign policy was determined by its authoritarian leader, Adolf Hitler. Following his rise to power, his political acuity and utter lack of scruple enabled him to achieve numerous diplomatic successes against the well-intentioned but largely ineffectual Anglo-French democracies. First by duplicity, then by bluff and bluster, and finally by brinkmanship, Hitler succeeded in establishing a strengthened and united Greater Germany (Grossdeutschland) in preparation for a Second Great War.This book examines in depth the revanchist foreign policy of Hitler’s Germany from 1933 to 1939: the withdrawal of Germany from the League of Nations, German rearmament, the introduction of compulsory military service and the enlargement of the German Armed Forces, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the notorious Hossbach Conference, the Austrian ‘Anschluss’, the Munich Conference, the brazen seizures of Bohemia-Moravia and the Memel District, the Danzig crisis, the cynical brokering of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and the German invasion of Western Poland.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I: German Diplomacy and the Inaction of the Western Powers; Part II: Annexation and Expansion; Part III: Preparations for War; Appendix A: The Reich Defence Law, 21 May 1935; Appendix B: The Hossbach Memorandum, 10 November 1937; Appendix C: Operation Otto: The Planned Invasion of Austria, 11 March 1938; Appendix D: Operation Green: The Secret Plan for an Aggressive War against Czechoslovakia, 30 May 1938; Appendix E: The Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938; Appendix F: Decree Regulating the Status of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 16 March 1939; Appendix G: Memorandum from the German Government Denouncing the Anglo- German Naval Agreement, 27 April 1939; Appendix H: The Pact of Steel (The German–Italian Alliance) and Secret Additional Protocol, 22 May 1939; Appendix I: The Nazi–Soviet Pact (Treaty of Non-Aggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and Secret Additional Protocol, 23 August 1939; Appendix J: Proposal for a Settlement of the Problem of Danzig and the Polish Corridor and of the German–Polish Minorities Question, 31 August 1939; Appendix K: Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War, 31 August 1939; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index. Read more