FOR RELEASE: Immediately, December 11, 2009
Saint Francis professor speaks in Poland on Neville Chamberlain’s role in World War II
John Ruggiero of Ebensburg, an associate professor of history at Saint Francis University, was one of only four American university scholars among 80 other European scholars invited to address an international conference of scholars commemorating the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Poland in 1939. The conference was held at the University of Warsaw in conjunction with the Polish Museum of History in October. Ruggiero is the author of “Neville Chamberlain and British Rearmament: Pride, Prejudice, and Politics,” and he was invited to speak on the subject of Neville Chamberlain and British Public Opinion. Ruggiero has concluded, in his book, that World War II might well have been avoided had it not have been for the dominating presence of Neville Chamberlain in the British government.
Ruggiero's paper focused on the influence of public opinion on government policy, which passed through three phases. The first, from 1934-1938, was successfully managed by Chamberlain to keep the British people relatively uninformed from the danger confronting them from Nazi Germany. The Munich Crisis (phase 2) unmasked the government's weakness, and the people demanded greater rearmament measures; but Chamberlain continued to oppose greater rearmament measures until Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 (phase 3). This time he could not ignore the swelling public demand for conscription, an alliance with Russia, and other prudent defensive measures that he had long resisted, and he had to agree to them at last.
But that did not discourage Chamberlain from continuing to pursue his personal policy of appeasement with Hitler, even dealing in secret behind the back of his own Foreign Office. Had Chamberlain taken a strong stand against Hitler, as the British people wanted to do, there is good reason to believe that World War Two might have been avoided, because Hitler might not have taken the risks that he did without the support of his generals who were more cautious and risk averse than he was.
Chamberlain's controversial actions were motivated by his desire to preserve the political, economic, and social structure of the country which would have been devastated by war, and the government taken over by the socialist party.
The papers of the conference are scheduled for publication in January.
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