It's not really that simple, though, is it?
It's more about how you attribute blame.
Perhaps Chamberlain is complicit via his lack of action early in Hitler's reign?
After doing some re-reading (from a book entitled
Dirty Little Secrets of World War 2), I'm considering that Chamberlain might have gotten a bit of a raw deal. This is an excerpt:
"PEACE IN OUR TIME"
In Munich on September 29, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and Italian Duce
Benito Mussolini, concocted a deal with German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler
that gave the German-inhabited Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia
to Germany. The statement from Chamberlain about the pact, made
back at home after the conference, ". . . I believe it is peace for our time
. . ." is the ultimate definition of appeasement in the face of aggression,
of cowardice and "peace at any price" delusions. In retrospect, some
historians, such as A.J.P. Taylor, have argued that had Great Britain and
France stood up to Hitler, he would have backed down, or even been
replaced by his own generals. Indeed, they continue, even if it had come
to a fight, the democracies would have been strong enough to take on
Germany in 1938. How accurate is this assessment?
In fact, quite the reverse is true. As unprepared as Great Britain and
France were for war in late 1939, they were even more so a year earlier.
Relatively speaking, however, Germany was readier in 1938. Also, the
Allied military position in late 1938 was seriously flawed. The overall
balance of ground forces, 65 to 70 German divisions to 80 to 85 British
(7) and French (75) divisions, was on paper favorable to the Allies. But
where Germany had five panzer divisions and six motorized divisions,
the Allies between them had three light-armored divisions and as many
motorized divisions. The situation in the air was even more imbalanced,
for the Germans had about 2,850 first-line combat aircraft, while the
Allies had only about 2,350 (the British had committed about 900, the
French some 1,450). Moreover, virtually the entire French Air Force
consisted of obsolete airplanes, and the Royal Air Force had only a few
hundred modern aircraft, while the Germans had mostly first-line
equipment.
By September 1939 the Allied situation had greatly improved.
Although the ratio of German to Allied divisions was still roughly the
same (80 German to 90 Allied), the situation in the air was consider ably
more favorable to the Allies, who had about 3,700 aircraft (the British
1,900, having introduced hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the
French, 1,800, having begun to bring their DeWoitine 520 into service),
whereas the Germans had increased their strength to about 3,600. So the
ratio of Allied to German forces on the ground went from about 1.12:1 to
about 1.16:1, while that in the air went from about
0.82:1 to 1.03:1, a significant increase.
Of course, in 1938 the Allies would have been supported by
Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had a considerable military force, some 16
divisions and 600 aircraft, and, moreover, had promises of support from
the seemingly immensely powerful Soviet Union. This certainly sounds
like the Allies missed the boat in 1938. But appearances can be
deceiving. About a fifth of the Czech reservists were actually Germans,
those very Sudetenlanders around whom the crisis revolved. Moreover,
Czechoslovakia was surrounded by enemies, not only Germany, but
Poland, Hungary, and Romania as well, all of whom would claim
portions of Czechoslovakia as part of the spoils of the Munich summit.
Arguably, had Chamberlain and Daladier stood up to Hitler at Munich,
they might well have found Poland, with whom he had a nonaggression
pact, allied with the Germans. Nor could the Soviet Union do very much.
Russia nowhere bordered Czechoslovakia, so that its offers of assistance
were predicated upon Poland or pro-German Romania to allow Soviet
forces to cross its territory, hardly a viable proposition. As well, the
Soviet armed forces were not nearly as capable as they appeared to the
outside world. Stalin had no desire to take on the Germans. Yet.
Despite appearances, Chamberlain was no fool. He was quite aware that
Hitler's "No More Territorial Demands" speech at the time of Munich
was a fraud. He was also quite aware of the parlous state of British
defenses. He had consulted his commanders and they had given him a
precise assessment of the probabilities. When he asked what the chances
were of defending Great Britain from an air assault in 1938, he was
rightly told that they were not good. It would be at least a year before the
Hurricanes and Spitfires would be available in great numbers, and the
new mystery weapon, radio direction finding (later given the American
name radar), on hand. Weighing the odds, Chamberlain backed down.
Hitler was no fool either. When Mussolini, who had worked particularly
hard to bring about the Munich Pact, boasted of his accomplishment, the
fiihrer roasted him. Hitler wanted it to come to a fight in 1938.
A year later, when Hitler made his demands for a piece of Poland, Chamberlain again went to his military leaders to ask if there was a reasonable chance of defending Britain. By then there were hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires available, and the "Chain Home" radar net was in place. Chamberlain promptly issued an ultimatum, and Great Britain was shortly at war. Perhaps the most interesting commentary upon Chamberlain's role is that his replacement as prime minister, Winston Churchill, chose to keep him informed of every development in the war and sought his advice on matters of diplomacy. As a result, at the time of his death, during the Battle of Britain, Chamberlain had the satisfaction of knowing that Great Britain was besting the Nazi onslaught from the air.
So, it was more of a case that Britain simply wasn't prepared to take on the Nazis in 1938. No one was, as the Germans had surpassed them somewhat in the arms race, particularly in terms of air power. Of course, the British can still be blamed for not keeping up and letting the Germans get ahead of them, but that wouldn't be entirely Chamberlain's fault.
Perhaps IG Farben is complicit via donations to the party?
Perhaps the French government is complicit? After all, it was they who spread the war from a Polish - German dispute to a broad European war via their support of Polish border sovereignty.
A lot of people were complicit. Of those, many (or even most) didn't realise the full extent of what they were being complicit in. Hitler himself didn't realise, and whatever else we do, reducing responsibility from him in favour of other shadowy actors is pretty dubious.
I'm just unsure what point you're driving to here. There is lot of credible information on WW2, and it can be interpreted in different ways. People who think there is AN answer, and it's clear, and co-ordinated, and worthy of an 'Ah-ha!' moment are kidding themselves.
I think it may have started at the Versailles Conference of 1919, or perhaps before then. When Wilson offered his Fourteen Points for peace, that's what the Allies should have stayed with, instead of turning it into a feeding frenzy of looting and willy-nilly redrawing of boundaries without any thought to the consequences. Placing all the blame on the German nation and people, while letting the Kaiser get away scot-free in his exile in the Netherlands, was also a serious mistake. The Kaiser and his extended family throughout Europe (including Britain) should have paid the reparations for that war, not the common people. Meanwhile, the Soviets saw the imperialist, racist, colonialist Western powers for what they were - which planted some toxic seeds in the relationship between east and west. The Western monarchists were probably pissed off that the Bolsheviks killed their Romanov cousins. They seemed to take that stuff pretty seriously.
Some might point to the Locarno Pact of 1925 (
Locarno Treaties - Wikipedia) (Chamberlain's half-brother was involved in that one) as an early step towards "appeasement," and that was even before the rise of Hitler. The key takeaway from that treaty was that finalized Germany's western border with France (Alsace-Lorraine), but left their eastern border with Poland left open-ended, subject to revision at a later date. It was that loose end which was never really resolved.
I think from the standpoint of a Western imperialist capitalist of that time, their bigger fear might have been the spread of the communist ideology, particularly in the colonial world which was starting to kick up some resistance - but also in Europe and America. I think some among that ilk might have looked at Hitler's Nazis as a staunch bulwark against communism and perhaps had thoughts of using them as a buffer state to protect against the possibility of the communists expanding into other countries. Considering how the U.S. has propped up numerous far-right dictatorships around the world in the name of anti-communism, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch that they might have considered Hitler for a similar purpose. Or if nothing else, they could have played off Hitler and Stalin against each other and let them fight it out (which did happen, to some extent, but with complications).
