Know Your Enemy

Abstract

This chapter delves into the British perceptions of Adolf Hitler's intentions in the 1930s. It offers a reverse case, in which those in power maintained beliefs opposite to those predicted by the fundamental attribution error (FAE). It also mentions Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who strongly resisted attributing dispositional causes to Hitler's behavior and instead emphasized situational causes, noting the German desire to redress the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, attain territorial security, and unite the German-speaking people. The chapter recounts how Chamberlain continued to give Hitler the benefit of the doubt in the face of mounting contradictory evidence, which lead to the disastrous policy of appeasement and the Munich Crisis of 1938. It talks about other actors whose beliefs aligned with the FAE that insisted that Hitler was acting out of offensive intentions to expand German power and vigorously opposed appeasement.