Suchergebnisse

Focusing on the Cold War and the post-Cold War eras, R. Gerald Hughes explores the continuing influence of Appeasement on British foreign policy and re-evaluates the relationship between British society and Appeasement, both as historical memory and as a foreign policy process. The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement explores the reaction of British policy makers to the legacies of the era of Appeasement, the memory of Appeasement in public opinion and the media and the use of Appeasement as a motif in political debate regarding threats faced by Britain in the post-war era. Using many previously unp

Details the ambiguity in British policy towards Europe in the Cold War as it sought to pursue detente with the Soviet Union whilst upholding its commitments to its NATO allies. This book is intended for students of Cold War history, British foreign policy, German politics, and international history.

This article is concerned with British foreign policy and the legacy of the Munich Agreement during and after the Second World War. It argues that contemporary policy requirements necessitated an unapologetic attitude to the past that often entailed the adoption of evasive legal formulae. Thus, while West Germany and Czechoslovakia achieved a modus vivendi in 1973, the British refused to repudiate Munich ab initio and applauded the West German decision to do likewise. London steadfastly maintained this position until 1992, three years after the end of the Cold War. This article explores the reasoning in British policy formulation and demonstrates that while historians discussed the 'shame' of Munich, policymakers rarely experienced feelings of guilt – seeking instead to derive the maximum possible benefit from the continuing significance of Munich. Furthermore, many of the actions of the British government during the Second World War, not least with regard to the Katyń massacres and the Yalta Conference, reinforced the idea that Munich had been a creature of its time and a 'necessary evil'. Drawing extensively on primary sources, this article will make a contribution to the historiography of British foreign relations and that of collective institutional memory and appeasement.