Many of his aims had a knock-on-effect. For instance Hitler's aims to defeat Communism led to his alliance with Italy and Japan who also opposed communism. It also resulted in the Nazi-Soviet Pact since he wanted to invade Russia, a communist country. However, arguably it acted as a fundamental basis for appeasement since his aims seemed reasonable and many of them were to reverse the decision of the Treaty of Versailles, which many believed was unfair. Even so, it later became apparent that the only way to defeat Hitler's policy was to wage a war against him, which many did not want.
Hitler's foreign policy become even more of a cause when he begins to achieve them. For instance, insisting on taking the Sudetenland showed that he was willing to fight Czechoslovakia. When instead all of Czechoslovakia was invaded and this nearly resulted in a war, it showed that Hitler’s aims were uncontrollable and irrational because Czechoslovakia is not a German speaking country. Another example is the Anschluss with Austria, which seemed to be forced by Hitler who used his troops to ensure that the people voted for an Anschluss. This further showed that Hitler was intent on achieving his aims and would resort to war if possible.
Mainly Britain but other countries responded to Hitler's aims by appeasing him. This meant they would accept Hitler's aims if they seemed reasonable and fair in order to prevent war occurring. One of the main aspects of Hitler's policy where this can be seen is when they agree that Hitler can take part of the Sudentland. This time they believed Hitler deserved to join German-speaking people with his country and this is reversing a decision of the Treaty of Versailles, which Chamberlain thought was unjust to Germany.
Appeasement was believed to prevent war but instead it acted as an important cause of the Second World War because Hitler's demands become even more unreasonable. Knowing of Britain and France’s policy of appeasement, he thought they would not stop him if he continued to invade other countries and create lebensraum. For example, Hitler changing his demands and deciding he wanted all of the Sudetenland. He probably does this because he had got away with his other demands such as the Anschluss and re-militarizing the Rhineland. However, his demands for the Sudetenland nearly caused a war because many countries realized that Hitler could not be trusted and were in conflict with Germany concerning the effects on Czechoslovakia. Appeasement again has linking factors. For instance, it led to the Nazi-Soviet Pact because Stalin saw how easily Britain and France gave into Hitler's demands. It also possibly led to the failure of the League because other dictators began to take advantage of the weakness of the League and the policy of appeasement.
In the end therefore it seems more likely that appeasement contributed more to the Second World War than Hitler's foreign policy. Even though both causes are linked because appeasement is the response given to his policy, Britain and other countries did not anticipate Hitler’s unreasonable demands until it was too late. This was revealed when he insisted upon having all of the Sudentland. Arguably Britain and France only realized the full extend of Hitler's policy when they were forced to go to war over the invasion of Poland. If Britain and France had stopped Hitler when he re-militarized the Rhineland and easily defeated his armies, they would have probably prevented him from increasing his demands and thus have prevented World War Two. Therefore, Hitler’s aims were inevitable since he believed that Germany was treated unfairly by the Treaty of Versailles. So even though Hitler’s aims were a main cause, the key to preventing him achieving this aims was not solely due to appeasement because this only made Hilter’s demands worse and delayed the war, not stop it.
