Diehard Conservatives and the Appeasement of Nazi Germany, 1935–1940

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.