b. Appeasement & Soviet foreign policy
Britain and France pursued appeasement, believing that conceding some of Hitler's demands would preserve peace. This policy reached its peak with the Munich Agreement (1938), negotiated by Neville Chamberlain, which allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union, in turn, had become frustrated by failed attempts at collective security with Britain and France, signed the Nazi–Soviet...