The policy of appeasement is most closely associated with which leader?

• A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
• B. Neville Chamberlain
• C. Winston Churchill
• D. Joseph Stalin

Answer: (B)

Appeasement is the idea of avoiding war by making concessions to an aggressive power. Neville Chamberlain, who was the British prime minister in the 1930s, epitomized this approach. He pursued negotiation and concessions with Nazi Germany in hopes of keeping peace, culminating in the Munich Agreement of 1938. In that agreement, Britain and France allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, hoping Hitler would stop demanding more. Chamberlain famously proclaimed “peace for our time,” but the policy did not prevent further aggression; Germany soon expanded and the war escalated with the invasion of Poland. This sequence is why Chamberlain is the leader most closely associated with appeasement.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is linked more with the New Deal and later wartime leadership supporting allies, not concessions to aggressors. Winston Churchill, by contrast, became known for opposing appeasement and urging strong defense and resistance. Joseph Stalin pursued security through different means, including shifting alliances and a nonaggression pact with Germany before turning toward the Allied side in World War II.