Oh yes, the general public was very aware that something bad was happening before World War Two. Over the course of the 1930s, the Great Depression gave way to Fascism in Europe, and Hitler's aggressive demands for German territorial gains became the focus of international media. Keep in mind that the media back then did not only consist of newspapers, but also short reels that played in theaters before feature films, a component of the media that was very popular at the time. Westerners of the 1930s were therefore not only kept up to date on Hitler and his successes, but actually watched clips of German soldiers marching into the Rhineland or into newly-acquired territory in Austria.

After the German annexation of Austria , the world watched in fear as Hitler now demanded that the ethnically German portions of Czechoslovakia be ceded to his Germany. This so-called "Sudeten Crisis" became the hottest news story of the year, or at least that's what the predecessor to Gallup concluded after conducting a nationwide poll in December of that year (though it was known as the "Czechoslovakia war crisis" back then). Twelve million Americans watched a dramatized newsreel in September of 1938, when the crisis had hit its peak, that intermixed real clips of German soldiers marching with a story of Hitler using the Sudeten as a pretext to conquer Czechoslovakia, a story that proved to be "a mini-version of the month's upcoming events."

But while the public was very aware as early as 1938 of the potential of another world war, I do not want to present that argument that the public was prescient. When Hitler and Chamberlain finally came to an agreement that France and Britain would force their ally Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudeten to Germany (the new infamous "Munich Agreement"), the American media ran articles with titles like "War Clouds Lift" and "The Turning Point?", the latter of which speculated that Hitler's willingness to negotiate over Czechoslovakia might prove the end of his aggression in Europe. American policymakers held a similar view, with Secretary of State Hull calling for Europe to "redouble" efforts of the kind that resulted in the Munich Agreement. In Britain, Chamberlain infamously told reporters upon returning from Munich that he had preserved "peace in our time." The world had feared war in 1938, but it seemed by the end of the year that peace would be maintained.

This respite was short-lived. By March of 1939, Hitler had violated the Munich Agreement by occupying the remainder of the Czech lands and allying with a newly created Slovak state led by anti-Czech nationalists. He then turned to Poland, this time demanding that the "Polish corridor" separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany to be ceded to him so that he could finish uniting all Germans into one greater state. On March 31, Britain and France declared that they would protect the independence of Poland from German aggression, and despair overtook the media once again. By the time Hitler attacked Poland and Britain and France declared war two days later (both events front-page stories to be sure), the world had already expected war for some time.

I cite here Gregory Ference's "American Print Media Perceptions of the 1938 Munich Crisis," found in The Portrayal of Czechoslovakia in the American Print Media, 1938-1989, ed. Gregory Ference, Boulder: East European Monographs, 2006.