So, I have my choice between your opinion and ridiculous myth?
My opinion is more accurate than a ridiculous myth that is designed to make Germany look "awesome." In general the Germans were better than France in 1940... but that is 1940, after the Nazis had nearly had ten years to build up their military/industrial complex from when they took power in 1933. When they marched into the Rhineland, there hadn't been that much in the way of development.
Historically, here's what happened. Somewhere between 1923 and 1940 a threshold was passed. In 1923, France occupied the Rhineland and aided in the turmoil in Bavaria - and in someone's mind - there were visions of the old Rhineland Confederation of Napoleonic days.
Perhaps, but that threshold was not in 1933. The German economy had been wrecked by WW1 and was still rebuilding through the twenties. And while this was done by the mid 20s, the Weimar government didn't engage in the level of militarization that the Nazis did. In this when the Nazis took power in 1933 they would essentially be rebuilding a large military force from scratch and this would not be something done easily, particularly from 1933-1936 when they were trying to hide these actions. This meant that the Germans did not have a large, mechanized force, that was fully trained and fully prepared, even by 1939. In fact much of their artillery and logistics were still horse drawn in 1939... It was only their mechanized divisions that were fully mechanized. The rest was not that different from the men who fought in WWI. The book "Soldat" covers the service of one of those artillery officers from 1939-1945... and points to the fact that they were horse drawn units.
And at the same time, the development in the German army did not exist in a vacuum. France did respond and did build on its own military forces at the same time. It was for this reason that when Hitler wanted to march into the Rhineland that there were concerns about the French response. See:
Remilitarisation of the Rhineland. And concerns over the French military's response to German action was still there over events and actions coming later, that Hitler's plans for advancing Nazi Party policies would trigger a war and bring about German defeat. This would include issues like the Oster Conspiracy in 1938, fearing that the Munich Crisis would lead to war and included supposed underground plans to topple Hitler if it did so. See:
Oster conspiracy - Wikipedia And certain elements of this were there even in 1940, though the results of the Battle of France soon silenced that until 1943 when Germany began to lose the war.
And this reinforces my point that the Germans could have done more to oppose Hitler... Could have taken a firmer stance against him, because the Nazis can't arrest EVERYONE.
In 1940, even with aid, France was helpless to stop a 30-day German march to Paris.
This misrepresents how Germany won the Battle of France in 1940, for France was FAR from helpless. In 1940, the French and British not only had more tanks than the Germans but in many respects they had better tanks than the Germans. And head on clashes in 1940 at Hannut and Gembloux the French actually got the tactical results they wanted from the engagement. The German advance was stopped and bloodied. In fact the Germans suffered heavier losses at Hannut than the French did.
The issue that hurt the French was that Gamelin expected the main German thrust to be in northern Belgium as it was in 1914, not through the Ardennes and thus placed his forces to stop the Schlieffen Plan. When the German army emerged in force at Sedan, the best of the French army was caught out of position, setting up the fierce fighting for Dunkirk that claimed the bulk of France's best units their operational equipment. It was a result of better German tactics and a strategy that wasn't even considered possible. It was not the result of the Germans simply being "better."
So, there is a time when, first, Germany cannot resist French occupation (1923 and alter). Then, there is a time when France cannot resist German occupation (1940 or earlier). There is breakeven point separating those two. I bet, in your estimate, that point is at least three years later than in my estimate. IMO, it is a few years before the Munich Conference, by which time, it's way too late. Poor Neville, a name that will live in undeserved infamy.
Given the German concerns over what the French might do over the Rhineland and even over the Sudetenland in 1938... that balance at tipping point is likely going to be somewhere between 1937-1939. Because building a good army takes time and takes economic energy... or potentially costs economic energy. If Germany was militarily and economically ready for war in 1935-1936 there would not have been the hesitancy of taking action over the Rhineland or threatening war over the Sudetenland. But that concern was there, and as such, Germany was not ready... or at least wasn't confident that it was.
First, you try to tell me the Nazi rise due to anti-Jewish rhetoric. (I told you those rose, because for several years, they made numerous deals with the industrial corporations and banks that were created and empowered by the Dawes and Young Plans).
Funding is not the same thing as a message. The Nazis may have gotten money from these companies, but they did not campaign to the German people, "vote for us because we want money from the Young Plan." The German people weren't going to vote for that kind of message. The Nazis rose to power on the message they sold to the German people. What financed them was merely the means by which they used to propagate that message.
And then after 1936, when Germany is the second-leading industrial nation, with all this power to project military force - now it's a big surprise that they will exercise their anti-Jewishness by trying to kill every Jew in Pale of Settlement, using their American-made might to knock out whoever gets in their way?
It was a surprise to the politicians trying to confront Hitler. For keep in mind, much of this was set up by the remembering of the propaganda from WWI. During that war, the British put out a lot of propaganda that had Germany committing all sorts of atrocities just because they were Germans. Including the reports of sending the bodies of those killed in Belgium to "corpse factories" where the human fat would be reduced to candle wax and things like that. After WWI, many of these atrocity stories were proven to be made up. Thus the cynicism over this sort of thing struck hard going into the pre-WW2 and during the war. That if the reports of the Germans committing atrocities was proven false in the last war, it MUST be false in the present as well.
Reports did make their way out... but no one really wanted to see it. No one wanted to believe that the country that gave the world Luther, Wittgenstien, Beehoven, Mozart, Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, and others could sink to such barbarism.
Not buying that. Sorry. IMO, Mr. FDR is not stupid. He knows where Hitler is going. There is a book called The Time of Jacob's Trouble, several actually, but I refer to one written in 1938 by Bauman, a preacher in California. How does he already know that Hitler is an extinction level event for the Jews, if FDR can't figure that out?
Not saying that there weren't concerns or that Roosevelt was "stupid." But there is ultimately a difference between a private citizen, free to voice his opinion, and a President who must take other things into account. And with other factors in mind... I'd think that while Roosevelt came to distrust German aggression with its neighbors ultimately fell into the same camp of people that couldn't believe that Germany would become as barbarous as it did under Hitler.
