Too slow to react

[wcarlson]

I think the allies should have started attacking Germany much quicker than they did. They could have ended the war before Hitler could get organized and went on a rampage. When Hitler walked into Austria and combined Austria and Germany, the allies should have started preparing for another war. Then when Germany took over Czechoslovakia, the allies should have declared war right then and there. I don’t know why the allies waited until Germany invaded Poland to actually do something about it. Even after they declared war, the allies didn’t attack the Germans for a year. I think that the war could have been shortened by a lot of time and fewer men would have died if the allies put Hitler in his place at the beginning of his offense.

[jpena92]

The problem was that france and England were too weak at that time becuase of the economic depression and loses after the ww1. The war in Europe by Hitler was a very good business especially for USA and England (USA was the first provider of oil aditives for the lufftwaffe). The allies actually left Germany do war because germany was like a token for the Russian expansion. but the allies then realized (by the German and Russian peace) that the next objectives were theyselfes and then was when they decide to attack.

[Mr. Delainey]

Weston:

You're absolutely correct about getting at the Germans earlier to prevent a general war.

In William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer makes mention of a meeting between Hitler and the German high command in 1935. He instructed them to march into the Rhineland to take it back (it had been demilitarized according to terms of the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler told his generals that if the French were to move into the Rhineland to defend the stipulations of the treaty that the German army should retreat.

Unfortunately, France or England did nothing. And their inaction actually encouraged Hitler to add Austria and eventually Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich (and then make demands of Poland). If Hitler was opposed in 1935, there's a chance his popularity would've gone way down and a possibility he would've been removed from power by members of the German military or the German intelligentsia. However, this did not happen: instead, Hitler was successful time and time again (everything he touched "turned to gold" politically speaking); and consequently, it became harder and harder for him to be removed.