The “negotiating” methods of German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler serve as a useful guide to what domestic and world leaders can expect from trying to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump.
In September, 1938, seven months after seizing Austria, Hitler gave another exhibition of his “negotiating” methods.
This time, the target of his aggression was Czechoslovakia. Once again, he opened “negotiations” with a lie: The Czechoslovak government was trying to exterminate 3.5 million Germans living in the “Sudetenland.”
Then he threatened war: Germany would protect its citizens and halt such “oppression.”
For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the thought of another European war erupting less than 20 years after the end of World War I was simply unthinkable.
He quickly sent Hitler a telegram, offering to help resolve the crisis: “I could come to you by air and am ready to leave tomorrow. Please inform me of earliest time you can receive me, and tell me the place of the meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply.”
[Mistake #1: Showing his willingness to placate a brutal dictator. Such men see any concessions as weakness—leading to only greater demands. Trump, like Hitler, relishes attacking those weaker than himself.]
The two European leaders met in Berchtesgaden, Germany, on September 15, 1938.
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler
Hitler denied that he had threatened war: “Force? Who speaks of force?“
Then, suddenly, he accused the Czechs of having mobilized their army in May. They had mobilized—in response to the mobilization of the German army.
“I shall not put up with this any longer,” shouted Hitler. “I shall settle this question in one way or another. I shall take matters in my own hands!”
Suddenly, Chamberlain seemed alarmed: “If I understood you right, you are determined to proceed against Czechoslovakia in any case. In the circumstances, it is best for me to return at once. Anything else now seems pointless.”
Hitler, taken aback, softened his tone and said they should consider the Sudetenland according to the principle of self-determination.
Chamberlain agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.
[Mistake #2: Instead of conceding to Hitler, which emboldened the dictator, Chamberlain should have pressed his advantage. When Hitler faced an opponent he couldn’t bribe or cow—such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—he raged and sulked.
[When Trump faces an opponent he can’t buy or intimidate—such as Special Counsels Robert Mueller and Jack Smith—he does the same.]
Chamberlain met Hitler again in Godesberg, Germany, on September 22 to confirm the agreements. But Hitler aimed to use the crisis as a pretext for war.
He now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories. This would give the Czechoslovak army no time to adapt their defense measures to the new borders.
To achieve a solution, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini suggested a conference of the major powers in Munich.
On September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and agreed to Mussolini’s proposal. They signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.
The Czechoslovak government had not been a party to the talks. Nevertheless, it promised to abide by the agreement on September 30.
It actually had no choice. It faced the threat of an immediate German invasion after being deserted by its pledged allies: Britain, France and the Soviet Union.
[Mistake #3: Selling out an ally and making a concession to an insatiable dictator—and believing that Hitler could be trusted to keep his word.
[Just as Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia, Trump plans on selling out Ukraine to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He’s blamed Ukraine for starting the 2022 war—even though Russia invaded Ukraine.
[He’s also attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—and repeatedly praised Putin. And he’s unilaterally announced that he will begin directing “peace talks” with Putin to end his war on Ukraine.]
Chamberlain returned to England a hero. Holding aloft a copy of the worthless agreement he had signed with Hitler, he told cheering crowds in London: “I believe it is peace for our time.”
Neville Chamberlain
Hitler—still planning more conquests—knew better. In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain would soon be seen as a naive weakling—even before bombs started falling on London.
Believing himself invincible, Hitler turned his attention—and demands—to Poland.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Believing himself invincible, Trump threatened violence against Canada, Greenland and Cuba.
Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. To his surprise, France and England honored their pledges to support Poland—triggering World War II.
On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel–attacked Iran without warning. To his surprise, the Iranians closed the Straight of Hormuz, through which 20-30% of the world’s oil total daily oil supply passes.
Hitler couldn’t “turn off” the war he had started. He could only lash out as his enemies multiplied.
The same has proven true for Trump.
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POPES AND TYRANTS: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 21, 2026 at 12:10 amIt’s become commonplace for liberals to attack President Donald Trump as a reincarnated Adolf Hitler—and Republicans as Nazis.
And Republicans furiously deny this, even as they embrace many of the same tactics—if not the goals—of Nazi Germany’s onetime rulers.
Throughout his first term as President, Trump adopted Hitler’s method of “negotiation” “Do what I want—or I’ll destroy you!” And it has remained so since his re-taking office on January 20, 2025.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, Trump arrogantly replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 30% of the world’s total daily oil supply passes.
Gas prices in the United States immediately rose. Analysts warned that if the disruption continued, gasoline prices could exceed $5 per gallon.
Strait of Hormuz
Facing an apparently unwinnable war that he had started, Trump found himself facing an unexpected opponent: Pope Leo X1V.
According to Christopher Hale, a political consultant and the editor of the popular Letters from Leo newsletter: Trump’s Pentagon has threatened to declare war on the Vatican.
“In January [2026], behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre—-Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States—and delivered a lecture,” said Hale in an interview.
“America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” Colby and his associates told the cardinal. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
One American official “reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.”
Two weeks after the confrontation, the Vatican declined Trump’s invitation to host Pope Leo for the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in July, 2026.
The Vatican obelisk in St. Paul’s Square
Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
According to sources in the Vatican and Americans briefed on the Pentagon meeting: Colby’s team studied the Pope’s January state-of-the-world address. They decided it was an attack on Trump.
What “enraged them most” was Leo’s line: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“The Pentagon read that sentence as a frontal challenge to the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’”— Trump’s self-named update of the Monroe Doctrine.
Issued by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, it officially prohibited European colonization and interference in the Western Hemisphere. And it was backed by the threat of an armed response to any such attempt.
On April 12, 2026, Pope Leo said that praying for peace was a way to “break the demonic cycle of evil” to build instead the Kingdom of God where there are no swords, drones or “unjust profit.
Pope Leo XIV
“It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” he said. “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”
On April 12, in talking to reporters, Trump furiously attacked the Pope: “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.” He charged that the Pope was not “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person.” He suggested that the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
On X, Trump wrote: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
This from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies on May 30, 2024. A New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal hush-money payments made to porn “star” Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
And he continued:
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.
Donald Trump
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Just as the majority of Nazis rallied around Adolf Hitler, so have Republicans rallied around Donald Trump.
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo X1V over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
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