Wars were, in fact, halted and prevented. And when, nonetheless, wars continued and a second world war engulfed the globe, that catastrophe was followed by the trials of men accused of the brand new crime of making war, as well as by global adoption of the United Nations Charter, a document owing much to its prewar predecessor while still falling short of the ideals of what in the 1920s was called the Outlawry movement. In fact the Kellogg-Briand Pact had banned all war. The UN Charter legalized any war labeled defensive or authorized by the UN making few if any wars legal, but allowing most people to falsely believe that most wars are legal.
Prior to Kellogg-Briand, both sides of a war were legal. Atrocities committed during wars were almost always legal. The conquest of territory was legal. Burning and looting and pillaging were legal. The seizing of other nations as colonies was legal. The motivation for colonies to try to free themselves was weak because they were likely to be seized by some other nation if they broke free from their current oppressor. Economic sanctions by neutral nations were not legal, though joining in a war could be. And making trade agreements under the threat of war was perfectly legal and acceptable, as was starting another war if such a coerced agreement was violated. The year 1928 became the dividing line for determining which conquests were legal and which not. War became a crime, while economic sanctions became law enforcement.
We don't talk much about how the world wanted peace before World War II, or how easily it could have been had through a wiser ending of World War I; or about how Nazism drew on U.S. inspiration for eugenics, segregation, concentration camps, poison gas, public relations, and one-armed salutes; or about how U.S. corporations armed Nazi Germany through the war; or about how the U.S. military hired many top Nazis at the end of the war; or about the fact that Japan tried to surrender prior to the nuclear bombings; or about the reality that there was major resistance to the war in the United States; or about the fact so thoroughly erased by Hollywood that the Soviets did the vast bulk of defeating the Germans and that the U.S. public at the time knew what the Soviets were doing, which created a momentary break in two centuries of hostility to Russia in U.S. politics.
Above anything else, we actively work at not knowing that the world's governments, for openly bigoted reasons, refused to take the Jews, that the British blockade prevented their evacuation, and that appeals by peace activists to the U.S. and British governments to rescue the Jews were rejected in favor of focusing entirely on the war.
If you were to listen to people justifying WWII today, and using WWII to justify the subsequent 75 years of wars and war preparations, the first thing you would expect to find in reading about what WWII actually was would be a war motivated by the need to save Jews from mass murder. There would be old photographs of posters with Uncle Sam pointing his finger, saying "I want you to save the Jews!"
In reality, the U.S. and British governments engaged for years in massive propaganda campaigns to build war support but never made any mention of saving Jews. And we know enough about internal governmental discussions to know that saving Jews (or anyone else) was not a secret motivation kept hidden from antisemitic publics (and if it had been, how democratic would that have been in the great battle for democracy?). The simple truth is that the most popular justification for WWII wasn't invented until after WWII.
U.S. immigration policy, crafted largely by antisemitic eugenicists such as Harry Laughlin themselves sources of inspiration to Nazi eugenicists severely limited the admission of Jews into the United States before and during World War II.
The policy of Nazi Germany for years was to pursue the expulsion of the Jews, not their murder. The world's governments held public conferences to discuss who would accept the Jews, and those governments for open and shamelessly antisemitic reasons refused to accept the Nazis' future victims. Hitler openly trumpeted this refusal as agreement with his bigotry and as encouragement to escalate it.
In Évian-les-Baines, France, in July 1938, an early international effort was made, or at least feigned, to alleviate something more common in recent decades: a refugee crisis. The crisis was the Nazi treatment of Jews. The representatives of 32 nations and 63 organizations, plus some 200 journalists covering the event, were well aware of the Nazis' desire to expel all Jews from Germany and Austria, and somewhat aware that the fate that awaited them if not expelled was likely going to be death. The decision of the conference was essentially to leave the Jews to their fate. (Only Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic increased their immigration quotas.)
Australian delegate T. W. White said, without asking the native people of Australia: "as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one."
The dictator of the Dominican Republic viewed Jews as racially desirable, as bringing whiteness to a land with many people of African descent. Land was set aside for 100,000 Jews, but fewer than 1,000 ever arrived.
Hitler had said when the Évian Conference had been proposed: "I can only hope and expect that the other world, which has such deep sympathy for these criminals [Jews], will at least be generous enough to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships."
Following the conference, in November of 1938, Hitler escalated his attacks on Jews with Kristallnacht or Crystal Night a nighttime state-organized riot, destroying and burning Jewish shops and synagogues, during which 25,000 people were sent off to concentration camps. Speaking on January 30, 1939, Hitler claimed justification for his actions from the outcome of the Évian Conference:
"It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to aiding them which is surely, in view of its attitude, an obvious duty. The arguments that are brought up as excuses for not helping them actually speak for us Germans and Italians. For this is what they say:
"1. 'We,' that is the democracies, 'are not in a position to take in the Jews.' Yet in these empires there are not even ten people to the square kilometer. While Germany, with her 135 inhabitants to the square kilometer, is supposed to have room for them!
"2. They assure us: We cannot take them unless Germany is prepared to allow them a certain amount of capital to bring with them as immigrants."
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