I

By 1937, Adolf Hitler’s challenge to Europe had become overt and threatening. Through two years of unrestrained defiance of the Versailles Treaty’s military provisions, German rearmament had become the dominant factor in European politics. Why Germany’s military effort had emerged as a special danger to Europe’s security, American diplomat Hugh R. Wilson explained from Switzerland. “The ability of a dictator to devote practically the entire resources of his country to armament,” he wrote, “cannot be matched by democratic countries in time of peace.” From Berlin, Ambassador William E. Dodd warned Washington that “the development of the [German] army and the recent throwing off of restraints of these past 17 years have brought matters back to a place where Germany is even more dangerous to the world than in 1914.” In his diary notation of April 20, 1937, foreign correspondent William L. Shirer recorded Europe’s declining confidence:

On May 1937, French Premier Leon Blum acknowledged to U.S. Ambassador William C. Bullitt that “Hitler had the political initiative on the continent of Europe….”