by Ian Kershaw
Industry was faring no better than agriculture, despite the influx of labour from the land. By 1938, reports were regularly pouring in from all sectors about mounting labour shortages, with serious implications for the productive capacity of even the most crucial armaments-related industries.40 A sullen, overworked, and – despite increased surveillance and tough, state-backed, managerial controls – often recalcitrant work-force was the outcome.41 One indication among many of the dangerous consequences for the regime of the labour shortage was the halt on coal exports and reduction in deliveries to the railways in January 1939 on account of a shortage of 30,000 miners in the Ruhr. By that time, the overall shortage of labour in Germany was an estimated 1 million workers. By the outbreak of war, this had risen still further.42
Economic pressures did not force Hitler into war. They did not even determine the timing of the war.43 They were, as we have noted, an inexorable consequence of the political decisions in earlier years: the first, as soon as Hitler had become Chancellor – naturally, with the enthusiastic backing of the armed forces – to make rearmament an absolute spending priority; the second, and even more crucial one, in 1936 to override the objections of those pressing for a return to a more balanced economy and revived involvement in international markets in favour of a striving for maximum autarky within an armaments-driven economy focused on war preparation. The mounting economic problems fed into the military and strategic pressures for expansion. But they did not bring about those pressures in the first place. And for Hitler, they merely confirmed his diagnosis that Germany’s position could never be strengthened without territorial conquest.
II
Hitler’s regrets over the Munich Agreement and feeling that a chance had been lost to occupy the whole of Czechoslovakia at one fell swoop had grown rather than diminished during the last months of 1938.44 His impatience to act had mounted accordingly. He was determined not to be hemmed in by the western powers. He was more than ever convinced that they would not have fought for Czechoslovakia, and that they would and could do nothing to prevent Germany extending its dominance in central and eastern Europe. On the other hand, as he had indicated to Goebbels in October, he was certain that Britain would not concede German hegemony in Europe without a fight at some time.45 The setback which Munich had been in his eyes confirmed his view that war against the West was coming, probably sooner than he had once envisaged, and that there was no time to lose if Germany were to retain its advantage.46
Already on 21 October 1938, only three weeks after the Munich settlement, Hitler had given the Wehrmacht a new directive to prepare for the ‘following eventualities’: I. securing the frontiers of the German Reich and protection against surprise air attacks; 2. liquidation of remainder of the Czech state; 3. the occupation of Memelland.’ The third point referred to the district of Memel, a seaport on the Baltic with a largely German population, which had been removed from Germany by the Versailles Treaty. On the key second point, the directive added: ‘It must be possible to smash at any time the remainder of the Czech State should it pursue an anti-German policy.’47 Recognizing the perilous plight they were in, the Czechs in fact bent over backwards to accommodate German interests. In extremis, rather than end their existence as a country, the Czechs were prepared to turn themselves into a German satellite.48 Why, then, was Hitler so insistent on smashing the remnants of the Czech state? Politically it was not necessary. Indeed, the German leadership cannot fail to have recognized that an invasion of Czechoslovakia, tearing up the Munich Agreement and breaking solemn promises given only such a short time earlier, would inevitably have the most serious international repercussions.
Part of the answer is doubtless to be found in Hitler’s own personality and psychology. His Austrian background and dislike of Czechs since his youth was almost certainly a significant element. Yet after occupation, the persecution of the Czechs was by no means as harsh as that later meted out to the conquered Poles. ‘They must always have something to lose,’ commented Goebbels.49 And, following his victorious entry into Prague, Hitler showed remarkably little interest in the Czechs.
More important, certainly, was the feeling that he had been ‘cheated’ out of his triumph, his ‘unalterable wish’ altered by western politicians. ‘That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague,’ he was overheard saying on his return to Berlin after the agreement at Munich the previous autumn.50
His ‘sheer bloody mindedness’ – his determination not to be denied Prague – probably also has to be regarded as part of the explanation.51 And yet, the Goebbels diary entries, which we have noted, indicate plainly that Hitler had decided before Munich that he would concede to the western powers at that point, but gobble up the rest of Czechoslovakia in due course, and that the acquisition of the Sudetenland would make that second stage easier.52 That was Hitler’s rationalization at the time of the position he had been manoeuvred into. But it does indicate the acceptance by that date of a two-stage plan to acquire the whole of Czechoslovakia, and does not highlight vengeance as a motive.
There were other reasons for occupying the rump of Czechoslovakia that went beyond Hitler’s personal motivation. Economic considerations were of obvious importance. However pliant the Czechs were prepared to be, the fact remained that even after the transfer of October 1938, which brought major raw material deposits to the Reich, immense resources remained in Czecho-Slovakia (as the country, the meaningful hyphen inserted, was now officially called) and outside direct German control. The vast bulk of the industrial wealth and resources of the country lay in the old Czech heartlands of Bohemia and Moravia, not in the largely agricultural Slovakia. An estimated four-fifths of engineering, machine-tool construction, and electrical industries remained in the hands of the Czechs.53 Textiles, chemicals, and the glass industry were other significant industries that beckoned the Germans. Not least, the Skoda works produced locomotives and machinery as well as arms. Czecho-Slovakia also possessed large quantities of gold and foreign currency that could certainly help relieve some of the shortages of the Four-Year Plan.54 And a vast amount of equipment could be taken over and redeployed to the advantage of the German army. The Czech arsenal was easily the greatest among the smaller countries of central Europe.55 The Czech machine-guns, field-guns, and anti-aircraft guns were thought to be better than the German equivalents. They were all taken over by the Reich, as well as the heavy guns built at the Skoda factories.56 It was subsequently estimated that enough arms had fallen into Hitler’s possession to equip a further twenty divisions.57 Significantly, Hitler had refused the previous autumn to allow the Poles to occupy the area of Moravská-Ostrava, of importance for its minerals and industries. It was the first area to be taken over by the Germans in March 1939.58
But of even greater importance than direct economic gain and exploitation was the military-strategic position of what remained of Czecho-Slovakia. As long as the Czechs retained some autonomy, and possession of extensive military equipment and industrial resources, potential difficulties from that quarter could not be ruled out in the event of German involvement in hostilities. More important still: possession of the rectangular, mountain-rimmed territories of Bohemia and Moravia on the south-eastern edge of the Reich offered a recognizable platform for further eastward expansion and military domination. The road to the Balkans was now open. Germany’s position against Poland was strengthened. And in the event of conflict in the west, the defences in the east were consolidated.59
By the winter of 1938–9, the Polish Question, its significance growing all the time, was of direct relevance to considerations of how to handle Czecho-Slovakia. According to Below, Hitler regretted not occupying the whole of Czecho-Slovakia the previous autumn because the starting-point for negotiations with the Poles over Danzig and the extra-territorial transit-routes through the Corridor would then have been far more advantageous.60 As we have seen, German hopes of a peaceful revisionism to acquire Danzig and access through the Corridor while bringing Poland i
nto the German orbit were already running into the sand. The future of the rump state of Czecho-Slovakia featured in the diplomatic manoeuvrings. The Poles had seen the possibility blocked of detaching Ruthenia from the Czech heartlands through cession to Hungary (which from the Polish point of view would have undermined the Ukrainian nationalist movement within Ruthenia, with its obvious dangers for inciting trouble among the sizeable Ukrainian minority within Poland). They had consequently turned their attention to Slovakia. Slovakian autonomy from Prague would, so the Poles reasoned, isolate Ruthenia from Bohemia and thereby attain the same effect as would have been achieved by the Hungarian takeover.61
Göring, keen to defend what he could of his waning influence in foreign policy by making the most of his extensive contacts in eastern Europe, was able to persuade Hitler of the advantages of a separate Slovakian state. Goring himself wanted to use Slovakia for German air bases for operations in eastern Europe, especially targeting the Balkans. But the Slovakian solution to Poland’s worries about Ukrainian nationalism in Ruthenia could in his view be used as a bargaining-counter to persuade Poland to accept some territorial adjustments in return for former German areas coming back to the Reich.62 And if the Poles remained intransigent, a Slovakia under German tutelage pursuing an anti-Polish policy could help concentrate their minds.63
As late as December 1938, there was no indication that Hitler was preparing an imminent strike against the Czechs. There were hints, however, that the next moves in foreign policy would not be long delayed. Hitler told the German leader in Memel, Ernst Neumann, on 17 December that annexation of Memelland would take place in the following March or April, and that he wanted no crisis in the area before then.64 Occupation of the Memel, as we noted, had been mentioned in the same military directive in October as the preparations for a strike against Czecho-Slovakia. In mid-January, Hitler indicated to the Hungarian Foreign Minister Count István Csáky that no military action was possible between the previous October and March.65 On 13 February, Hitler let it be known to a few associates that he intended to take action against the Czechs in mid-March. German propaganda was adjusted accordingly.66 The French had already gleaned intelligence in early February that German action against Prague would take place in about six weeks.67
Hitler’s meeting at the Berghof with the Polish Foreign Minister and strong man in the government, Joseph Beck, on 5 January had proved, from the German point of view, disappointing. Hitler had tried to appear accommodating in laying down the need for Danzig to return to Germany, and for access routes across the Corridor to East Prussia. Beck implied that public opinion in Poland would prevent any concessions on Danzig.68 When Ribbentrop returned empty-handed from his visit to Warsaw on 26 January, indicating that the Poles were not to be moved, Hitler’s approach to Poland changed markedly.69
From friendly overtures, the policy moved to pressure. Poland was to be excluded from any share in the spoils from the destruction of the Czech state (though Hungary, having been denied substantial benefits the previous autumn, would in due course be granted Ruthenia). And turning Slovakia into a German puppet-state intensified the threat to Poland’s southern border. Once the demolition of Czecho-Slovakia had taken place, therefore, the Germans hoped and expected the Poles to prove more cooperative.70 The failure of negotiations with the Poles had probably accelerated the decision to destroy the Czech state.71
In January and February 1939, Hitler gave three addresses – not intended for general public consumption – to groups of officers. Partly, he hoped to repair the poor relations with the army that had prevailed since the Blomberg–Fritsch affair. Partly, he wanted to emphasize the type of mentality he expected in face of the conflicts ahead.
On 18 January, before 3,600 recently promoted younger officers assembled in the Mosaic Hall of Speer’s New Reich Chancellery, opened only a few days earlier, in a paean to the virtues of belief, optimism, and heroism in soldiers, Hitler demanded ‘the unconditional belief that our Germany, our German Reich, will one day be the dominant power in Europe’. The size and racial stock of the German population, and the overcoming of the ‘decomposition’ of people and state that had prevailed after 1918, provided the basis for this. Now there was a new spirit in Germany, ‘the spirit of the world-view which dominates Germany today… a deeply soldierly spirit’. The new Wehrmacht had arisen as the guarantor of the military strength of the state. It was his ‘unshakable will’, he declared, ‘that the German Wehrmacht should become the strongest armed force of the entire world’, and it was the task of the young officers to help in constructing it.72 The responsiveness of his audience – frequently breaking into applause, in contrast to the usual military tradition of listening to his speeches in silence, which he did not like – pleased him. Afterwards, he spent some time sitting and talking with groups of officers. He felt the meeting had gone well. He did not even show displeasure at reports that drunken officers, unable to find the toilets in the brand new building, had vomited in the corners of his new splendrous Mosaic Hall.73
A week later, on 25 January, he spoke to 217 officers, including top generals and admirals, underlining his vision of a glorious future, now within reach, built on a return to the heroic values of the past. These had embraced ‘brutality, meaning the sword, if all other methods fail’. They also meant the elimination of ‘the principles of democratic, parliamentary, pacifistic, defeatist mentality’ which had characterized the catastrophe of 1918 and the Republic which had followed Germany’s defeat. The British Empire was put forward as a model; but as an example, too, of how empires were destroyed by pacifism. Hitler concluded by holding out an enticing prospect to the young officers listening: when the work of constructing the new society was consolidated in 100 years or so, producing a new ruling élite, ‘then the people that in my conviction is the first to take this path will stake its claim to the domination of Europe’.74
In a third address, in the Kroll Opera House on 10 February to a large gathering of senior commanders, Hitler forcefully restated his belief that Germany’s future could only be secured by the acquisition of ‘living space’. He expressed disappointment at the attitude of some officers during the crises of 1938, and sought to convince his audience that all his steps in foreign policy (though not their precise timing) had followed a carefully preconceived plan. The events of 1938 had formed part of a chain, reaching back to 1933, and forwards as a step on a long path. ‘Understand, gentlemen,’ he declared, towards the end of his lengthy speech, ‘that the recent great successes have only come about because I perceived the opportunities… I have taken it upon myself… to solve the German problem of space. Note that as long as I live this thought will dominate my entire being. Be convinced, too, that, when I think it possible to advance a step at some moment, I will take action at once and never draw back from the most extreme measures (vor dem Äußersten)… So don’t be surprised if in coming years, too, the attempt will be made to attain some German goal or other at every opportunity, and place yourselves then, I urge you, in most fervent trust behind me.’75
Around this time, according to Goebbels, Hitler spoke practically of nothing else but foreign policy. ‘He’s always pondering new plans,’ Goebbels noted. ‘A Napoleonic nature!’76 The Propaganda Minister had already guessed what was in store when Hitler told him at the end of January he was going ‘to the mountain’ – to the Obersalzberg – to think about his next steps in foreign policy. ‘Perhaps Czechia (die Tschechei) is up for it again. The problem is after all only half solved,’ he wrote.77
III
By the beginning of March, in the light of mounting Slovakian nationalist clamour (abetted by Germany) for full independence from Prague, the break-up of what was left of the state of Czecho-Slovakia looked to close observers of the scene to be a matter of time. German propaganda against Prague was now becoming shrill. Relations between the Czech and Slovak governments were tense. But for all their pressure the Germans were unable to prise out of the Slovakian leaders the immediat
e proclamation of full independence and request for German aid that was urgently wanted.78
When the Prague government deposed the Slovakian cabinet, sent police in to occupy government offices in Bratislava, and placed the former Prime Minister, Father Jozef Tiso, under house arrest, Hitler spotted his moment. On 10 March, he told Goebbels, Ribbentrop, and Keitel that he had decided to march in, smash the rump Czech state, and occupy Prague. The invasion was to take place five days later; it would be the Ides of March. ‘Our borders must stretch to the Carpathians,’ noted Goebbels. ‘The Führer shouts for joy. This game is dead certain.’79