In 1937, the London Times editor Geoffrey Dawson wrote to his correspondent in Geneva, "I do my best, night after night, to keep out of the paper anything that might hurt [German] susceptibilities . . . . I have always been convinced that the peace of the world depends more than anything else upon our getting into reasonable relations with Germany."
This solicitude for the feelings of a Germany that had eagerly embraced Nazi racialist militarism reflected more than just a desperate desire to avoid war. It was also the consequence as of a widespread belief among many in England that Germany had been unjustly treated after World War I. A few days after the disastrous Munich conference in 1938, a Labour Party MP observed, "It is perfectly true that we did not act, not merely wisely and generously, but even justly to Germany after the war. . . . I repeat that we bear a very heavy responsibility for the tensions and menaces of the present international situation."
