In the view of most Western people, what the Germans did inside their own country was their business, not a legitimate cause for international action. 

People were sad to see German democracy fail and a dictatorship be established.  The newspapers were full of terrible stories.  However, many countries were dictatorships of some type.  Russia, Poland, Austria, Italy, Japan, all those awful little Balkan countries.  (“Very Balkan” was a French slang term for bad behavior in public: a pimp slapping a prostitute on a street corner or big kids beating up on a little kid in an alley.)  It wasn’t a cause for war. 

In the same way, people were revolted by the treatment of the Jews.  Discrimination under the law, harassment, beatings, concentration camps where people were locked up under terrible conditions, and sometimes people died.  One could protest, so long as one was willing to have the Germans–or right-minded people in your own country—point out all your own misbehavior.  Britain and France had empires where the “natives” were badly treated on the basis of race.  The United States oppressed African Americans, often violently in the South.  It wasn’t a cause for war. 

Then there was a distinction between those who would have to defeat Germany and those who would benefit from the defeat of Germany.  Germany could only be defeated by a coalition of major powers.  Britain and France certainly, and possibly Russia if some way could be found to cut a deal with Moscow.  They would do the fighting and the dying, and they would pay the costs of the war.  Who would benefit?  Austria.  Czechoslovakia.  Poland.  Rumania.  Hungary.  Estonia.  Latvia.  Lithuania.  They would get to keep their independence.  Without looking at a map, can you tell me where these countries are located?  Would anyone else benefit?  The United States and Japan, and the Russians if they managed to stay out of the fighting. 

Then there was an emotional element.  This is hard to quantify.  The Depression seemed to prove that democratic capitalism didn’t work very well.  Britain, France, the United States, Australia, Canada, Belgium all suffered under high unemployment and economic stagnation for many years.  People were tired and demoralized.  In contrast, from all that anyone could tell from the newspapers and the newsreels shown in the movie theaters, the Russians, the Germans, and the Italians were happy, confident, and all hard at work building some new kind of civilization.  What would happen if the slacker countries had to go up against the over-achiever countries?  It wouldn’t be pretty. 

So, there were lots of reasons not to fight and very few reasons to fight.  The question then became “What are Hitler’s intentions?” 

Some people saw very clearly early on that Hitler meant to organize Germany for war and then to make Germany the most powerful country in Europe.  Sir Horace Rumbold, the British ambassador to Germany when Hitler came to power, and Winston Churchill, then a marginal politician, saw the situation with unusual clarity.  The French military intelligence service had him pegged right from the start.  For most other people, matters were not so clear. 

First of all, people believed that Germany had some legitimate grievances.  If you took Hitler to be a normal politician, then removing these grievances would end the problem.  Germany had been disarmed, but no one had been willing to make the first move to general disarmament.  If others would not disarm, then perhaps Germany would be satisfied with equality in armaments.  Nationalism said that all people who spoke the same language and had the same culture should belong to the same independent country.  Germans in Austria, the Sudetenland, and the Polish Corridor had been denied this right. 

Then, there was the question of who was really in charge in Berlin.  Most political parties had a left wing, a right wing, and a center.  Who was to say that Nazism was any different?  Probably there were “radical” or “extremist” Nazis, then there were “conservative” Nazis, and then there were “middle of the road” Nazis.  You might not be able to deal with the “radicals,” but surely you could work a deal with the “moderate” and “conservative” Nazis.  Furthermore, to which group did Hitler belong?  Finally, it took a while to understand the strength of Hitler’s grip on power.  The Nazis were only one force in German politics, so far as anyone could tell at first.  Would he Army, big business, all the traditional conservatives who had dominated German life since 1870 really allow Hitler to lead them into another, possibly disastrous, war?  Or would they overthrow him? 

For all these reasons it appeared sensible to seek a peaceful solution.  Of course, if Hitler actually did intend to munch away at the Versailles settlement by little bites only in order to make Germany strong enough to impose its will on every other country, as the dooms-sayers proclaimed, then Britain and France would have no choice but to fight to preserve their own independence.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.