Hitler

by Ian Kershaw

  This had the effect of stirring genuine alarm in the British Ambassador, worried that he had been misled by Keitel, and that a German invasion of Czechoslovakia was imminent. On the afternoon of Saturday, 21 May, Henderson was instructed by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax to inform Ribbentrop that the French were bound to intervene in the event of an attack on Czechoslovakia, and that the Germans should not depend upon the British standing by. Ribbentrop’s hysterical reply was scarcely reassuring: ‘If France were really so crazy as to attack us, it would lead to perhaps the greatest defeat in French history, and if Britain were to join her, then once again we should have to fight to the death.’ By the Sunday, 22 May, however, British reconnaissance on the borders had revealed nothing untoward. It had been a false alarm.

  The crisis blew over as quickly as it had started. But Hitler was affronted by the loss of German prestige. Keitel later recalled Hitler stating that he was not prepared to tolerate ‘such a provocation’ by the Czechs, and demanding the fastest possible preparations for a strike. It was not as a result of the crisis that Hitler resolved to crush Czechoslovakia before the year was out. But the crisis accelerated matters. The blow to pride reinforced his determination to act as soon as possible. Delay was ruled out.

  After days of brooding over the issue at the Berghof, pondering the advice of his military leaders that Germany was ill-equipped for an early strike against the Czechs, Hitler returned to Berlin and summoned a meeting of his top generals, together with leading figures from the Foreign Ministry, for 28 May. He told his generals bluntly: ‘I am utterly determined that Czechoslovakia should disappear from the map.’ He claimed Germany was stronger than in 1914. He pointed to the train of successes since 1933. But there was no such thing as a lasting state of contentment. Life was a constant struggle. And Germany needed living space in Europe, and in colonial possessions. The current generation had to solve the problem. France and Britain would remain hostile to an expansion of German power. Czechoslovakia was Germany’s most dangerous enemy in the event of conflict with the West. Therefore it was necessary to eliminate Czechoslovakia. He gave the incomplete state of Czech fortifications, the underdeveloped British and French armaments programmes, and the advantageous international situation as reasons for early action. The western fortifications were to be drastically speeded up. These would provide the framework for a ‘lightning march into Czechoslovakia’.

  Two days later, the revised ‘Case Green’ was ready. Its basic lines were unchanged from those drawn up earlier in the month by Keitel and Jodl. But the preamble now ran: ‘It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the foreseeable future.’ Keitel’s covering note laid down that preparations must be complete by 1 October at the latest. From that date on, Hitler was determined to ‘exploit every favourable political opportunity’ to accomplish his aim. It was a decision for war – if need be, even against the western powers.

  Chief of Staff Beck responded with two memoranda of 29 May and 3 June, highly critical both of Hitler’s political assumptions with regard to Britain and France, and of the operational directives for ‘Case Green’. The ‘cardinal point’ (as he put it) of disagreement was about the prospect of a war against France and Britain which, Beck was certain, Germany would lose. What only gradually became clear to Beck was how far he had isolated himself even in the army’s own high command. In particular, the head of the army, Brauchitsch, though sharing some of Beck’s reservations, would undertake nothing which might appear to challenge or criticize Hitler’s plans. The distance between Brauchitsch and Beck became more marked. Increasingly, the head of the army looked to Beck’s deputy, General Franz Halder.

  Beck’s own position, and the force of his operational arguments, weakened notably in mid-June when the results of war games demonstrated, in contrast to his grim prognostications, that Czechoslovakia would in all probability be overrun within eleven days, with the consequence that troops could rapidly be sent to fight on the western front. Increasingly despairing and isolated, Beck went so far in summer as to advocate collective resignation of the military leadership to force Hitler to give way, to be followed by a purge of the ‘radicals’ responsible for the high-risk international adventurism. ‘The soldierly duty [of the highest leaders of the Wehrmacht],’ he wrote on 16 July 1938, ‘has a limit at the point where their knowledge, conscience, and responsibility prohibits the execution of an order. If their advice and warnings in such a situation are not listened to, they have the right and duty to the people and to history to resign from their posts. If they all act with a united will, the deployment of military action is impossible. They will thereby have saved their Fatherland from the worst, from destruction … Extraordinary times demand extraordinary actions.’

  It proved impossible to win over Brauchitsch to the idea of any generals’ ultimatum to Hitler, even though the army Commander-in-Chief accepted much of Beck’s military analysis and shared his fears of western intervention. At a meeting of top generals summoned for 4 August, Brauchitsch did not deliver the speech which Beck had prepared for him. Instead, distancing himself from the Chief of the General Staff, he had Beck read out his own memorandum of 16 July, with its highly pessimistic assessment of eventualities following an invasion of Czechoslovakia. Most of those present agreed that Germany could not win a war against the western powers. But Reichenau, speaking ‘from his personal knowledge of the Führer’, warned against individual generals approaching Hitler with such an argument; it would have the reverse effect to that which they wanted. And General Ernst Busch questioned whether it was the business of soldiers to intervene in political matters. As Brauchitsch recognized, those present opposed the risk of a war over Czechoslovakia. He himself commented that a new world war would bring the end of German culture. But there was no agreement on what practical consequences should follow. Colonel-General Gerd von Rundstedt, one of the most senior and respected officers, was unwilling to provoke a new crisis between Hitler and the army through challenging him on his war-risk policy. Lieutenant-General Erich von Manstein, Commander of the 18th Infantry Division, who would later distinguish himself as a military tactician of unusual calibre, advised Beck to rid himself of the burden of responsibility – a matter for the political leadership – and play a full part in securing success against Czechoslovakia.

  Brauchitsch, spineless though he was, was plainly not alone in his unwillingness to face Hitler with an ultimatum. The reality was that there was no collective support for a frontal challenge. Brauchitsch contented himself with passing on Beck’s memorandum to Hitler via one of his adjutants. When Hitler heard what had taken place at the meeting, he was incandescent. Brauchitsch was summoned to the Berghof and subjected to such a ferocious high-decibel verbal assault that those sitting on the terrace below the open windows of Hitler’s room felt embarrassed enough to move inside.

  Hitler responded by summoning – an unorthodox step – not the top military leadership, but a selective group of the second tier of senior officers, those who might be expecting rapid promotion in the event of a military conflict, to the Berghof for a meeting on 10 August. He was evidently hoping to gain influence over his staff chiefs through their subordinates. But he was disappointed. His harangue, lasting several hours, left his audience – which was fully acquainted with the content of Beck’s July memorandum – still unconvinced. The crisis of confidence between Hitler and the army general staff had reached serious levels. At the same time, the assembled officers were divided among themselves, with some of them increasingly critical of Beck.

  The Chief of the General Staff made a last attempt to persuade Brauchitsch to take a firm stance against Hitler. It was whistling in the wind. On 18 August, Beck finally tendered the resignation he had already prepared a month earlier. Even then, he missed a last trick. He accepted Hitler’s request – ‘for foreign-policy reasons’ – not to publicize his resignation. A final opportunity to turn the unease running through the army, and through the Germ
an people, into an open challenge to the political leadership of the Reich – and when Beck knew that only Ribbentrop, and perhaps Himmler, fully backed Hitler – was lost. Beck’s path into fundamental resistance was a courageous one. But in summer 1938 he gradually became, at least as regards political strategy, an isolated figure in the military leadership. As he himself saw it several months later: ‘I warned – and in the end I was alone.’ Ironically, he had been more responsible than any other individual for supplying Hitler with the military might which the Dictator could not wait to use.

  Hitler was by this time, therefore, assured of the compliance of the military, even if they were reluctant rather than enthusiastic in their backing for war against the Czechs, and even if relations were tense and distrustful. And as long as the generals fell into line, his own position was secure, his policy unchallengeable.

  As it transpired, his reading of international politics turned out to be closer to the mark than that of Beck and the generals. In the guessing-and second-guessing political poker-game that ran through the summer, the western powers were anxious to avoid war at all costs, while the east European neighbours of Czechoslovakia were keen to profit from any war but unwilling to take risks. By midsummer, Ribbentrop regarded the die as cast. He told Weizsäcker ‘that the Führer was firmly resolved to settle the Czech affair by force of arms’. Mid-October was the latest possible date because of flying conditions. ‘The other powers would definitely not do anything about it and if they did we would take them on as well and win.’

  Hitler himself spent much of the summer at the Berghof. Despite the Sudeten crisis, his daily routine differed little from previous years: he got up late, went for walks, watched films, and relaxed in the company of his regular entourage and favoured visitors like Albert Speer. Whether on the basis of newspaper reports, or through information fed to him by those able to gain access, he intervened – sometimes quirkily – in an array of minutiae: punishment for traffic offences, altering the base of a statue, considerations of whether all cigarettes should be made nicotine-free, or the type of holes to be put into flagpoles. He also interfered directly in the course of justice, ordering the death penalty for the perpetrator of a series of highway robberies, and the speediest possible conviction for the alleged serial killer of a number of women.

  But the Czechoslovakian crisis was never far away. Hitler was preoccupied with the operational planning for ‘Green’. His confidence in his generals dwindled as his anger at their scepticism towards his plans mounted. He also involved himself in the smallest detail of the building of the Westwall – a key component in his plans to overrun the Czechs without French intervention and the bluff to discourage Germany’s western neighbours from even attempting to cross the Rhine. He was still expecting the fortifications to be complete by the autumn – by the onset of frost, as he told Goebbels – at which point he reckoned Germany would be unassailable from the west. But the sluggish progress made by the army made him furious. When General Adam claimed that the extra 12,000 bunkers he had ordered were an impossibility, Hitler flew into a rage, declaring that for Todt the word ‘impossible’ did not exist. He felt driven to dictate a lengthy memorandum, drawing on his own wartime experiences, laying down his notions of the nature of the fortifications to be erected, down to sleeping, eating, drinking, and lavatory arrangements in the bunkers – since new recruits in their first battle often suffered from diarrhoea, he claimed to recall. The Westwall had priority over all other major building projects. By the end of August, 148,000 workers and 50,000 army sappers were stationed at the fortifications. Autobahn and housing construction had been temporarily halted to make use of the workers.

  By this time, the end of August, the crisis was beginning to move towards its climacteric phase. When Goebbels saw him on the Obersalzberg on the last day of August, Hitler was in a determined and optimistic mood: he did not think Britain would intervene. ‘He knows what he wants and goes straight towards his goal,’ remarked Goebbels. By now, Goebbels too knew that the planned time for action was October.

  Ordinary people were, of course, wholly unaware of the planned aggression. The weeks of anti-Czech propaganda, often near-hysterical in tone, had shaped the impression that the issue was about the despicable persecution of the German minority, not the military destruction of Czechoslovakia. But whether or not the Sudeten Germans came ‘home into the Reich’ was, for the overwhelming majority of the population, less important than avoiding the war which Hitler was determined to have. ‘The war psychosis is growing,’ noted Goebbels. ‘A gloomy mood lies over the land. Everyone awaits what is coming.’ Reports on popular opinion compiled by the SD and other agencies uniformly registered similar sentiments. ‘There exists in the broadest sections of the population,’ ran one report in early September, ‘the earnest concern that in the long or short run a war will put an end to the economic prosperity and have a terrible end for Germany.’

  IV

  During August, the British had indirectly exerted pressure on the Czechs to comply with Sudeten German demands through the mission of Lord Runciman, aimed at playing for time, mediating between the Sudeten German Party and the Prague government, and solving the Sudeten question within the framework of the continued existence of the state of Czechoslovakia. By the end of the month, the British government had learnt from their contacts with oppositional sources in Germany that Hitler intended to attack Czechoslovakia within weeks. The crucial moment, they imagined, would probably follow Hitler’s speech to the Reich Party Rally in Nuremberg in mid-September. On 30 August, in an emergency meeting, the British cabinet declined to offer a formal warning to Hitler of likely British intervention in the event of German aggression. Instead, it was decided to apply further pressure on the Czechs, who were effectively given an ultimatum: accept Henlein’s programme to give virtual autonomy for the Sudeten Germans within the Czechoslovakian state, as laid down in his Karlsbad speech in April, or be doomed. On 5 September, President Eduard Beneš, faced with such an unenviable choice, bowed to the pressure.

  This in fact left Henlein and the Sudeten German leadership in a predicament: entirely against expectations, their demands had been met almost in their entirety. With that, Hitler’s pretext for war was undermined. Desperate for an excuse to break off negotiations with the Czechs, the Sudeten Germans grasped at an incident in which the Czech police manhandled three local Germans accused of spying and smuggling weapons. It was enough to keep matters on the boil until Hitler’s big speech on 12 September.

  Increasingly worried though the Sudeten German leaders themselves were about the prospect of war, Henlein’s party was simply dancing to Hitler’s tune. Hitler had told Henlein’s right-hand man, Karl Hermann Frank, as early as 26 August to instigate provocative ‘incidents’. He followed it up with instructions to carry out the ‘incidents’ on 4 September. He had left Frank in no doubt at all of his intentions. ‘Führer is determined on war,’ Frank had reported. Hitler had verbally lashed Beneš, saying he wanted him taken alive and would himself string him up. Three days later, on 29 August, it was known, from what was emanating from Hitler’s entourage, that Czech compliance, under British pressure, to the Karlsbad demands would no longer be sufficient. ‘So the Führer wants war,’ was the conclusion drawn by Helmuth Groscurth, head of Department II of the Abwehr.

  When he met Henlein at the Berghof on 2 September, however, Hitler was giving little away. He implied to the Sudeten leader that he would act that month, though specified no date. Knowing that Hitler had a military solution in mind, Henlein nevertheless told his British contact, Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, Runciman’s assistant, that the Führer favoured a peaceful settlement – information which further nourished appeasement ambitions. The reality was very different: at a military conference at the Berghof on the day after his meeting with Henlein, Hitler determined details of ‘Case Green’, the attack on Czechoslovakia, ready to be launched on 1 October.

  Hitler was by this stage impervious to the alarm signals b
eing registered in diplomatic circles. When Admiral Canaris returned from Italy with reports that the Italians were urgently advising against war, and would not participate themselves, Hitler took them simply as a reflection of the divisions between the general staff and the Duce, similar to those he was experiencing with the army in Germany. He remained adamant that Britain was bluffing, playing for time, insufficiently armed, and would stay neutral. Warnings about the poor state of the German navy met with the same response. The present time, with the harvest secured, he continued to argue, was the most favourable for military action. By December, it would be too late. He was equally dismissive about warning noises from France. When the German Ambassador in Paris, Johannes von Welczek, reported his strong impression that France would reluctantly be obliged to honour the obligation to the Czechs, Hitler simply pushed the report to one side, saying it did not interest him. Hearing of this, Lord Halifax pointed it out to the British cabinet as evidence that ‘Herr Hitler was possibly or even probably mad.’

  With German propaganda reaching fever-pitch, Hitler delivered his long-awaited and much feared tirade against the Czechs at the final assembly of the Party Congress on 12 September. Venomous though the attacks on the Czechs were, with an unmistakable threat if ‘self-determination’ were not granted, Hitler fell short of demanding the handing over of the Sudetenland, or a plebiscite to determine the issue. In Germany there was an air of impending war and great tension. The anxious Czechs thought war and peace hung in the balance that day. But in Hitler’s timetable, it was still over two weeks too early.