How are Appeasement and failure of diplomacy secondary causes of WWII?

Question

How are Appeasement and failure of diplomacy secondary causes of WWII?

Answer 1

Appeasement is seen as a failure because giving Hitler what he demanded made him only more bold.

There were genuine German grievances at the end of WWI including the fact that they lost territory to France, and the allies had the right to occupy the Rhineland.

However some grievances had little to do with WWI. For instance in the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia there lived several million Germans. However, these Germans had been part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, and not part of Germany.

The annexation of Austria itself (the Anschluss) was also something new.

Although Appeasement is seen as a failure it was also a recognition that Britain was not militarily prepared to stop Germany in 1936. France, better able militarily, was unwilling to go to war. The Soviet Union were also powerful but equally unwilling, and the west was slow to seek their aid anyway, due to ideological differences.

Answer 2

"Appeasement" was the Allied plan to prevent a second war with Germany by giving him some of the living space Hitler wanted, in hope that he would be satisfied and not cause conflict. However, this proved to have a negative affect. By allowing Germany to reoccupy the heavily industrial Rhineland, occupy Austria, Western Chezhoslovakia and the Lithuanian province of Memel, the allies allowed Germany access to a bigger manpower base and Industrial Capacity, which allowed Hitler to build a powerful military for Germany.

However, appeasement was hopeless from the start. n**i policies involved creating a living space for Germany, and very clearly stated that all of eastern europe should be annexed. It should have been obvious that Germany would never settle for second best, and diplomacy would have been doomed to fail unless the allies were willing to allow the German occupation of all eastern europe.

Sorry thats a bit specific, generally speaking, appeasement failed and became a cause of the war because Hitler wanted nothing but all of eastern europe, and by giving him industrially rich territories for free, they merely aided Germany in creating a powerful military.