The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

  “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:

  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

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

  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

  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”:

  The first condition is a clear and resolute leadership. The second condition is the readiness of the masses of the people to follow the 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.

  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.*

  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 von 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.

  THE SURRENDER AT MUNICH: SEPTEMBER 29–30, 1938

  In this baroque Bavarian city where in the murky back rooms of rundown little cafés 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.* 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 Pre
mier fairly fell over themselves to agree with Hitler. Even when he made the following opening statement:

  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.

  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 François-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.*

  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 François-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 François-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* 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 Sudetenland 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.

  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. Léger [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 …

  The Czechs began to ask several questions, but

  Mr. Chamberlain was yawning continuously, without making any effort to conceal his yawns. I asked MM. Daladier and Léger whether they expected a declaration or answer of our Government to the Agreement. M. Daladier was noticeably nervous. M. Léger 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

  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.

  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 Président, 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

  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.