You forget...You also forget
I'm glad you know so well what I remember and what I forget....and it's particularly nice of you to remind me of things I've forgotten. Being a mind-reader must be a useful skill to possess!
I'll deal with your comments about Hitler's plans for Russia first, then move onto your statements about autarky, and then delve into the tangled topic of appeasement.
Hartmut Schustereit who writes the following in VABANQUE P12 :
Am 20.Juni 1940 Fromm befahl : Das Ersatzheer wird baldmöglichst aufgelöst .
Translation : The Reserve Army will be disbanded as soon as is possible .
Why would the commander of the Reserve Army (Fromm ) order to disband the Reserve Army ?
Very simple : because Hitler ordered it .
And why did Hitler order it ?
Because on that day Hitler was convinced that war was over and that there would be no war with the Soviets, thus that there was no longer any need for a Reserve Army .
This debunks your claim that Hitler wanted war with the USSR after the fall of France .
Firstly, the Replacement Army (Ersatzheer) was NOT disbanded. Fromm remained in charge from 1 September 1939 thru 20 July 1944. "As soon as possible" is not a timeline. A phrase familiar to military planners that has the same meaning is "as soon as conditions permit." The simple fact is that the Replacement Army remained intact. You can't take an event that did NOT happen (the disbandment of the "Reserve Army") and use it as proof of anything regarding Hitler's intent towards Russia.
Your statements are also highly selective and ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your view. For example, Plan Otto, which started as the annexation of Austria, had a second component dealing with how to invade Russia. Planning for that second part of Plan Otto commenced in July 1940. In December 1940 Plan Otto was renamed Operation Barbarossa. In short, straight after the conquest of France, Hitler orders planning to commence for the invasion of Russia....and yet you're trying to convince me that he had no intention of invading Russia? Sorry, I call BS on that.
Also, let's go back to my previous post about Hitler's early planning for invading Russia. Back in August 1936, he tasked Goering to develop the "Four Year Plan" for the invasion of Russia. Fast forward 4 years EXACTLY and, surprise of surprises, Hitler orders planning for the invasion of Russia. There's no point doing operational planning if you don't have sufficient forces for the task. Hitler recognized that in 1936. The Four Year Plan was designed to expand the German military so that it had the resources to invade Russia. With that plan successfully executed, and with what were perceived as sufficient forces, Hitler embarked on the operational planning (Plan Otto) to invade.
Interestingly, Plan Otto called for the annihilation of 240 Soviet divisions with a planning assumption that the USSR could only generate 60 new divisions in the timeframe. During Operation Barbarossa, the German Army actually destroyed 248 Soviet divisions...but the USSR regenerated 220 new divisions. This highlights Hitler's key flaw....he failed to adapt his plans to changing circumstances. Fall Gelb sought to knock the Western Allies out of the war so that Germany could focus on the Communist threat to the east. When Britain unsportingly refused to be cowed, Hitler had the option of doubling down to remove Britain from the war or proceeding with his plan to turn east. He chose the latter. As I noted previously, whenever Hitler had the chance to consolidate, he instead chose escalation. It was that key attribute that most led to the downfall of the Third Reich by May 1945.
And, about Autarky , you forget that Autarky was only needed IF there was war ,but that the aim of autarky was not to make war possible .
You also forget that autarky implies imports ,but that imports are only possible if there are exports .
In 1938, Hitler imported from Poland ( a country of hostile Slaves ) for 140 million RM and exported for 155 million .And the same year he exported for 350 RM from Britain and imported 282 million .
Source : A low dishonest decade by Paul N. Hehn .
The aim of autarky was to make Germany stronger if there was a war, not to make war possible .
And at the start of the war Germany imported still 20 % of its food and 33 % of its raw materials .Autarky implies international trade ,it is not a substitute for international trade .
Autarky is the establishment of economic independence and self-sufficiency and hence it is the exact opposite of international trade. Yes, Germany participated in international trade in 1938 because it had not yet achieved autarky. Again, let's go back to the Four Year Plan which started in 1936 with a goal of achieving autarky in 1940. Hitler was more than ready to use whatever tools were available to achieve his goals, which is why other world leaders came to so mistrust him. He would say one thing and then weeks or months later would do the exact opposite. Just look at the treaty signed with the USSR in 1939, accomplished to give Germany some additional breathing room. Hitler had no love of the USSR but he leveraged that treaty to buy space and time so he could finish his "grand plan." Hitler traded with the outside world in 1938 because he had to in order to keep his Four Year Plan moving forward.
The problem is Germany lacked the resources to be self-sufficient. A key shortfall was oil but there were also needs for additional arable land, raw materials, and even extra factory-based production capacity. You can't magically create those things inside a nation with finite geographic and resource limitations without fundamentally altering the make-up of the country...and, even then, you can't magically generate oil if your nation doesn't have that resource. The entire scope of Hitler's offensives can be traced back to the need for autarky. In other words, he didn't want to trade with the international community. He wanted to occupy those lands that had useful resources and pillage them for Germany's benefit. Hence the drive for autarky was the propelling idea that resulted in the war.
Rhodes James who wrote in 1986 a book about Eden and said on P 126-127 the following about Eden :
On March 23 1933 , Eden said : French disarmament is needed to secure for Europe that period of appeasement which is needed .
About the Anglo-Saxon media/ historians : they still propagate 80 years after the events,the old Churchillian myths of the hero Churchill and the villain Chamberlain .
But they ignore or hide unpleasant facts as
Eden being an appeaser
Churchill promoting disarmament of Britain ( 10 year rule )
Austin Chamberlain saying that Dantzig was not worth the bones of a British grenadier
Neville Chamberlain starting British rearmament in 1932
that being an appeaser does not mean that one wanted to become a British Quisling : in 1938 Neville Chamberlain would have declared war if Hitler had attacked the Czechs .Austin Chamberlain (appeaser ) wanted to accelerate British rearmament, Lloyd George (appeaser ) wanted in 1939 an alliance with the USSR .Thus ,mentioning and insinuating that this was the reason,that Halifax was an appeaser and wanted to capitulate to Hitler in May 19440 , is not only wrong from Lucacs but also totally unfair .
All British PMs and Foreign Secretaries between 1919 and 1939 were appeasers .
Appeasement was to prevent a new war (general or local ) in Europe,because Britain would be involved in such a war,would win him,but at the cost of the end of the Empire .
There was such a war in May 1940 and thus appeasement had failed and had disappeared .
I will agree that appeasement is the effort to avoid a war and that once war starts, appeasement is indeed dead. HOWEVER...once that war has commenced, if a country feels it can no longer prevail in the conflict, then it will sue for peace. It is the suing for peace in 1940 that is possible if the Battle of Britain had been lost. The arch-appeasers prior to 1939 would have been among the most vocal in trying to secure peace terms if that's what Parliament decided.
You should note that I don't see appeasement prior to 1939 as a negative thing. Britain needed time to rearm. In 1938, Britain was in no position to do ANYTHING about the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. Likewise, it could do nothing to prevent the invasion of Poland a year later. However, by then, the British Government felt it had sufficient forces on-hand, and rearmament was progressing at sufficient pace, to allow the country to prevail IF war broke out.
Losing most of the Army's heavy equipment in France was a major operational blow. Losing France as a key ally was a major strategic blow. It's entirely conceivable that further operational setbacks during the Battle of Britain could have resulted in the British Government suing for peace. There WERE calls within Parliament in May 1940 for Britain to negotiate terms with Hitler. Those calls would have been amplified if 11 Group had withdrawn, thus denuding London of up-threat defences.
Again, if you read what I wrote previously, I freely admitted the fallacy of the idea that Churchill led a plucky Britain that was united in standing alone against Germany. There were many contrary voices, hence why continued British involvement in the war was anything but a foregone conclusion.
As to rearmament, yes the "10-Year Rule" was abandoned in 1932 but that did not mean that Britain immediately started building up its armed forces. The economy in the early 1930s simply wasn't up to the task of sustaining a massive rearmament programme. The following lists the size of the British Army during the 1930s (the numbers are in thousands)
1930: 317.30
1931: 319.10
1932: 316.80
1933: 316.40
1934: 317.40
1935: 320.80
1936: 339.30
1937: 352.40
1938: 384.80
1939: 1,068.85
It's abundantly clear that, through most of the 1930s, the size of the British Army flat-lined, with only slight increases starting in 1936 and the really big jump only coming after the Munich Crisis. Again, appeasement was necessary because Britain simply wasn't ready for another major war in the 1930s.