ABC News - Singapore summit echoes Hitler-Chamberlain meeting in 1938, but offering 'lots of great condos' in our time

A great condo

Although it was ostensibly portrayed as an effort to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons, Mr Trump unveiled another goal in a news conference after the meeting in Singapore.

 

"As an example, they have great beaches," Mr Trump mused. "You see that whenever they're exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, 'Boy, look at that view. Wouldn't that make a great condo.'"

 

He went on, "You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective. You have South Korea, you have China, and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that, right? It's great."

 

Echoes of Adolf Hitler meeting in 1938

 

It was a revealing moment, but it also brought to mind another meeting between a Western leader and another strongman, this one from Germany, that took place 80 years ago.

 

In September, 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain traveled to Munich, along with French prime minister Eduard Daladier and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, to meet with Adolf Hitler.

 

The meeting resulted in an agreement that allowed Germany to annex a portion of Czechoslovakia, after Germany had reclaimed the Rhineland and took control of Austria. It was clear that Germany would take control of the German-speaking Sudetenland by force, unless European leaders would get out of his way.

 

Chamberlain agreed, thinking that war had been avoided. And in one of the biggest miscalculations in history, he told a crowd in front of Buckingham Palace: "I believe it is peace in our time."

 

In fact, Germany's ambitions did not end there, and Britain declared war on Germany a year later.