How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
This, then, was the first of many crises over a period that would extend for three years—until after the Germans reoccupied the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine in 1936—when the Allies could have applied sanctions, not for Hitler's leaving the Disarmament Conference and the League but for violations of the disarmament provisions of Versailles which had been going on in Germany for at least two years, even before Hitler. (2.7.116).
At the moment in time that he's describing here—the spring of 1933—it had been roughly fifteen years since the end of the First World War. Why did the Allies sit around and do nothing until the damage was done, rather than nipping this craziness in the bud?
Quote #5
In this crisis, as in those greater ones which were to follow in succession up to 1939, the victorious Allied nations took no action, being too divided, too torpid, too blind to grasp the nature or the direction of what was building up beyond the Rhine. On this, Hitler's calculations were eminently sound, as they had been and were to be in regard to his own people. (2.7.116)
Here's one situation where Hitler was smarter than the Allies. He correctly guessed that they wouldn't take action.
Quote #6
It was this writer's impression in Berlin from that moment until the end that had Chamberlain frankly told Hitler that Britain would do what it ultimately did in the face of Nazi aggression, the Fuehrer would never have embarked on the adventures which brought on the Second World War—an impression which has been immensely strengthened by the study of the secret German documents. This was the well-meaning Prime Minister's fatal mistake. (3.12.40)
Shirer repeatedly criticizes the short-sighted actions of the British government, which, he argues, helped to pave the way for the Second World War by capitulating to Hitler's unreasonable and manipulative demands. The famous image of Chamberlain waving around the agreement he'd just signed with Hitler and proclaiming "peace in our time" ranks as one of the all-time symbols of foolishness.