Just several short remarks :

1. You are always saying that hitler was too hurried. I say he has preoccupied to START the negotiations. After, they could take the time needed.

For 2 years, Poland refused any negotiations, and this is UNJUSTIFIABLE.

2. An injustice REQUIRES of negotiations.

3. The construction of ways of communication and the return of a city to the Reich are NOT territorial demands, contrary to Austria and Sudetenland.

Poland refused to give into demands. Perhaps earlier Hitler and the Nazi Party may have tried a more friendlier approach but as soon he didn't achieve what he wanted his attitude turned agressive.

Even if a sovereign country does refuse to negotiate it still doesn't warrant a justification to invade.

Poland didn't threaten Germany in any way /End

What?

Demanding 759 square miles (Danzig) looks like an territorial demand to me.

The land was not annexed but became a protectorate.

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EDIT : About Boheme Moravia.

You see, in France, we have some people who are asking for independence also : Bretons, Corsicans, and other (islands of the ancient colonial empire) ... Is it a reason to declare war on France because she is a tyrannic country ? No.

We always lived peacefully with them. And they have many advantages in being part of the France
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Now, let's quote Hitler's speech of October, 6, 1939 :

The aims and tasks which emerge from the collapse of the Polish State are, insofar as the German sphere of interest is concerned, roughly as follows:

1. Demarcation of the boundary for the Reich, which will do justice to historical, ethnographical and economic facts.

2. Pacification of the whole territory by restoring a tolerable measure of peace and order.

3. Absolute guarantees of security not only as far as Reich territory is concerned but for the entire sphere of interest.

4. Re-establishment and reorganization of economic life and of trade and transport, involving development of culture and civilization.

5. As the most important task, however, to establish a new order of ethnographic conditions, that is to say, resettle ment of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of better dividing lines than is the case at present.

*

Yes maybe. But in our case, the injustice REQUIRES negotiations, or war.

GERMANY was the empire that guaranteed peace and was the only one who was able to guarantee it in Europe. Having declared war on it* is an unforgivable crime.

* : or "her" ? (sorry for bad english, I presume this is "her" after Sailor Steve's explanations, but "her" for an Empire ? :hmm2:)

Ehm yeh...that's not how it works you don't tell someone to start negotiate or it will be war.

and it failed doing just that....twice.

Negotiations were perfectly justified.

Man... and I already used up that Stewie Griffin meme :shifty:

Oh it's tell others what to do time?
I will follow your advise - when you follow your beloved Adolf.
Deal?
Win/Win! :yeah:

Which is odd since they never took place, instead impatient Hitler&Co chose to use violence.
Poland was fully within its right to choose not to negotiate as it was in her interest to do so.

Hitler has specifically stated Germany's need for Lebensraum in his books and in statements concerning his ideology. Moreover, he mentioned this in direct relation to the execution of Case White. He implemented policies to make the concept a reality soon after Poland was occupied, and continued to do so in other areas following his invasion of the Soviet Union. There is a logical chain of events here that is completely broken by the assuming that Hitler wasn't after Lebensraum, and there really is no evidence to justify this sort of assumption. No, just because Germany made some demands for the return of Danzig doesn't mean that it couldn't have found a pretext to invade under later, like it did with Czechoslovakia.

Let me try summarizing the issue of Danzig and Germany's negotiations so we don't get confused by who tried do what, where and when. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Danzig's status as a Free City was a compromise made at Versailles to give Poland access to sea trade, which was judged to be vital to its economy. Neither Germany, who wanted the city incorporated into its territory, nor Poland, which wanted independent access to the sea, were satisfied with this agreement. Poland built the port of Gdynia in the Corridor to supplant Danzig as its primary port, and this port eventually exceeded Danzig's relevance to its maritime trade, but by 1938 Danzig still accounted for 31.6% of all Polish exports.

The Danzig problem basically boils down to two points, then. Germany wanted the city annexed because it was inhabited by Germans, while Poland wanted to maintain the status quo, at least for the time being, to preserve its economy, which was struggling in the interwar period. Whether you believe that one reason or the other was more justified, the issue of losing Danzig was far more of an immediate concern for Poland than gaining it was for Germany. Danzig could have potentially have been returned to Germany given sufficient time, Poland made no claim to it and was already moving its trade away to other ports, but at this point Poland judged it to be vital to its economy.

In 1933 the government in Danzig was taken over by the Nazi party, which agitated for the city's return to Germany. Despite this, Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact in 1934.

From what I can tell, the first attempts to negotiate Danzig's status was on October 24th, 1938, when Ribbentrop talked to Józef Lipski and proposed the agreement that Danzig should be annexed by Germany and the extra-territorial road and railway be constructed to East Prussia. The Germans offered nothing in return for this except the extension of the German-Polish non-aggression pact and some guarantees of Poland's borders, effectively making this more of a demand than a negotiation. This proposal came in the immediate aftermath of the Munich Agreement, and Poland was afraid of coming under German influence. So naturally, Poland refused. Germany continued trying to push these demands for the next 6 months. This effectively amounted to all of Germany's attempts to 'negotiate'.

On March 15th, 1939, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. In response, Britain promised to support Poland. On March 25th, Hitler directed OKW to prepare for a war to seize not just Danzig, but all of Poland. OKW issued a directive to the German armed forces outlining Case White on April 3rd, requiring that preparations be made for launching the operation before September 1st. On April 28th, Hitler renounced the non-aggression pact with Poland and demanded the issue be settled. Agitators were soon sent into Danzig by Germany to provoke a crisis. The German army begun troop movement to bring forces into position for Case White on June 26th. Soon afterwards, Germany began negotiating the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union, in which it agreed to partition Poland. The operation was scheduled to being on August 26th, but was delayed until September 1st because of Britain's treaty with Poland and Italy's declaration that it would not take part in the conflict. The 16-point proposal and the conditions for its signing was read out to the British ambassador, much too late, during this interval without enough time or effort to create real negotiations. Józef Lipski spoke with Ribbentrop on August 31st under instruction from Warsaw to inform Germany that Poland was willing to enter into discussions if both parties were on equal footing. This resulted in nothing. Hours later, Germany invaded Poland.

In short, I agree that there was a problem concerning Danzig's status, but throughout this entire course of events it was Hitler and Germany alone that created the crisis, made the demands, prepared for war and started the invasion, actions which were at no point made necessary by anybody else. This is without even getting to Hitler's well-documented desire to occupy Poland in its entirety.

What they called it is irrelevant. Germany intimidated Czechoslovakia into surrendering under the threat of war, then promptly occupied it with military force. It did this after it has peacefully been given all its demands in regards to the country at Munich. I really don't see how this action can be justified in any way.

The Czech people never looked for German occupation, in fact protests sprang up pretty much immediately, and never benefited from it in the slightest. That's completely irrelevant.

Isn't that the basis of Lebensraum? What's your point?

That must have been a British spy masquerading as Hitler or something. :hmmm:

http://i.imgur.com/AKfDdna.png

:har: