Czechoslovakia

After Austria, Hitler said that he would not seek any more land. However, not long after he turned his sight on Czechoslovakia. If the allies had helped defend Czechoslovakia, who had a modern army, instead of appeasing Hitler, do you think he would have stopped his power grabing of European countries?

Phoney War

chapter 3 in A War to be Won- briefly mentioned the "Phoney War" i've only heard this term once before. Can anyone explain more about this?

Different Stances and Technology

I found it very interesting to learn the different milatary standpoints of each country in Europe. I think the availability of technology to each country affected their miliatary strategies. Their resource availability of tanks, guns and men I believe had a direct corralation to their war strategy. Ideology affected their military strategies as well which goes back to how each country fared at the end of World War I as well as their political influence to other countries including western culture. It's important I believe to realize that if some of the circumstances would have been swapped around that their would have been a dramatic difference in the outcome of the war.

Military Doctrine in Europe

It was very interesting to see the differences in military doctrine between Great Britian and Germany. I think it is very fascinating that their was a huge difference in theory on how war was supposed to be fought. J.F.C Fuller did not believe that tanks and infantry could work together and the military in Great Britian was divided into the three main parts of infantry, tanks, and air power. At the same time Germany had a much different theory. They adopted the military advancement of blitzkreig, or lightning war, which believed in the combined arms theory. One real advantage that Germany did have was the chance to build a military from brand new. Obviously Germany took the approach of using all their resources to help each other. While Fuller took the idea that they should be used separately and differently.

Feb 6: cancelled class

I want to thank the 5 students who came into class this morning. At 6AM this morning, we still had classes. Now they are cancelled. So, the brave souls who were with me this morning shall receive extra attendance credit for heroically venturing out into the snow and stoically attending my class. No one is being penalized for not attending class. I simply think they should receive the portion of their attendance credit for suffering through my lecture when they didn't have to.

Since we do not have time for me to repeat this lecture. I will put some notes up on Blackboard under Course Documents. We covered the Anti-Comintern Pact, Anschluss, Czechoslovakia, Munich Pact, German-Soviet Pact, and Poland. We watched an American film on all of that, as well as a German film on Poland. Also, please pay attention to your reading on the Polish invasion. I did not go over that in detail, since the book does a fair job with it.

Feb 4-6: Doctrine & Slippery Slope to War

Great Job over your first week!! Remember to create your own post and then comment on two others.

Re: Hitler's faces

I think that to say Hitler spent his youth in a "softer" way is true. However, when one considers the definition of architect as it applies to something other than literal buildings, Hitler's transformation isn't all that hard to understand. Clearly he had a very specific "architecture" for Germany in mind, and felt that he was just the person to design said architecture. Couple that with the idea that he felt that he and he alone knew what was the BEST design (blueprint) for Germany and you can begin to understand why that transformation took place. After all, when you build your new design doesn't demolition/clearing of the site take place first? I'm not sure Hitler viewed those he was killing as anything other than construction debris - so to speak.