Did the lack of Allies' "smart leadership" stop USA from removing Hitler pre-WWII?

[SuperJay]

This issue was raised in another thread in OT: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419737

If England and France actually had smart leadership before World War II, instead of needing "Appeasement" we would have gotten rid of Hitler right away. Even before that, if we allowed World War I to stay a war between land alliances, we could have stayed out of things far, far longer than we had.

So, history experts: Would the USA have gotten rid of Hitler prior to WWII if England and France had smart leadership?

Could WWII have been avoided altogether if the USA was allowed to remove Hitler pre-emptively and bring freedom to Europe?

 

[Tahuti]

US involvement in Europe was out of the question, so any scenario featuring an early end to the Nazi-regime will definitely NOT involve the US. I certainly think that Neville Chamberlain was a dumb*** who basically thought about Nazi-Germany the same way, as Anti-Israel activists view Hamas, namely, that if you're soft enough on a potential enemy, he won't attack (despite evidence on the contrary ofcourse).

On the other hand, I believe Eduard Daladier (of France) was well aware of the Nazi threat, and privately was hostile to the very policies he was publicly advocating, but did relent to Hitler and Chamberlain because it was political suicide in France to do otherwise.
And besides, no one could have forseen would Germany would be able to do in that fatefull sequence of events of 1940.

Besides, Britain and France were initially Mussolini's best friends (even closer than Hitler) and Britain, France and Fascist Italy even went as far as forming a common albeit weak front against Nazi-Germany - the so called Stresa front, which went into tatters after Italy's invasion of Abyssinia. I don't think it was a smart decision of Stanley Baldwin (then the British PM) to abandon Italy.
IMHO Britain should have developed close ties with Mussolini and prevented Mussolini from allying with Hitler at all costs.
Risking war with Italy, France and Britain silmutaneously, Hitler would not have even started an Anschluss let alone formented a Sudetenlandcrisis or start a war.

Ofcourse this wouldn't involve US involvement, but this would be amount to smarter Allied leadership I think.

 

[privatehudson]

Interesting point of view quoted in the OP. By "we would have got rid of Hitler right away" does he mean we as in the USA, or we as in humanity?

If the former that's somewhat unlikely, the USA that was rather isolationist (or if you prefer Non-interventionism) so its not going to suddenly decide to enter a war in Europe just because the Anglo-French took a more aggressive stance with Hitler.

If the latter that rather depends on at what point we are talking about the policy of appeasement being dropped.

 

[rilnator]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

'Smart leadership' does its best to avoid war. I don't blame Chamberlain for wanting to avoid a world war over the Czechoslokian problem- a country they could do nothing militarily to help. And a country he wan't obliged to either.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I certainly think that Neville Chamberlain was a dumb*** who basically thought about Nazi-Germany the same way, as Anti-Israel activists view Hamas, namely, that if you're soft enough on a potential enemy, he won't attack (despite evidence on the contrary ofcourse).

Yes. Because Britain was in a fine position to wage war on rearmed Germany in the Appeasement period. We didn't need time to build up our defenses and, for example, catch up with their vastly numerically dominating aircraft numbers, or anything like that!

 

[Masada]

The smart money would have been on attack against the Soviet Union in alliance with that fine Hitler chap.

 

[Tahuti]

Yes. Because Britain was in a fine position to wage war on rearmed Germany in the Appeasement period. We didn't need time to build up our defenses and, for example, catch up with their vastly numerically dominating aircraft numbers, or anything like that!

What you are saying would all be true if it weren't for the sarcastic tone. Except that Britain already vastly outnumbered Germany when it came to aircraft.

'Smart leadership' does its best to avoid war.

Yes, but smart leadership also knows that war sometimes is inevitable. There should have been containment instead of appeasement which was not impossible to do by peaceful means at the time.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Considering the state of Germany's economy, appeasement damn nearly prevented war entirely and brought about the collapse of the Nazi government.

 

[Tahuti]

Really? If that's true, then the Allies shouldn't have made Poland their ally, as the war pretty much started about Danzig (which wasn't even Polish, but governed by the Danzig Freestate).

 

[Ataxerxes]

I'd always thought Chamberlain was inept with Hitler, but looking at the situation he had, his decisions seemed to make sense to him. He was wrong about Hitler, but he knew that Britain would no longer be a world power if there was another war, even if Britain won. Also, it's important to remember that he was seen as a hero after Munich. It wasn't just the leaders who favored appeasement. You could even cynically say he was doing what his constituents wanted him to do.

As everyone else says, the U.S. wasn't going to be involved in unseating Hitler. The U.S. great interest in Europe/Asia/Africa affairs was a product of WWII. Interestingly, Canada was diplomatically closer to Britain until the war.

 

[BuckyRea]

Besides the simple silliness of saying "if the USA was allowed to remove Hitler pre-emptively," emphasis mine, the OP also suffers from the misperception that there's some American duty to go about removing the heads of state of other nations on the likelihood that they might turn out to be warmongers.

When do you "take them out" exactly? When they say something to make us think they'll be aggressors? As soon as they're elected and it looks like they have the potential to be bad leaders? When they emerge as leaders advocating assertive foreign policies but before they get elevated by their political systems? Or maybe the OP thinks America could have free roaming hit squads planted about the peoples of the world, looking for signs of potentially bad leaders and annihilating them as "corrupt individuals" before they gain prominence and power and thereby gain the imprimatur of legitimacy. We could call these hit squads the Corrupt Individual Annihilators and let the nations of the world know that, like the child spanked for not eating her vegetables, we're doing this for their own good.

 

[privatehudson]

Yes. Because Britain was in a fine position to wage war on rearmed Germany in the Appeasement period. We didn't need time to build up our defenses and, for example, catch up with their vastly numerically dominating aircraft numbers, or anything like that!

Actually from what I've read Germany wasn't in that much better position than the UK, certainly not during the crisis over Czechoslovakia anyway.

 

[Tahuti]

When do you "take them out" exactly? When they say something to make us think they'll be aggressors?

Well, the Allies had a wide array of pretexts to use for a hypothetical pre-emptive war on Nazi-Germany. For instance, Germany's breach of Versailles by re-enacting conscription, or what about Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland?
I'm sure that if the Allies would have declared war on Germany on grounds of breaching the Versailles treaty, they would be able to defend it from a PR perspective, both internally and externally.

 

[say1988]

Actually from what I've read Germany wasn't in that much better position than the UK, certainly not during the crisis over Czechoslovakia anyway.

Germany made far better use of the time between Munich and Poland, but Britain and France weren't in a good position to wage a war and I can see why they didn't anticipate that Germany would use the time that much better.

In hindsight, it is clear that a war in 1938 would have been far better for the Allies, but every event you go back that provided a cause would have been an even better opportunity. I wouldn't say it was that clear at the time. Even if you expect Germany to begin a war later the question of who makes the best use of the year and the exact capabilities of Germany are a lot less clear.

 

[LightSpectra]

Yes. Because Britain was in a fine position to wage war on rearmed Germany in the Appeasement period. We didn't need time to build up our defenses and, for example, catch up with their vastly numerically dominating aircraft numbers, or anything like that!

World War II wouldn't have lasted more than a year if the Wermacht got bogged down in the Sudetenland (which was heavily fortified; only the Hitler-worshipers in the General Staff thought that would be easy to blow through) while France and Britain occupied Germany's industrial sector.

Considering the state of Germany's economy, appeasement damn nearly prevented war entirely and brought about the collapse of the Nazi government.

Was the super-industrialized Sudetenland supposed to hurt Germany's finances? If anything, that just gave the the Axis more steam in which to fuel their plunder economy.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Was the super-industrialized Sudetenland supposed to hurt Germany's finances? If anything, that just gave the the Axis more steam in which to fuel their plunder economy.

No, but it certainly couldn't do much of anything to effect the massive problems in the German Economy.

 

[RedRalph]

Absolutely crackpot OP theory

 

[Brohz]

What you are saying would all be true if it weren't for the sarcastic tone. Except that Britain already vastly outnumbered Germany when it came to aircraft.

If Churchill is to be trusted, and I think in this matters he is (at least on the statistics he quotes), by the time of the sudeten crisis, Germany had long surpassed British and French aircraft production (at least in numbers), and the german fortifications along the Rhine were too strong.

 

[ParkCungHee]

the german fortifications along the Rhine were too strong.

Pfahaahahaha!

 

[LightSpectra]

and the german fortifications along the Rhine were too strong.

I lol'd