[b]12: THE ROAD TO MUNICH[/b]

CASE GREEN WAS THE CODE NAME of the plan for a surprise attack on Czechoslovakia. It had first been drawn up, as we have seen, on June 24, 1937, by Field Marshal von Blomberg, and Hitler had elaborated on it in his lecture to the generals on November 5, admonishing them that "the descent upon the Czechs" would have to be "carried out with lightning speed" and that it might take place "as early as 1938." [i]

Obviously, the easy conquest of Austria now made Case Green a matter of some urgency; the plan must be brought up to date and preparations for carrying it out begun. It was for this purpose that Hitler summoned Keitel on April 21 , 1938. On the following day, Major Rudolf Schmundt, the Fuehrer's new military aide, prepared a summary of the discussion, which was divided into three parts: "political aspects," "military conclusions" and "propaganda." [1]

Hitler rejected the "idea of strategic attack out of the blue without cause or possibility of justification" because of "hostile world opinion which might lead to a critical situation." He thought a second alternative, "action after a period of diplomatic discussions which gradually lead to a crisis and to war," was "undesirable because Czech (Green) security measures will have been taken." The Fuehrer preferred, at the moment at least, a third alternative: "Lightning action based on an incident (for example, the murder of the German minister in the course of an anti-German demonstration)." [ii] Such an "incident," it will be remembered, was at one time planned to justify a German invasion of Austria, when Papen was to have been the victim. In Hitler's gangster world German envoys abroad were certainly expendable.

The German warlord, as he now was -- since he had taken over personal command of the armed forces -- emphasized to General Keitel the necessity of speed in the operations.

[quote]The first four days of military action are, politically speaking, decisive. In the absence of outstanding military successes, a European crisis is certain to rise. Faits accomplis must convince foreign powers of the hopelessness of military intervention.[/quote]

As for the propaganda side of the war, it was not yet time to call in Dr. Goebbels. Hitler merely discussed leaflets "for the conduct of the Germans in Czechoslovakia" and those which would contain "threats to intimidate the Czechs."

The Republic of Czechoslovakia, which Hitler was now determined to destroy, was the creation of the peace treaties, so hateful to the Germans, after the First World War. It was also the handiwork of two remarkable Czech intellectuals, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, a self-educated son of a coachman, who became a noted savant and the country's first President; and Eduard Benes, son of a peasant, who worked his way through the University of Prague and three French institutions of higher learning, and who after serving almost continually as Foreign Minister became the second President on the retirement of Masaryk in 1935. Carved out of the Hapsburg Empire, which in the sixteenth century had acquired the ancient Kingdom of Bohemia, Czechoslovakia developed during the years that followed its founding in 1918 into the most democratic, progressive, enlightened and prosperous state in Central Europe.

But by its very make-up of several different nationalities it was gripped from the beginning by a domestic problem which over twenty years it had not been able entirely to solve. This was the question of its minorities. Within the country lived one million Hungarians, half a million Ruthenians and three and a quarter million Sudeten Germans. These peoples looked longingly toward their "mother" countries, Hungary, Russia, and Germany respectively, though the Sudeteners had never belonged to the German Reich (except as a part of the loosely formed Holy Roman Empire) but only to Austria. At the least, these minorities desired more autonomy than they had been given.

Even the Slovaks, who formed a quarter of the ten million Czechoslovaks, wanted some measure of autonomy. Although racially and linguistically closely related to the Czechs, the Slovaks had developed differently -- historically, culturally and economically -- largely due to their centuries-old domination by Hungary. An agreement between Czech and Slovak emigres in America signed in Pittsburgh on May 30, 1918, had provided for the Slovaks' having their own government, parliament and courts. But the government in Prague had not felt bound by this agreement and had not kept it.

To be sure, compared to minorities in most other countries even in the West, even in America, those in Czechoslovakia were not badly off. They enjoyed not only full democratic and civil rights -- including the right to vote -- but to a certain extent were given their own schools and allowed to maintain their own cultural institutions. Leaders of the minority political parties often served as ministers in the central government. Nevertheless, the Czechs, not fully recovered from the effects of centuries of oppression by the Austrians, left a great deal to be desired in solving the minorities problem. They were often chauvinistic and frequently tactless. I recall from my own earlier visits to the country the deep resentment in Slovakia against the imprisonment of Dr. Vojtech Tuka, at that time a respected professor, who had been sentenced to fifteen years' confinement "for treason," though it was doubtful that he was guilty of more than working for Slovak autonomy. Above all, the minority groups felt that the Czechoslovak government had not honored the promises made by Masaryk and Benes to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to establish a cantonal system similar to that of Switzerland.

Ironically enough, in view of what is now to be set down here, the Sudeten Germans had fared tolerably well in the Czechoslovak statecertainly better than any other minority in the country and better than the German minorities in Poland or in Fascist Italy. They resented the petty tyrannies of local Czech officials and the discrimination against them that sometimes occurred in Prague. They found it difficult to adjust to the loss of their former dominance in Bohemia and Moravia under the Hapsburgs. But lying in compact groups along the northwestern and southwestern parts of the new Republic, where most of the industry of the country was concentrated, they prospered and as the years went by they gradually reached a state of relative harmony with the Czechs, continuing always to press for more autonomy and more respect for their linguistic and cultural rights. Until the rise of Hitler, there was no serious political movement which asked for more. The Social Democrats and other democratic parties received most of the Sudeten votes.

Then in 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor, the virus of National Socialism struck the Sudeten Germans. In that year was formed the Sudeten German Party (S.D.P.) under the leadership of a mild-mannered gymnastics teacher by the name of Konrad Henlein. By 1935, the party was being secretly subsidized by the German Foreign Office to the amount of 15,000 marks a month. [2] Within a couple of years it had captured the majority of the Sudeten Germans, only the Social Democrats and the Communists remaining outside it. By the time of the Anschluss Henlein's party, which for three years had been taking its orders from Berlin, was ready to do the bidding of Adolf Hitler.

To receive this bidding, Henlein sped to Berlin a fortnight after the annexation of Austria and on March 28 was closeted with Hitler for three hours, Ribbentrop and Hess also being present. Hitler's instructions, as revealed in a Foreign Office memorandum, were that "demands should be made by the Sudeten German Party which are unacceptable to the Czech government." As Henlein himself summarized the Fuehrer's views, "We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied." [3]

Thus, the plight of the German minority in Czechoslovakia was for Hitler merely a pretext, as Danzig was to be a year later in regard to Poland, for cooking up a stew in a land he coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose. What that purpose was he had made clear in his November 5 harangue to the military leaders and in the initial directives of Case Green: to destroy the Czechoslovak state and to grab its territories and inhabitants for the Third Reich. Despite what had happened in Austria, the leaders of France and Great Britain did not grasp this. All through the spring and summer, indeed almost to the end, Prime Minister Chamberlain and Premier Daladier apparently sincerely believed, along with most of the rest of the world, that all Hitler wanted was justice for his kinsfolk in Czechoslovakia.

In fact, as the spring days grew warmer the British and French governments went out of their way to pressure the Czech government to grant far-reaching concessions to the Sudeten Germans. On May 3 the new German ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, was reporting to Berlin that Lord Halifax had informed him of a demarche the British government would shortly make in Prague "which would aim at inducing Benes to show the utmost measure of accommodation to the Sudeten Germans." [4] Four days later, on May 7, the British and French ministers in Prague made their demarche, urging the Czech government "to go to the utmost limit," as the German minister reported to Berlin, to meet the Sudeten demands. Hitler and Ribbentrop seemed quite pleased to find that the British and French governments were so concerned with aiding them.

Concealment of German aims, however, was more than ever necessary at this stage. On May 12 Henlein paid a secret visit to the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin and received instructions from Ribbentrop on how to bamboozle the British when he arrived in London that evening to see Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to the Foreign Secretary, and other British officials. A memorandum by Weizsaecker laid down the line to be taken: "Henlein will deny in London that he is acting on instructions from Berlin . . . Finally, Henlein will speak of the progressive disintegration of the Czech political structure, in order to discourage those circles which consider that their intervention on behalf of this structure may still be of use." [5] On the same day the German minister in Prague was wiring Ribbentrop about the need of precaution to cover his legation in its work of handing over money and instructions to the Sudeten German Party.

Hugh R. Wilson, the American ambassador in Berlin, called on Weizsaecker on May 14 to discuss the Sudeten crisis and was told of German fears that Czech authorities were deliberately provoking a European crisis in order to try to prevent the "disintegration of Czechoslovakia." Two days later, on May 16, Major Schmundt got off an urgent and "most secret" telegram to OKW headquarters on behalf of Hitler, who was resting at Obersalzberg, asking how many divisions on the Czech frontier were "ready to march within twelve hours, in the case of mobilization." Lieutenant Colonel Zeitzler, of the OKW staff, replied immediately, "Twelve." This did not satisfy Hitler. "Please send the numbers of the divisions," he asked. And the answer came back, listing ten infantry divisions by their numbers and adding one armored and one mountain division. [6]

Hitler was getting restless for action. The next day, the seventeenth, he was inquiring of OKW for precise information on the fortifications which the Czechs had constructed in the Sudeten mountains on their borders. These were known as the Czech Maginot Line. Zeitzler replied from Berlin on the same day with a long and "most secret" telegram informing the Fuehrer in considerable detail of the Czech defense works. He made it clear that they were fairly formidable. [7]

[b]THE FIRST CRISIS: MAY 1938[/b]

The weekend which began on Friday, May 20, developed into a critical one and would later be remembered as the "May crisis." During the ensuing forty-eight hours, the governments in London, Paris, Prague and Moscow were panicked into the belief that Europe stood nearer to war than it had at any time since the summer of 1914. This may have been largely due to the possibility that new plans for a German attack on Czechoslovakia, which were drawn up for Hitler by OKW and presented to him on that Friday, leaked out. At any rate, it was believed at least in Prague and London that Hitler was about to launch aggression against Czechoslovakia. In this belief the Czechs began to mobilize and Britain, France and Russia displayed a firmness and a unity in the face of what their governments feared to be an imminent German threat which they were not to show again until a new world war had almost destroyed them.

On Friday, May 20, General Keitel dispatched to Hitler at the Obersalzberg a new draft of Case Green which he and his staff had been working on since the Fuehrer had laid down the general lines for it in their meeting on April 21. In an obsequious letter to the Leader attached to the new plan, Keitel explained that it took into account "the situation created by the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich" and that it would not be discussed with the commanders in chief of the three armed services until "you, my Fuehrer," approved it and signed it.

The new directive for "Green," dated Berlin, May 20, 1938, is an interesting and significant document. It is a model of the kind of Nazi planning for aggression with which the world later became acquainted.

[quote]It is not my intention [it began] to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the immediate future without provocation, unless an unavoidable development ... within [emphasis in the original] Czechoslovakia forces the issue, or political events in Europe create a particularly favorable opportunity which may perhaps never recur. [8][/quote]

Three "political possibilities for commencing the operation" are considered. The first, "a sudden attack without convenient outward excuse," is rejected.

[quote]Operations preferably will be launched, either:

(a) after a period of increasing diplomatic controversies and tension linked with military preparations, which will be exploited so as to shift the war guilt on the enemy.

(b) by lightning action as the result of a serious incident which will subject Germany to unbearable provocation and which, in the eyes of at least a part of world opinion, affords the moral justification for military measures.

Case (b) is more favorable, both from a military and a political point of view.[/quote]

As for the military operation itself, it was to attain such a success within four days that it would "demonstrate to enemy states which may wish to intervene the hopelessness of the Czech military position and also provide an incentive to those states which have territorial claims upon Czechoslovakia to join in immediately against her." Those states were Hungary and Poland, and the plan counted on their intervention. Whether France would honor its obligations to the Czechs was considered doubtful, but "attempts by Russia to give Czechoslovakia military support are to be expected."

The German High Command, or at least Keitel and Hitler, were so confident that the French would not fight that only a "minimum strength is to be provided as a rear cover in the west" and it was emphasized that "the whole weight of all forces must be employed in the invasion of Czechoslovakia." The "task of the bulk of the Army," aided by the Luftwaffe, was "to smash the Czechoslovak Army and to occupy Bohemia and Moravia as quickly as possible."

It was to be total war, and for the first time in the planning of German soldiers the value of what the directive calls "propaganda warfare" and "economic warfare" is emphasized and their employment woven into the over-all military plan of attack.

[quote]Propaganda warfare [emphasis in the original] must on the one hand intimidate the Czechs by means of threats and wear down their power of resistance; on the other hand it must give the national minorities indications as to how to support our military operations and influence the neutrals in our favor.

Economic warfare has the task of employing all available economic resources to hasten the final collapse of the Czechs . . . In the course of military operations it is important to help to increase the total economic war effort by rapidly collecting information about important factories and setting them going again as soon as possible. For this reason the sparing -- as far as military operations permit -- lf Czech industrial and engineering establishments may be of decisive importance to us.[/quote]

This model for Nazi aggression was to remain essentially unchanged and to be used with staggering success until an aroused world much later woke up to it.

Shortly after noon on May 20, the German minister in Prague sent an "urgent and most secret" wire to Berlin reporting that the Czech Foreign Minister had just informed him by telephone that his government was "perturbed by reports of concentration of [German] troops in Saxony." He had replied, he said, "that there were absolutely no grounds for anxiety," but he requested Berlin to inform him immediately what, if anything, was up.

This was the first of a series of feverish diplomatic exchanges that weekend which shook Europe with a fear that Hitler was about to move again and that this time a general war would follow. The basis for the information received by British and Czech intelligence that German troops were concentrating on the Czech border has never, so far as I know, come to light. To a Europe still under the shock of the German military occupation of Austria there were several straws in the wind. On May 19 a newspaper in Leipzig had published a report of German troop movements. Henlein, the Sudeten Fuehrer, had announced the breaking off of his party's negotiations with the Czech government on May 9 and it was known that on his return from London on the fourteenth he had stopped off at Berchtesgaden to see Hitler and that he was still there. There were shooting affrays in the Sudetenland. And all through May Dr. Goebbels' propaganda war -- featuring wild stories of "Czech terror" against the Sudeten Germans -- had been stepped up. The tension seemed to be reaching a climax.

Though there was some movement of German troops in connection with spring maneuvers, particularly in the eastern regions, no evidence was ever found from the captured German documents indicating any sudden, new concentration of armed forces on the Czech border at this moment. On the contrary, two German Foreign Office papers dated May 21 contain confidential assurances to the Wilhelmstrasse from Colonel Jodl of the OKW that there had been no such concentrations either in Silesia or in Lower Austria. There had been nothing, Jodl asserted in messages not intended for foreign perusal, "apart from peacetime maneuvers." [9] It was not that the Czech border was denuded of German troops. As we have seen, on May 16 Hitler had been informed by OKW, in answer to his urgent request for information, that there were twelve German divisions on the Czech frontier "ready to march within twelve hours."

Could it have been that Czech or British intelligence got wind of the telegrams which exchanged this information? And that they learned of the new directive for "Green" which Keitel dispatched for Hitler's approval on May 20? For on the next day the Czech Chief of Staff, General Krejci, told the German military attache in Prague, Colonel Toussaint, that he had "irrefutable proof that in Saxony a concentration of from eight to ten [German] divisions had taken place." [10] The figures on the number of divisions were not far from correct, even if the information on the manner of their deployment was somewhat inaccurate. At any rate, on the afternoon of May 20, following an emergency cabinet session at Hradschin Palace in Prague presided over by President Benes, the Czechs decided on an immediate partial mobilization. One class was called to the colors and certain technical reservists were mobilized. The Czech government, in contrast to the Austrian two months before, did not intend to give up without a fight.

The Czech mobilization, partial though it was, sent Adolf Hitler into a fit of fury, and his feelings were not assuaged by the dispatches that arrived for him at Obersalzberg from the German Foreign Office in Berlin telling of continual calls by the British and French ambassadors warning Germany that aggression against Czechoslovakia meant a European war.

The Germans had never been subjected to such strenuous and persistent diplomatic pressure as the British employed on this weekend. Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador, who had been sent to Berlin by Prime Minister Chamberlain to apply his skills as a professional diplomat to the appeasement of Hitler and who applied them to the utmost, called repeatedly at the German Foreign Office to inquire about German troop movements and to advise caution. There is no doubt that he was egged on by Lord Halifax and the British Foreign Office, for Henderson, a suave, debonair diplomat, had little sympathy with the Czechs, as all who knew him in Berlin were aware. He saw Ribbentrop twice on May 21 and on the next day, though it was a Sunday, called on State Secretary von Weizsaecker-Ribbentrop having been hastily convoked to Hitler's presence at Obersalzberg -- to deliver a personal message from Halifax stressing the gravity of the situation. In London, the British Foreign Secretary also called in the German ambassador on the Sabbath and emphasized how grave the moment was.

In all these British communications the Germans did not fail to note, as Ambassador von Dirksen pointed out in a dispatch after seeing Halifax, that the British government, while certain that France would go to the aid of Czechoslovakia, did not affirm that Britain would too. The furthest the British would go was to warn, as Dirksen says Halifax did, that "in the event of a European conflict it was impossible to foresee whether Britain would not be drawn into it." [11] As a matter of fact, this was as far as Chamberlain's government would ever go -- until it was too late to stop Hitler. It was this writer's impression in Berlin from that moment until the end that had Chamberlain frankly told Hitler that Britain would do what it ultimately did in the face of Nazi aggression, the Fuehrer would never have embarked on the adventures which brought on the Second World War -- an impression which has been immensely strengthened by the study of the secret German documents. This was the well-meaning Prime Minister's fatal mistake.

Adolf Hitler, brooding fitfully in his mountain retreat above Berchtesgaden, felt deeply humiliated by the Czechs and by the support given them in London, Paris and even Moscow, and nothing could have put the German dictator in a blacker, uglier mood. His fury was all the more intense because he was accused, prematurely, of being on the point of committing an aggression which he indeed intended to commit. That very weekend he had gone over the new plan for "Green" submitted by Keitel. But it could not be carried out at once. Swallowing his pride, he ordered the Foreign Office in Berlin to inform the Czech envoy on Monday, May 23, that Germany had no aggressive intentions toward Czechoslovakia and that the reports of German troop concentrations on her borders were without foundation. In Prague, London, Paris and Moscow the government leaders breathed a sigh of relief. The crisis had been mastered. Hitler had been given a lesson. He must now know he could not get away with aggression as easily as he had done in Austria.

Little did these statesmen know the Nazi dictator.

After sulking at Obersalzberg a few more days, during which there grew within him a burning rage to get even with Czechoslovakia and particularly with President Benes, who, he believed, had deliberately humiliated him, he suddenly appeared in Berlin on May 28 and convoked the ranking officers of the Wehrmacht to the Chancellery to hear a momentous decision. He himself told of it in a speech to the Reichstag eight months later:

[quote]I resolved to solve once and for all, and this radically, the Sudeten question. On May 28, I ordered:

1. That preparations should be made for military action against this state by October 2.

2. That the construction of our western defenses should be greatly extended and speeded up . . .

The immediate mobilization of 96 divisions was planned, to begin with ... [12][/quote]

To his assembled confederates, Goering, Keitel, Brauchitsch, Beck, Admiral Raeder, Ribbentrop and Neurath, he thundered, "It is my unshakable will that Czechoslovakia shall be wiped off the map!" [13] Case Green was again brought out and again revised.

Jodl's diary traces what had been going on in Hitler's feverish, vindictive mind.

[quote]The intention of the Fuehrer not to activate the Czech problem as yet is changed because of the Czech strategic troop concentration of May 21, which occurs without any German threat and without the slightest cause for it. Because of Germany's self-restraint, its consequences lead to a loss of prestige of the Fuehrer, which he is not willing to take again. Therefore, the new directive for "Green" is issued on May 30. [14][/quote]

The details of the new directive on Case Green which Hitler signed on May 30 do not differ essentially from those of the version submitted to Hitler nine days before. But there are two significant changes. Instead of the opening sentence of May 21, which read: "It is not my intention to smash Czechoslovakia in the near future," the new directive began: "It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future."

What the "near future" meant was explained by Keitel in a covering letter. "Green's execution," he ordered, "must be assured by October 1, 1938, at the latest." [15]

It was a date which Hitler would adhere to through thick and thin, through crisis after crisis, and at the brink of war, without flinching.

[b]WAVERING OF THE GENERALS[/b]

After noting in his diary on May 30 that Hitler had signed the new directive for "Green" and that because of its demand for "an immediate breakthrough into Czechoslovakia right on X Day . . . the previous intentions of the Army must be changed considerably," Jodl added the following sentence:

[quote]The whole contrast becomes acute once more between the Fuehrer's intuition that we must do it this year and the opinion of the Army that we cannot do it as yet because most certainly the Western powers will interfere and we are not as yet equal to them. [16][/quote]

The perceptive Wehrmacht staff officer had put his finger on a new rift between Hitler and some of the highest-ranking generals of the Army. The opposition to the Fuehrer's grandiose plans for aggression was led by General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Army General Staff, who henceforth would assume the leadership of such resistance as there was to Hitler in the Third Reich. Later this sensitive, intelligent, decent but indecisive general would base his struggle against the Nazi dictator on broad grounds. As late as the spring of 1938, however, after more than four years of National Socialism, Beck opposed the Fuehrer only on the narrower professional grounds that Germany was not yet strong enough to take on the Western Powers and perhaps Russia as well.

Beck, as we have seen, had welcomed Hitler's coming to power and had publicly acclaimed the Fuehrer for re-establishing the conscript German Army in defiance of Versailles. As far back as 1930, it will be remembered from earlier pages, Beck, then an obscure regimental commander, had gone out of his way to defend three of his subalterns on a treason charge that they were fomenting Nazism in the armed forces and, in fact, had testified in their favor before the Supreme Court after Hitler had appeared on the stand and warned that when he came to power "heads would roll." It was not the Fuehrer's aggression against Austria -- which Beck had supported -- but the rolling of General von Fritsch's head after the Gestapo frame-up which seems to have cleared his mind. Swept of its cobwebs it began to perceive that Hitler's policy of deliberately risking war with Britain, France and Russia against the advice of the top generals would, if carried out, be the ruin of Germany.

Beck had got wind of Hitler's meeting with Keitel on April 21 in which the Wehrmacht was instructed to hasten plans for attacking Czechoslovakia, and on May 5 he wrote out the first of a series of memoranda for General von Brauchitsch, the new Commander in Chief of the Army, strenuously opposing any such action. [17] They are brilliant papers, blunt as to unpleasant facts and full of solid reasoning and logic. Although Beck overestimated the strength of will of Britain and France, the political shrewdness of their leaders and the power of the French Army, and in the end proved wrong on the outcome of the Czech problem, his long-range predictions turned out, so far as Germany was concerned, to be deadly accurate.

Beck was convinced, he wrote in his May 5 memorandum, that a German attack on Czechoslovakia would provoke a European war in which Britain, France and Russia would oppose Germany and in which the United States would be the arsenal of the Western democracies. Germany simply could not win such a war. Its lack of raw materials alone made victory impossible. In fact, he contended, Germany's "military-economic situation is worse than it was in 1917-18," when the collapse of the Kaiser's armies began.

On May 28, Beck was among the generals convoked to the Reich Chancellery after the "May crisis" to hear Hitler storm that he intended to wipe Czechoslovakia off the map the coming autumn. He took careful notes of the Fuehrer's harangue and two days later, on the very day that Hitler was signing the new directive for "Green," which fixed the date for the attack as October 1, penned another and sharper memorandum to Brauchitsch criticizing Hitler's program point by point. To make sure that his cautious Commander in Chief fully understood it, Beck read it to him personally. At the end he emphasized to the unhappy and somewhat shallow Brauchitsch that there was a crisis in the "top military hierarchy" which had already led to anarchy and that if it was not mastered the fate of the Army, indeed of Germany, would be "black." A few days later, on June 3, Beck got off another memorandum to Brauchitsch in which he declared that the new directive for "Green" was "militarily unsound" and that the Army General Staff rejected it.

Hitler, however, pressed forward with it. The captured "Green" file discloses how frenzied he grew as the summer proceeded. The usual autumn troop maneuvers, he orders, must be moved forward so that the Army will be in trim for the attack. Special exercises must be held "in the taking of fortifications by surprise attack." General Keitel is informed that "the Fuehrer repeatedly emphasized the necessity of pressing forward more rapidly the fortification work in the west." On June 9, Hitler asks for more information on Czech armament and receives immediately a detailed report on every conceivable weapon, large and small, used by the Czechs. On the same day he asks, "Are the Czech fortifications still occupied in reduced strength?" In his mountain retreat, where he is spending the summer, surrounded by his toadies, his spirits rise and fall as he toys with war. On June 18 he issues a new "General Guiding Directive" to "Green."

[quote]There is no danger of a preventive war against Germany . . . I will decide to take action against Czechoslovakia only if I am firmly convinced . . . that France will not march and that therefore England will not intervene.[/quote]

On July 7, however, Hitler is laying down "considerations" of what to do if France and Britain intervene. "The prime consideration," he says, "is to hold the western fortifications" until Czechoslovakia is smashed and troops can be rushed to the Western front. The fact that there are no troops available to hold the western fortifications does not intrude itself upon his feverish thinking. He advises that "Russia is most likely to intervene" and by now he is not so sure that Poland may not too. These eventualities must be met, but he does not say how.

Apparently Hitler, somewhat isolated at Obersalzberg, has not yet heard the rumblings of dissent in the upper echelons of the Army General Staff. Despite Beck's pestering of Brauchitsch with his memoranda, the General Staff Chief began to realize by midsummer that his unstable Commander in Chief was not bringing his opinions to the notice of the Fuehrer. By the middle of July Beck therefore determined to make one last desperate effort to bring matters to a head, one way or the other. On July 16 he penned his last memorandum to Brauchitsch. He demanded that the Army tell Hitler to halt his preparations for war.

[quote]In full consciousness of the magnitude of such a step but also of my responsibilities I feel it my duty to urgently ask that the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces [Hitler] call off his preparations for war, and abandon the intention of solving the Czech question by force until the military situation is fundamentally changed. For the present I consider it hopeless, and this view is shared by all the higher officers of the General Staff.[/quote]

Beck took his memorandum personally to Brauchitsch and augmented it orally with further proposals for unified action on the part of the Army generals should Hitler prove recalcitrant. Specifically, he proposed that in that case the ranking generals should all resign at once. And for the first time in the Third Reich, he raised a question which later haunted the Nuremberg trials: Did an officer have a higher allegiance than the one to the Fuehrer? At Nuremberg dozens of generals excused their war crimes by answering in the negative. They had to obey orders, they said. But Beck on July 16 held a different view, which he was to press, unsuccessfully for the most part, to the end. There were "limits," he said, to one's allegiance to the Supreme Commander where conscience, knowledge and responsibility forbade carrying out an order. The generals, he felt, had reached those limits. If Hitler insisted on war, they should resign in a body. In that case, he argued, a war was impossible, since there would be nobody to lead the armies.

The Chief of the German Army General Staff was now aroused as he had never been before in his lifetime. The scales were falling from his eyes. What was at stake for the German nation, he saw at last, was more than just the thwarting of a hysterical head of state bent, out of pique, on attacking a small neighboring nation at the risk of a big war. The whole folly of the Third Reich, its tyranny, its terror, its corruption, its contempt for the old Christian virtues, suddenly dawned on this once pro-Nazi general. Three days later, on July 19, he went again to Brauchitsch to speak of this revelation.

Not only, he insisted, must the generals go on strike to prevent Hitler from starting a war, but they must help clean up the Third Reich. The German people and the Fuehrer himself must be freed from the terror of the S.S. and the Nazi party bosses. A state and society ruled by law must be restored. Beck summed up his reform program:

[quote]For the Fuehrer, against war, against boss rule, peace with the Church, free expression of opinion, an end to the Cheka terror, restoration of justice, reduction of contributions to the party by one half, no more building of palaces. housing for the common people and more Prussian probity and simplicity.[/quote]

Beck was too naIve politically to realize that Hitler, more than any other single man, was responsible for the very conditions in Germany which now revolted him. However, Beck's immediate task was to continue to browbeat the hesitant Brauchitsch into presenting an ultimatum on behalf of the Army to Hitler calling on him to stop his preparations for war. To further this purpose he arranged a secret meeting of the commanding generals for August 4. He prepared a ringing speech that the Army Commander in Chief was to read, rallying the senior generals behind him in a common insistence that there be no Nazi adventures leading to armed conflict. Alas for Beck, Brauchitsch lacked the courage to read it. Beck had to be content with reading his own memorandum of July 16, which left a deep impression on most of the generals. But no decisive action was taken and the meeting of the top brass of the German Army broke up without their having had the courage to call Hitler to count, as their predecessors once had done with the Hohenzollem emperors and the Reich Chancellors.

Brauchitsch did summon up enough courage to show Beck's July 16 memorandum to Hitler. Hitler's response was to call in not the resisting ranking generals, who were behind it, but the officers just below them, the Army and Air Force staff chiefs of various commands who formed a younger set on which he believed he could count after he had treated it to his persuasive oratory. Summoned to the Berghof on August 10 -- Hitler had scarcely budged from his mountain villa all summer -- they were treated after dinner to a speech that, according to Jodl, who was present and who described it in his faithful diary, lasted nearly three hours. But on this occasion the eloquence of the Fuehrer was not so persuasive as he had hoped. Both Jodl and Manstein, who was also present, later told of "a most serious and unpleasant clash" between General von Wietersheim and Hitler. Wietersheim was the ranking officer at the gathering and as designate chief of staff of the Army of the West under General Wilhelm Adam he dared to speak up about the key problem which Hitler and the OKW were dodging: that with almost all of the military forces committed to the blow against Czechoslovakia, Germany was defenseless in the west and would be overrun by the French. In fact, he reported, the West Wall could not be held for more than three weeks.

[quote]The Fuehrer [Jodi recounted in his diary] becomes furious and flames up, bursting into the remark that in such a case the whole Army would not be good for anything. "I say to you, Herr General [Hitler shouted back], the position will be held not only for three weeks but for three years!" [18] [/quote]

With what, he did not say. On August 4, General Adam had reported to the meeting of senior generals that in the west he would have only five active divisions and that they would be overwhelmed by the French. Wietersheim presumably gave the same figure to Hitler, but the Fuehrer would not listen. Jodl, keen staff officer though he was, was now so much under the spell of the Leader that he left the meeting deeply depressed that the generals did not seem to understand Hitler's genius.

[quote]The cause of this despondent opinion [Wietersheim's], which unfortunately is held very widely within the Army General Staff, is based on various grounds.

First of all, it [the General Staff] is restrained by old memories and feels itself responsible for political decisions instead of obeying and carrying out its military assignments. Admittedly it does the last with traditional devotion but the vigor of the soul is lacking because in the end it does not believe in the genius of the Fuehrer. And one does perhaps compare him with Charles XII.

And just as certain as water flows downhill there stems from this defeatism [Miesmacherei] not only an immense political damage -- for everyone is talking about the opposition between the opinions of the generals and those of the Fuehrer -- but a danger for the morale of the troops. But I have no doubt that the Fuehrer will be able to boost the morale of the people when the right moment comes. [19][/quote]

Jodl might have added that Hitler would be able, too, to quell revolt among the generals. As Manstein told the tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, this meeting was the last at which Hitler permitted any questions or discussions from the military. [20] At the Jueterbog military review on August 15, Hitler reiterated to the generals that he was determined "to solve the Czech question by force" and no officer dared -- or was permitted -- to say a word to oppose him.

Beck saw that he was defeated, largely by the spinelessness of his own brother officers, and on August 18 he resigned as Chief of the Army General Staff. He tried to induce Brauchitsch to follow suit, but the Army commander was now coming under Hitler's hypnotic power, no doubt aided by the Nazi enthusiasms of the woman who was about to become his second wife. [iii] As Hassell said of him, "Brauchitsch hitches his collar a notch higher and says: 'I am a soldier; it is my duty to obey.'" [21]

Ordinarily the resignation of a chief of the Army General Staff in the midst of a crisis, and especially of one so highly respected as was General Beck, would have caused a storm in military circles and even given rise to repercussions abroad. But here again Hitler showed his craftiness. Though he accepted Beck's resignation at once, and with great relief, he forbade any mention of it in the press or even in the official government and military gazettes and ordered the retired General and his fellow officers to keep it to themselves. It would not do to let the British and French governments get wind of dissension at the top of the German Army at this critical juncture and it is possible that Paris and London did not hear of the matter until the end of October, when it was officially announced in Berlin. Had they heard, one could speculate, history might have taken a different turning; the appeasement of the Fuehrer might not have been carried so far.

Beck himself, out of a sense of patriotism and loyalty to the Army, made no effort to bring the news of his quitting to the public's attention. He was disillusioned, though, that not a single general officer among those who had agreed with him and backed him in his opposition to war felt called upon to follow his example and resign. He did not try to persuade them. He was, as Hassell later said of him, "pure Clausewitz, without a spark of Bluecher or Yorck" [22]  -- a man of principles and thought, but not of action. He felt that Brauchitsch, as Commander in Chief of the Army, had let him down at a decisive moment in German history, and this embittered him. Beck's biographer and friend noted years later the General's "deep bitterness" whenever he spoke of his old commander. On such occasions he would shake with emotion and mutter, "Brauchitsch left me in the lurch." [23]

Beck's successor as Chief of the Army General Staff -- though his appointment was kept a secret by Hitler for several weeks, until the end of the crisis -- was Franz Halder, fifty-four years old, who came from an old Bavarian military family and whose father had been a general. Himself trained as an artilleryman, he had served as a young officer on the staff of Crown Prince Rupprecht in the First World War. Though a friend of Roehm in the first postwar Munich days, which might have made him somewhat suspect in Berlin, he had risen rapidly in the Army and for the past year had served as Beck's deputy. In fact, Beck recommended him to Brauchitsch'as his successor, for he was certain that his deputy shared his views.

Halder became the first Bavarian and the first Catholic ever to become Chief of the German General Staff -- a severe break with the old Protestant Prussian tradition of the officer corps. A man of wide intellectual interests, with a special bent for mathematics and botany (my own first impression of him was that he looked like a university professor of mathematics or science) and a devout Christian, there was no doubt that he had the mind and the spirit to be a true successor to Beck. The question was whether, like his departed chief, he lacked the knack of taking decisive action at the proper moment. And whether, if he did not lack it, at that moment he had the character to disregard his oath of allegiance to the Fuehrer and move resolutely against him. For Halder, like Beck, though not at first a member of a growing conspiracy against Hitler, knew about it and apparently, again like Beck, was willing to back it. As the new Chief of the General Staff, he became the key figure in the first serious plot tp overthrow the dictator of the Third Reich.

[b]BIRTH OF A CONSPIRACY AGAINST HITLER[/b]

After five and a half years of National Socialism it was evident to the few Germans who opposed Hitler that only the Army possessed the physical strength to overthrow him. The workers, the middle and upper classes, even if they had wanted to, had no means of doing it. They had no organization outside of the Nazi party groups and they were, of course, unarmed. Though much would later be written about the German "resistance" movement, it remained from the beginning to the end a small and feeble thing, led, to be sure, by a handful of courageous and decent men, but lacking followers.

The very maintenance of its bare existence was, admittedly, difficult in a police state dominated by terror and spying. Moreover, how could a tiny group -- or even a large group, had there been one -- rise up in revolt against the machine guns, the tanks, the flame throwers of the S.S.?

In the beginning, what opposition there was to Hitler ·sprang from among the civilians; the generals, as we have seen, were only too pleased with a system which had shattered the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty and given them the heady and traditional task of building up a great army once again. Ironically, the principal civilians who emerged to lead the opposition had served the Fuehrer in important posts, most of them with an initial enthusiasm for Nazism which dampened only when it began to dawn on them in 1937 that Hitler was leading Germany toward a war which it was almost sure to lose.

One of the earliest of these to see the light was Carl Goerdeler, the mayor of Leipzig, who, first appointed Price Controller by Bruening, had continued in that job for three years under Hitler. A conservative and a monarchist at heart, a devout Protestant, able, energetic and intelligent, but also indiscreet and headstrong, he broke with the Nazis in 1936 over their anti-Semitism and their frenzied rearmament and, resigning both his posts, went to work with heart and soul in opposition to Hitler. One of his first acts was to journey to France, England and the United States in 1937 to discreetly warn of the peril of Nazi Germany.

The light came a little later to two other eventual conspirators, Johannes Popitz, Prussian Minister of Finance, and Dr. Schacht. Both had received the Nazi Party's highest decoration, the Golden Badge of Honor, for their services in shaping Germany's economy for war purposes. Both had begun to wake up to what Hitler's real goal was in 1938. Neither of them seems to have been fully trusted by the inner circle of the opposition because of their past and their character. Schacht was too opportunist, and Hassell remarked in his diary that the Reichsbank president had a capacity "for talking one way and acting another," an opinion, he says, that was shared by Generals Beck and von Fritsch. Popitz was brilliant but unstable. A fine Greek scholar as well as eminent economist, he, along with General Beck and Hassell, was a member of the Wednesday Club, a group of sixteen intellectuals who gathered once a week to discuss philosophy, history, art, science and literature and who as time went on -- or ran out-formed one of the centers of the opposition.

Ulrich von Hassell became a sort of foreign-affairs adviser to the resistance leaders. His dispatches as ambassador in Rome during the Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War, as we have seen, had been full of advice to Berlin on how to keep Italy embroiled with France and Britain and therefore on the side of Germany. Later he came to fear that war with France and Britain would be fatal to Germany and that even a German alliance with Italy would be too. Far too cultivated to have anything but contempt for the vulgarism of National Socialism, he did not, however, voluntarily give up serving the regime. He was kicked out of the diplomatic service in the big military, political and Foreign Office shake-up which Hitler engineered on February 4, 1938. A member of an old Hanover noble family, married to the daughter of Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, the founder of the German Navy, and a gentleman of the old school to his finger tips, Hassell, like so many others of his class, seems to have needed the shock of being cast out by the Nazis before he became much interested in doing anything to bring them down. Once this had happened, this sensitive, intelligent, uneasy man devoted himself to that task and in the end, as we shall see, sacrificed his life to it, meeting a barbarous end.

There were others, lesser known and mostly younger, who had opposed the Nazis from the beginning and who gradually came together to form various resistance circles. One of the leading intellects of one group was Ewald von Kleist, a gentleman farmer and a descendant of the great poet. He worked closely with Ernst Niekisch, a former Social Democrat and editor of Widerstand (Resistance), and with Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a young lawyer, who was the great-grandson of Queen Victoria's private physician and confidential adviser, Baron von Stockmar. There were former trade-union leaders such as Julius Leber, Jakob Kaiser and Wilhelm Leuschner. Two Gestapo officials, Artur Nebe, the head of the criminal police, and Bernd Gisevius, a young career police officer, became valuable aides as the conspiracies developed. The latter became the darling of the American prosecution at Nuremberg and wrote a book which sheds much light on the anti-Hitler plots, though most historians take the book and the author with more than a grain of salt.

There were a number of sons of venerable families in Germany: Count Helmuth von Moltke, great-grandnephew of the famous Field Marshal, who later formed a resistance group of young idealists known as the Kreisau Circle; Count Albrecht Bernstorff, nephew of the German ambassador in Washington during the First World War; Freiherr Karl Ludwig von Guttenberg, editor of a fearless Catholic monthly; and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a descendant of eminent Protestant clergymen on both sides of his family, who regarded Hitler as Antichrist and who believed it a Christian duty to "eliminate him."

Nearly all of these brave men would persevere until, after being caught and tortured, they were executed by rope or by ax or merely murdered by the S.S.

For a good long time this tiny nucleus of civilian resistance had little success in interesting the Army in its work. As Field Marshal von Blomberg testified at Nuremberg, "Before 1938-39 German generals did not oppose Hitler. There was no reason to oppose him, since he produced the results they desired." There was some contact between Goerdeler and General von Hammerstein, but the former Commander in Chief of the German Army had been in retirement since 1934 and had little influence among the active generals. Early in the regime Schlabrendorff had got in touch with Colonel Hans Oster, chief assistant to Admiral Canaris in the Abwehr, the Intelligence Bureau of OKW, and found him to be not only a staunch anti-Nazi but willing to try to bridge the gulf between the military and civilians. However, it was not until the winter of 1937-38, when the generals were subjected to the successive shocks engendered by Hitler's decision to go to war, his shake-up of the military command, which he himself took over, and his shabby treatment of General von Fritsch, that some of them became aware of the danger to Germany of the Nazi dictator. The resignation of General Beck toward the end of August 1938, as the Czech crisis grew more menacing, provided a further awakening, and though none of his fellow officers followed him into retirement as he had hoped, it immediately became evident that the fallen Chief of the General Staff was the one person around whom both the recalcitrant generals and the civilian resistance leaders could rally. Both groups respected and trusted him.

Another consideration became evident to both of them. To stop Hitler, force would now be necessary, and only the Army possessed it. But who in the Army could muster it? Not Hammerstein and not even Beck, since they were in retirement. What was needed, it was realized, was to bring in generals who at the moment had actual command of troops in and around Berlin and who thus could act effectively on short notice. General Halder, the new Chief of the Army General Staff, had no actual forces under his command. General von Brauchitsch had the whole Army, but he was not fully trusted. His authority would be useful but he could be brought in only, the conspirators felt, at the last minute.

As it happened, certain key generals who were willing to help were quickly discovered and initiated into the budding conspiracy. Three of them held commands which were vital to the success of the venture: General Erwin von Witzleben, commander of the all-important Wehrkreis III, which comprised Berlin and the surrounding areas; General Count Erich von Brockdorff-Ahlefeld, commander of the Potsdam garrison, which was made up of the 23rd Infantry Division; and General Erich Hoepner, who commanded an armored division in Thuringia which could, if necessary, repulse any S.S. troops attempting to relieve Berlin from Munich.

The plan of the conspirators, as it developed toward the end of August, was to seize Hitler as soon as he had issued the final order to attack Czechoslovakia and hale him before one of his own People's Courts on the charge that he had tried recklessly to hurl Germany into a European war and was therefore no longer competent to govern. In the meantime, for a short interim, there would be a military dictatorship followed by a provisional government presided over by some eminent civilian. In due course a conservative democratic government would be formed.

There were two considerations on which the success of the coup depended and which involved the two key conspirators, General Halder and General Beck. The first was timing. Halder had arranged with OKW that he personally be given forty-eight hours' notice of Hitler's final order to attack Czechoslovakia. This would give him the time to put the plot into execution before the troops could cross the Czech frontier. Thus he would be able not only to arrest Hitler but to prevent the fatal step that would lead to war.

The second factor was that Beck must be able to convince the generals beforehand and the German people later (during the proposed trial of Hitler) that an attack on Czechoslovakia would bring in Britain and France and thus precipitate a European war, for which Germany was not prepared and which it would certainly lose. This had been the burden of his memoranda all summer and it was the basis of all that he was now prepared to do: to preserve Germany from a European conflict which he believed would destroy her -- by overthrowing Hitler.

Alas for Beck, and for the future of most of the world, it was Hitler and not the recently resigned Chief of the General Staff who proved to have the shrewder view of the possibilities of a big war. Beck, a cultivated European with a sense of history, could not conceive that Britain and France would willfully sacrifice their self-interest by not intervening in case of a German attack on Czechoslovakia. He had a sense of history but not of contemporary politics. Hitler had. For some time now he had felt himself reinforced in his judgment that Prime Minister Chamberlain would sacrifice the Czechs rather than go to war and that, in such a case, France would not fulfill her treaty obligations to Prague.

The Wilhelmstrasse had not failed to notice dispatches published in the New York newspapers as far back as May 14 in which their London correspondents had reported an "off-the-record" luncheon talk with Chamberlain at Lady Astor's. The British Prime Minister, the journalists reported, had said that neither Britain nor France nor probably Russia would come to the aid of Czechoslovakia in the case of a German attack, that the Czech state could not exist in its present form and that Britain favored, in the interest of peace, turning over the Sudetenland to Germany. Despite angry questions in the House of Commons, the Germans noted, Chamberlain had not denied the veracity of the American dispatches.

On June 1, the Prime Minister had spoken, partly off the record, to British correspondents, and two days later the Times had published the first of its leaders which were to help undermine the Czech position; it had urged the Czech government to grant "self-determination" to the country's minorities "even if it should mean their secession from Czechoslovakia" and for the first time it had suggested plebiscites as a means of determining what the Sudetens and the others desired. A few days later the German Embassy in London informed Berlin that the Times editorial was based on Chamberlain's off-the-record remarks and that it reflected his views. On June 8 Ambassador von Dirksen told the Wilhelmstrasse that the Chamberlain government would be willing to see the Sudeten areas separated from Czechoslovakia providing it was done after a plebiscite and "not interrupted by forcible measures on the part of Germany." [24]

All this must have been pleasing for Hitler to hear. The news from Moscow also was not bad. By the end of June Friedrich Werner Count von der Schulenburg, the German ambassador to Russia, was advising Berlin that the Soviet Union was "hardly likely to march in defense of a bourgeois state," i.e., Czechoslovakia.25 By August 3, Ribbentrop was informing the major German diplomatic missions abroad that there was little fear of intervention over Czechoslovakia by Britain, France or Russia.  [26]

It was on that day, August 3, that Chamberlain had packed off Lord Runciman to Czechoslovakia on a curious mission to act as a "mediator" in the Sudeten crisis. I happened to be in Prague the day of his arrival and after attending his press conference and talking with members of his party remarked in my diary that "Runciman's whole mission smells." Its very announcement in the House of Commons on July 26 had been accompanied by a piece of prevaricating by Chamberlain himself which must have been unique in the experience of the British Parliament. The Prime Minister had said that he was sending Runciman "in response to a request from the government of Czechoslovakia." The truth was that Runciman had been forced down the throat of the Czech government by Chamberlain. But there was an underlying and bigger falsehood. Everyone, including Chamberlain, knew that Runciman's mission to "mediate" between the Czech government and the Sudeten leaders was impossible and absurd. They knew that Henlein, the Sudeten leader, was not a free agent and could not negotiate, and that the dispute now was between Prague and Berlin. My diary notes for the first evening and subsequent days make it clear that the Czechs knew perfectly well that Runciman had been sent by Chamberlain to pave the way for the handing over of the Sudetenland to Hitler. It was a shabby diplomatic trick.

And now the summer of 1938 was almost over. Runciman puttered about in the Sudetenland and in Prague, making ever more friendly gestures to the Sudeten Germans and increasing demands on the Czech government to grant them what they wanted. Hitler, his generals and his Foreign Minister were frantically busy. On August 23, the Fuehrer entertained aboard the liner Patria in Kiel Bay during naval maneuvers the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, and the members of the Hungarian government. If they wanted to get in on the Czech feast, Hitler told them, they must hurry. "He who wants to sit at the table," he put it, "must at least help in the kitchen."27 The Italian ambassador, Bernardo Attolico, was also a guest on the ship. But when he pressed Ribbentrop for the date of "the German move against Czechoslovakia" so that Mussolini could be prepared, the German Foreign Minister gave an evasive answer. The Germans, it was plain, did not quite trust the discretion of their Fascist ally. Of Poland they were now sure. All through the summer Ambassador von Moltke in Warsaw was reporting to Berlin that not only would Poland decline to help Czechoslovakia by allowing Russia to send troops and planes through or over her territory but Colonel Jozef Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, was casting covetous eyes on a slice of Czech territory, the Teschen area. Beck already was exhibiting that fatal shortsightedness, so widely shared in Europe that summer, which in the end would prove more disastrous than he could possibly imagine.

At OKW (the High Command of the Armed Forces) and at OKH (the High Command of the Army) there was incessant activity. Final plans were being drawn up to have the armed forces ready for the push-off into Czechoslovakia by October 1. On August 24, Colonel Jodl at OKW wrote an urgent memorandum for Hitler stressing that "the fixing of the exact time for the 'incident' which will give Germany provocation for military intervention is most important." The timing of X Day, he explained, depended on it.

[quote]No advance measures [he went on] may be taken before X minus 1 for which there is not an innocent explanation, as otherwise we shall appear to have manufactured the incident. . . . If for technical reasons the evening hours should be considered desirable for the incident, then the following day cannot be X Day, but it must be the day after that ... It is the purpose of these notes to point out what a great interest the Wehrmacht has in the incident and that it must be informed of the Fuehrer's intention in good time -- insofar as the Abwehr Section is not also charged with organizing the incident. [28][/quote]

The expert preparations for the onslaught on Czechoslovakia were obviously in fine shape by the summer's end. But what about the defense of the west, should the French honor their word to the Czechs and attack? On August 26 Hitler set off for a tour of the western fortifications accompanied by Jodi, Dr. Todt, the engineer in charge of building the West Wall, Himmler and various party officials. On August 27 General Wilhelm Adam, a blunt and able Bavarian who was in command of the west, joined the party and in the next couple of days witnessed how intoxicated the Fuehrer became at the triumphal reception he was given by the Rhinelanders. Adam himself was not impressed; in fact, he was alarmed, and on the twenty-ninth in a surprising scene in Hitler's private car he abruptly demanded to speak with the Fuehrer alone. Not without sneers, according to the General's later report, Hitler dismissed Himmler and his other party cronies. Adam did not waste words. He declared that despite all the fanfare about the West Wall he could not possibly hold it with the troops at his disposal. Hitler became hysterical and launched into a long harangue about how he had made Germany stronger than Britain and France together.

"The man who doesn't hold these fortifications," Hitler shouted, "is a scoundrel!" [iv]

Nevertheless doubts on this score were rising in the minds of generals other than Adam. On September 3, Hitler convoked the chiefs of OKW and OKH, Keitel and Brauchitsch, to the Berghof. Field units, it was agreed, were to be moved into position along the Czech border on September 28. But OKW must know when X Day was by noon on September 27. Hitler was not satisfied with the operational plan for "Green" and ordered that it be changed in several respects. From the notes of this meeting kept by Major Schmundt it is clear that Brauchitsch at least -- for Keitel was too much the toady to speak up -- again raised the question of how they were going to hold out in the west. Hitler fobbed him off with the assurance that he had given orders for speeding up the western fortifications. [30]

On September 8 General Heinrich von Stuelpnagel saw Jodi and the latter noted in his diary the General's pessimism regarding the military position in the west. It was becoming clear to both of them that Hitler, his spirits whipped up by the fanaticism of the Nuremberg Party Rally, which had just opened, was going ahead with the invasion of Czechoslovakia whether France intervened or not. "I must admit," wrote the usually optimistic Jodi, "that I am worried too."

The next day, September 9, Hitler convoked Keitel, Brauchitsch and Halder to Nuremberg for a conference which began at 10 P.M., lasted until 4 o'clock the next morning and, as Keitel later confided to Jodl, who in turn confided it to his diary, was exceedingly stormy. Halder found himself in the ticklish position -- for the key man in the plot to overthrow Hitler the moment he gave the word to attack -- of having to explain in great detail the General Staff's plan for the campaign in Czechoslovakia, and in the uncomfortable position, as it developed, of seeing Hitler tear it to shreds and dress down not only him but Brauchitsch for their timidity and their military incapabilities. [31] Keitel, Jodl noted on the thirteenth, was "terribly shaken" by his experience at Nuremberg and by the evidence of "defeatism" at the top of the German Army.

[quote]Accusations are made to the Fuehrer about the defeatism in the High Command of the Army . . . Keitel declares that he will not tolerate any officer in OKW indulging in criticism, unsteady thoughts and defeatism ... The Fuehrer knows that the Commander of the Army [Brauchitsch] has asked his commanding generals to support him in order to open the Fuehrer's eyes about the adventure which he has resolved to risk. He himself [Brauchitsch] has no more influence with the Fuehrer.

Thus a cold and frosty atmosphere prevailed in Nuremberg and it is highly unfortunate that the Fuehrer has the whole nation behind him with the exception of the leading generals of the Army.[/quote]

All of this greatly saddened the aspiring young Jodi, who had hitched his star to Hitler.

[quote]Only by actions can [these generals] honorably repair the damage which they have caused through lack of strength of mind and lack of obedience. It is the same problem as in 1914. There is only one example of disobedience in the Army and that is of the generals and in the end it springs from their arrogance. They can no longer believe and no longer obey because they do not recognize the Fuehrer's genius. Many of them still see in him the corporal of the World War but not the greatest statesman since Bismarck. [32] [/quote]

In his talk with Jodl on September 8, General von Stuelpnagel, who held the post of Oberquartiermeister I in the Army High Command, and who was in on the Halder conspiracy, had asked for written assurances from OKW that the Army High Command would receive notice of Hitler'g order for the attack on Czechoslovakia five days in advance. Jodl had answered that because of the uncertainties of the weather two days' notice was all that could be guaranteed. This, however, was enough for the conspirators.

But they needed assurances of another kind -- whether, after all, they had been right in their assumption that Britain and France would go to war against Germany if Hitler carried out his resolve to attack Czechoslovakia. For this purpose they had decided to send trustworthy agents to London not only to find out what the British government intended to do but, if necessary, to try to influence its decision by informing it that Hitler had decided to attack the Czechs on a certain date in the fall, and that the General Staff, which knew the date, opposed it and was prepared to take the most decisive action to prevent it if Britain stood firm against Hitler to the last.

The first such emissary of the plotters, selected by Colonel Oster of the Abwehr, was Ewald von Kleist, who arrived in London on August 18. Ambassador Henderson in Berlin, who was already anxious to give Hitler whatever he wanted in Czechoslovakia, advised the British Foreign Office that "it would be unwise for him [Kleist] to be received in official quarters." [v] Nevertheless Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to the Foreign Secretary and one of the leading opponents in London of the appeasement of Hitler, saw Kleist on the afternoon of his arrival, and Winston Churchill, still in the political wilderness in Britain, received him the next day. To both men, who were impressed by their visitor's sobriety and sincerity, Kleist repeated what he had been instructed to tell, stressing that Hitler had set a date for aggression against the Czechs and that the generals, most of whom opposed him, would act, but that further British appeasement of Hitler would cut the ground from under their feet. If Britain and France would declare publicly that they would not stand idly by while Hitler threw his armies into Czechoslovakia and if some prominent British statesmen would issue a solemn warning to Germany of the consequences of Nazi aggression, then the German generals, for their part, would act to stop Hitler. [34]

Churchill gave Kleist a ringing letter to take back to Germany to bolster his colleagues:

[quote]I am sure that the crossing of the frontier of Czechoslovakia by German armies or aviation in force will bring about renewal of the World War. I am as certain as I was at the end of July, 1914, that England will march with France . . . Do not, I pray you, be misled upon this point . . . [vi] [/quote]

Vansittart took Kleist's warning seriously enough to submit immediately a report on it to both the British Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and though Chamberlain, writing to Lord Halifax, said he was inclined "to discount a good deal of what he [Kleist] says," he added: "I don't feel sure that we ought not to do something." [36] What he did was to summon Ambassador Henderson, in the wake of some publicity, to London on August 28 "for consultations."

He instructed his ambassador in Berlin to do two things: convey a sober warning to Hitler and, secondly, prepare secretly a "personal contact" between himself and the Fuehrer. According to his own story, Henderson persuaded the Prime Minister to drop the first request. [37] As for the second, Henderson was only too glad to try to carry it out. [vii]

This was the first step toward Munich and Hitler's greatest bloodless victory.

Ignorant of this turning in Chamberlain's course, the conspirators in Berlin made further attempts to warn the British government. On August 21, Colonel Oster sent an agent to inform the British military attache in Berlin of Hitler's intention to invade Czechoslovakia at the end of September. "If by firm action abroad Hitler can be forced at the eleventh hour to renounce his present intentions, he will be unable to survive the blow," he told the British. "Similarly, if it comes to war the immediate intervention by France and England will bring about the downfall of the regime." Sir Nevile Henderson dutifully forwarded this warning to London, but described it "as clearly biased and largely propaganda." The blinkers on the eyes of the debonair British ambassador seemed to grow larger and thicker as the crisis mounted.

General Halder had a feeling that the conspirators were not getting their message through effectively enough to the British, and on September 2 he sent his own emissary, a retired Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hans Boehm-Tettelbach, to London to make contact with the British War Office and Military Intelligence. Though, according to his own story, the colonel saw several important personages in London, he does not seem to have made much of an impression on them.

Finally, the plotters resorted to using the German Foreign Office and the embassy in London in a last desperate effort to induce the British to remain firm. Counselor of the embassy and charge d'affaires was Theodor Kordt, whose younger brother, Erich, was chief of Ribbentrop's secretariat in the German Foreign Office. The brothers were proteges of Baron von Weizsaecker, the principal State Secretary and undoubtedly the brains of the Foreign Office, a man who after the war made a great fuss of his alleged anti-Nazism but who served Hitler and Ribbentrop well almost to the end. It is clear, however, from captured Foreign Office documents, that at this time he opposed aggression against Czechoslovakia on the same grounds as those of the generals: that it would lead to a lost war. With Weizsaecker's connivance, and after consultations with Beck, Halder and Goerdeler, it was agreed that Theodor Kordt should sound a last warning to Downing Street. As counselor of the embassy his visits to the British authorities would not be suspect.

The information he brought on the evening of September 5 to Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain's confidential adviser, seemed so important and urgent that this official spirited him by a back way to Downing Street and the chambers of the British Foreign Secretary. There he bluntly informed Lord Halifax that Hitler was planning to order a general mobilization on September 16, that the attack on Czechoslovakia had been fixed for October 1 at the latest, that the German Army was preparing to strike against Hitler the moment the final order for attack was given and that it would succeed if Britain and France held firm. Halifax was also warned that Hitler's speech closing the Nuremberg Party Rally on September 12 would be explosive and might precipitate a showdown over Czechoslovakia and that that would be the moment for Britain to stand up against the dictator. [39]

Kordt, too, despite his continuous personal contact with Downing Street and his frankness on this occasion with the Foreign Secretary, did not know what was in the London wind. But he got a good idea, as did everyone else, two days later, on September 7, when the Times of London published a famous leader:

[quote]It might be worth while for the Czechoslovak Government to consider whether they should exclude altogether the project, which has found favor in some quarters, of making Czechoslovakia a more homogeneous State by the secession of that fringe of alien populations who are contiguous to the nation with which they are united by race . . . The advantages to Czechoslovakia of becoming a homogeneous State might conceivably outweigh the obvious disadvantages of losing the Sudeten German district of the borderland.[/quote]

There was no mention in the editorial of the obvious fact that by ceding the Sudetenland to Germany the Czechs would lose both the natural mountain defenses of Bohemia and their "Maginot Line" of fortifications and be henceforth defenseless against Nazi Germany.

Though the British Foreign Office was quick to deny that the Times leader represented the views of the government, Kordt telegraphed Berlin the next day that it was possible that "it derived from a suggestion which reached the Times editorial staff from the Prime Minister's entourage." Possible indeed!

In these crisis-ridden years that have followed World War II it is difficult to recall the dark and almost unbearable tension that gripped the capitals of Europe as the Nuremberg Party Rally, which had begun on September 6, approached its climax on September 12, when Hitler was scheduled to make his closing speech and expected to proclaim to the world his final decision for peace or war with Czechoslovakia. I was in Prague, the focus of the crisis, that week, and it seemed strange that the Czech capital, despite the violence unleashed by the Germans in the Sudetenland, the threats from Berlin, the pressure of the British and French governments to yield, and the fear that they might leave Czechoslovakia in the lurch, was the calmest of all -- at least outwardly.

On September 5, President Benes, realizing that a decisive step on his part was necessary to save the peace, convoked the Sudeten leaders Kundt and Sebekovsky to Hradschin Palace and told them to write out their full demands. Whatever they were he would accept them. "My God," exclaimed the deputy Sudeten leader, Karl Hermann Frank, the next day, "they have given us everything." But that was the last thing the Sudeten politicians and their bosses in Berlin wanted. On September 7 Henlein, on instructions from Germany, broke off all negotiations with the Czech government. A shabby excuse about alleged Czech police excesses at Moravska-Ostrava was given.

On September 10, Goering made a bellicose speech at the Nuremberg Party Rally. "A petty segment of Europe is harassing the human race ... This miserable pygmy race [the Czechs] is oppressing a cultured people, and behind it is Moscow and the eternal mask of the Jew devil." But Benes' broadcast of the same day took no notice of Goering's diatribe; it was a quiet and dignified appeal for calm, good will and mutual trust.

Underneath the surface, though, the Czechs were tense. I ran into Dr. Benes in the hall of the Czech Broadcasting House after his broadcast and noted that his face was grave and that he seemed to be fully aware of the terrible position he was in. The Wilson railroad station and the airport were full of Jews scrambling desperately to find transportation to safer parts. That weekend gas masks were distributed to the populace. The word from Paris was that the French government was beginning to panic at the prospect of war, and the London dispatches indicated that Chamberlain was contemplating desperate measures to meet Hitler's demands  -- at the expense of the Czechs, of course.

And so all Europe waited for Hitler's word on September 12 from Nuremberg. Though brutal and bombastic, and dripping with venom against the Czech state and especially against the Czech President, the Fuehrer's speech, made to a delirious mass of Nazi fanatics gathered in the huge stadium on the last night of the party rally, was not a declaration of war. He reserved his decision -- publicly at least, for, as we know from the captured German documents, he had already set October 1 for the attack across the Czech frontier. He simply demanded that the Czech government give "justice" to the Sudeten Germans. If it didn't, Germany would have to see to it that it did.

The repercussions to Hitler's outburst were considerable. In the Sudetenland it inspired a revolt which after two days of savage fighting the Czech government put down by rushing in troops and declaring martial law. Henlein slipped over the border to Germany proclaiming that the only solution now was the ceding of the Sudeten areas to Germany.

This was the solution which, as we have seen, was gaining favor in London, but before it could be furthered the agreement of France had to be obtained. The day following Hitler's speech, September 13, the French cabinet sat all day, remaining hopelessly divided on whether it should honor its obligations to Czechoslovakia in case of a German attack, which it believed imminent. That evening the British ambassador in Paris, Sir Eric Phipps, was fetched from the Opera Comique for an urgent conference with Prime Minister Daladier. The latter appealed to Chamberlain to try at once to make the best bargain he could with the German dictator.

Mr. Chamberlain, it may be surmised, needed little urging. At eleven o'clock that same night the British Prime Minister got off an urgent message to Hitler:

[quote]In view of the increasingly critical situation I propose to come over at once to see you with a view to trying to find a peaceful solution. I propose to come across by air and am ready to start tomorrow.

Please indicate earliest time at which you can see me and suggest place of meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply. [40] [/quote]

Two hours before, the German charge d'affaires in London, Theodor Kordt, had wired Berlin that Chamberlain's press secretary had informed him that the Prime Minister "was prepared to examine far-reaching German proposals, including plebiscite, to take part in carrying them out, and to advocate them in public." [41]

The surrender that was to culminate in Munich had begun.

[b]CHAMBERLAIN AT BERCHTESGADEN: SEPTEMBER 15, 1938[/b]

"Good heavens!" ("Ich bin vom Himmel gefallen!") Hitler exclaimed when he read Chamberlain's message. [42] He was astounded but highly pleased that the man who presided over the destinies of the mighty British Empire should come pleading to him, and flattered that a man who was sixty-nine years old and had never traveled in an airplane before should make the long seven hours' flight to Berchtesgaden at the farthest extremity of Germany. Hitler had not had even the grace to suggest a meeting place on the Rhine, which would have shortened the trip by half.

Whatever the enthusiasm of the English, [viii] who seemed to believe that the Prime Minister was making the long journey to do what Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey had failed to do in 1914 -- warn Germany that any aggression against a small power would bring not only France but Britain into war against it -- Hitler realized, as the confidential German papers and subsequent events make clear, that Chamberlain's action was a godsend to him. Already apprised by the German Embassy in London that the British leader was prepared to advocate "far-reaching German proposals," the Fuehrer felt fairly certain that Chamberlain's visit was a further assurance that, as he had believed all along, Britain and France would not intervene on behalf of Czechoslovakia. The Prime Minister had not been with him more than an hour or so before this estimate of the situation became a certainty.

In the beginning there was a diplomatic skirmish, though Hitler, as was his custom, did most of the talking. [43] Chamberlain had landed at the Munich airport at noon on September 15, driven in an open car to the railroad station and there boarded a special train for the three-hour rail journey to Berchtesgaden. He did not fail to notice train after train of German troops and artillery passing on the opposite track. Hitler did not meet his train at Berchtesgaden, but waited on the top steps of the Berghof to greet his distinguished visitor. It had begun to rain, Dr. Schmidt, the German interpreter, later remembered, the sky darkened and clouds hid the mountains. It was now 4 P.M. and Chamberlain had been on his way since dawn.

After tea Hitler and Chamberlain mounted the steps to Hitler's study on the second floor, the very room where the dictator had received Schuschnigg seven months before. At the urging of Ambassador Henderson, Ribbentrop was left out of the conversation, an exclusion which so irritated the vain Foreign Minister that the next day he refused to give Schmidt's notes on the conference to the Prime Minister -- a singular but typical discourtesy -- and Chamberlain thereafter was forced to rely on his memory of what he and Hitler had said.

Hitler began the conversation, as he did his speeches, with a long harangue about all that he had done for the German people, for peace, and for an Anglo-German rapprochement. There was now one problem he was determined to solve "one way or another." The three million Germans in Czechoslovakia must "return" to the Reich. [ix]

[quote]He did not wish [as Schmidt's official account puts it] that any doubts should arise as to his absolute determination not to tolerate any longer that a small, second-rate country should treat the mighty thousand-year-old German Reich as something inferior ... He was forty-nine years old, and jf Germany were to become involved in a world war over the Czechoslovak question, he wished to lead his country through the crisis in the full strength of manhood . . . He would, of course, be sorry if a world war should result from this problem. This danger, however, was incapable of making him falter in his determination . . . He would face any war, even a world war, for this. The rest of the world might do what it liked. He would not yield one single step.[/quote]

Chamberlain, who had scarcely been able to get a word in, was a man of immense patience, but there were limits to it. At this juncture he interrupted to say, "If the Fuehrer is determined to settle this matter by force without waiting even for a discussion between ourselves, why did he let me come? I have wasted my time."

The German dictator was not accustomed to such an interruption -- no German at this date would dare to make one -- and Chamberlain's retort appears to have had its effect. Hitler calmed down. He thought they could go "into the question whether perhaps a peaceful settlement was still possible after all." And then he sprang his proposal.

[quote]Would Britain agree to a secession of the Sudeten region, or would she not? ... A secession on the basis of the right of self-determination?[/quote]

The proposal did not shock Chamberlain. Indeed, he expressed satisfaction that they "had now got down to the crux of the matter." According to Chamberlain's own account, from memory, he replied that he could not commit himself until he had consulted his cabinet and the French. According to Schmidt's version, taken from his own shorthand notes made while he was interpreting, Chamberlain did say that, but added that "he could state personally that he recognized the principle of the detachment of the Sudeten areas ... He wished to return to England to report to the Government and secure their approval of his personal attitude."

From this surrender at Berchtesgaden, all else ensued.

That it came as no surprise to the Germans is obvious. At the very moment of the Berchtesgaden meeting Henlein was penning a secret letter to Hitler from Eger, dated September 15, just before he fled across the border to Germany:

[quote]My FUEHRER:

I informed the British [Runciman] delegation yesterday that the basis for further negotiations could . . . only be the achievement of a union with the Reich.

It is probable that Chamberlain will propose such a union. [44][/quote]

The next day, September 16, the German Foreign Office sent confidential telegrams to its embassies in Washington and several other capitals.

[quote]Fuehrer told Chamberlain yesterday he was finally resolved to put an end in one way or another to the intolerable conditions in Sudetenland within a very short time. Autonomy for Sudeten Germans is no longer being considered, but only cession of the region to Germany. Chamberlain has indicated personal approval. He is now consulting British Cabinet and is in communication with Paris. Further meeting between Fuehrer and Chamberlain planned for very near future. [45][/quote]

Toward the end of their conference Chamberlain had extracted a promise from Hitler that he would take no military action until they had again conferred. In this period the Prime Minister had great confidence in the Fuehrer's word, remarking privately a day or two later, "In spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word." [46]

While the British leader was entertaining these comforting illusions Hitler went ahead with his military and political plans for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Colonel Jodi, on behalf of OKW, worked out with the Propaganda Ministry what he described in his diary as "joint preparations for refutation of our own violations of international law." It was to be a rough war, at least on the part of the Germans, and Dr. Goebbels' job was to justify Nazi excesses. The plan for his lies was worked out in great detai1. [47] On September 17 Hitler assigned an OKW staff officer to help Henlein, who was now operating from new headquarters at a castle at Dondorf, outside Bayreuth, to organize the Sudeten Free Corps. It was to be armed with Austrian weapons and its orders from the Fuehrer were to maintain "disturbances and clashes" with the Czechs.

September 18, a day on which Chamberlain occupied himself with rallying his cabinet and the French to his policy of surrender, was a busy one for Hitler and his generals. The jumping-off schedule for five armies, the Second, Eighth, Tenth, Twelfth and Fourteenth, comprising thirty-six divisions, including three armored, was sent out. Hitler also confirmed the selection of the commanding officers for ten armies. General Adam, despite his obstreperousness, was left in over-all command in the west. Surprisingly, two of the plotters were recalled from retirement and named to lead armies: General Beck the First Army, and General von Hammerstein the Fourth Army.

Political preparations for the final blow against Czechoslovakia also continued. The captured German Foreign Office documents abound with reports of increasing German pressure on Hungary and Poland to get in on the spoils. Even the Slovaks were brought in to stir up the brew. On September 20 Henlein urged them to formulate their demands for autonomy "more sharply." On the same day Hitler received Prime Minister Imredy and Foreign Minister Kanya of Hungary and gave them a dressing down for the hesitancy shown in Budapest. A Foreign Office memorandum gives a lengthy report on the meeting.

[quote]First of all, the Fuehrer reproached the Hungarian gentlemen for the undecided attitude of Hungary. He, the Fuehrer, was determined to settle the Czech question even at the risk of a world war . . . He was convinced [however] that neither England nor France would intervene. It was Hungary's last opportunity to join in. If she did not, he would not be in a position to put in a word for Hungarian interests. In his opinion, the best thing would be to destroy Czechoslovakia . . .

He presented two demands to the Hungarians: (1) that Hungary should make an immediate demand for a plebiscite in the territories which she claimed, and (2) that she should not guarantee any proposed new frontiers for Czechoslovakia. [48][/quote]

Come what might with Chamberlain, Hitler, as he made clear to the Hungarians, had no intention of allowing even a rump Czechoslovakia to long exist. As to the British Prime Minister:

[quote]The Fuehrer declared that he would present the German demands to Chamberlain with brutal frankness. In his opinion, action by the Army would provide the only satisfactory solution. There was, however, a danger of the Czechs submitting to every demand.[/quote]

It was a danger that was to haunt the dictator in all the subsequent meetings with the unsuspecting British Prime Minister.

Egged on by Berlin, the Polish government on September 21 demanded of the Czechs a plebiscite in the Teschen district, where there was a large Polish minority, and moved troops to the frontier of the area. The next day the Hungarian government followed suit. On that day, too, September 22, the Sudeten Free Corps, supported by German S.S. detachments, occupied the Czech frontier towns of Asch and Eger, which jutted into German territory.

September 22, in fact, was a tense day throughout Europe, for on that morning Chamberlain had again set out for Germany to confer with Hitler. It is now necessary to glance briefly at what the Prime Minister had been up to in London during the interval between his visits to the Fuehrer.

On his return to London on the evening of September 16, Chamberlain called a cabinet meeting to acquaint his ministers with Hitler's demands. Lord Runciman was summoned from Prague to make his recommendations. They were astonishing. Runciman, in his zeal to appease the Germans, went further than Hitler. He advocated transferring the predominantly Sudeten territories to Germany without bothering about a plebiscite. He strongly recommended the stifling of all criticism of Germany in Czechoslovakia "by parties or persons" through legal measures. He demanded that Czechoslovakia, even though deprived of her mountain barrier and fortifications -- and thus left helpless -- should nevertheless "so remodel her foreign relations as to give assurances to her neighbors that she will in no circumstances attack them or enter into any aggressive action against them arising from obligations to other States." For even Runciman to be concerned at this hour with the danger of aggression from a rump Czech state against Nazi Germany seems incredible, but his fantastic recommendations apparently made a deep impression on the British cabinet and bolstered Chamberlain's intention to meet Hitler's demands. [x]

Premier Daladier and his Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, arrived in London on September 18, for consultations with the British cabinet. No thought was given to bringing the Czechs in. The British and the French, anxious to avoid war at any cost, lost little time in agreeing on joint proposals which the Czechs would have to accept. All territories inhabited more than 50 per cent by Sudeten Germans must be turned over to Germany to assure "the maintenance of peace and the safety of Czechoslovakia's vital interests." In return Britain and France agreed to join in "an international guarantee of the new boundaries . . . against unprovoked aggression." Such a guarantee would supplant the mutual -- assistance treaties which the Czech state had with France and Russia. This was an easy way out for the French, and led by Bonnet, who, as the course of events would show, was determined to outdo Chamberlain in the appeasement of Hitler, they seized upon it. And then there was the cant.

[quote]Both the French and British governments [they told the Czechs in a formal note] recognize how great is the sacrifice thus required of the Czechoslovak Government in the cause of peace. But because that cause is common both to Europe in general and in particular to Czechoslovakia herself they have felt it their duty jointly to set forth frankly the conditions essential to secure it.[/quote]

Also, they were in a hurry. The German dictator could not wait.

[quote]The Prime Minister must resume conversations with Herr Hitler not later than Wednesday [September 22], and earlier if possible. We therefore feel we must ask for your reply at the earliest possible moment. [49][/quote]

And so at noon on September 19 the British and French ministers in Prague jointly presented the Anglo-French proposals to the Czech government. They were rejected the next day in a dignified note which explained --  prophetically -- that to accept them would put Czechoslovakia "sooner or later under the complete domination of Germany." After reminding France of her treaty obligations and also of the consequences to the French position in Europe should the Czechs yield, the reply offered to submit the whole Sudeten question to arbitration under the terms of the German-Czech treaty of October 16, 1925. [xi]

But the British and French were in no mood to allow such a matter as the sanctity of treaties to interfere with the course they had set. No sooner was the note of rejection received by the Anglo-French envoys in Prague at 5 P.M. on the twentieth than the British minister, Sir Basil Newton, warned the Czech Foreign Minister, Dr. Kamil Krofta, that if the Czech government adhered to it Britain would disinterest herself in the fate of the country. M. de Lacroix, the French minister, associated himself with this statement on behalf of France.

In London and Paris, in the meantime, the Czech note was received with ill grace. Chamberlain called a meeting of his inner cabinet and a telephone link with Paris was set up for conversations with Daladier and Bonnet throughout the evening. It was agreed that both governments should subject Prague to further pressure. The Czechs must be told that if they held out they could expect no help from France or Britain.

By this time President Benes realized that he was being deserted by his supposed friends. He made one final effort to rally at least France. Shortly after 8 P.M. on the twentieth he had Dr. Krofta put the vital question to Lacroix: Would France honor her word to Czechoslovakia in case of a German attack or would she not? And when at 2:15 on the morning of September 21 Newton and Lacroix got Benes out of bed, bade him withdraw his note of rejection and declared that unless this were done and the Anglo-French proposals were accepted Czechoslovakia would have to fight Germany alone, the President asked the French minister to put it in writing. Probably he had already given up, but he had an eye on history.  [xii]

All through the next day, September 21, Benes, aching from fatigue, from the lack of sleep and from the contemplation of treachery and disaster, consulted with his cabinet, party leaders and the Army High Command. They had shown courage in the face of enemy threats but they began to crumble at the desertion of their friends and allies. What about Russia? As it happened, the Soviet Foreign Commissar, Litvinov, was making a speech that very day at Geneva reiterating that the Soviet Union would stand by its treaty with Czechoslovakia. Benes called in the Russian minister in Prague, who backed up what his Foreign Commissar had said. Alas for the Czechs, they realized that the pact with Russia called for the Soviets to come to their aid on condition that France did the same. And France had reneged.

Late in the afternoon of September 21, the Czech government capitulated and accepted the Anglo-French plan. "We had no other choice, because we were left alone," a government communique explained bitterly. Privately, Benes put it more succinctly: "We have been basely betrayed." The next day the cabinet resigned and General Jan Sirovy, the Inspector General of the Army, became the head of a new "government of national concentration."

[b]CHAMBERLAIN AT GODESBERG: SEPTEMBER 22-23[/b]

Though Chamberlain was bringing to Hitler all that he had asked for at their Berchtesgaden meeting, both men were uneasy as they met at the little Rhine town of Godesberg on the afternoon of September 22. The German charge d'affaires, after seeing the Prime Minister off at the London airport, had rushed off a wire to Berlin: "Chamberlain and his party have left under a heavy load of anxiety . . . Unquestionably opposition is growing to Chamberlain's policy."

Hitler was in a highly nervous state. On the morning of the twenty-second I was having breakfast on the terrace of the Hotel Dreesen, where the talks were to take place, when Hitler strode past on his way down to the riverbank to inspect his yacht. He seemed to have a peculiar tic. Every few steps he cocked his right shoulder nervously, his left leg snapping up as he did so. He had ugly, black patches under his eyes. He seemed to be, as I noted in my diary that evening, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. "Teppichfresser!" muttered my German companion, an editor who secretly despised the Nazis. And he explained that Hitler had been in such a maniacal mood over the Czechs the last few days that on more than one occasion he had lost control of himself completely, hurling himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet. Hence the term "carpet eater." The evening before, while talking with some of the party hacks at the Dreesen, I had heard the expression applied to the Fuehrer -- in whispers, of course. [50]

Despite his misgivings about the growing opposition to his policies at home, Mr. Chamberlain appeared to be in excellent spirits when he arrived at Godesberg and drove through streets decorated not only with the swastika but with the Union Jack to his headquarters at the Petershof, a castlelike hotel on the summit of the Peters berg, high above the opposite (right) bank of the Rhine. He had come to fulfill everything that Hitler had demanded at Berchtesgaden, and even more. There remained only the details to work out and for this purpose he had brought along, in addition to Sir Horace Wilson and William Strang (the latter a Foreign Office expert on Eastern Europe), the head of the drafting and legal department of the Foreign Office, Sir William Malkin.

Late in the afternoon the Prime Minister crossed the Rhine by ferry to the Hotel Dreesen [xiii] where Hitler awaited him. For once, at the start at least, Chamberlain did all the talking. For what must have been more than an hour, judging by Dr. Schmidt's lengthy notes of the meeting, [51] the Prime Minister, after explaining that following "laborious negotiations" he had won over not only the British and French cabinets but the Czech government to accept the Fuehrer's demands, proceeded to outline in great detail the means by which they could be implemented. Accepting Runciman's advice, he was now prepared to see the Sudetenland turned over to Germany without a plebiscite. As to the mixed areas, their future could be determined by a commission of three members, a German, a Czech and one neutral. Furthermore, Czechoslovakia's mutual-assistance treaties with France and Russia, which were so distasteful to the Fuehrer, would be replaced by an international guarantee against an unprovoked attack on Czechoslovakia, which in the future "would have to be completely neutral."

It all seemed so simple, so reasonable, so logical to the peace-loving British businessman become British Prime Minister. He paused with evident self-satisfaction, as one eyewitness recorded, for Hitler's reaction.

"Do I understand that the British, French and Czech governments have agreed to the transfer of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany?" Hitler asked. t He was astounded as he later told Chamberlain, that the concessions to him had gone so far and so fast.

"Yes," replied the Prime Minister, smiling.

"1 am terribly sorry," Hitler said, "but after the events of the last few days, this plan is no longer of any use."

Chamberlain, Dr. Schmidt later remembered, sat up with a start. His owl-like face flushed with surprise and anger. But apparently not with resentment that Hitler had deceived him, that Hitler, like a common blackmailer, was upping his demands at the very moment they were being accepted. The Prime Minister described his own feelings at this moment in a report to the Commons a few days later:

[quote]I do not want the House to think that Hitler was deliberately deceiving me --  I do not think so for one moment -- but, for me, I expected that when I got back to Godesberg I had only to discuss quietly with him the proposals that I had brought with me; and it was a profound shock to me when I was told that these proposals were not acceptable . . .[/quote]

Chamberlain saw the house of peace which he had so "laboriously" built up at the expense of the Czechs collapsing like a stack of cards. He was, he told Hitler, "both disappointed and puzzled. He could rightly say that the Fuehrer had got from him what he had demanded."

[quote]In order to achieve this he [Chamberlain] had risked his whole political career ... He was being accused by certain circles in Great Britain of having sold and betrayed Czechoslovakia, of having yielded to the dictators, and on leaving England that morning he actually had been booed.[/quote]

But the Fuehrer was unmoved by the personal plight of the British Prime Minister. The Sudeten area, he demanded, must be occupied by Germany at once. The problem "must be completely and finally solved by October first, at the latest." He had a map handy to indicate what territories must be ceded immediately.

And so, his mind "full of foreboding," as he later told the Commons, Chamberlain withdrew across the Rhine "to consider what 1 was to do." There seemed so little hope that evening that after he had consulted with his own cabinet colleagues and with members of the French government by telephone it was agreed that London and Paris should inform the Czech government the next day that they could not "continue to take the responsibility of advising them not to mobilize." [xiv]

At 7:20 that evening General Keitel telephoned Army headquarters from Godesberg: "Date (of X Day) cannot yet be ascertained. Continue preparations according to plan. If Case Green occurs, it will not be before September 30. If it occurs sooner, it will probably be improvised." [53]

For Adolf Hitler himself was caught in a dilemma. Though Chamberlain did not know it, the Fuehrer's real objective, as he had laid it down in his OKW directive after the May crisis, was "to destroy Czechoslovakia by military action." To accept the Anglo-French plan, which the Czechs already had agreed to, however reluctantly, would not only give Hitler his Sudeten Germans but would effectively destroy the Czech state, since it would be left defenseless. But it would not be by military action, and the Fuehrer was determined not only to humiliate President Benes and the Czech government, which had so offended him in May, but to expose the spinelessness of the Western powers. For that, at least a military occupation was necessary. It could be bloodless, as was the military occupation of Austria, but it must take place. He must have at least that much revenge on the upstart Czechs.

There was no further contact between the two men on the evening of September 22. But after sleeping on the problem and spending the early morning pacing his balcony overlooking the Rhine, Chamberlain sat down following breakfast and wrote a letter to Hitler. He would submit the new German demands to the Czechs but he did not think they would be accepted. In fact, he had no doubt that the Czechs would forcibly resist an immediate occupation by German troops. But he was willing to suggest to Prague, since all parties had agreed on the transfer of the Sudeten area to Germany, that the Sudeten Germans themselves maintain law and order in their area until it was turned over to the Reich.

To such a compromise Hitler would not listen. After keeping the Prime Minister waiting throughout most of the day he finally replied by note with a bitter tirade, again rehearsing all the wrongs the Czechs had done to Germans, again refusing to modify his position and concluding that war "now appears to be the case." Chamberlain's answer was brief. He asked Hitler to put his new demands in writing, "together with a map," and undertook "as mediator" to send them to Prague. "I do not see that I can perform any further service here," he concluded. "I propose therefore to return to England."

Before doing so he came over once again to the Dreesen for a final meeting with Hitler which began at 10: 30 on the evening of September 23. Hitler presented his demands in the form of a memorandum with an accompanying map. Chamberlain found himself confronted with a new time limit. The Czechs were to begin the evacuation of the ceded territory by 8 A.M. on September 26 -- two days hence -- and complete it by September 28.

"But this is nothing less than an ultimatum!" Chamberlain exclaimed.

"Nothing of the sort," Hitler shot back. When Chamberlain retorted that the German word Diktat applied to it, Hitler answered, "It is not a Diktat at all. Look, the document is headed by the word 'Memorandum.'"

At this moment an adjutant brought in an urgent message for the Fuehrer. He glanced at it and tossed it to Schmidt, who was interpreting. "Read this to Mr. Chamberlain."

Schmidt did. "Benes has just announced over the radio a general mobilization in Czechoslovakia."

The room, Schmidt recalled afterward, was deadly still. Then Hitler spoke: "Now, of course, the whole affair is settled. The Czechs will not dream of ceding any territory to Germany."

Chamberlain, according to the Schmidt minutes, disagreed. In fact, there followed a furious argument.

[quote]The Czechs had mobilized first [said Hitler]. Chamberlain contradicted this. Germany had mobilized first . . . The Fuehrer denied that Germany had mobilized.[/quote]

And so the talks continued into the early-morning hours. Finally, after Chamberlain had inquired whether the German memorandum "was really his last word" and Hitler had replied that it was indeed, the Prime Minister

[quote]answered that there was no point in continuing the conversations. He had done his utmost; his efforts had failed. He was going away with a heavy heart, for the hopes with which he had come to Germany were destroyed.[/quote]

The German dictator did not want Chamberlain to get off the hook. He responded with a "concession."

"You are one of the few men for whom I have ever done such a thing," he said breezily. "I am prepared to set one single date for the Czech evacuation -- October first -- if that will facilitate your task." And so saying, he took a pencil and changed the dates himself. This, of course, was no concession at all. October 1 had been X Day all along. [xv]

But it seems to have impressed the Prime Minister. "He fully appreciated," Schmidt recorded him as saying, "the Fuehrer's consideration on the point." Nevertheless, he added, he was not in a position to accept or reject the proposals; he could only transmit them.

The ice, however, had been broken, and as the meeting broke up at 1: 30 A.M. the two men seemed, despite all that had happened, to be closer together personally than at any time since they had first met. I myself, from a vantage point twenty-five feet away in the porter's booth, where I had set up a temporary broadcasting studio, watched them say their farewells near the door of the hotel. I was struck by their cordiality to each other. Schmidt took down the words which I could not hear.

[quote]Chamberlain bid a hearty farewell to the Fuehrer. He said he had the feeling that a relationship of confidence had grown up between himself and the Fuehrer as a result of the conversations of the last few days ... He did not cease to hope that the present difficult crisis would be overcome, and then he would be glad to discuss other problems still outstanding with the Fuehrer in the same spirit.

The Fuehrer thanked Chamberlain for his words and told him that he had similar hopes. As he had already stated several times, the Czech problem was the last territorial demand which he had to make in Europe.[/quote]

This renunciation of further land grabs seems to have impressed the departing Prime Minister too, for in his subsequent report to the House of Commons he stressed that Hitler had made it "with great earnestness." When Chamberlain arrived at his hotel toward 2 A.M. he was asked by a journalist, "Is the position hopeless, sir?"

"I would not like to say that," the Prime Minister answered. "It is up to the Czechs now." [55]

It did not occur to him, it is evident, that it was up to the Germans, with their outrageous demands, too.

In fact, no sooner had the Prime Minister returned to London on September 24 than he attempted to do the very thing he had informed Hitler he would not do: persuade the British cabinet to accept the new Nazi demands. But now he ran into unexpected opposition. Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty, firmly opposed him. Surprisingly, so did Lord Halifax, though very reluctantly. Chamberlain could not carry his cabinet. Nor could he persuade the French government, which on the twenty-fourth rejected the Godesberg memorandum and on the same day ordered a partial mobilization.

When the French ministers, headed by Premier Daladier, arrived in London on Sunday, September 25, the two governments were apprised of the formal rejection of the Godesberg proposals by the Czech government. [xvi] There was nothing for the French to do but affirm that they would honor their word and come to the aid of Czechoslovakia if attacked. But they had to know what Britain would do. Finally cornered, or ~o it seemed, Chamberlain agreed to inform Hitler that if France became engaged in war with Germany as a result of her treaty obligations to the Czechs, Britain would feel obliged to support her.

But first he would make one last appeal to the German dictator. Hitler was scheduled to make a speech at the Sportpalast in Berlin on September 26. In order to induce him not to burn his bridges Chamberlain once again dashed off a personal letter to Hitler and on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth rushed it to Berlin by his faithful aide, Sir Horace Wilson, who sped to the German capital by special plane.

On the departure of Chamberlain from the Dreesen in the early-morning hours of September 24, the Germans had been plunged into gloom. Now that war seemed to face them, some of them, at least, did not like it. I lipgered in the hotel lobby for some time over a late supper. Goering, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, General Keitel and lesser men stood around earnestly talking. They seemed dazed at the prospect of war.

In Berlin later that day I found hopes reviving. In the Wilhelmstrasse the feeling was that since Chamberlain, with all the authority of the British Prime Minister, had agreed to present Hitler's new demands to Prague, it must be assumed that the British leader supported Hitler's proposals. As we have seen, the assumption was quite correct -- so far as it went.

Sunday, September 25, was a lovely day of Indian summer in Berlin, warm and sunny, and since it undoubtedly would be the last such weekend that autumn, half of the population flocked to the lakes and woods that surround the capital. Despite reports of Hitler's rage at hearing that the Godesberg ultimatum was being rejected in Paris, London and Prague, there was no feeling of great crisis, certainly no war fever, in Berlin. "Hard to believe there will be war," I noted in my diary that evening. [xvii]

On the Monday following there was a sudden change for the worse. At 5 P.M. Sir Horace Wilson, accompanied by Ambassador Henderson and Ivone Kirkpatrick, First Secretary of the British Embassy, arrived at the Chancellery bearing Chamberlain's letter. [57] They found Hitler in an ugly mood -- probably he was already working himself down to a proper level for his Sportpalast speech three hours hence.

When Dr. Schmidt began to translate the letter, which stated that the Czech government had informed the Prime Minister that the Godesberg memorandum was "wholly unacceptable," just as he had warned at Godesberg, Hitler, according to Schmidt, suddenly leaped up, shouting, "There's no sense at all in negotiating further!" and bounded for the door. [58]

It was a painful scene, says the German interpreter. "For the first and only time in my presence, Hitler completely lost his head." And according to the British present, the Fuehrer, who soon stamped back to his chair, kept further interrupting the reading of the letter by screaming, "The Germans are being treated like niggers . . . On October first I shall have Czechoslovakia where I want her. If France and England decide to strike, let them . . . I do not care a pfennig."

Chamberlain had proposed that since the Czechs were willing to give Hitler what he wanted, the Sudeten areas, a meeting of Czech and German representatives be called immediately to settle "by agreement the way in which the territory is to be handed over." He added that he was willing to have British representatives sit in at the meeting. Hitler's response was that he would negotiate details with the Czechs if they accepted in advance the Godesberg memorandum (which they had just rejected) and agreed to a German occupation of the Sudeten land by October 1. He must have an affirmative reply, he said, within forty-four hours -- by 2 P.M. on September 28.

That evening Hitler burned his bridges, or so it seemed to those of us who listened in amazement to his mad outburst at the jammed Sportpalast in Berlin .. Shouting and shrieking in the worst paroxysm I had ever seen him in, he venomously hurled personal insults at "Herr Benes," declared that the issue of war or peace was now up to the Czech President and that, in any case, he would have the Sudetenland by October 1. Carried away as he was by his angry torrent of words and the ringing cheers of the crowd, he was shrewd enough to throw a sop to the British Prime Minister. He thanked him for his efforts for peace and reiterated that this was his last territorial claim in Europe. "We want no Czechs!" he muttered contemptuously.

Throughout the harangue I sat in a balcony just above Hitler, trying with no great success to broadcast a running translation of his words. That night in my diary I noted:

[quote]. . . For the first time in all the years I've observed him he seemed tonight to have completely lost control of himself. When he sat down, Goebbels sprang up and shouted into the microphone: "One thing is sure: 1918 will never be repeated!" Hitler looked up to him, a wild, eager expression in his eyes, as if those were the words which he had been searching for all evening and hadn't quite found. He leaped to his feet and with a fanatical fire in his eyes that I shall never forget brought his right hand, after a grand sweep, pounding down on the table, and yelled with all the power in his mighty lungs: "Ja!" Then he slumped into his chair exhausted.[/quote]

He was fully recovered when he received Sir Horace Wilson for the second time the next noon, September 27. The special envoy, a man with no diplomatic training but who was as anxious as the Prime Minister, if not more so, to give Hitler the Sudetenland if the dictator would only accept it peacefully, called Hitler's attention to a special statement issued by Chamberlain in London shortly after midnight in response to the Fuehrer's Sportpalast speech. In view of the Chancellor's lack of faith in Czech promises, the British government, Chamberlain said, would regard itself "as morally responsible" for seeing that the Czech promises were carried out "fairly, fully and with all reasonable promptitude." He trusted that the Chancellor would not reject this proposal.

But Hitler showed no interest in it. He had, he said, no further message for Mr. Chamberlain. It was now up to the Czechs. They could accept or reject his demands. If they rejected them, he shouted angrily, "I shall destroy Czechoslovakia!" He kept repeating the threat with obvious relish.

Apparently that was too much even for the accommodating Wilson, who rose to his feet and said, "In that case, I am entrusted by the Prime Minister to make the following statement: 'If France, in fulfillment of her treaty obligations, should become actively engaged in hostilities against Germany, the United Kingdom would feel obliged to support France.'"

"I can only take note of that position," Hitler replied with some heat. "It means that if France elects to attack Germany, England will feel obliged to attack her also."

When Sir Horace replied that he had not said that, that it was up to Hitler, after all, whether there would be peace or war, the Fuehrer, working himself up by now to a fine lather, shouted, "If France and England strike, let them do so! It's a matter of complete indifference to me. Today is Tuesday; by next Monday we shall be at war."

According to Schmidt's official notes on the meeting, Wilson apparently wished to continue the conversation, but was advised by Ambassador Henderson to desist. This did not prevent the inexperienced special envoy from getting in a word with the Fuehrer alone as the meeting broke up. "I shall try to make these Czechs sensible," [xviii] he assured Hitler, and the latter replied that he "would welcome that." Perhaps, the Fuehrer must have thought, Chamberlain could still be coaxed to go further in making the Czechs "sensible." That evening, in fact, he sat down and dictated to the Prime Minister a shrewdly worded letter.

There were well-grounded reasons for writing it. Much had happened in Berlin -- and elsewhere -- during that day, September 27.

At 1 P.M., shortly after Wilson's departure, Hitler issued a "most secret" order directing assault units comprising some twenty-one reinforced regiments, or seven divisions, to move forward from their training areas to the jumping-off points on the Czech frontier. "They must be ready," said the order, "to begin action against 'Green' on September 30, the decision having been made one day previously by twelve noon." A few hours later a further concealed mobilization was ordered by the Fuehrer. Among other measures, five new divisions were mobilized for the west. [59]

But even as Hitler went ahead with his military moves, there were developments during the day which made him hesitate. In order to stir up some war fever among the populace Hitler ordered a parade of a motorized division through the capital at dusk -- an hour when hundreds of thousands of Berliners would be pouring out of their offices onto the streets. It turned out to be a terrible fiasco -- at least for the Supreme Commander. The good people of Berlin simply did not want to be reminded of war. In my diary that night I noted down the surprising scene.

[quote]I went out to the corner of the Linden where the column [of troops] was turning down the Wilhelmstrasse, expecting to see a tremendous demonstration. I pictured the scenes I had read of in 1914 when the cheering throngs on this same street tossed flowers at the marching soldiers, and the girls ran up and kissed them . . . But today they ducked into the subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence . . . It has been the most striking demonstration against war I've ever seen.[/quote]

At the urging of a policeman I walked down the Wilhelmstrasse to the Reichskanzlerplatz, where Hitler stood on a balcony of the Chancellery reviewing the troops.

[quote]. . . There weren't two hundred people there. Hitler looked grim, then angry, and soon went inside, leaving his troops to parade by unreviewed. What I've seen tonight almost rekindles a little faith in the German people. They are dead set against war.[/quote]

Within the Chancellery there was further bad news -- this from abroad. There was a dispatch from Budapest saying that Yugoslavia and Rumania had informed the Hungarian government that they would move against Hungary militarily if she attacked Czechoslovakia. That would spread the war to the Balkans, something Hitler did not want.

The news from Paris was graver. From the German military attache there came a telegram marked "Very Urgent" and addressed not only to the Foreign Ministry but to OKW and the General Staff. It warned that France's partial mobilization was so much like a total one "that I reckon with the completion of the deployment of the first 65 divisions on the German frontier by the sixth day of mobilization." Against such a force the Germans had, as Hitler knew, barely a dozen divisions, half of them reserve units of doubtful value. Furthermore, wired the German military attache, "it appears probable that in the event of belligerent measures by Germany . . . an immediate attack will take place, in all probability from Lower Alsace and from Lorraine in the direction of Mainz."

Finally, this German officer informed Berlin, the Italians were doing absolutely nothing to pin down French troops on the Franco-Italian frontier. [60] Mussolini, the valiant ally, seemed to be letting Hitler down in a crucial hour.

And then, the President of the United States and the King of Sweden were butting in. The day before, on the twenty-sixth, Roosevelt had addressed an appeal to Hitler to help keep the peace, and though Hitler had answered it within twenty-four hours, saying that peace depended solely on the Czechs, there came another message from the American President during the course of this day, Wednesday the twenty-seventh, suggesting an immediate conference of all the nations directly interested and implying that if war broke out the world would hold Hitler responsible.  [61]

The King of Sweden, staunch friend of Germany, as he had proved during the 1914-18 war, was more frank. During the afternoon a dispatch arrived in Berlin from the German minister in Stockholm saying that the King had hastily summoned him and told him that unless Hitler extended his time limit of October 1 by ten days world war would inevitably break out, Germany would be solely to blame for it and moreover just as inevitably would lose it "in view of the present combination of the Powers." In the cool, neutral air of Stockholm, the shrewd King was able to assess at least the military situation more objectively than the heads of government in Berlin, London and Paris.

President Roosevelt, as perhaps was necessary in view of American sentiment, had weakened his two appeals for peace by stressing that the United States would not intervene in a war nor even assume any obligations "in the conduct of the present negotiations." The German ambassador in Washington, Hans Dieckhoff, therefore thought it necessary to get off a "very urgent" cable to Berlin during the day. He warned that if Hitler resorted to force and was opposed by Britain he had reason to assume "that the whole weight of the United States [would] be thrown into the scale on the side of Britain." And the ambassador, usually a timid man when it came to standing up to the Fuehrer, added, "1 consider it my duty to emphasize this very strongly." He did not want the German government to stumble into the same mistaken assumptions it had made about America in 1914.

And Prague? Was there any sign of weakening there? In the evening came a telegram from Colonel Toussaint, the German military attache, to OKW: "Calm in Prague. Last mobilization measures carried out . . . Total estimated call-up is 1,000,000; field army 800,000 ... " [62] That was as many trained men as Germany had for two fronts. Together the Czechs and the French outnumbered the Germans by more than two to one.

Faced with these facts and developments and no doubt mindful of Wilson's parting words and of Chamberlain's character and of Chamberlain's utter fear of war, Hitler sat down early on that evening of September 27 to dictate a letter to the Prime Minister. Dr. Schmidt, who was called in to translate it into English, got the feeling that the dictator was shrinking back "from the extreme step." Whether Hitler knew that the order was going out that evening for the mobilization of the British fleet cannot be established. Admiral Raeder arranged to see the Fuehrer at 10 P.M., and it is possible that the German Navy learned of the British move, which was made at 8 P.M. and publicly announced at 11:38 P.M., and that Raeder informed Hitler by telephone. At any rate, when the Admiral arrived he appealed to the Fuehrer not to go to war.

What Hitler did know at this moment was that Prague was defiant, Paris rapidly mobilizing, London stiffening, his own people apathetic, his leading generals dead against him, and that his ultimatum on the Godesberg proposals expired at 2 P.M. the next day.

His letter was beautifully calculated to appeal to Chamberlain. Moderate in tone, it denied that his proposals would "rob Czechoslovakia of every guarantee of its existence" or that his troops would fail to stop at the demarcation lines. He was ready to negotiate details with the Czechs; he was ready to "give a formal guarantee for the remainder of Czechoslovakia." The Czechs were holding out simply because they hoped, with the help of England and France, to start a European war. Nevertheless, he did not slam the door on the last hopes of peace.

[quote]I must leave it to your judgment [he concluded] whether, in view of these facts, you consider that you should continue your effort . . . to spoil such maneuvers and bring the Government in Prague to reason at the very last hour. [63][/quote]

[b]THE ELEVENTH HOUR[/b]

Hitler's letter, telegraphed urgently to London, reached Chamberlain at 10: 30 on the night of September 27. It came at the end of a busy day for the Prime Minister.

The disquieting news which Sir Horace Wilson, who arrived in London early in the afternoon, brought from his second conference with Hitler spurred Chamberlain and his inner cabinet to action. It was decided to mobilize the fleet, call up the Auxiliary Air Force and declare a state of emergency. Already trenches were being dug in the parks and squares for protection against bombing, and the evacuation of London's school children had begun.

Also, the Prime Minister promptly sent off a message to President Benes in Prague warning that his information from Berlin "makes it clear that the German Army will receive orders to cross the Czechoslovak frontier immediately if, by tomorrow [September 28] at 2 P.M. the Czechoslovak Government have not accepted the German conditions." But having honorably warned the Czechs, Chamberlain could not refrain from admonishing them, in the last part of his message, "that Bohemia would be overrun by the German Army and nothing which another Power or Powers could do would be able to save your country and your people from such a fate. This remains true whatever the result of a world war might be."

Thus Chamberlain was putting the responsibility for peace or war no longer on Hitler but on Benes. And he was giving a military opinion which even the German generals, as we have seen, held as irresponsible. However, he did add, at the end of his message, that he would not assume the responsibility of telling the Czechs what they must now do. It was up to them.

But was it? Benes had not had time to reply to the telegram when a second one arrived in which Chamberlain did endeavor to tell the Czech government what to do. He proposed that the Czechs accept a limited German military occupation on October 1 -- of Egerland and Asch, outside the Czech fortifications -- and that a German-Czech-British boundary commission then quickly establish the rest of the areas to be turned over to the Germans. [xix] And the Prime Minister added a further warning:

[quote]The only alternative to this plan would be an invasion and a dismemberment of the country by force, and Czechoslovakia, though a conflict might arise which would lead to incalculable loss of life, could not be reconstituted in her frontiers whatever the result of the conflict may be. [64][/quote]

The Czechs were thus warned by their friends (France associated herself with these latest proposals) that even if they and their allies defeated the Germans in a war, Czechoslovakia would have to give up the Sudetenland to Germany. The inference was plain: Why plunge Europe into a war, since the Sudetenland is lost to you anyway?

This business out of the way, the Prime Minister broadcast to the nation at 8:30 P.M.:

[quote]How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches . . here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing! . . .[/quote]

Hitler had got the "substance of what he wanted." Britain had offered to guarantee that the Czechs would accept it and carry it out.

[quote]I would not hesitate to pay even a third visit to Germany if I thought it would do any good . . .

However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that . . .

I am myself a man of peace to the very depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but, if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake.[/quote]

Wheeler-Bennett has recorded that after listening to this broadcast most people in Britain went to bed that night believing that Britain and Germany would be at war within twenty-four hours. [65] But the good people did not know what was happening at Downing Street still later that evening.

At 10:30 P.M. came Hitler's letter. It was a straw which the Prime Minister eagerly grasped. To the Fuehrer he replied:

[quote]After reading your letter, I feel certain that you can get all essentials without war, and without delay. I am ready to come to Berlin myself at once to discuss arrangements for transfer with you and representatives of the Czech Government, together with representatives of France and Italy, if you desire. I feel convinced we can reach agreement in a week. I cannot believe that you will take responsibility of starting a world war which may end civilization for the sake of a few days delay in settling this long-standing problem. [66][/quote]

A telegram also went out to Mussolini asking him to urge the Fuehrer's acceptance of this plan and to agree to being represented at the suggested meeting.

The idea of a conference had been in the back of the Prime Minister's mind for some time. As far back as July, Sir Nevile Henderson had suggested it on his own in a dispatch to London. He had proposed that four powers, Germany, Italy, Britain and France, settle the Sudeten problem. But both the ambassador and the Prime Minister had been reminded by the British Foreign Office that it would be difficult to exclude other powers from participating in such a conference. [67] The "other powers" were Russia, which had a pact of mutual assistance with Prague, and Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain had returned from Godesberg convinced -- quite correctly -- that Hitler would never consent to any meeting which included the Soviet Union. Nor did the Prime Minister himself desire the presence of the Russians. Though it was obvious to the smallest mind in Britain that in case of war with Germany, Soviet participation on the side of the West would be of immense value, as Churchill repeatedly tried to point out to the head of the British government, this was a view which seems to have escaped the Prime Minister. He had, as we have seen, turned down the Russian proposal for a conference after the Anschluss to discuss means of opposing further German aggression. Despite Moscow's guarantee to Czechoslovakia and the fact that right up to this moment Litvinov was proclaiming that Russia would honor it, Chamberlain had no intention of allowing the Soviets to interfere with his resolve to keep the peace by giving Hitler the Sudetenland.

But until Wednesday, September 28, he had not yet gone so far in his thinking as to exclude the Czechs from a conference. Indeed, on the twenty-fifth, after Prague had rejected Hitler's Godesberg demands, the Prime Minister had called in Jan Masaryk, the Czech ambassador in London, and proposed that Czechoslovakia should agree to negotiations at "an international conference in which Germany, Czechoslovakia and other powers could participate." On the following day the Czech government had accepted the idea. And, as we have just seen, in his message to Hitler late on the night of the twenty-seventh Chamberlain had specified that "representatives of Czechoslovakia" should be included in his proposed conference of Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain.

[quote]"BLACK WEDNESDAY" AND THE HALDER PLOT AGAINST HITLER[/quote]

Deep gloom hung over Berlin, Prague, London and Paris as "Black Wednesday," September 28, dawned. War seemed inevitable.

"A Great War can hardly be avoided any longer," Jodl quoted Goering as saying that morning. "It may last seven years, and we will win it." [68]

In London the digging of trenches, the evacuation of school children, the emptying of hospitals, continued. In Paris there was a scramble for the choked trains leaving the city, and the motor traffic out of the capital was jammed. There were similar scenes in western Germany. Jodl jotted in his diary that morning reports of German refugees fleeing from the border regions. At 2 P.M. Hitler's time limit for Czechoslovakia's acceptance of the Godesberg proposals would run out. There was no sign from Prague that they would be accepted. There were, however, certain other signs: great activity in the Wilhelmstrasse; a frantic coming and going of the French, British and Italian ambassadors. But of these the general public and indeed the German generals remained ignorant.

To some of the generals and to General Halder, Chief of the General Staff, above all, the time had come to carry out their plot to remove Hitler and save the Fatherland from plunging into a European war which they felt it was doomed to lose. All through September the conspirators, according to the later accounts of the survivors, [xx] had been busy working out their plans.

General Halder was in close touch with Colonel Oster and his chief at the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, who tried to keep him abreast of Hitler's political moves and of foreign intelligence. The plotters, as we have seen, had warned London of Hitler's resolve to attack Czechoslovakia by the end of September and had begged the British government to make clear that Britain, along with France, would answer German aggression by armed force. For some months General von Witzleben, who commanded the Berlin Military District, and who would have to furnish most of the troops to carry out the coup, had been hesitant because he suspected that London and Paris had secretly given Hitler a free hand in the East and would therefore not go to war over Czechoslovakia -- a view shared by several other generals and one which Hitler and Ribbentrop had encouraged. If this were true, the plot to depose Hitler, in the opinion of generals such as Witzleben and Halder, was senseless. For, at this stage of the Third Reich, they were concerned only with getting rid of the Fuehrer in order to avert a European war which Germany had no chance of winning. If there were really no risk of a big war, if Chamberlain were going to give Hitler what he wanted in Czechoslovakia without a war, then they saw no point in trying to carry out a revolt.

To assure the generals that Britain and France meant business, Colonel Oster and Gisevius arranged for General Halder and General von Witzleben to meet Schacht, who, besides having prestige with the military hierarchy as the man who financed German rearmament and who still was in the cabinet, was considered an expert on British affairs. Schacht assured them that the British would fight if Hitler resorted to arms against the Czechs.

The news that had reached Erich Kordt, one of the conspirators, in the German Foreign Office late on the night of September 13, that Chamberlain urgently proposed "to come over at once by air" to seek a peaceful solution of the Czech crisis, had caused consternation in the camp of the plotters. They had counted on Hitler's returning to Berlin from the Nuremberg Party Rally on the fourteenth and, according to Kordt, had planned to carry out the putsch on that day or the next. But the Fuehrer did not return to the capital. [xxi] Instead, he went to Munich and on the fourteenth continued on to Berchtesgaden, where he awaited the visit of the British Prime Minister the next day.

There were double grounds for the feeling of utter frustration among the plotters. Their plans could be carried out only if Hitler were in Berlin, and they had been confident that, since the Nuremberg rally had only sharpened the Czech crisis, he would certainly return immediately to the capital. In the second place, although some of the members of the conspiracy complacently assumed, as did the people of Britain, that Chamberlain was flying to Berchtesgaden to warn Hitler not to make the mistake that Wilhelm II had made in 1914 as to what Great Britain would do in the case of German aggression, Kordt knew better. He had seen the text of Chamberlain's urgent message explaining to Hitler that he wanted to see him "with a view to trying to find a peaceful solution." Furthermore, he had seen the telegram from his brother, Theodor Kordt, counselor of the German Embassy in London, that day, confiding that the Prime Minister was prepared to go a long way to meet Hitler's demands in the Sudetenland. [xxii]

"The effect on our plans," says Kordt, "was bound to be disastrous. It would have been absurd to stage a putsch to overthrow Hitler at a moment when the British Prime Minister was coming to Germany to discuss with Hitler 'the peace of the world.'"

However, on the evening of September 15, according to Erich Kordt, Dr. Paul Schmidt, who was in on the conspiracy, and who, as we have seen, acted as sole interpreter -- and sole witness -- at the Hitler-Chamberlain talk, informed him "by prearranged code" that the Fuehrer was still determined to conquer the whole of Czechoslovakia and that he had put forward to Chamberlain impossible demands "in the hope that they would be refused." This intelligence revived the spirits of the conspirators. Kordt informed Colonel Oster of it the same evening and it was decided to go ahead with the plans as soon as Hitler returned to Berlin. "But first of all," Oster said, "we must get the bird back into his cage in Berlin."

The bird flew back to his "cage" from the Godesberg talks on the afternoon of September 24. On the morning of "Black Wednesday," the twenty-eighth, Hitler had been in Berlin for nearly four days. On the twenty-sixth he apparently had burned his bridges in his outburst at the Sportpalast. On the twenty-seventh he had sent Sir Horace Wilson back to London empty-handed, and the British government's reaction had been to mobilize the fleet and warn Prague to expect an immediate German attack. During the day he had also, as we have seen, ordered the "assault units" to ta!,e their combat positions on the Czech frontier and be ready for "action" on September 30 -- three days hence.

What were the conspirators waiting for? All the conditions they themselves had set had now been fulfilled. Hitler was in Berlin. He was determined to go to war. He had set the date for the attack on Czechoslovakia as September 30 -- two days away now. Either the putsch must be made at once, or it would be too late to overthrow the dictator and stop the war.

Kordt declares that during the day of September 27 the plotters set a definite date for action: September 29. Gisevius, in his testimony on the stand at Nuremberg and also in his book, claims that the generals --  Halder and Witzleben -- decided to act immediately on September 28 after they got a copy of Hitler's "defiant letter" with its "insulting demand" to Chamberlain of the night before.

[quote]Oster received a copy of this defiant letter [Gisevius says] late that night [September 27], and on the morning of September 28 I took the copy to Witzleben. Witzleben went to Halder with it. Now, at last, the Chief of the General Staff had his desired, unequivocal proof that Hitler was not bluffing, that he wanted war.

Tears of indignation ran down Halder's cheeks . . . Witzleben insisted that now it was time to take action. He persuaded Halder to go to see Brauchitsch. After a while Halder returned to say that he had good news: Brauchitsch was also outraged and would probably take part in the Putsch. [70][/quote]

But either the text of the letter had been altered in the copying or the generals misunderstood it, for, as we have seen, it was so moderate in tone, so full of promises to "negotiate details with the Czechs" and to "give a formal guarantee for the remainder of Czechoslovakia," so conciliatory in suggesting to Chamberlain that he might continue his efforts, that the Prime Minister, after reading it, had immediately telegraphed Hitler suggesting a Big-Power conference to settle the details and at the same time wired Mussolini asking his support for such a proposal.

Of this eleventh-hour effort at appeasement the generals apparently had no knowledge, but General von Brauchitsch, the Commander in Chief of the Army, may have had some inkling. According to Gisevius, Witzleben telephoned Brauchitsch from Halder's office, told him that all was ready and pleaded with him to lead the revolt himself. But the Army commander was noncommittal. He informed Halder and Witzleben that he would first have to go over to the Fuehrer's Chancellery to see for himself whether the generals had assessed the situation correctly. Gisevius says that Witzleben rushed back to his military headquarters.

"Gisevius," he declared excitedly, "the time has come!"

At eleven o'clock that morning of September 28 the phone rang at Kordt's desk in the Foreign Office. Ciano was on the line from Rome and wanted urgently to speak to the German Foreign Minister. Ribbentrop was not available -- he was at the Reich Chancellery -- so the Italian Foreign Minister asked to be put through to his ambassador, Bernardo Attolico. The Germans listened in and recorded the call. It developed that Mussolini, and not his son-in-law, wanted to do the talking.

[quote]MUSSOLINI: This is the Duce speaking. Can you hear me?

ATTOLICO: Yes, I hear you.

MUSSOLINI: Ask immediately for an interview with the Chancellor. Tell him the British government asked me through Lord Perth [xxiii] to mediate in the Sudeten question. The point of difference is very small. Tell the Chancellor that I and Fascist Italy stand behind him. He must decide. But tell him I favor accepting the suggestion. You hear me?

ATTOLICO: Yes, I hear you.

MUSSOLINI: Hurry! [71][/quote]

Out of breath, his face flushed with excitement (as Dr. Schmidt, the interpreter, noted), Ambassador Attolico arrived at the Chancellery to find that the French ambassador was already closeted with Hitler. M. Francois-Poncet had had a hard time getting there. Very late the night before, Bonnet, the French Foreign Minister, who was now intent on going Chamberlain one better, had telephoned his ambassador in Berlin and instructed him to see Hitler at the earliest possible moment and present a French proposal for surrendering the Sudetenland which went much further than the British plan. Whereas the Prime Minister's proposal, delivered to Hitler at 11 P.M. on September 27, offered Hitler the occupation of Zone I of the Sudetenland by October 1 -- a mere token occupation of a tiny enclave -- the French now proposed to hand over three large zones, which comprised most of the disputed territory, by October 1.

It was a tempting offer, but the French ambassador had great difficulty in making it. He phoned at 8 A.M. on September 28 for an appointment with the Chancellor and when no response had been received by ten o'clock rushed his military attache off to the Army General Staff to inform the German generals of the offer which he was as yet unable to deliver. He enlisted the aid of the British ambassador. Sir Nevile Henderson, who was only too ready to oblige anyone who might help prevent a war -- at any cost -- telephoned Goering, and the Field Marshal said he would try to make the appointment. As a matter of fact, Henderson was trying to make one for himself, for he had been instructed to present to Hitler "a final personal message from the Prime Minister," the one which Chamberlain had drafted late the night before, [xxiv] assuring Hitler that he could get everything he wanted "without war, and without delay," and proposing a conference of the powers to work out the details. [72]

Hitler received Francois-Poncet at 11:15 A.M. The ambassador found him nervous and tense. Brandishing a map which he had hastily drawn up and which showed the large chunks of Czech territory which Czechoslovakia's principal ally was now prepared to hand over to Hitler on a platter, the French ambassador urged the Fuehrer to accept the French proposals and spare Europe from war. Despite Ribbentrop's negative comments, which Francois-Poncet says he dealt "roundly" with, Hitler was impressed -- especially, as Dr. Schmidt noted, by the ambassador's map, with its generous markings.

At 11:40 the interview was suddenly interrupted by a messenger who announced that Attolico had just arrived with an urgent message for the Fuehrer from Mussolini. Hitler left the room, with Schmidt, to greet the panting Italian ambassador.

"I have an urgent message to you from the Duce!" Attolico, who had a naturally hoarse voice, shouted from some distance off. [73] After delivering it, he added that Mussolini begged the Fuehrer to refrain from mobilization.

It was at this moment, says Schmidt, the only surviving eyewitness of the scene, that the decision for peace was made. It was now just noon, two hours before the time limit on Hitler's ultimatum to the Czechs ran out.

"Tell the Duce," Hitler said, with obvious relief, to Attolico, "that I accept his proposal." [74]

The rest of the day was anticlimactic. Ambassador Henderson followed Attolico and Francois-Poncet to the Fuehrer's presence.

"At the request of my great friend and ally, Mussolini," Hitler told Henderson, "I have postponed mobilizing my troops for twenty-four hours." [xxv] He would give his decision on other matters, such as the proposed conference of the powers, after he had again consulted Mussolini. [75]

There followed much telephoning between Berlin and Rome-Schmidt says the two fascist dictators talked directly once. A few minutes before 2 P.M. on September 28, just as his ultimatum was to expire, Hitler made up his mind and invitations were hastily issued to the heads of government of Great Britain, France and Italy to meet the Fuehrer at Munich at noon on the following day to settle the Czech question. No invitation was sent to Prague or Moscow. Russia, the coguarantor of Czechoslovakia's integrity in case of a German attack, was not to be allowed to interfere. The Czechs were not even asked to be present at their own death sentence.

In his memoirs Sir Nevile Henderson gave most of the credit for saving the peace at this moment to Mussolini, and in this he has been backed by most of the historians who have written of this chapter in European history. [xxvi] But surely this is being overgenerous. Italy was the weakest of the Big Powers in Europe and her military strength was so negligible that the German generals, as their papers make clear, treated it as a joke. Great Britain and France were the only powers that counted in German calculations. And it was the British Prime Minister who, from the start, had sought to convince Hitler that he could get the Sudetenland without a war. Chamberlain, not Mussolini, made Munich possible, and thus preserved the peace for exactly eleven months. The cost of such a feat to his own country and to its allies and friends will be considered later, but it was, by any accounting, as it turned out, almost beyond bearing.

At five minutes to three on "Black Wednesday," which now appeared less dark than it had in the bleak morning hours, the British Prime Minister had begun to address the House of Commons in London, giving a detailed account of the Czech crisis and of the part which he and his government had played in trying to solve it. The situation he depicted was still uncertain, but it had improved. Mussolini, he said, had succeeded in getting Hitler to postpone mobilization for twenty-four hours. It was now 4:15, and Chamberlain had been speaking for an hour and twenty minutes and was nearing the end of his speech. At this point he was interrupted. Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, passed him a paper which had been handed down to the Treasury front bench by Lord Halifax, who had been sitting in the peers' gallery.

[quote]Whatever view honorable members may have had about Signor Mussolini [Chamberlain was saying] I believe that everyone will welcome his gesture for peace.[/quote]

The Prime Minister paused, glanced at the paper, and smiled.

[quote]That is not all. I have something further to say to the House yet. I have now been informed by Herr Hitler that he invites me to meet him at Munich tomorrow morning. He has also invited Signor Mussolini and Monsieur Daladier. Signor Mussolini has accepted and I have no doubt Monsieur Daladier will accept. I need not say what my answer will be . . .[/quote]

There was no need. The ancient chamber, the Mother of Parliaments, reacted with a mass hysteria without precedent in its long history. There was wild shouting and a wild throwing of order papers into the air and many were in tears and one voice was heard above the tumult which seemed to express the deep sentiments of all: "Thank God for the Prime Minister!"

Jan Masaryk, the Czech minister, the son of the founding father of the Czechoslovak Republic, looked on from the diplomatic gallery, unable to believe his eyes. Later he called on the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary in Downing Street to find out whether his country, which would have to make all the sacrifices, would be invited to Munich. Chamberlain and Halifax answered that it would not, that Hitler would not stand for it. Masaryk gazed at the two God-fearing Englishmen and struggled to keep control of himself.

"If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world," he finally said, "I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help your souls!" [76]

And what of the conspirators, the generals and the civilians, General Halder and General von Witzleben, Schacht and Gisevius and Kordt, and the rest, who shortly before noon on that fateful day had believed, as Witzleben said, that their time had come? The answer can be given briefly in their own words -- spoken much later when all was over and they were anxious to prove to the world how opposed they had been to Hitler and his catastrophic follies which had brought Germany to utter ruin after a long and murderous war.

Neville Chamberlain, they all claimed, was the villain! By agreeing to come to Munich he had forced them at the very last minute to call off their plans to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime!

On February 25, 1946, as the long Nuremberg trial neared its end, General Halder was interrogated privately by Captain Sam Harris, a young New York attorney on the staff of the American prosecution.

[quote]It had been planned [Halder said] to occupy by military force the Reich Chancellery and those government offices, particularly ministries, which were administered by party members and close supporters of Hitler, with the express intention of avoiding bloodshed and then trying the group before the whole German nation ... On the day [September 28] Witzleben came to see me in my office during the noon hour. We discussed the matter. He requested that I give him the order of execution. We discussed other details -- how much time he needed, etc. During this discussion, the news came that the British Prime Minister and the French Premier had agreed to come to Hitler for further talks. This happened in the presence of Witzleben. I therefore took back the order of execution because, owing to this fact, the entire basis for the action had been taken away . . .

We were firmly convinced that we would be successful. But now came Mr. Chamberlain and with one stroke the danger of war was averted . . . The critical hour for force was avoided . . . One could only wait in case a new chance should come . . .[/quote]

"Do I understand you to say that if Chamberlain had not come to Munich, your plan would have been executed, and Hitler would have been deposed?" asked Captain Harris.

"I can only say the plan would have been executed," General Halder replied. "I do not know if it would have been successful." [77]

Dr. Schacht, who at Nuremberg and in his postwar books clearly exaggerated the importance of his role in the various conspiracies against Hitler, also blamed Chamberlain for the failure of the Germans to carry out the plot on September 28:

[quote]It is quite clear from the later course of history that this first attempt at a coup d'etat by Witzleben and myself was the only one which could have brought a real turning point in Germany's fate. It was the only attempt which was planned and prepared in good time ... In the autumn of 1938 it was still possible to count on bringing Hitler to trial before the Supreme Court, but all subsequent efforts to get rid of him necessarily involved attempts on his life . . . I had made preparations for a coup d'etat in good time and I had brought them to within an ace of success. History had decided against me. The intervention of foreign statesmen was something I could not possibly have taken into account. [78][/quote]

And Gisevius, who was Schacht's stoutest champion on the witness stand at Nuremberg, added:

[quote]The impossible had happened. Chamberlain and Daladier were flying to Munich. Our revolt was done for. For a few hours I went on imagining that we could revolt anyway. But Witzleben soon demonstrated to me that the troops would never revolt against the victorious Fuehrer . . . Chamberlain saved Hitler. [79][/quote]

Did he? Or was this merely an excuse of the German civilians and generals for their failure to act?

In his interrogation at Nuremberg Halder explained to Captain Harris that there were three conditions for a successful "revolutionary action":

[quote]The first condition is a clear and resolute leadership. The second condition is the readiness of the masses of the people to follow tile idea of the revolution. The third condition is the right choice of time. According to our views, the first condition of a clear resolute leadership was there. The second condition we thought fulfilled too, because ... the German people did not want war. Therefore the nation was ready to consent to a revolutionary act for fear of war. The third condition -- the right choice of time -- was good because we had to expect within forty-eight hours the order for carrying out a military action. Therefore we were firmly convinced that we would be successful.

But now came Mr. Chamberlain and with one stroke the danger of war was avoided.[/quote]

One can doubt that General Halder's first condition was ever fulfilled, as he claimed. For had there been "clear and resolute leadership" why should the generals have hesitated for four days? They had on tap the military force to easily sweep Hitler and his regime aside: Witzleben had a whole army corps -- the IIIrd -- in and around Berlin, Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt had a crack infantry division in nearby Potsdam, Hoefner had a panzer division to the south, and the two ranking police officers in the capital, Count von Helldorf and Count von der Schulenburg, had a large force of well-armed police to help out. All of these officers, according to the plotters themselves, were but waiting for the word from Halder to spring into action with overwhelming armed force. And the population of Berlin, scared to death that Hitler was about to bring on a war, would have -- so far as this writer could, at first hand, judge them -- spontaneously backed the coup.

Whether Halder and Witzleben would have finally acted had Chamberlain not agreed to come to Munich is a question that can never be answered with any degree of finality. Given the peculiar attitude of these generals at this time which made them concerned with overthrowing Hitler not in order to bring an end to the tyranny and terror of his regime but merely to avert a lost war, it is possible that they might have acted had not the Munich Conference been arranged. The information necessary to establish how well the plot was hatched, how ready the armed forces were to march and how near Halder and Witzleben really came to giving the order to act has so far been lacking. We have only the statements of a handful of participants who after the war were anxious to prove their opposition to National Socialism, and what they have said and written in self-defense is often conflicting and confusing. [xxvii]

If, as the conspirators claim, their plans were on the point of being carried out, the announcement of Chamberlain's trip to Munich certainly cut the ground from underneath their feet. The generals could scarcely have arrested Hitler and tried him as a war criminal when it was obvious that he was about to achieve an important conquest without war.

What is certain among all these uncertainties -- and here Dr. Schacht must be conceded his point -- is that such a golden opportunity never again presented itself to the German opposition to dispose of Hitler, bring a swift end to the Third Reich and save Germany and the world from war. The Germans, if one may risk a generalization, have a weakness for blaming foreigners for their failures. The responsibility of Chamberlain and Halifax, of Daladier and Bonnet, for Munich and thus for all the disastrous consequences which ensued is overwhelming. But they may be pardoned to some extent for not taking very seriously the warnings of a "revolt" of a group of German generals and civilians most of whom had served Hitler with great ability up to this moment. They, or at least some of their advisers in London and Paris, may have recalled the bleak facts of recent German history: that the Army had helped put the former Austrian corporal into power, had been delighted at the opportunities he gave it to rearm, had apparently not objected to the destruction of individual freedom under National Socialism or done anything about the murder of its own General von Schleicher or the removal, on a dastardly frame-up, of its commanding officer, General van Fritsch; and -- recently -- had gone along with the rape of Austria, indeed had supplied the military force to carry it out. Whatever blame may be heaped on the archappeasers in London and Paris, and great it undoubtedly is, the fact remains that the German generals themselves, and their civilian coconspirators, failed at an opportune moment to act on their own.

[b]THE SURRENDER AT MUNICH: SEPTEMBER 29-30, 1938[/b]

In this baroque Bavarian city where in the murky back rooms of rundown little cafes he had made his lowly start as a politician and in whose streets he had suffered the fiasco of the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler greeted, like a conqueror, the heads of governments of Great Britain, France and Italy at half past noon on September 29.

Very early that morning he had gone to Kufstein on the former Austro-German frontier to meet Mussolini and set up a basis for common action at the conference. In the train coming up to Munich Hitler was in a bellicose mood, explaining to the Duce over maps how he intended to "liquidate" Czechoslovakia. Either the talks beginning that day must be immediately successful, he said, or he would resort to arms. "Besides," Ciano, who was present, quotes the Fuehrer as adding, "the time will come when we shall have to fight side by side against France and England." Mussolini agreed. [80]

Chamberlain made no similar effort to see Daladier beforehand to work out a joint strategy for the two Western democracies with which to confront the two fascist dictators. Indeed, it became evident to many of us in contact with the British and French delegations in Munich as the day progressed that Chamberlain had come to Munich absolutely determined that no one, certainly not the Czechs and not even the French, should stand in the way of his reaching a quick agreement with Hitler. [xxviii] In the case of Daladier, who went around all day as if in a daze, no precaution was necessary, but the determined Prime Minister took no risks.

The talks, which began at 12:45 P.M. in the so-called Fuehrerhaus in the Koenigsplatz, were anticlimactic and constituted little more than a mere formality of rendering to Hitler exactly what he wanted when he wanted it. Dr. Schmidt, the indomitable interpreter, who was called upon to function in three languages, German, French and English, noticed from the beginning "an atmosphere of general good will." Ambassador Henderson later remembered that "at no stage of the conversations did they become heated." No one presided. The proceedings unfolded informally, and judging by the German minutes of the meeting82 which came to light after the war, the British Prime Minister and the French Premier fairly fell over themselves to agree with Hitler. Even when he made the following opening statement:

[quote]He had now declared in his speech at the Sportpalast that he would in any case march in on October 1. He had received the answer that this action would have the character of an act of violence. Hence the task arose to absolve this action from such a character. Action must, however, be taken at once.[/quote]

The conferees got down to business when Mussolini, speaking third in turn -- Daladier was left to the last -- said that "in order to bring about a practical solution of the problem" he had brought with him a definite written proposal. Its origins are interesting and remained unknown to Chamberlain, I believe, to his death. From the memoirs of Francois-Poncet and Henderson it is obvious that they too were ignorant of them. In fact, the story only became known long after the violent deaths of the two dictators.

What the Duce now fobbed off as his own compromise plan had been hastily drafted the day before in the German Foreign Office in Berlin by Goering, Neurath and Weizsaecker behind the back of Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, whose judgment the three men did not trust. Goering took it to Hitler, who said it might do, and then it was hurriedly translated into French by Dr. Schmidt and passed along to the Italian ambassador, Attolico, who telephoned the text of it to the Italian dictator in Rome just before he entrained for Munich. Thus it was that the "Italian proposals," which provided the informal conference not only with its sole agenda but with the basic terms which eventually became the Munich Agreement, were in fact German proposals concocted in Berlin. [xxix]

This must have seemed fairly obvious from the text, which closely followed Hitler's rejected Godesberg demands; but it was not obvious to Daladier and Chamberlain or to their ambassadors in Berlin, who now attended them. The Premier, according to the German minutes, "welcomed the Duce's proposal, which had been made in an objective and realistic spirit," and the Prime Minister "also welcomed the Duce's proposal and declared that he himself had conceived of a solution on the lines of this proposal." As for Ambassador Henderson, as he later wrote, he thought Mussolini "had tactfully put forward as his own a combination of Hitler's and the Anglo-French proposals"; while Ambassador Francois-Poncet got the impression that the conferees were working on a British memorandum "drawn up by Horace Wilson." [83] So easily were the British and French statesmen and diplomats, bent on appeasement at any cost, deceived!

With the "Italian" proposals so warmly welcomed by all present, there remained but a few details to iron out. Chamberlain, as perhaps might have been expected from an ex-businessman and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, wanted to know who would compensate the Czech government for the public property which would pass to Germany in the Sudetenland. Hitler, who, according to Francois-Poncet, appeared somewhat pale and worried, and annoyed because he could not follow, as Mussolini could, the talk in French and English, replied heatedly there would be no compensation. When the Prime Minister objected to the stipulation that the Czechs moving out of the Sudetenland could not even take their cattle (this had been one of the Godesberg demands) -- exclaiming, "Does this mean that the farmers will be expelled but that their cattle will be retained?" --  Hitler exploded.

"Our time is too valuable to be wasted on such trivialities!" he shouted at Chamberlain. [84] The Prime Minister dropped the matter.

He did insist at first that a Czech representative ought to be present, or at least, as he put it, be "available." His country, he said, "could naturally undertake no guarantee that the [Sudeten] territory would be evacuated by October 10 [as Mussolini had proposed] if no assurance of this was forthcoming from the Czech government." Daladier gave him lukewarm support. The French government, he said, "would in no wise tolerate procrastination in this matter by the Czech government," but he thought "the presence of a Czech representative, who could be consulted, if necessary, would be an advantage."

But Hitler was adamant. He would permit no Czechs in his presence. Daladier meekly gave in, but Chamberlain finally won a small concession. It was agreed that a Czech representative might make himself available "in the next room," as the Prime Minister proposed.

And indeed during the afternoon session two Czech representatives, Dr. Vojtech Mastny, the Czech minister in Berlin, and Dr. Hubert Masarik, from the Prague Foreign Office, did arrive and were coolly ushered into an adjoining room. There, after they had been left from 2 P.M. to 7 to cool their heels, the roof figuratively fell in on them. At the latter hour Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, who had been a member of the Runciman mission and was now on Chamberlain's staff, came to break the bad news to them. A general agreement had been reached, the details of which he could not yet give to them; but it was much "harsher" than the Franco-British proposals. When Masarik asked if the Czechs couldn't be heard, the Englishman answered, as the Czech representative later reported to his government, "that I seemed to ignore how difficult was the situation of the Great Powers, and that I could not understand how hard it had been to negotiate with Hitler."

At 10 P.M. the two unhappy Czechs were taken to Sir Horace Wilson, the Prime Minister's faithful adviser. On behalf of Chamberlain, Wilson informed them of the main points in the four-power agreement and handed them a map of the Sudeten areas which were to be evacuated by the Czechs at once. When the two envoys attempted to protest, the British official cut them short. He had nothing more to say, he stated, and promptly left the room. The Czechs continued to protest to Ashton-Gwatkin, who had remained with them, but to no avail.

"If you do not accept," he admonished them, as he prepared to go, "you will have to settle your affairs with the Germans absolutely alone. Perhaps the French may tell you this more gently, but you can believe me that they share our views. They are disinterested."

This was the truth, wretched though it must have sounded to the two Czech emissaries. Shortly after 1 A.M. on September 30 [xxx] Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and Daladier, in that order, affixed their signatures to the Munich Agreement providing for the German Army to begin its march into Czechoslovakia on October 1, as the Fuehrer had always said it would, and to complete the occupation of the Sudeten land by October 10. Hitler had got what had been refused him at Godesberg.

There remained the painful matter -- painful at least to the victims --  of informing the Czechs of what they had to give up and how soon. Hitler and Mussolini were not interested in this part of the ceremony and withdrew, leaving the task to the representatives of Czechoslovakia's ally, France, and of Great Britain. The scene was vividly described by Masarik, in his official report to the Czech Foreign Office.

[quote]At 1:30 A.M. we were taken into the hall where the conference had been held. There were present Mr. Chamberlain, M. Daladier, Sir Horace Wilson, M. Leger [secretary general of the French Foreign Office], Mr. Ashton --  Gwatkin, Dr. Mastny and myself. The atmosphere was oppressive; sentence was about to be passed. The French, obviously nervous, seemed anxious to preserve French prestige before the court. Mr. Chamberlain, in a long introductory speech, referred to the Agreement and gave the text to Dr. Mastny ...[/quote]

The Czechs began to ask several questions, but

[quote]Mr. Chamberlain was yawning continuously, without making any effort to conceal his yawns. I asked MM. Daladier and Leger whether they expected a declaration or answer of our Government to the Agreement. M. Daladier was noticeably nervous. M. Leger replied that the four statesmen had not much time. He added hurriedly and with superficial casualness that no answer was required from us, that they regarded the plan as accepted, that our Government had that very day, at the latest at 3 P.M., to send its representative to Berlin to the sitting of the Commission, and finally that the Czechoslovak officer who was to be sent would have to be in Berlin on Saturday in order to fix the details for the evacuation of the first zone. The atmosphere, he said, was beginning to become dangerous for the whole world.

He spoke to us harshly enough. This was a Frenchman . . . Mr. Chamberlain did not conceal his weariness. They gave us a second slightly corrected map. Then they finished with us, and we could go. [86][/quote]

I remember from that fateful night the light of victory in Hitler's eyes as he strutted down the broad steps of the Fuehrerhaus after the meeting, the cockiness of Mussolini, laced in his special militia uniform, the yawns of Chamberlain and his air of pleasant sleepiness as he returned to the Regina Palace Hotel.

[quote]Daladier [I wrote in my diary that night], on the other hand, looked a completely beaten and broken man. He came over to the Regina to say good-bye to Chamberlain .... Someone asked, or started to ask: "Monsieur le President, are you satisfied with the agreement?" He turned as if to say something, but he was too tired and defeated and the words did not come out and he stumbled out the door in silence. [87][/quote]

Chamberlain was not through conferring with Hitler about the peace of the world. Early the next morning, September 30, refreshed by a few hours of sleep and pleased with his labors of the previous day, he sought out the Fuehrer at his private apartment in Munich to discuss further the state of Europe and to secure a small concession which he apparently thought would improve his political position at home.

According to Dr. Schmidt, who acted as interpreter and who was the sole witness of this unexpected meeting, Hitler was pale and moody. He listened absent-mindedly as the exuberant head of the British government expressed his confidence that Germany would "adopt a generous attitude in the implementation of the Munich Agreement" and renewed his hope that the Czechs would not be "so unreasonable as to make difficulties" and that, if they did make them, Hitler would not bomb Prague "with the dreadful losses among the civilian population which it would entail." This was only the beginning of a long and rambling discourse which would seem incredible coming from a British Prime Minister, even one who had made so abject a surrender to the German dictator the night before, had it not been recorded by Dr. Schmidt in an official Foreign Office memorandum. Even today, when one reads this captured document, it seems difficult to believe.

But the British leader's opening remarks were only the prelude to what was to come. After what must have seemed to the morose German dictator an interminable exposition by Chamberlain in proposing further cooperation in bringing an end to the Spanish Civil War (which German and Italian "volunteers" were winning for Franco), in furthering disarmament, world economic prosperity, political peace in Europe and even a solution of the Russian problem, the Prime Minister drew out of his pocket a sheet of paper on which he had written something which he hoped they would both sign and release for immediate publication.

[quote]We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister [it read], have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe.

We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.[/quote]

Hitler read the declaration and quickly signed it, much to Chamberlain's satisfaction, as Dr. Schmidt noted in his official report. The interpreter's impression was that the Fuehrer agreed to it "with a certain reluctance . . . only to please Chamberlain," who, he recounts further, "thanked the Fuehrer warmly . . .. and underlined the great psychological effect which he expected from this document."

The deluded British Prime Minister did not know, of course, that, as the secret German and Italian documents would reveal much later, Hitler and Mussolini had already agreed at this very meeting in Munich that in time they would have to fight "side by side" against Great Britain. Nor, as we shall shortly see, did he divine much else that already was fermenting in Hitler's lugubrious mind. [88]

Chamberlain returned to London -- as did Daladier to Paris -- in triumph. Brandishing the declaration which he had signed with Hitler, the jubilant Prime Minister faced a large crowd that pressed into Downing Street. After listening to shouts of "Good old Neville!" and a lusty singing of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," Chamberlain smilingly spoke a few words from a second-story window in Number 10.

"My good friends," he said, "this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. [xxxi] I believe it is peace in our time."

The Times declared that "no conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come adorned with nobler laurels." There was a spontaneous movement to raise a "National Fund of Thanksgiving" in Chamberlain's honor, which he graciously turned down. Only Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty, resigned from the cabinet, and when in the ensuing Commons debate Winston Churchill, still a voice in the wilderness, began to utter his memorable words, "We have sustained a total, unmitigated defeat," he was forced to pause, as he later recorded, until the storm of protest against such a remark had subsided.

The mood in Prague was naturally quite different. At 6:20 A.M. on September 30, the German charge d'affaires had routed the Czech Foreign Minister, Dr. Krofta, out of bed and handed him the text of the Munich Agreement together with a request that Czechoslovakia send two representatives to the first meeting of the "International Commission," which was to supervise the execution of the accord, at 5 P.M. in Berlin.

For President Benes, who conferred all morning at the Hradschin Palace with the political and military leaders, there was no alternative but to submit. Britain and France had not only deserted his country but would now back Hitler in the use of armed force should he turn down the terms of Munich. At ten minutes to one, Czechoslovakia surrendered, "under protest to the world," as the official statement put it. "We were abandoned. We stand alone," General Sirovy, the new Premier, explained bitterly in a broadcast to the Czechoslovak people at 5 P.M.

To the very last Britain and France maintained their pressure on the country they had seduced and betrayed. During the day the British, French and Italian ministers went to see Dr. Krofta to make sure that there was no last-minute revolt of the Czechs against the surrender. The German charge, Dr. Hencke, in a dispatch to Berlin described the scene.

[quote]The French Minister's attempt to address words of condolence to Krofta was cut short by the Foreign Minister's remark: "We have been forced into this situation; now everything is at an end; today it is our turn, tomorrow it will be the turn of others." The British Minister succeeded with difficulty in saying that Chamberlain had done his utmost; he received the same answer as the French Minister. The Foreign Minister was a completely broken man and intimated only one wish: that the three Ministers should quickly leave the room. [89][/quote]

President Benes resigned on October 5 on the insistence of Berlin and, when it became evident that his life was in danger, flew to England and exile. He was replaced provisionally by General Sirovy. On November 30, Dr. Emil Hacha, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a well-intentioned but weak and senile man of sixty-six, was selected by the National Assembly to be President of what remained of Czecho-Slovakia, which was now officially spelled with a hyphen.

What Chamberlain and Daladier at Munich had neglected to give Germany in Czechoslovakia the so-called "International Commission" proceeded to hand over. This hastily formed body consisted of the Italian, British and French ambassadors and the Czech minister in Berlin and Baron von Weizsaecker, the State Secretary in the German Foreign Office. Every dispute over additional territory for the Germans was settled in their favor, more than once under the threat from Hitler and OKW to resort to armed force. Finally, on October 13, the commission voted to dispense with the plebiscites which the Munich Agreement had called for in the disputed regions. There was no need for them.

The Poles and the Hungarians, after threatening military action against the helpless nation, now swept down, like vultures, to get a slice of Czechoslovak territory. Poland, at the insistence of Foreign Minister Jozef Beck, who for the next twelve months will be a leading character in this narrative, took some 650 square miles of territory around Teschen, comprising a population of 228,000 inhabitants, of whom 133,000 were Czechs. Hungary got a larger slice in the award meted out on November 2 by Ribbentrop and Ciano: 7,500 square miles, with a population of 500,000 Magyars and 272,000 Slovaks.

Moreover, the truncated and now defenseless country was forced by Berlin to install a pro-German government of obvious fascist tendencies. It was clear that from now on the Czechoslovak nation existed at the mercy of the Leader of the Third Reich.

[b]THE CONSEQUENCES OF MUNICH[/b]

Under the terms of the Munich Agreement Hitler got substantially what he had demanded at Godesberg, and the "International Commission," bowing to his threats, gave him considerably more. The final settlement of November 20, 1938, forced Czechoslovakia to cede to Germany 11,000 square miles of territory in which dwelt 2,800,000 Sudeten Germans and 800,000 Czechs. Within this area lay all the vast Czech fortifications which hitherto had formed the most formidable defensive line in Europe, with the possible exception of the Maginot Line in France.

But that was not all. Czechoslovakia's entire system of rail, road, telephone and telegraph communications was disrupted. According to German figures, the dismembered country lost 66 per cent of its coal, 80 per cent of its lignite, 86 per cent of its chemicals, 80 per cent of its cement, 80 per cent of its textiles, 70 per cent of its iron and steel, 70 per cent of its electric power and 40 per cent of its timber. A prosperous industrial nation was split up and bankrupted overnight.

No wonder that Jodl could write joyfully in his diary on the night of Munich:

[quote]The Pact of Munich is signed. Czechoslovakia as a power is out ... The genius of the Fuehrer and his determination not to shun even a World War have again won the victory without the use of force. The hope remains that the incredulous, the weak and the doubtful people have been converted, and will remain that way. [90][/quote]

Many of the doubtful were converted and the few who were not were plunged into despair. The generals such as Beck, Halder and Witzleben and their civilian advisers had again been proved wrong. Hitler had got what he wanted, had achieved another great conquest, without firing a shot. His prestige soared to new heights. No one who was in Germany in the days after Munich, as this writer was, can forget the rapture of the German people. They were relieved that war had been averted; they were elated and swollen with pride at Hitler's bloodless victory, not only over Czechoslovakia but over Great Britain and France. Within the short space of six months, they reminded you, Hitler had conquered Austria and the Sudetenland, adding ten million inhabitants to the Third Reich and a vast strategic territory which opened the way for German domination of southeastern Europe. And without the loss of a single German life! With the instinct of a genius rare in German history he had divined not only the weaknesses of the smaller states in Central Europe but those of the two principal Western democracies, Britain and France, and forced them to bend to his will. He had invented and used with staggering success a new strategy and technique of political warfare, which made actual war unnecessary.

In scarcely four and a half years this man of lowly origins had catapulted a disarmed, chaotic, nearly bankrupt Germany, the weakest of the big powers in Europe, to a position where she was regarded as the mightiest nation of the Old World, before which all the others, Britain even and France, trembled. At no step in this dizzy ascent had the victorious powers of Versailles dared to try to stop her, even when they had the power to do so. Indeed at Munich, which registered the greatest conquest of all, Britain and France had gone out of their way to support her. And what must have amazed Hitler most of all -- it certainly astounded General Beck, Hassell and others in their small circle of opposition -- was that none of the men who dominated the governments of Britain and France ("little worms," as the Fuehrer contemptuously spoke of them in private after Munich) realized the consequences of their inability to react with any force to one after the other of the Nazi leader's aggressive moves.

Winston Churchill, in England, alone seemed to understand. No one stated the consequences of Munich more succinctly than he in his speech to the Commons of October 5:

[quote]We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat ... We are in the midst of a disaster of the first magnitude. The road down the Danube . . . the road to the Black Sea has been opened . . . All the countries of Mittel Europa and the Danube valley, one after another, will be drawn in the vast system of Nazi politics ... radiating from Berlin ... And do not suppose that this is the end. It is only the beginning ...[/quote]

But Churchill was not in the government and his words went unheeded.

Was the Franco-British surrender at Munich necessary? Was Adolf Hitler not bluffing?

The answer, paradoxically, to both questions, we now know, is No. All the generals close to Hitler who survived the war agree that had it not been for Munich Hitler would have attacked Czechoslovakia on October 1, 1938, and they presume that, whatever momentary hesitations there might have been in London, Paris and Moscow, in the end Britain, France and Russia would have been drawn into the war.

And -- what is most important to this history at this point -- the German generals agree unanimously that Germany would have lost the war, and in short order. The argument of the supporters of Chamberlain and Daladier -- and they were in the great majority at the time -- that Munich saved the West not only from war but from defeat in war and, incidentally, preserved London and Paris from being wiped out by the Luftwaffe's murderous bombing has been impressively refuted, so far as concern the last two points, by those in a position to know best: the German generals, and especially those generals who were closest to Hitler and who supported him from beginning to end the most fanatically.

The leading light among the latter was General Keitel, chief of OKW, toady to Hitler and constantly at his side. When asked on the stand at the Nuremberg trial what the reaction of the German generals was to Munich he replied:

[quote]We were extraordinarily happy that it had not come to a military operation because . . . we had always been of the opinion that our means of attack against the frontier fortifications of Czechoslovakia were insufficient. From a purely military point of view we lacked the means for an attack which involved the piercing of the frontier fortifications. [91][/quote]

It has always been assumed by Allied military experts that the German Army would have romped through Czechoslovakia. But to the testimony of Keitel that this would not have been the case must be added that of Field Marshal von Manstein, who became one of the most brilliant of the German field commanders. When he, in his turn, testified at Nuremberg (unlike Keitel and Jodi, he was not on trial for his life) on the German position at the time of Munich, he explained:

[quote]If a war had broken out, neither our western border nor our Polish frontier could really have been effectively defended by us, and there is no doubt whatsoever that had Czechoslovakia defended herself, we would have been held up by her fortifications, for we did not have the means to break through. [92] [xxxii] [/quote]

Jodi, the "brains" of OKW, put it this way when he took the stand in his own defense at Nuremberg:

[quote]It was out of the question, with five fighting divisions and seven reserve divisions in the western fortifications, which were nothing but a large construction site, to hold out against 100 French divisions. That was militarily impossible.  [93] [/quote]

If, as these German generals concede, Hitler's army lacked the means of penetrating the Czech fortifications, and Germany, in the face of France's overwhelming strength in the west, was in a "militarily impossible" situation, and further, since, as we have seen, there was such grave dissension among the generals that the Chief of the Army General Staff was prepared to overthrow the Fuehrer in order to avert a hopeless war -- why, then, did not the French and British general staffs know this? Or did they? And if they did, how could the heads of government of Britain and France be forced at Munich into sacrificing so much of their nations' vital interests? In seeking answers to such questions we confront one of the mysteries of the Munich time which has not yet been cleared up. Even Churchill, concerned as he is with military affairs, scarcely touches on it in his massive memoirs.

It is inconceivable that the British and French general staffs and the two governments did not know of the opposition of the German Army General Staff to a European war. For, as already noted here, the conspirators in Berlin warned the British of this through at least four channels in August and September and, as we know, the matter came to the attention of Chamberlain himself. By early September Paris and London must have learned of the resignation of General Beck and of the obvious consequences to the German Army of the rebellion of its most eminent and gifted leader.

It was generally conceded in Berlin at this time that British and French military intelligence was fairly good. It is extremely difficult to believe that the military chiefs in London and Paris did not know of the obvious weaknesses of the German Army and Air Force and of their inability to fight a two-front war. What doubts could the Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Gamelin, have -- despite his inbred caution, which was monumental -- that with nearly one hundred divisions he could overwhelm the five regular and seven reserve German divisions in the west and sweep easily and swiftly deep into Germany?

On the whole, as he later recounted, [94] Gamelin had few doubts. On September 12, the day on which Hitler was thundering his threats against Czechoslovakia at the closing session of the Nuremberg rally, the French generalissimo had assured Premier Daladier that if war came "the democratic nations would dictate the peace." He says he backed it up with a letter expressing the reasons for his optimism. On September 26, at the height of the Czech crisis following the Godesberg meeting, Gamelin, who had accompanied the French government leaders to London, repeated his assurances to Chamberlain and tried to substantiate them with an analysis of the military situation calculated to buck up not only the British Prime Minister but his own wavering Premier. In this attempt, apparently, he failed. Finally, just before Daladier flew to Munich, Gamelin outlined to him the limits of territorial concessions in the Sudetenland which could be made without endangering French security. The main Czech fortifications, as well as the rail trunk lines, certain strategic branch lines and the principal defense industries must not be given to Germany. Above all, he added, the Germans must not be permitted to cut off the Moravian Gap. Good advice, if Czechoslovakia was to be of any use to France in a war with Germany, but, as we have seen, Daladier was not the man to act on it.

A good deal was said at the time of Munich that one reason for Chamberlain's surrender was his fear that London would be obliterated by German bombing, and there is no doubt that the French were jittery at the awful prospect of their beautiful capital being destroyed from the air. But from what is now known of the Luftwaffe's strength at this moment, the Londoners and the Parisians, as well as the Prime Minister and the Premier, were unduly alarmed. The German Air Force, like the Army, was concentrated against Czechoslovakia and therefore, like the Army, was incapable of serious action in the West. Even if a few German bombers could have been spared to attack London and Paris it is highly doubtful that they would have reached their targets. Weak as the British and French fighter defenses were, the Germans could not have given their bombers fighter protection, if they had had the planes. Their fighter bases were too far away.

It has also been argued -- most positively by Ambassadors Francois-Poncet and Henderson -- that Munich gave the two Western democracies nearly a year to catch up with the Germans in rearmament. The facts belie such an argument. As Churchill, backed up by every serious Allied military historian, has written, "The year's breathing space said to be 'gained' by Munich left Britain and France in a much worse position compared to Hitler's Germany than they had been at the Munich crisis." [95] As we shall see, all the German military calculations a year later bear this out, and subsequent events, of course, remove any doubts whatsoever.

In retrospect, and with the knowledge we now have from the secret German documents and from the postwar testimony of the Germans themselves, the following summing up, which was impossible to make in the days of Munich, may be given:

Germany was in no position to go to war on October 1, 1938, against Czechoslovakia and France and Britain, not to mention Russia. Had she done so, she would have been quickly and easily defeated, and that would have been the end of Hitler and the Third Reich. If a European war had been averted at the last moment by the intercession of the German Army, Hitler might have been overthrown by Halder and Witzleben and their confederates carrying out their plan to arrest him as soon as he had given the final order for the attack on Czechoslovakia.

By publicly boasting that he would march into the Sudetenland by October 1 "in any case," Hitler had put himself far out on a limb. He was in the "untenable position" which General Beck had foreseen. Had he, after all his categorical threats and declarations, tried to crawl back from the limb on his own, he scarcely could have survived for long, dictatorships being what they are and his dictatorship, in particular, being what it was. It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for him to have backed down, and had he tried to do so his loss of prestige in Europe, among his own people and, above all, with his generals would, most likely, have proved fatal.

Chamberlain's stubborn, fanatical insistence on giving Hitler what he wanted, his trips to Berchtesgaden and Godesberg and finally the fateful journey to Munich rescued Hitler from his limb and strengthened his position in Europe, in Germany, in the Army, beyond anything that could have been imagined a few weeks before. It also added immeasurably to the power of the Third Reich vis-a-vis the Western democracies and the Soviet Union.

For France, Munich was a disaster, and it is beyond understanding that this was not fully realized in Paris. Her military position in Europe was destroyed. Because her Army, when the Reich was fully mobilized, could never be much more than half the size of that of Germany, which had nearly twice her population, and because her ability to produce arms was also less, France had laboriously built up her alliances with the smaller powers in the East on the other flank of Germany -- and of Italy: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia and Rumania, which, together, had the military potential of a Big Power. The loss now of thirty-five well-trained, well-armed Czech divisions, deployed behind their strong mountain fortifications and holding down an even larger German force, was a crippling one to the French Army. But that was not all. After Munich how could France's remaining allies in Eastern Europe have any confidence in her written word? What value now were alliances with France? The answer in Warsaw, Bucharest and Belgrade was: Not much; and there was a scramble in these capitals to make the best deal possible, while there was still time, with the Nazi conqueror.

And if not a scramble, there was a stir in Moscow. Though the Soviet Union was militarily allied to both Czechoslovakia and France, the French government had gone along with Germany and Britain, without protest, in excluding Russia from Munich. It was a snub which Stalin did not forget and which was to cost the two Western democracies dearly in the months to come. On October 3, four days after Munich, the counselor of the German Embassy in Moscow, Werner von Tippelskirch, reported to Berlin on the "consequences" of Munich for Soviet policy. He thought Stalin "would draw conclusions"; he was certain the Soviet Union would "reconsider her foreign policy," become less friendly to her ally France and "more positive" toward Germany. As a matter of fact, the German diplomat thought that "the present circumstances offer favorable opportunities for a new and wider German economic agreement with the Soviet Union."96 This is the first mention in the secret German archives of a change in the wind that now began to stir, however faintly, over Berlin and Moscow and which, within a year, would have momentous consequences.

Despite his staggering victory and the humiliation he administered not only to Czechoslovakia but to the Western democracies, Hitler was disappointed with the results of Munich. "That fellow [Chamberlain]," Schacht heard him exclaim to his S.S. entourage on his return to Berlin, "has spoiled my entry into Prague!" [97] That was what he really had wanted all along, as he had constantly confided to his generals since his lecture to them on November 5 of the previous year. The conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia, he had explained then, was to be but the preliminary for a major drive for Lebensraum in the East and a military settlement with France in the West. As he had told the Hungarian Prime Minister on September 20, the best thing was "to destroy Czechoslovakia." This, he had said, would "provide the only satisfactory solution." He was only afraid of the "danger" that the Czechs might submit to all of his demands. [xxxiii]

Now Mr. Chamberlain, grasping his much-publicized umbrella, had come to Munich and forced the Czechs to submit to all his demands and thereby had deprived him of his military conquest. Such, it is evident from the record, were Hitler's tortuous thoughts after Munich. "It was clear to me from the first moment," he later confided to his generals, "that I could not be satisfied with the Sudeten-German territory. That was only a partial solution." [98]

A few days after Munich the German dictator set in motion plans to achieve a total solution.

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[b]Notes:[/b]

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