When Putin gave a major speech in Munich in 2007 in which he signalled a confrontational and neo-imperial course, some Western politicians did not take his program seriously. But a large group of politicians and diplomats, although they took Putin’s signals seriously, believed that the confrontation could be avoided, and Putin could somehow be appeased. This is how the contemporary edition of the appeasement doctrine, promoted especially in Berlin and Paris, developed. Today, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, some of the supporters of the appeasement, such as President Steinmeier or the former German Foreign Minister Gabriel, had the courage to beat their breasts and admit their mistake. But Angela Merkel not yet. Many appeasement preachers back then simply went silent today. But some people still try to deny their mistake by stating that if Ukraine recognized Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and abandoned its dream of membership in NATO, the war would not take place. Appeasement towards Russia has entered their blood so deeply.

Appeasement means satisfying, calming, soothing. The term is widely used to define the policy of the Western powers (Great Britain and France) towards Germany in the years 1935–1939. But appeasement had been used in practice earlier, at least since the negotiations in Locarno in 1925. The Weimar Germany did not hide its intention to revise the Versailles Treaty. The idea behind the Locarno Pact was to obtain Germany’s assurances of honoring its western borders in exchange for leaving open the question of the eastern borders of Germany. This was interpreted as an attempt to appease the revisionist appetites of Germany in Locarno at the expense of Poland (and Czechoslovakia). The western politicians in the thirties did not want to realize that Hitler’s program went even further. It wasn’t just about overthrowing Versailles. He wanted to recreate Germany within its ethnographic borders and provide it with “living space” in the east. And it was thought that small concessions would exhaust his desire.

It is from this interwar context that the broader use of the term arises, pejorative and denoting a conciliatory procedure towards aggressive states. It is one of the most shameful kinds of passive politics. It has been practiced, unfortunately, still quite nowadays and not only towards Russia.

To this day, disputes persist as to whether the pre-war appeasement resulted from the naivety of politicians or was forced by the lack of readiness on the part of the Western powers for a new war with Germany. At that time, there were undoubtedly objective premises for the suppression of the war perspective in the thinking of the political elite of the West. Britain’s military potential was modest and outdated. Alexander Cadogan, a highly influential figure in the British Foreign Office, argued in his memoirs that neither France nor the UK could not deliver any direct help to Czechoslovakia in the event of Hitler’s invasion. The only thing they could do was to stage symbolic offensive operations against Germany (as they did in September 1939, in order to authenticate the guarantee to Poland under the guise of “drole de guerre”). Britain could, in Cadogan’s opinion, send a very modest force to the continent in 1939, of no more than two divisions equipped with archaic weapons. Out of 27 fighter squadrons, as many as 20 had outdated or aging aircraft. In order not to sound groundless – none of the planes was equipped with an eight-barreled rifle, which was then considered a distinguishing feature of modernity. So what if the British were already bragging about their radar then. However, they lacked a striking force.

France was limited in politics by the demographic crisis after the First World War and the psychological resistance to new sacrifices. Due to war losses, the number of men reaching the draft age in the late 1930s was barely half of the planned enrollment and was barely reaching one third of the German conscription before the outbreak of the war. France’s pacifist mood was explainable.

But at the same time, Hitler’s plans were transparent from the first days after taking power. And it was political blindness not to notice them. He consistently pursued the intention to dismantle the Versailles system and conquer Europe. It was wishful thinking that concessions on secondary matters would prevent him from pursuing the strategic agenda of gaining control over Europe. Cadogan, in the fall of 1938, called for the UK to abandon Britain’s role as a European policeman, focusing on British interests in the Mediterranean region. He suggested allowing Hitler to search for “Lebensraum” for Germany in Central and Eastern Europe. It was only Hitler’s demands against Poland at the end of 1938 that shocked the consciousness of British and French politicians. The idea of channeling the aggressive energy of Germany to the east led to a dead end.

If, however, appeasement was a calculated necessity, then not much was done to buy time in 1935-1938 to begin the path of building a credible military capability that could hold back Germany. Whether Polish suggestions about our readiness to support a possible French preventive war in 1936, when German troops entered the Rhineland, had a chance to be taken seriously, is pure speculation.

Appeasement was not just a tactical ploy, however. It was zealously supported by business circles in the West, social elite and media. Until March 1939, there were few opponents of this policy. The Polish political elite was also mesmerized by the conciliatory German rhetoric until November 1938, when Germany changed its friendly attitude towards Poland and presented a list of its demands.

It is believed that the beginning of the policy of concessions towards Germany was the lack of reaction to the restoration of military conscription (as a result of the denunciation of Part V of the Versailles Treaty) and the remilitarization of Rhineland in March 1936. Hitler allegedly considered the possibility that the French could respond with a military action and issued an order, in order to retreat in case of encountering French troops. But no French action came about. In the diplomatic field, a critical resolution in the League of Nations was passed, but no more serious sanctions were adopted against the Germans. In fact, only the Soviet Union demanded sanctions in the League of Nations. It was recognized in both London and Paris that Rhineland was after all Germany’s own backyard and that its remilitarization did not constitute a major threat to the security of Europe.

The Anschluss of Austria in March 1938 did not cause much condemnation either. Because it was recalled that in Weimar Germany and in post-war Austria, there were strong demands for unification. It is true that Versailles forbade it (without the consent of the League of Nations), but the explanantion came about that Anschlus in its own way was an implementation of the principle of self-determination that was at the basis of the post-war order in Europe. It is true that Hitler occupied Austria while not allowing the plebiscite designed by Schuschnigg to be held, but the entering Germans were welcomed with joy by immeasurable crowds. Never before, and never after, had the Heldenplatz in Vienna experienced such enthusiastic crowds. Even when Austria joined the European Union.

The apogee of the appeasement policy was the Munich Pact of September 30, 1938. In the name of saving peace in Europe, the four powers (Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy) decided to annex the Sudetenland to the Third Reich. The representatives of Czechoslovakia were not even admitted to the meeting room. Chamberlain made history infamously for saying that it would be horrible, fantastic, incredible to be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.

In March 1939, Germany already subjugated the entire Czech Republic and annexed Klaipeda as well.

This sparked a sobering reflection in London. Feverishly, signals were sent that further aggressive actions by Germany would provoke a tough reaction from the UK. Guarantees were granted to Poland (March 31, 1939), Romania and Greece. These guarantees were judged by no means as credible, because Great Britain did not have then the army and even aviation, which were to stop Germany. Apparently, in this way, it primarily wanted to force the overcoming of reluctance to enter into an armed conflict in French political circles.

A week before the outbreak of the war, Great Britain Britain signed a mutual assistance treaty with Poland (Polish-British alliance treaty). But all too late and too little. The appeasement had already so encouraged Hitler to the war that he had no intention of withdrawing. No diplomatic finesse could stop the conflict then.

Our days have experienced a kind of recidivism of appeasement. It was one of the consequences of the Cold War. The Cold War confrontation left a deep traumatic imprint on the mentality of Western politicians, even those who should be resistant to such recollections of memory for generations. Over the years, they have pushed out of their consciousness the increasingly confrontational political course of Russia (and China). They persuaded themselves that Russia would inevitably anchor itself in the structures of cooperation with the West, and China would begin to democratize itself and renounce expansionism. Lucky to benefit form the peace dividend they sharply reduced military expenditures. Each subsequent act proving that the roads of the West and Russia are diverging have been downplayed. A confrontational attitude was forbidden. In a way, the appeasement was applied towards Russia. One of many examples: in 2007, the OECD started the process of Russia’s accession to the organization and it was not harmed by the Russian aggression against Georgia in 2008. It was only the invasion of Ukraine that led to the suspension of the process in 2014.

Yet, Putin’s strategy was known for a long time. As in the 1930s, Hitler’s intentions were known, so clearly laid out in Mein Kampf. Six months after the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the Obama administration announced a reset of relations with Russia. Germany, till the recognition by Russia of the Donetsk and Luhansk pseudo-republics in February 2022, resisted the abandonment of the Nordstream-2 project.

Even the annexation of Crimea in 2014 did not make some politicians aware of the need for a fundamental revision of the policy towards Russia. I was a witness when in Strasbourg, at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers Deputies convened on the eve of the signing in Moscow of the 2014 annexation acts of Crimea to Russia, devoted specifically to the situation around Crimea, some speakers even refused to use the word “Russia”. They did not want to upset Russia, probably. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, did so only (timidly) at the eighth minute of his ten-minute speech. After the suspension of the rights of the Russian delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly, he complained in bilateral talks that it was complicating his program of developing technical cooperation with Russia. In later years, he headed the action of restoring Russia to its “rightful” place in the Parliamentary Assembly. He was supported in this by France and Germany, but also by PiS diplomacy. One of the shameful acts of behaviour of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Jacek Czaputowicz, was to support the decision of the Committee of Ministers of the CoE in 2019, leading to the restoration of Russia’s voting right in the PACE. Because apparently Jagland promised that he would help bring about the return of the Smolensk wreckage. The heads of Polish diplomacy under PiS had earnestly earned their place in the limbus fatuorum.

When Russia, in repressing Aleksei Navalny in 2021, clearly failed to implement the ruling of the Human Rights Court, there were critical statements by the organization’s leaders, and the Committee of Ministers called on Russia to implement the ruling, but no serious consequences were drawn. Russia remained a full member of the organization that prides itself on the highest standards of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Everyone is aware that even twenty years ago, with such a state of repression of the regime, it would never have had any chance of joining the Council of Europe. The Strasbourg appeasement did not add credibility to the Council of Europe. It only marginalized it politically even more.

The eviction of Russia from the Council of Europe helped to save the face of the organization. Jagland went on pension. But many pursuers of the policy of appeasement still occupy in the Secretariat commanding positions.

When in 2002 I became the head of political planning at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I was struck by the naive opinions of Putin’s personality in many Western capitals that I visited as part of my consultations. It was said there that he was intelligent, knew the West (and liked the Western way of life), that he was rational, that he was predictable. Well, just heaven and earth in relation to Yeltsin. Whereas I saw from the very beginning an ardent chauvinist, not reconciled with the collapse of the USSR (believing in the new edition of “Dolchstosslegende”), distrustful of even the kindest partners, capable of crossing the insurmountable moral lines in politics. The West’s naivety, at being able to pacify or tame him, has grown over time into a gloomy resignation.

The procession of Western leaders who made pilgrimages to Moscow in early 2022 to prevent a war may have evoked associations with visits to Hitler in 1938 to avert the Sudeten crisis. Putin humiliated his interlocutors, lied to them about their power and built an image of the master of the situation. And he successfully put Western politicians an almost Caudinian yoke. For peace is always worth the highest humiliation? The prolongation of the war in Ukraine will undoubtedly encourage Western politicians to look for a modus vivendi with Putin, let it not become a new edition of appeasement.