by Ian Kershaw
Chamberlain reported to the British cabinet his belief that he had dissuaded Hitler from an immediate march into Czechoslovakia and that the German dictator’s aims were ‘strictly limited’. If self-determination for the Sudeten Germans were to be granted, he thought, it would mark the end of German claims on Czechoslovakia.327 The extent to which Chamberlain had allowed himself to be deluded by the personality and assurances of Germany’s dictator is apparent in the private evaluation he offered his sister on returning to England: ‘In spite of the harshness 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.’328
The next days were spent applying pressure to the Czechs to acquiesce in their own dismemberment. Preferably avoiding a plebiscite, the joint approach to Prague of the British and French was to compel the Czechs to make territorial concessions in return for an international guarantee against unprovoked aggression. On 21 September, the Czechs yielded.329
Chamberlain’s second meeting with Hitler had meanwhile been arranged for 22 September in Bad Godesberg, a quiet spa-resort on the Rhine, just outside Bonn. The Germans had originally contemplated including the French premier Édouard Daladier, but this idea had been discarded.330 The pressure of the British and the French on the Czechs simply laid bare for Hitler the weakness of the western powers. Serious resistance was not to be expected from Britain; France would do what Britain did; the war was half-won.331 That was how Hitler saw it. He was uncertain whether the Czechs would resist alone. Goebbels assured him they would not.332 But Hitler too was feeling the tension. He relaxed by watching entertainment films. He did not want to see anything more serious.333 His options remained open. On the day after his meeting with Chamberlain he had ordered the establishment of a Sudeten German Legion, a Freikorps volunteer unit made up of political refugees under Henlein to sustain disturbances and terror attacks.334 They would serve if need be as a guarantee of the staged provocation which would form the pretext of a German invasion. But Hitler, as his comments following Chamberlain’s visit had shown, was now evidently moving away from the all-out high-risk military destruction of Czechoslovakia in a single blow, on which he had insisted, despite much internal opposition, throughout the summer. Instead, there were pointers that he was now moving towards a territorial solution not unlike the one which would eventually form the basis of the Munich Agreement. He did not think he would get the Sudetenland without a fight from the Czechs, though he reckoned the western powers would leave Beneš to his fate. So he reckoned with limited military confrontation to secure the Sudetenland as a first stage. The destruction of the rest of Czechoslovakia would then follow, perhaps immediately, but at any rate within a short time.335
On 19 September he showed Goebbels the map that would represent his demands to Chamberlain at their next meeting. The idea was to force acceptance of as broad a demarcation line as possible. The territory to be conceded was to be vacated by the Czechs and occupied by German troops within eight days. Military preparations, as Goebbels was now informed, would not be ready before then. If there was any dispute, a plebiscite by Christmas would be demanded. Should Chamberlain demand further negotiations, the Führer would feel no longer bound by any agreements and would have freedom of action.336 ‘The Führer will show Chamberlain his map, and then – end (Schluß), basta! Only in that way can this problem be solved,’ commented Goebbels.337
V
On the afternoon of 22 September, Hitler and Chamberlain met again, this time in the plush Hotel Dreesen in Bad Godesberg, with its fine outlook on the Rhine. Chamberlain had flown from England that morning, and was accommodated on the opposite bank of the river at the Petersberg Hotel.338 When William Shirer, one of the journalists covering the visit, observed Hitler at close quarters in the garden of his hotel, he thought he looked very strained. The dark shadows under his eyes and the nervous twitch of his right shoulder when he walked made Shirer think he was on the edge of a breakdown. Other journalists in the group had started the rumour that in his rages Hitler chewed the edge of the carpet. The term ‘carpet-biter’, once coined, was to have a long life.339
The meeting began with a shock for Chamberlain. He initially reported how the demands raised at Berchtesgaden had been met. He mentioned the proposed British-French guarantee of the new borders of Czechoslovakia, and the desired German non-aggression pact with the Czechs. He sat back in his chair, a self-satisfied look on his face. He was astounded when Hitler retorted: ‘I’m sorry Herr Chamberlain that I can no longer go into these things. After the development of the last days, this solution no longer applies.’ Chamberlain sat bolt upright, angry and astonished. Hitler claimed he could not sign a non-aggression pact with Czechoslovakia until the demands of Poland and Hungary were met. He had some criticisms of the proposed treaties. Above all, the envisaged time-scale was too long. Working himself up into a frenzy about Beneš and the alleged terroristic repression of the Sudeten Germans, he demanded the occupation of the Sudeten territory immediately. Chamberlain pointed out that this was a completely new demand, going far beyond the terms outlined at Berchtesgaden. He returned, depressed and angry, to his hotel on the other bank of the Rhine.340
Chamberlain did not return for the prearranged meeting the next morning. Instead, he sent a letter to Hitler stating that it was impossible for him to approve a plan which would be seen by public opinion in Britain, France, and the rest of the world as deviating from the previously agreed principles. Nor had he any doubts, he wrote, that the Czechs would mobilize their armed forces to resist any entry of German troops into the Sudetenland. Hitler and Ribbentrop hastily deliberated. Then Hitler dictated a lengthy reply – amounting to little more than his verbal statements the previous day and insisting on the immediate transfer of the Sudeten territory to end ‘Czech tyranny’ and uphold ‘the dignity of a great power’. The interpreter Schmidt was designated to translate the four – to five-page letter, and take it by hand to Chamberlain. Chamberlain received it calmly.341 His own response was given to Ribbentrop within two hours or so. He offered to take the new demands to the Czechs, said he would have to return to England to prepare for this, and requested a memorandum from the German government which, it was agreed, would be delivered later that evening by Hitler.
It was almost eleven o’clock when Chamberlain returned to the Hotel Dreesen. The drama of the late-night meeting was enhanced by the presence of advisers on both sides, fully aware of the peace of Europe hanging by a narrow thread, as Schmidt began to translate Hitler’s memorandum. It demanded the complete withdrawal of the Czech army from the territory drawn on a map, to be ceded to Germany by 28 September.342 Hitler had spoken to Goebbels on 21 September of demands for eight days for Czech withdrawal and German occupation.343 He was now, late on the evening of 23 September, demanding the beginning of withdrawal in little over two days and completion in four. Chamberlain raised his hands in despair. ‘That’s an ultimatum,’ he protested. ‘With great disappointment and deep regret I must register, Herr Reich Chancellor,’ he remarked, ‘that you have not supported in the slightest my efforts to maintain peace.’344
At this tense point, news arrived that Beneš had announced the general mobilization of the Czech armed forces. For some moments no one spoke. War now seemed inevitable. Then Hitler, in little more than a whisper, told Chamberlain that despite this provocation he would hold to his word and undertake nothing against Czechoslovakia – at least as long as the British Prime Minister remained on German soil. As a special concession, he would agree to 1 October as the date for Czech withdrawal from the Sudeten territory. It was the date he had set weeks earlier as the moment for the attack on Czechoslovakia. He altered the date by hand in the memorandum, adding that the borders would look very different if he were to proceed with force against Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain agreed to take the revised memorandum to the Czechs. After the drama, the meeting ended in relative harmony. Chamberlain flew back, disappointed but not despairing, ne
xt morning to London to report to his cabinet.345
While Chamberlain was meeting his cabinet, on Sunday 25 September, Hitler was strolling through the gardens of the Reich Chancellery on a warm, early autumn afternoon, with Goebbels, talking at length about his next moves. ‘He doesn’t believe that Benesch [Beneš] will yield,’ noted the Propaganda Minister the following day in his diary. ‘But then a terrible judgement will strike him. On 27–28 September our military build-up (Aufmarsch) will be ready. The Führer then has 5 days’ room for manoeuvre. He already established these dates on 28 May. And things have turned out just as he predicted. The Führer is a divinatory genius. But first comes our mobilization. This will proceed so lightning-fast that the world will experience a miracle. In 8–10 days all that will be ready (ist das alies fertig). If we attack the Czechs from our borders, the Führer reckons it will take 2–3 weeks. But if we attack them after our entry (Einmarsch), he thinks it will be finished in 8 days. The radical solution is the best. Otherwise, we’ll never be rid of the thing.’346 This somewhat garbled account appears to indicate that Hitler was at this juncture contemplating a two-stage invasion of Czechoslovakia: first the Sudeten area, then at a later, and unspecified, point, the rest of the country. This matches the notion reported by Weizsäcker after the first meeting with Chamberlain.347 Hitler was not bluffing, therefore, in his plans to take the Sudetenland by force on 1 October if it was not conceded beforehand. But he had retreated from the intention, which had existed since the spring, of the destruction of the whole of Czechoslovakia by a single military operation at the beginning of October.348
The mood in London was, meanwhile, changing. Following his experience in Godesberg, Chamberlain was moving towards a harder line, and the British cabinet with him. After talks with the French, it was decided that the Czechs would not be pressed into accepting the new terms. Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain’s closest adviser, was to go as the Prime Minister’s envoy to Berlin to recommend a supervised territorial transfer and at the same time warn Hitler that in the event of German military action against Czechoslovakia France would honour its alliance commitments and Britain would support France.349
On the late afternoon of 26 September, Wilson, accompanied by Sir Nevile Henderson and Ivone Kirkpatrick, first secretary in the British embassy, was received by Hitler in his study in the Reich Chancellery. That evening Hitler was to deliver a ferocious attack on Czechoslovakia in the Sportpalast. Wilson had not chosen a good moment to expect rational deliberation of the letter from Chamberlain that he presented to the German dictator. Hitler listened, plainly agitated, to the translation of the letter, informing him that the Czechs had rejected the terms he had laid down at Godesberg. Part-way through he exploded with anger, jumping to his feet, shouting: ‘There’s no point at all in somehow negotiating any further.’ He made for the door, as if ending the meeting forthwith with his visitors left in his own study. But he pulled himself together and returned to his seat while the rest of the letter was translated. As soon as it was over, there was another frenzied outburst. The interpreter, Paul Schmidt, later commented that he had never before seen Hitler so incandescent. Wilson’s attempts to discuss the issues rationally and his cool warning of the implications of German military action merely provoked him further. ‘If France and England want to strike,’ he ranted, ‘let them go ahead. I don’t give a damn (Mir ist das vollständig gleichgültig).’ He gave the Czechs till 2.p.m. on Wednesday, 28 September, to accept the terms of the Godesberg Memorandum and German occupation of the Sudetenland by 1 October. Otherwise Germany would take it by force. He recommended a visit to the Sportpalast that evening to Wilson, so that he would sense the mood in Germany for himself.350
The ears of the world were on Hitler’s speech to the tense audience of around 20,000 or so packed into the cavernous Sportpalast.351 The large number of diplomats and journalists present were glued to every word. The American journalist William Shirer, sitting in the balcony directly above the German Chancellor, thought Hitler ‘in the worst state of excitement I’ve ever seen him in’.352 His speech – ‘a psychological masterpiece’ in Goebbels’s judgement353 – was perfectly tuned to the whipped-up anti-Czech mood of the Party faithful. He was soon into full swing, launching into endless tirades against Beneš and the Czechoslovakian state. Beneš was determined, he asserted, ‘slowly to exterminate Germandom (das Deutschtum langsam auszurotten)’.354 Referring to the memorandum he had presented to Chamberlain, and the ‘offer’ he had made to the Czechs, he indicated that his tolerance towards the intransigence of Beneš was now at an end.355 Cynically, he praised Chamberlain for his efforts for peace. He had assured the British Prime Minister, he went on, that he had no further territorial demands in Europe once the Sudeten problem was solved.356 He had also guaranteed, he stated, that he had no further interest in the Czech state. ‘We don’t want any Czechs at all,’ he declared.357 The decision for war or peace rested with Beneš: ‘He will either accept this offer and finally give freedom to the Germans, or we will take this freedom ourselves!’ he threatened. He would lead a united people, different to that of 1918, as its first soldier. ‘We are determined. Herr Beneš may now choose,’ he concluded.
The masses in the hall, who had interrupted almost every sentence with their fanatical applause, shouted, cheered, and chanted for minutes when he had ended: ‘Führer command, we will follow! (Führer befiehl, wir folgen!)’ Hitler had worked himself into an almost orgasmic frenzy by the end of his speech. When Goebbels, closing the meeting, pledged the loyalty of all the German people to him and declared that ‘a November 1918 will never be repeated’, Hitler, according to Shirer, ‘looked up to him, a wild, eager expression in his eyes… leaped to his feet and with a fanatical fire in his eyes… brought his right hand, after a grand sweep, pounding down on the table and yelled… “Ja”. Then he slumped into his chair exhausted.’358
Hitler was in no mood for compromise when Sir Horace Wilson returned next morning to the Reich Chancellery with another letter from Chamberlain guaranteeing, should Germany refrain from force, the implementation of the Czech withdrawal from the Sudeten territory. When Wilson asked whether he should take any message back to London, Hitler replied that the Czechs had the option only of accepting or rejecting the German memorandum. In the event of rejection, he shouted, repeating himself two or three times, ‘I will smash the Czechs.’ Wilson, a tall figure, then drew himself to his full height and slowly but emphatically delivered a further message from Chamberlain: ‘If, in pursuit of her Treaty obligations, France became actively engaged in hostilities against Germany, the United Kingdom would feel obliged to support her.’359 Enraged, Hitler barked back: ‘If France and England strike, let them do so. It’s a matter of complete indifference to me. I am prepared for every eventuality. I can only take note of the position. It is Tuesday today, and by next Monday we shall all be at war.’360 The meeting ended at that point. As Schmidt recalled, it was impossible to talk rationally with Hitler that morning.361
Still, Wilson’s warnings were not lost on Hitler. In calmer mood, he had Weizsäcker draft him a letter to Chamberlain, asking him to persuade the Czechs to see reason and assuring him that he had no further interest in Czechoslovakia once the Sudeten Germans had been incorporated into the Reich.362
Late that afternoon a motorized division began its ominous parade through Wilhelmstraße past the government buildings. For three hours, Hitler stood at his window as it rumbled past.363 According to the recollections of his Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below, he had ordered the display not to test the martial spirit of the Berlin people, but to impress foreign diplomats and journalists with German military might and readiness for war.364 If that was the aim, the attempt misfired. The American journalist William Shirer reported on the sullen response of the Berliners – ducking into doorways, refusing to look on, ignoring the military display – as ‘the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen’.365 Goebbels, who had been uninvolved in the arrangements, re
corded that the display had made ‘the deepest impression’.366 But in contradiction to this comment he apparently acknowledged that people had taken little notice of the parade.367 Hitler was reportedly disappointed and angry at the lack of enthusiasm shown by Berliners.368 The contrast with the reactions of the hand-picked audience in the Sportpalast was vivid. It was a glimpse of the mood throughout the country. Whatever the feelings about the Sudeten Germans, only a small fanaticized minority thought them worth a war against the western powers.
But if Hitler was disappointed that the mood of the people did not resemble that of August 1914, his determination to press ahead with military action on 1 October, if the Czechs did not yield, was unshaken, as he made clear that evening to Ribbentrop and Weizsäcker.369 The Foreign Minister was, if anything, even more bellicose than Hitler. He told Rudolf Schmundt, Hoßbach’s successor as Hitler’s chief military adjutant, that acceptance by the Czechs of the German ultimatum would be the worst that could happen.370 But Ribbentrop was by now practically the only hawkish influence on Hitler.371 From all other sides, pressures were mounting for him to pull back from the brink.
For Hitler, to retreat from an ‘unalterable decision’ was tantamount to a loss of face. Even so, for those used to dealing at close quarters with Hitler, the unthinkable happened. The following morning of 28 September, hours before the expiry of the ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, he changed his mind and conceded to the demands for a negotiated settlement. ‘One can’t grasp this change. Führer has given in, and fundamentally,’ noted Helmuth Groscurth.372
The decisive intervention was Mussolini’s. Feelers for such a move had been put out by an increasingly anxious Göring a fortnight or so earlier. Göring had also tried, through Henderson, to interest the British in the notion of a conference of the major powers to settle the Sudeten question by negotiation.373 Before Mussolini’s critical move, the British and French had also applied maximum pressure. Chamberlain had spoken the previous evening on the radio of the absurdity of war on account of ‘a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing’.374 He had followed this up with a reply to Hitler’s letter, emphasizing his incredulity that the German Chancellor was prepared to risk a world war perhaps bringing the end of civilization ‘for the sake of a few days’ delay in settling this long-standing problem’.375 His letter contained proposals, agreed with the French, to press the Czechs into immediate cession of the Sudeten territory, the transfer to be guaranteed by Britain and to begin on 1 October. An International Boundary Commission would work out the details of the territorial settlement. The British Prime Minister indicated that he was prepared to come to Berlin immediately, together with the representatives of France and Italy, to discuss the whole issue.376 Chamberlain also wrote to Mussolini, urging agreement with his proposal ‘which will keep all our peoples out of war’.377