However, Hitler's confidence hit a hard nail here in Poland, and the Polish government was not willing to negotiate with Germany at all for Danzig, the most important port in Poland.

This was very dissatisfying to the Germans, because although Danzig was a free city, it was administered by Poland and its garrison was also Polish troops. And the city is mostly German. More importantly, East Prussia was completely separated from the rest of Germany, with the two being only 40 kilometers apart.

It was also due to the separation of Poland that East Prussia lagged behind the rest of Germany. This has made the region desperate to open up the road between the two.

And was Hitler's demand justified this time?

To be fair, very reasonable. This time, Hitler only had to return the port of Danzig, and the open corridor allowed Germany to enter and leave East Prussia freely.

Initially, Hitler did not intend to attack Poland, although Poland had cederated the largest part of German territory after World War I. Poland, like Hungary, was useful to him in threatening the rear of Czechoslovakia, and he induced Poland to accede to his demands, and Poland seized the opportunity to seize a small piece of Czech territory.

Hitler intended to temporarily admit Poland as a small partner, as long as Poland returned to the German port of Danzig and allowed Germany free access to East Prussia through the "Polish Corridor". In the case of Hitler, this was a very restrained demand.

However, after successive negotiations, Hitler found that Poland was not only stubborn in its reluctance to make such concessions, but also had unrealistic ideas about its own strength. Still, he hopes that after further negotiations, they will change their minds. As late as March 25, he told the Commander-in-Chief of the Army that he was "unwilling to use force to settle the Danzig question."

But the nature of everything changed after Britain and France gave Poland security guarantees. Hitler found that Poland, which had the support of Britain and France, became even more emboldened in the face of German demands, and had no intention of negotiating with Germany at all (there was no value in courting them). This left Hitler with no choice but to find a new solution, and a military solution became possible.

It's just that in the face of Britain and France behind Poland at that time, as well as Romania, a possible ally, Hitler knew that he had to find a way to break up the support behind Poland, so Ribbentrop visited Romania, and after paying a huge price to pull Romania into his camp, now Hitler feels that in terms of strength, Germany and its allies have formed an advantage over Poland and Britain and France behind it.

Therefore, he hopes that his tough statement will make Poland and the British and French behind it see the facts clearly. It's just that Hitler's speech was completely flattering and thrown at the blind, and there was no reaction at all. Poland was so confident in its own strength that it did not think that it was afraid of Germany after receiving the support of Britain and France. Even after Romania fell to Germany, it still believed that it could withstand the attacks of the two countries.

This kind of iron-headed baby who does not listen to persuasion is very annoying, no matter what you say well, all kinds of threats are used up as a tendon, so the solution by force will quickly become the only one.

Some people may ask if Germany can't take a step back, and must take Danzig?

The answer is that there is no retreat, and now Germany cannot retreat a single step. If Hitler had dared to take a step back, Germany's domestic problems would have erupted. Moreover, rising nationalism is a double-edged sword, not only to rallying the hearts and minds of Germany to make Germany stronger, but also to devour those who cannot satisfy its appetites.

Germany's economic miracle is, to put it bluntly, the use of deficits to boost industrial production. It's just that Germany is dominated by the military industry, and the occurrence of the military industry will inevitably bring about a sharp expansion of the military. This also makes Germany seriously biased, and its financial support is simply not supported.

At this time, the German government had no money to expand its armaments, and Hitler thought of two ways, one of which was to obtain wealth from the Jews to support Germany's financial expenditures, which led to Germany's great anti-Semitism. Of course, the little wealth of the Jews alone could not support Germany's huge expenditures, and Hitler resorted to another method, which was to strengthen the monopoly.

In Germany, mergers and small and medium-sized enterprises were encouraged through various means, including legislation, and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen and small traders were assigned to military labor in military factories. By these means, resources are concentrated in the hands of monopolies in order to enable them to expand production, and then to control the national economy by controlling these monopolies.

At the same time, the German government began to build infrastructure and military facilities on a large scale, and carried out large-scale military procurement. While creating orders for enterprises, the German government also stipulates that enterprises must allocate a certain percentage of profits to expand production, and strictly regulates the scope of investment. These measures have indeed boosted the economy and stimulated employment in the short term. But it has created a huge fiscal deficit, and these deficits are a huge amount of money that the German government will never be able to repay.

Faced with such a high fiscal deficit, Hitler was reluctant to issue more money and the method of inflation and soaring prices once again. Therefore, we can only use the "white slip" method of bills to buy goods from enterprises.

At the same time, in order to tighten the currency, the government also issued a large number of bonds to consume what may be too much mark in the market. That is, by getting the German people to buy bonds, the currency is temporarily returned to the government. But in Germany at the time, this stimulated further government spending, and government debt continued to rise.

At the same time, the serious imbalance between light and heavy industries in the German economy is difficult to change, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of promoting consumption when these bonds return to society. What awaits Germany is a serious economic crisis.

To this end, at the beginning of 1939, the Board of Directors of the Reichsbank wrote to Hitler: "Endless state expenditures destroy attempts at an orderly budget, and even a large increase in the tax burden will bring state finances to the brink of collapse and, consequently, the exchange rate of the Central Bank." ”

The implication of this passage is that Germany's finances are about to collapse and that a solution needs to be found.

Now there is only one way ahead of Germany, and that is to use its vast military power to find a way to solve Germany's imminent bankrupt finances, and war is inevitable.

And this time it was also the reason why Germany failed to integrate the power of the occupying power for its own use. Germany first needs to plunder enough supplies and wealth from the occupying power to deliver on those blank slips and promises and ease the pressure at home. The people don't care about the strategic development of the country, they only see that Germany has won, then there should be spoils of war.

And in order to meet their demands, the occupying power can only suffer losses. And the plundered countries, if you want to integrate their strength, it will be extremely difficult.

So after Poland rejected Hitler's good intentions, the war was doomed.

It's just that Hitler is still waiting for a message, a message from the USSR.