Page 157 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

144 The French Diplomats

therein lies the origin of the slogans that disfigured the soul of the nation:
‘Better Hitler than stalin’ and ‘Why die for danzig?’” similarly, Paul rey-
naud, a political leader of the alliance démocratique, a center-right party,
bemoaned the fact that many French citizens subscribed to what he called
“conditional patriotism,” which meant that they would fight for their coun-
try only if the government was not in the hands of leftists. 113
in this climate of political and social turbulence and declining patri-
otism, only a statesman of extraordinary wisdom and uncommon courage
could have steered France into a path of resistance to Nazi Germany. But
men with such sterling qualities are rarely to be found in politics, in France
or anywhere else. When the Popular Front was forced to leave office after
a brief, second tenure in april 1938, Blum was replaced by Édouard dala-
dier, whose understanding of foreign affairs outstripped by far his resolve
to stand up to a dictator as tenacious and ruthless as Hitler. daladier knew
that the Führer could not be trusted to keep his word and was certain that
within a few months of securing the agreement of the Western powers in
1938 to his seizure of large parts of Czechoslovakia, he would make new
demands for territorial expansion. But the French prime minister yielded
to the wishes of Chamberlain when it became evident that he could not
persuade the British leader to change course. daladier confessed to his col-
leagues, “i am not proud [of capitulating],” 114 but he remained in office
until 1940, by which time Nazi Germany was on the verge of delivering its
final blow to France.
it was a tragic ending to the third republic, all the more so because it
could have been prevented. French statesmen had received ample informa-
tion on the nature of Nazism from their senior diplomat in Germany and
from a former German diplomat as early as 1933, but institutional instabil-
ity, abhorrence of armed conflict, and weak political leadership doomed
any possibility of successful resistance to Nazism.