HW- Cold War Origins
Who should be blamed for starting the Cold War: Soviet Union? U.S.? or both?
Your response should be at least 2 paragraphs long.
Your response should be at least 2 paragraphs long.
HW- Start of the Cold War
Excerpt from Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech:
"A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain - and I doubt not here also - towards the peoples of all the Russia's and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone - Greece with its immortal glories - is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favors to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westwards, in accordance with an earlier agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had conquered.
If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the British and American zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts - and facts they are - this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen the United States, against their wishes and their traditions, against arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, drawn by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation had occurred. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. That I feel is an open cause of policy of very great importance.
In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. In Italy the Communist Party is seriously hampered by having to support the Communist-trained Marshal Tito's claims to former Italian territory at the head of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy hangs in the balance. Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a strong France. All my public life I have worked for a strong France and I never lost faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now. However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for anyone to have to recite on the morrow of a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains."
1. Why is Churchill so concerned about the Soviet Union after World War 2?
2. What is the "iron curtain" that Churchill refers to in the speech?
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HW- Munich Conference
Munich Conference - 1938
The successful annexation of Austria fueled Adolf Hitler's ambition, and he looked on to the German-populated regions of Czechoslovakia, collectively named Sudetenland. As early as 1933, Nazi Party members such as Konrad Henlein had already infiltrated the political scene in Czechoslovakia, stirring trouble. On 19 May 1935, Henlein's Sudetendeutsche Partei won three out of every five German Czech's vote, creating the second largest political party in Czechoslovakia. Starting in 1938, the Nazi propaganda machine fabricated false stories of the three million ethnic Germans being oppressed in Czechoslovakia, and demanded to gain control of these lands. Meanwhile, British ambassador to Berlin Sir Nevile Henderson did little to help. In fact, he did the opposite, calling the highly educated Czech president Edvard Beneš "pigheaded" for leading his country to resist Nazi infiltration.
Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, and Benito Mussolini met in Munich on 29 Sep 1938 for what later came to be known as the Munich Conference; interestingly, Czechoslovakia was unrepresented at this meeting. At 0100 in the morning of 30 Sep 1938, in the Führerhaus at Königsplatz in Munich, the Munich Agreement ceded Sudetenland to Germany, effectively immediately, with Keitel named as the military governor. Czechs were given ten days to evacuate the region, and they were threatened that any Czech military presence found in Sudetenland after the deadline would be shot as if they had violated Germany's sovereignty. Similar to Austria, many people of the Sudetenland region, many were already German refugees who fled from Hitler's governments a handful of years ago, attempted to flee. Many were denied visas and deported back to Sudetenland, and some of them were arrested and tortured after German occupation. Also like Austria, the German propaganda machine publicized the annexation by showing the cheering crowds while suppressing the stories of terror.
The expansion into Czechoslovakia allowed Germany to control the entire western border fortifications, designed by the same engineers who had created the French Maginot Line, taking away all fortifications the Czechs had against German military aggression. At the same time, since Germany no longer needs to worry about guarding against the fortress line at Sudetenland, at least 20 German divisions were freed up for other regions (on the Polish border, for example). Britain and France still had politicians who believed deeply in appeasement. Chamberlain noted the Czechoslovakia had been "the latest and perhaps the most dangerous" of the obstacles to European peace, but "now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity." Appeasement, however, began to lose its appeal. In Britain, more aggressive policies slowly began to take shape, and Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Alfred Duff Cooper, and other previously nicknamed "warmongers" began to gain support. Britain and France finally started to mobilize their militaries on a larger scale in Sep 1938.
1. How did Hitler justify his invasion of Czechoslovakia?
2. Why did European leaders try to appease Hitler ?
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