Was it Justified to initiate World War II over the Polish Crisis?

I'd like to hear your thoughts.


Discuss away, fellow scholars. Keep it clean, though.

I think France and The United Kingdom became terrified of the size and power of the new Nazi Germany.

Yes I think it was justified because you can't just take over a country for some more lebensraum.

Yes because the holocaust was a horrendous ordeal. Would you live with yourself knowing thousands of women and children were slaughtered at the hands of fascism?

Ah, but that was never Hitler's intention. Hitler wanted a Jew-free state, but it was Heydrich and Goering in 1942 at Wannsee that convinced Hitler to begin extermination.

And also, Danzig was part of Germany in 1914, and the Allies obviously viewed Czechoslovakia and Austria as justified, so why the big fuss over Poland?

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Originally Posted by Professor X

Yes because the holocaust was a horrendous ordeal. Would you live with yourself knowing thousands of women and children were slaughtered at the hands of fascism?

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The fact is, people at the time really didn't believe that any kind of "slaughtering" was going on. Look at it from their point of view; they just thought that a country was trying to take territory and become powerful like countries hve done uncountable times in the past.

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Originally Posted by Richie_B

Yes I think it was justified because you can't just take over a country for some more lebensraum.

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The people of Austria and most of Czechoslovakia already spoke German and who of the same ethnicity. Parts of Poland both spoke German and were parts of the German Empire before WWI.

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Originally Posted by Professor X

Yes because the holocaust was a horrendous ordeal. Would you live with yourself knowing thousands of women and children were slaughtered at the hands of fascism?

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The Holocaust hadn't even begun yet. Concentration Camps were originally invented by the BRITISH during the Second Boer War.

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I had read a BBC History magazine that suggests that WWII was avoidable.

Hitler had broken the Versailles Treaty a number of different ways; they should have have gone to war a lot earlier. But being right on the heels of WWI, they didn't want another war and tried "appeasement" in hopes that Hitler would be content with Rhineland, Czechoslovakia and Austria. As anyone whose ever had their lunch money taken away at school knows, appeasement NEVER work; but by the time the Allies realized this Hitler had already built up his power enough to pose a significant threat.
Nobody knew about the Holocaust until pretty much after the war was over except those few who were actually involved in it (and the victims, of course). So that would not have been a factor.

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Originally Posted by King Dylan

I think France and The United Kingdom became terrified of the size and power of the new Nazi Germany.

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France is afraid of EVERYTHING.

No the war was inevitable the fact that the Polish fought back bravely (although stupidly e.g cavalry charged tanks armed with lances) made it so, England and France also signed a pact with the Poles that in the event of Poland being invaded the British and French would come to their rescue.

I am not sure what made UK and France attack Germany when they entered Poland, but I know why Hitler entered Poland in the first place. And I also wonder why they reacted so strongly on Germany but no the Soviet.

Anyways, Hitler entered Poland because of the German citizen in Poland was mocked and murdered. He wanted to save them, and I have read some places that he never intended to attack France, and later the UK.