Small War Fun Talk: Why was Germany able to single-handedly deal with many countries in World War II?

The enemy was busy "fighting with each other", giving Germany the opportunity to develop and grow.

In fact, at that time, European countries had at least 3 opportunities to strangle Hitler and his Empire in infancy.

1

On August 24, 1939, one of the most bizarre scenes in the entire diplomatic history of the 20th century emerged.

After seven years of fierce diplomatic struggle, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, two ideologically opposing enemies of fate, suddenly threw away the knives and guns pointed at each other and shook the hands of the enemy in the stunned eyes of the whole world.

With the signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, the last seal on Nazi Germany was lifted.

Just 7 days later, Poland was blitzed by mechanized forces of unprecedented scale in the history of human warfare, and World War II officially broke out.

Prior to this, the Soviet Union, France, and Britain had many opportunities to join forces and strangle Hitler and his Reich in their swaddling.

But the selfishness in the bones of politicians made European countries eventually lost in the dazzling diplomatic dance of the "chameleon" Ribbentrop, and Nazi Germany achieved an incredible "one-size-fits-all" victory in the long European diplomatic war before World War II.

2

The source of the seemingly mysterious struggle must start from the "insult to the law".

In the tragic First World War, although France won the final victory, the French army killed more than 1.3 million people and maimed more than 2.8 million people.

Combined with the loss of 1.3 million people in production and front-line labor, france suffered more than 5 million casualties in World War I.

France, which lost an entire generation of young people, became a war PTSD patient.

The core idea of the "Versailles system" dominated by France and Britain after the war was two words: ease.

The enemy Germany was severely limited in military power and heavily guarded by the French themselves.

Both the ideologically inconsistent Soviet Union and the restless United States were kicked out of the "Versailles system" and left to fend for themselves.

Political disputes between other small countries, whether they look at or listen, are too cruel to cover their eyes at best.

Anyway, in a word, life is not needed, it must be comfortable; If you are not afraid of death, you are afraid of restlessness.

But things in the world are often like this, the more you want to be comfortable, the more you can't think about it.

Less than a decade later, the first major world economic crisis that swept the world came.

The status of this economic crisis in the history of World War II is similar to that of Lieutenant Hong tai in "Water Margin", and as soon as it came, all the demons and ghosts of European countries were released.

The German Nazi Party rose rapidly.

Under the fanatical speech of Hitler, the head of the Nazi Party, more and more Germans began to believe that their lives were getting better and better, entirely because the current government accepted the Treaty of Versailles and war reparations, while compromising with communism.

If Germany wants to get out of the economic crisis and want to live a good life, it must break the shackles of its old enemy France and recover the "homeland" of Alsace and Lorraine.

Then march in the direction of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to seize "territory under the sun" and use the German sword to obtain land for the German plough.

With the radical incitement of ultra-nationalist sentiment in Germany, Hitler succeeded in becoming Chancellor of Germany in January 1933.

Listening to Hitler's naked anti-French remarks and watching Nazi Germany's dangling soldiers, france finally could no longer pretend to be blind and deaf, and they decided to preemptively attack.

At that time, France claimed to have a standing army of 3 million, while Germany, trapped in the "Versailles system", had only 100,000 Wehrmacht troops.

The French government, frightened by the First World War, did not choose to leave A directly in the past and pull down, but chose to believe in the "war potential theory" advocated by the French "well-known", believing that if it rushed to war with Germany, France would lose.

According to the calculation of this strange theory, France has only 40 million people on the European continent, while Germany has 70 million, and if you add the Germans scattered in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and other countries, Germany can use a war population of 80 million, which is almost twice that of France.

Therefore, don't look at france now claiming to have the "first european army", but Germany's war potential is twice that of France, and France must at least one more major country on the European continent as an ally, so that its "war potential" is higher than Germany's, and then the war can be sure of victory.

Looking at the European continent, the only people who were eligible to be called "great powers" by France at that time were Britain and the Soviet Union.

The French first went to the British, who were supposed to be their nominal allies.

Although Britain and France are considered "superficial brothers" at this time, as an island country outside the European continent, the idea of "continental equilibrium" has almost become a kind of ideological stamp for hundreds of years, and in its heart it has always been eager for several big countries on the mainland to fight wars every day, and the bigger the better, so as to show the glory and greatness of our British Empire, and by the way, we can do business with several parties and make war money.

After the end of world war I, these two frustrated people under the Versailles system were forced by the situation to spontaneously form a "mutual aid group".

With the help of the soviet union' old iron, Germany's military development has not been stagnant by the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles, and many military research institutions have bypassed the shackles of Britain, France and other countries in cooperation with the Soviet Union and continued to carry out research.

With the help of the economic window opened by the German old iron, the Soviet Union also broke the economic blockade of Western European countries to a certain extent, successfully completed two five-year economic construction, and jumped from a poor agricultural country to a number of industrial powers in Europe.

In the European continent, where "interpersonal relations were indifferent" at that time, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the German Weimar government, which was willing to help each other and make up for each other's weaknesses, was already a life-changing friendship.

Although Germany is now replaced by Hitler in power, and the Soviet Union is replaced by Stalin, France was prepared to persuade the Soviet Union to defect at a large price.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the Frenchmen opened their mouths, they did not even have time to mention the conditions for the purchase, and the Soviet side was a small temper that could not be suppressed, and in turn constantly urged France: When to send troops?

Looking at the Warlike Soviet Union, the French silently recalled the tragedy of Napoleon's conquest of Russia and wiped the cold sweat on their heads: Sure enough, since ancient times, whoever talked to the Russians about territorial issues, the Russians would play with whom...

In November 1932, after determining that Hitler was about to take power in Germany, France and the Soviet Union signed the Franco-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in Paris.

According to Stalin's petty temper, since the treaties have all been signed, we will now go back to each house to gather people and horses, and on a good day, we can send troops to cut off others.

But France, the war PTSD patient, thought about it again and said no, or could not fight.

Your Soviet Union is far away in Eastern Europe, I live next door with Germany, really fight, the Soviet army will have to drive over for at least six weeks, maybe before you come over, I France has been beheaded by Hitler.

The most optimistic estimate is that we fought with the Germans in the early stages, and you rushed over to pick the fruit.

Capitalist France cannot engage in this kind of loss-making business.

Therefore, we must continue to shake people, shake a few more, and it is best to form a good situation in the whole of Europe, and see if we can defeat the soldiers without fighting.

If we really want to fight, we must also carry the pot to others and send others to death, and we capitalist France will have a comfortable stay!

Stalin, who had been in a hurry, thought carefully that if, as France said, the whole of Europe joined the anti-German alliance, wouldn't we in the Soviet Union return to the European family in disguise?

The two countries once again came up with a "European Collective Security Policy" and decided to split their heads and establish an "Eastern Pact" with the main goal of containing Germany.

The Soviet Union was responsible for taking care of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in Eastern Europe; France was responsible for taking care of Britain, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania in Central and Western Europe.

Things went well at first.

Hitler was also accustomed to making territorial or sovereign claims to several surrounding countries in various speeches and diplomatic occasions.

Especially in countries like the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Poland, there are Germanic peoples settled in the country, and Hitler felt that as long as there is a land where the Germans live, it should be the territory of our Greater Germany, and it is reasonable to claim these areas.

So by the end of 1933, thanks to the efforts of the Soviet Union and France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania had all expressed their willingness to join the "Eastern Pact", a large encirclement that encircled Nazi Germany tightly, and it seemed that it had reached the stage of closing the net.

At the crucial moment, a great god came online.

3

The name of the great god was Ahim von Ribbentrop, who was then the director of the "Ribbentrop Office" in the Nazi Party.

Before taking charge of the office, which was called the "Grass Bench", Ribbentrop's last position was that of the Nazi Party 's "Chief of Staff", a figure who instructed everyone to clock in on time, pick up office supplies with a watch, and debug PPT in the conference room before meetings.

But it was such a lay diplomat, with a grass bench team named after himself, who won the praise of "Bismarck II" in Hitler's mouth with a series of riots that followed.

The Allied nations angrily called it a chameleon.

At the end of 1933, when France and the Soviets were gleefully calling to shake their brothers, Nazi Germany's diplomatic system was not idle, and it was also doing its best to win allies.

However, at that time, Germany's diplomatic power was still firmly in the hands of professional diplomats of the Weimar Republic, headed by German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neuwright.

These people are old and highly qualified, belonging to the typical old-style bureaucracy of "can't cure foreigners can't cure you", busy for several months, allies did not win, but from time to time to hitler choked enough.

Enraged, Hitler, who was extremely controlling, ordered the secret establishment of an office dedicated to foreign affairs within the Nazi Party, bypassing the German Foreign Office and directly responsible for himself.

As the "chief of staff", Ribbentrop naturally began to be responsible for the financing and formation of this office, and during the "preparatory period", this special office was temporarily called Ribbentrop's office.

The layman's way of thinking is indeed different from that of professionals, and after Ribbentrop took charge of the foreign affairs of the Nazi Party, he did not bother to compete with the Soviet Union and France for the diplomatic dominance of the small countries one by one, but quickly entered the field of "office politics" that he was best at, carefully analyzing the "interpersonal relations" and "political positions" between European countries in the past hundred years.

After this analysis, Ribbentrop was keenly aware that in the "Eastern Pact" system between the Soviet Union and France, there was a huge stirring stick: Poland.

In Ribbentrop's view, the Polish state has only eight words to describe: the ambition is great, and the people are addicted to food.

When the country was first founded, Poland's ancestors made the common mistake of novice players, only coveting the gentle and convenient Plain of Bode, and took pictures of the main city without waiting for the full map.

As a result, the whole picture was bright, and the whole country was dumbfounded, and found itself completely caught between several big powers.

In the following hundreds of years, when the Russians were strong, they brushed them as copies from east to west, and when the Germans were strong, they beat them as experience from west to east.

But even so, the personality of the Polish secondary two teenager has not changed a little, and there is still a "flat independence and town dew" in his heart, and I have a dream in Eastern Europe.

"Ping Du Zhen Lu" is a meme on the Internet to describe the traditional Polish diplomatic concept.

Among them, "independence" is the German pronunciation in the Japanese pronunciation, "Lu" is the Russian pronunciation in the Japanese pronunciation, and there was a very short period of Polish history that had the glory of defeating Germany and Russia at the same time, and it was called "Pingdu Zhenlu" in Japanese literature.

So when world war I ended, taking advantage of the defeat of the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland decisively made territorial claims to both countries.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been beaten to death and had almost surrendered to Poland from danzig.

The nascent Soviet Union, on the other hand, fought three years of soviet-Polish war with Poland, fighting so hard that the people were so exhausted that they were forced to cede 135,000 square kilometers of land east of the Curzon Line to Poland.

The political commissar of the Southwestern Front of the Soviet Red Army, who was hoisted by the Polish army from the city of Warsaw all the way to Minsk, was precisely Stalin, the current helmsman of the Soviet Union!

Ribbentrop thus analyzed that although intellectually Poland was wary of both the rapidly rising Germany and the Soviet Union, emotionally speaking, Poland's fear of the Soviet Union should be much higher than that of Germany.

What's more, France foolishly wanted to pull Czechoslovakia along.

You know, as a powerful country that aspires to "be independent and dewy, I have in Eastern Europe", Poland has never given a good face to its neighbors, especially with Czechoslovakia.

For more than a decade, Poland has encouraged the Slovaks in Czechoslovakia to oppose the Czechs, and Czechoslovakia in turn has incited ukrainians in Poland to oppose the Poles, seeing each other as "foreign powers with ghostly hearts".

France now doesn't want to think about it, and if it has to separate Poland and Czechoslovakia at one desk, Poland will be able to see the hell in its heart.

More crucially, if Poland really makes itself angry and resentful, the use value is still limited.

Poland's diplomatic relations with its neighbor Romania at that time were in the midst of a honeymoon period rarely seen in history.

According to the framework of the "Eastern Pact", if the Soviet army wanted to attack Germany on both sides with the French army, it could only borrow from Poland or Romania by land, and as long as the two countries joined forces, the Soviet Union was completely blockaded in the Far East.

Thinking about these layers of relations, the entire diplomatic situation in Europe suddenly opened up in Ribbentrop's eyes.

At a time when France and the Soviet Union were still obsessed with the "Eastern Pact" and were thinking of "playing big chess", Ribbentrop decisively launched a diplomatic offensive against the key small country of Poland.

According to the tradition of European countries at that time, diplomats should be handsome, quick-witted, and clever.

According to this standard, Ribbentrop is a completely negative teaching material, not only is he thick-looking, his speech is slow, and his way of talking is completely divorced from the frankness and directness of diplomatic rhetoric.

But it is this seemingly inconspicuous way of talking that makes it easier to win the trust of diplomats in other countries.

In negotiations with Polish diplomats, Ribbentrop came up with a "heart-to-heart" statement that Poland is now "surrounded by wolves".

Not only was there a voice in Germany to retake the Danzig region occupied by Poland, but even the Soviet Union in the "Eastern Pact" system and neighboring Lithuania and Czechoslovakia hated him to the teeth.

However, if Germany wants to expand, it must first defeat its old enemy France, and the Danzig region is definitely not the preferred target, and the Soviet Union can only expand in the direction of Poland.

Are you Poland really not afraid of the Soviet Union attacking Germany in the name of attacking Germany through Poland?

So Poland might as well buy another insurance in Germany, so that "once the Soviet Union attacked Poland, Germany would not hesitate to regard it as an attack on Germany itself."

Although Germany could not guarantee that it would never attack Poland, Ribbentrop guaranteed in his personal honor that "Germany will not demand in any form Poland to betray the sovereignty of the Danzig region in any way in the next ten years".

At the same time, Germany was willing to help Poland to settle its territorial disputes with Lithuania and Czechoslovakia once and for all.

Needless to say, this kind of negotiation idea that seems to be completely from the Polish standpoint to consider the problem, the open and honest negotiation method, and the negotiation technique of "shining the bottom card" without any skill, is precisely the most appetizing to Poland's second-grade teenager.

Poles' long-sought sense of national security and national pride was greatly satisfied.

Although "Pingdu Zhenlu" cannot be realized in a short period of time, the great prospects of "Liandu Zhenlu" seem to be in front of us.

In January 1934, Poland and Germany signed the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact, in which the two sides pledged to non-aggression against each other for 10 years, to respect each other's existing territorial sovereignty, and not to use any force to resolve disputes between the two countries.

Immediately, Poland made it strong that it was okay for Lao Tzu to join the "Eastern Pact", but it was not okay for the Soviet army to pass through the mainland! To pass, the Soviet army will not step on lao tzu's corpse!

Poland's bold ambition immediately made Romania boil with blood, and immediately said that what Poland said was equal to what I said, Poland will not let you pass, and I Romania will not let you live!

Ay?

Seeing that these two small countries that they had not gone to their hearts before suddenly took the wrong medicine and jumped out of the board, Stalin and the French foreign minister Louis Baldo were suddenly in Bengbu.

Stalin tentatively said no, I sent troops to destroy these two "two hundred and five" first, and Baldu helplessly said that our goal was to eliminate the Nazis, not to become Nazis ourselves...

After passing and not being able to fight, the Soviets and the French could only look at Poland from a distance.

Seeing that the momentum is not right, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and other countries have also retreated, saying that they will not solve the Polish problem first.

The seemingly huge "Eastern Convention" was suddenly dismantled and destroyed in name only.

There was only one Czechoslovak left, still loyally following the two big brothers, dreaming of meat in the future.

The so-called gun shot the head bird, everyone else ran you did not run, Ribbentrop's eyes suddenly turned to Czechoslovakia.