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Diehard Conservatives and the Appeasement of Nazi Germany, 1935–1940
N. C. FLEMING University of Worcester
Abstract Historians have tended to examine right-wing British responses to Adolf Hitler on the basis of a supposed admiration or political affinity for Nazism. This article argues that the dilemma which actually split diehard Conservatives was between challenging Germany before it was too late, and a conviction that Britain lacked the means to do so. Both positions were predicated on a belief that Britain needed to accelerate rearmament, and that Nazi Germany posed a direct threat to British power. Ideology is not irrelevant, but the public statements and actions of diehard MPs reveal that their primary motivation was to resist internal and external threats to Britain’s position as a world power. This resulted in an unprecedented division in diehard ranks over Neville Chamberlain’s foreign policy, though diehard unity on colonial appeasement recalled an older tradition of working together in defence of the empire.
n the evening of 24 October 1935, a House of Commons debate on unemployment was interrupted twice by protestors O seated in the strangers’ gallery. As Brigadier-General Sir Henry Page Croft began to speak, a ‘young woman ... threw a shower of leaflets into the chamber’. When another Conservative MP, Henry Victor Raikes, concluded his speech, an attack on the Labour Party’s support for disarmament, more leaflets were thrown down, accompanied by shouting: ‘Never again. Those who speak for peace also prepare for war.’1 The protesters were incited by the two MPs’ complaint
Early versions of this article were presented at the 24th Annual Conference of the British International History Group, De Montfort University, Leicester, 8 Sept. 2012, and at the Institute of English and American Studies, Technical University of Dortmund, 14 May 2014. The research was supported by a Visiting Fellowship, St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford; Research and Project Leave, University of Worcester; a Scouloudi Research Award, Institute of Historical Research, University of London; an Honorary Research Fellowship, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University; and an Associate Fellowship, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. The author would like to acknowledge the generous assistance and advice of Stuart Ball, Jeff Bowersox, Lois Lewis, Jeremy McIlwaine, Marc Mulholland, Philip Murphy, Lord Norton of Louth, Alan O’Day, Roland Quinault, Gerold Sedlmayr, Richard Ward and the two anonymous referees at History. [The Copyright line for this article was changed on 5 October 2016 after original online publication.] 1 Daily Mirror, 25 Oct. 1935, p. 6. The interruptions are not mentioned in the official record, see House of Commons Debates, 24 October 1935, vol. 305, cols 369–468.