Prague Winter

by Madeleine Albright

  Hitler and troops enter the Sudetenland.

  Bundesarchiv, Bild (183-H13116)

  8

  A Hopeless Task

  The Munich saga was acted out on a global stage by a handful of the world’s most powerful people. Its bleak finale formed the first page of numberless other stories centered on the lives of men and women without exalted standing, our family among them. My mother recalled:

  Our personal security was of course touched by it immediately. First Joe, as a reserve officer of the Czechoslovak Army, had to go during the time of the mobilization back to his regiment and I was left by myself with a one-year-old child in Yugoslavia waiting for the war to start. Lucky for me personally, but unlucky for the country to which we both were so devoted, Czechoslovakia was ordered by England and France to succumb to Hitler’s demand and so war at that time was not declared.

  The events surrounding Munich had a profound and painful impact on the Czechoslovak people, especially of my parents’ generation. Feelings of embarrassment for not fighting were mingled with fury at the Allies for their alleged betrayal; both emotions lingered. Writing in 1976, my father assigned the primary blame to France and Great Britain but also lamented that “in her hour of crisis, Czechoslovakia had as her president not a leader, but a negotiator.” He acknowledged that much of what Beneš had predicted eventually came to pass but that “the valiant ethos of the nation demanded from its leaders the ethical, not the practicable position. The Munich dictate should have been rejected, no matter what the consequences.”

  The study of history is surrounded by what-ifs. What would have happened had Beneš chosen—as my father and many others wished—to defy the Munich mandate? Presumably the Czechoslovak armed forces would have fought entirely alone—at least at the beginning. One feels sure that they would have done so with courage for they had the leadership, motivation, equipment, manpower, and training to bloody the enemy badly. Especially in the rain and fog that prevailed in those first weeks of October, this would have been no Blitzkrieg. Fighting from entrenched positions, the defenders would have been difficult to dislodge; but would the superior firepower of the Reich eventually have won out? Almost certainly.

  Even if the main German offensive through Bohemia had stalled, the Wehrmacht could have sent troops in from the south (through Austria) and east (through Moravia). Czechoslovakia’s antitank weapons and artillery were overmatched, and its core of professional warriors not large enough to hold out indefinitely; the military’s own prewar estimate was three weeks. While the conflict raged, the German propaganda machine would have been in high gear, proclaiming the struggle a quest for Sudeten self-determination, a principle already endorsed by the British and French and accepted reluctantly by the Czechoslovaks themselves. The Poles and Hungarians would likely have joined the fight on the opposing side, endeavoring to seize what territory they could from their embattled neighbor. Many, perhaps most, of the Sudetens would have provided the enemy with a fifth column.

  In his memoir, Churchill wrote that “Beneš was wrong to yield. Once fighting had begun . . . France would have moved to his aid in a surge of national passion and Britain would have rallied to France almost immediately.” With all due respect, the notion that the French would have leaped into the battle seems a pipe dream; they had done nothing in 1936, when Germany had taken the Rhineland; they would do little in 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland; and they had told Beneš outright that they would abandon him if he rejected the Munich ultimatum. Yes, there might well have been a flurry of meetings at the League of Nations and numerous unanswered calls for a cease-fire, but before long the Germans would have occupied the country from one end to the other.

  Hitler in the Sudetenland (October 3, 1938); to his left is Konrad Henlein, to his right, Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the army high command.

  Associated Press

  In the process of doing so, however, the Reich would have been weakened significantly, especially if the Czechoslovaks had thought to destroy their tanks, planes, and factories rather than permit them to be captured. Such an outcome would have constituted a dramatic gift to Europe on Czechoslovakia’s part—an offering for which few would have given the country credit. Tens of thousands of its soldiers and airmen would have died or been taken prisoner, quite possibly including my father. The nation’s infrastructure would have been damaged severely. The Nazis, thoroughly incensed by Prague’s defiance, would have been savage in victory. If and when the German yoke was thrown off, Czechoslovak storytellers would have had a new generation of tragic yet heroic tales to relate. The country would have endured untold suffering, but its ethos would have emerged unscathed.

  Beneš justified his decision to comply with the Munich terms as his best choice from a narrow array of dismal alternatives. A larger European war was inevitable, he insisted, and so was Germany’s defeat. By not fighting in 1938, when the odds were so steeply stacked against them, the Czechoslovaks conserved their ability to do so at a more favorable time. This was a judgment echoed by George Kennan, the U.S. political attaché in Prague, who wrote that Beneš had

  preserved for the exacting tasks of the future a magnificent younger generation—disciplined, industrious, and physically fit—which would undoubtedly have been sacrificed if the solution had been the romantic one of hopeless resistance rather than the humiliating but truly heroic one of realism.

  Personally, I have as much trouble grasping Kennan’s concept of heroic humiliation as I do Cadogan’s brief for courageous cowardice. I believe that Beneš should have rejected the Munich terms, but I also find it difficult to condemn him for following the dictates of his own logic instead of the hearts of his countrymen. Abandoned by allies and confronted by enemies on all sides, he was faced with a terrible responsibility. To his credit, he would strive thereafter to make the absolute best of the decision he had felt forced to make.

  But what if Beneš had never been put into such an impossible position? What if the British and French had lost patience with Hitler and, instead of pushing Beneš to appease Henlein, had joined forces with Moscow and Prague to take a firm stand? What if they had responded to German military preparations by fully mobilizing their own forces?

  Such a strategy would have further motivated Czechoslovak fighters and deepened the misgivings of the German high command. If the Allies had been united, they would have left Hitler with his own set of unappealing options: to back down, endure an open-ended military and diplomatic stalemate, or initiate war in a place and at a time not of his choosing. If the Nazis had decided to attack, the Allies couldn’t have prevented them from occupying Prague, but that wasn’t Hitler’s ultimate objective. Fighting a war against several foes in the fall of 1938 would have subjected the German military to serious pressure on both the western and eastern fronts, while clipping the wings of the Luftwaffe and leaving the country’s economy vulnerable to embargo by the Royal Navy.

  Western military forces were weaker in 1939 than they would be later, but that was true also of the Germans. The Poles had no love for the Czechs but would still have become allies out of deference to the British and French. Under this scenario, the Nazi plight might fairly have been compared to that of a long-distance runner being forced to negotiate the first mile of a marathon in an all-out sprint. Even if the Nazis had crushed Czechoslovakia, the effort would have prevented—or at least slowed—their march through Europe, and that, in turn, would have opened the door to other possibilities, including a broader rebellion within the German military against Hitler and a shorter, less deadly conflict.

  After the war, the imprisoned German general Wilhelm Keitel was asked whether the Reich would have attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 if the Western powers had stood by Prague. He replied, “Certainly not. We were not strong enough militarily. The object of Munich was to get Russia out of Europe, to gain time, and to complete the German armaments.”

  Defenders of the British and French lead
ers have pointed out that the road to Munich was paved before they entered office. The punitive provisions of the Versailles treaty, the defense reductions, the failure to oppose the Nazis over the Rhineland, and the passive tenor of public opinion in the West could not fairly be laid at the feet of Chamberlain and Daladier. I have often told my students that the management of world affairs can be compared to a game of billiards, where every move creates a chain reaction that generates a new set of obstacles and opportunities. A player who begins his turn behind the eight ball should be assessed charitably if he cannot make impossible shots, but ultimately the score will reflect how much was made of the chances given.

  In Munich’s brief afterglow, Chamberlain addressed a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury. “Some day the Czechs will see,” he wrote, “that what we did was to save them for a happier future.” We have, he boasted, “at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos.” Surely, one definition of inept leadership is to achieve one’s goal, take credit for it, then within months have to eat each and every word.

  IN LONDON, JAN MASARYK witnessed the exuberant welcome that the British prime minister received upon his return from Munich, including the handshakes and hugs, the claim of “peace with honor,” the prediction of “peace in our time,” and the joyous shouts of “He’s a good fellow!” and “Hip, hip, hurrah!” For weeks, the diplomatic miracle cast a spell over the British imagination. The House of Commons approved the Munich policy by a margin of almost three-to-one; toy shops featured Neville Chamberlain dolls; florists decorated their windows with pictures of the triumphant statesman encircled by roses; and corporations took out full-page congratulatory advertisements. A nation that had been holding its breath felt able to exhale in relief.

  As for Masaryk, he had no choice but to resign as minister to Great Britain. Preparatory to doing so, he personally removed his father’s portrait from the walls of the Czechoslovak legation and, in keeping with diplomatic custom, paid a courtesy call on 10 Downing Street. Because the prime minister was delayed, Jan was shown in to see the gracious Mrs. Chamberlain. After some desultory small talk, the woman’s face lit up. “Oh Mr. Masaryk,” she exclaimed. “I must show you the lovely cigarette case that Neville has just received from an admirer.” The case was engraved with a map of Europe and adorned with three sapphires—one marked Berchtesgaden, the second Godesberg, and the third Munich.

  In Parliament, Churchill was among the few not cheering:

  We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat; you will find that in a period of time which may be measured in years, but may be measured in months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi regime. We . . . have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road.

  Across the Atlantic, the dominant reaction to Munich was fury, less at Germany than at England. Americans were not ready to go to war themselves and had been counting on Europe’s leaders to fix the continent’s problems before their own involvement became necessary. Thus British representatives, sent to the United States to explain the thinking behind Munich, encountered hostility and ridicule. Dorothy Parker referred snidely to Chamberlain and his frequent air trips as “the first prime minister in history to crawl at 250 miles an hour.” Then as now, many people were inclined to express their views through what they wore. In New York, department stores were selling a $1 pin in the shape of a white umbrella—the symbol of Chamberlain in the color of surrender.

  BENEŠ WOULD CLAIM that the Soviet Union alone had stood with the Czechoslovak people in their time of crisis; Communist propagandists would make much of that assertion. But is it true? Under the 1935 Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty, the countries pledged to turn to the League of Nations for help if either were threatened. They also promised to aid each other in the event of an armed attack, provided that France also rendered assistance. Soviet leaders had stated on many occasions that they were prepared to meet their obligations, albeit without specifying how. This question was relevant because Russian troops could not reach Czechoslovak territory without passing through either Poland, which refused to grant transit rights, or Romania, which would do so only for airplanes.

  One point in the USSR’s favor is that, before Munich, its leaders did try to convince Hitler to back down, warning him that the Nazis would face a two-front war if they struck first. The Soviets invited the British and French to coordinate strategies, an invitation that neither acknowledged. As the crisis neared its climax, the Russians claimed to have thirty infantry divisions, reinforced with reservists, near their western border. They also hinted to Poland that, in the event of German aggression, they were prepared to help the Czechoslovaks with or without Warsaw’s permission. Ultimately, Moscow was able to keep its word without paying a price. When France ducked its own obligation, the Soviets were off the hook. If France had gone to war on Prague’s behalf, the quality and quantity of Russian assistance can only be guessed. Clearly the French had assumed the greater responsibility and their failure to meet it tarnished their good name.

  In the end, Munich had three losers: Czechoslovakia, England, and France; it had two winners: Hitler and Stalin. That’s a fair one-sentence summary of a historic disaster.

  FOUR DAYS AFTER German troops entered the Sudetenland, Beneš abdicated; two weeks later, he left for London. His successor, Dr. Emil Hácha, a sixty-six-year-old former Supreme Court justice, was in poor health and greatly preferred art to politics. Reluctantly, the cautious jurist tried to steer his government of holdovers, second raters, and collaborators in a direction that would pacify the Germans while still preserving national independence. It was a hopeless task.

  The Sudetenland is commonly understood to be the northern slice of the country, but under Munich, it was far more than that. As defined by the agreement, the occupied areas extended along the entire western border and also the southern edge most of the way to Slovakia. On the map, the occupied region resembled an open mouth poised to swallow what little remained of T. G. Masaryk’s democratic republic.

  Adding to the pain, Poland and Hungary pressed their own territorial claims and, with German support, gained lands they had been coveting since World War I. The Czechs, who had been spoiling for battle, were instead asked to acquiesce in the loss of 30 percent of their territory, one-third of their population, 40 percent of their national income, and the majority of their strategic minerals. The powers of their legislature were erased, rendering the various political parties obsolete. Most allies of Beneš were excluded from government jobs, and so too were Jews. The army was cut in half and demobilized. German exiles hiding from the Nazis were exposed and rounded up, while previously captured German spies were released. Antifascists in the Sudetenland were driven out, their property given to followers of Henlein. Slovak nationalists secured autonomy in the form of their own regional administration, their own parliament, and a hyphen—the country’s new name was Czecho-Slovakia.

  In subsequent months, Slovak separatist parties began to work closely with Henlein and increasingly with Berlin. The many Slovaks who had favored cooperation with the Czechs were pushed aside. If a united republic couldn’t stand against the Nazis, why should the Slovaks remain tied to the old capital—especially when the Germans were dangling the prize of national independence?

  In Prague the government did its best to avoid the wrath of Berlin, but the Germans devised a sequel to the approach that had worked so well prior to Munich. Nothing the Czechs did was quite enough. Week by week, the list of demands grew: anti-Semitic legislation, economic favors, a share of the country’s gold reserves, the dissolution of Communist labor unions, an even more subservient foreign policy. With each new item on the list came the warning that Hitler’s patience was again wearing thin.

  On October 14, only two weeks after Munich, the Czecho-Slovak Defense Ministry wrote to the Foreign Ministry to request my father’s dismissal. The reason given was m
y mother. Reportedly, she had told some Czech army officers at a lunch in the ambassador’s apartment that because of their failure to defend the country, she would rather marry a street sweeper than one of them. Did she actually say such a thing? I have no idea, but it sounds like her. Did it matter? The issue may have been moot because my father’s job would not in any case have long survived the Munich agreement. The profascist leadership in Yugoslavia wanted him out, and so, too, did the Nazis in Berlin. At the bottom of the Defense Ministry letter, there is an addendum in a different size type than the rest: “Dr. Körbel and his wife are Jews.”

  Czecho-Slovakia after Munich

  Laura Lee

  In late December, my father was recalled from his assignment in Belgrade and given a temporary desk job in Prague. He began immediately to look for a way to move our family to England, where Beneš and other prominent Czechoslovak exiles had begun to gather. Perhaps he could use his contacts in Yugoslavia to obtain credentials as a foreign correspondent in England for a Serb-language newspaper.

  Early in 1939, while my father searched for a way out of the country, post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia entered the final weeks of its short life. The Nazis, intent on seizing the whole nation, were once again casting around for a plausible excuse. The year before, the Sudeten cause had masqueraded as self-determination; why not use the same ploy with the Slovaks? The Nazis considered a number of candidates to play the role of a Slovak Henlein, eventually settling on Dr. Jozef Tiso, a conservative party leader, confirmed separatist, and Roman Catholic priest. On March 13, Hitler summoned Tiso to Berlin and gave him an ultimatum: “The question is whether Slovakia wishes independence or not; it is a question not of days but of hours.” Tiso had until 1 p.m. on the following afternoon to decide. If the Slovaks did not by then declare independence, Hungary would be invited to swallow them up.