Prague Winter

by Madeleine Albright

  84 “What I wonder is”: Ibid., 70.

  84 “We cannot but feel”: S. Grant Duff, Europe and the Czechs (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1938), 200.

  86 “This misery of the Sudeten Germans”: Hitler, addressing Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg, September 12, 1938, quoted in Compton Mackenzie, Dr Beneš (London: George G. Harrap, 1946), 12.

  87 “I am in no way willing”: Hitler, addressing Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg, September 12, 1938, quoted in Cadogan, Diaries, 97.

  87 “not in any way ill-natured”: Major Reginald Sutton-Pratt, quoted in Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Eduard Beneš in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 212.

  87 “The morale of the German soldier”: Memo of Czechoslovak armed forces chief of staff, General Ludvík Krejčí, to the Supreme State Defense Council, September 9, 1939, quoted in Jiří Doležal and Jan Křen, eds., Czechoslovakia’s Fight (Prague: Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1964), 15–17.

  88 “We must warn Hitler”: Nicolson, quoted in Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Churchill Conspiracy of 1940 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 129.

  88 “None of us can even think”: Henderson, quoted in Bruegel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich, 255.

  89 “cruel, overbearing [and] . . . ruthless”: Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, cable to Washington, D.C., from U.S. Embassy in London, September 17, 1938, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1938, vol. 1, (Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 1955), 610.

  91 “It depends solely on you”: Letter from Czechoslovak patriots, quoted in Josef Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia: The Meaning of Its History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 131–132.

  91 “It is hence understandable”: Beneš, quoted in Mackenzie, Dr Beneš, 207.

  92 That was “inevitable”: Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan (1938–1945), ed. David Dilks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), 102.

  93 “A week ago”: Ibid., 103.

  93 “had a narrow mind”: Chamberlain, in notes from meeting of British cabinet, September 24, 1938, quoted in Bruegel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich, 284.

  93 “extremely anxious to secure”: Cadogan, Diaries, 104.

  94 “It was obvious”: Prokop Drtina, quoted in Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia, 135.

  94 “The national will manifested”: Ibid., 126–127.

  95 “Two men stand arrayed”: Hitler, September 26, 1938, quoted in Mackenzie, Dr Beneš, 13.

  96 “I’m wobbling all over”: Chamberlain, quoted in Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 884.

  96 “How horrible, fantastic, incredible”: Chamberlain, September 27, 1937, quoted in Cadogan, Diaries, 108.

  96 “However much we may sympathize”: Ibid., 108.

  99 “tired, but pleasantly tired”: Chamberlain, quoted in Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, 254.

  99 “The representatives of the Czechoslovak army”: Beneš, quoted in Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia, 139.

  100 “A war—a big European war”: Beneš, quoted in ibid., 139.

  8. A Hopeless Task

  101 “Our personal security”: M. Korbel, essay.

  101 “in her hour of crisis”: Josef Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 147.

  102 “the valiant ethos”: Ibid., 148.

  102 “Beneš was wrong to yield”: Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1: The Gathering Storm (London: Houghton-Mifflin, 1948), 272.

  104 “preserved for the exacting tasks”: George Kennan, From Prague After Munich, 1938–1940 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 5.

  105 “Certainly not”: Keitel, testimony at the Nuremberg trials, quoted in Churchill, The Gathering Storm, 286.

  105 “Some day the Czechs will see”: Chamberlain, letter to archbishop of Canterbury, quoted in Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 66.

  106 “Oh Mr. Masaryk”: Lady Chamberlain, quoted in Harold Nicolson, The War Years: Diaries and Letters 1939–1945, ed. Nigel Nicolson (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 354–355.

  106 “We have suffered a total”: Churchill, address to the House of Commons, October 13, 1938, quoted in Stanislav Fejfar, A Fighter’s Call to Arms: Defending Britain and France Against the Luftwaffe 1940–42, ed. Norman Franks with Simon Muggleton (London: Grub Street, 2010), 13.

  107 “the first prime minister”: Dorothy Parker, quoted in Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, Comes the Reckoning (London: Putnam, 1947), 23.

  110 “The question is”: Hitler, quoted in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luža, eds., A History of the Czechoslovak Republic 1918–1948 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 268.

  111 “What would they do”: Veronika Herman Bromberg, “Tell Me Again So I Won’t Forget: My Father’s Stories of Survival and Courage During World War II,” unpublished manuscript, 29.

  113 “There are several thousand”: U.S. Embassy, Prague, cable to Department of State, March 19, 1939. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939, vol 5, Diplomatic Matters (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1955), 310.

  113 “To leave Czechoslovakia immediately”: M. Korbel, unpublished essay.

  PART II: APRIL 1939–APRIL 1942

  9. Starting Over

  118 “common butchery”: New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, quoted in Eduard Beneš, Memoirs of Dr Eduard Beneš (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 61.

  118 “I’ll be back”: Franklin Roosevelt, quoted in “Roosevelt War Talk Begins and Roosevelt Peace Call Ends a Fateful Week of Power Politics,” Life, April 24, 1939, 20.

  118 “the future of American youth”: Walter Winchell, Walter Lippmann, and David Lawrence, quoted in “The Nation’s Columnists Divide in Great Debate on American War & Peace,” ibid., 24–25.

  118 “prevent the hideous consequences”: Ibid.

  118 “a second peace conference”: Ibid.

  119 “political commitments”: 1936 Democratic Party platform, Democratic Party Book, 1936, 24.

  119 “I wonder”: Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in “The Nation’s Columnists Divide in Great Debate on American War & Peace,” Life, April 24, 1939, 24–25.

  120 “I don’t know how things”: Churchill, quoted in Harold Nicolson, The War Years: Diaries and Letters 1939–1945, ed. Nigel Nicolson (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 166.

  120 “Here is a key”: Korbel, “Portrait of J. Masaryk,” unpublished manuscript.

  120 “clever as a bag of monkeys”: Shiela Grant Duff, The Parting of Ways: A Personal Account of the Thirties (London: Peter Owen, 1982), 129.

  121 “You cannot hope”: Quoted in ibid., 72.

  122 “a man called Zid”: J. Korbel, letter to Hubert Ripka, June 21, 1939.

  122 “I wasn’t allowed”: Nicholas Winton, quoted in Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (New York: Bloomsbury, 2000), 151.

  124 “We took her over”: J. Korbel, postscript on a letter from Dáša Deimlová to her parents, July 2, 1939.

  125 “If the worst came to the worst”: Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 148.

  127 “Of course it’s all a game”: Stalin, quoted in Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941 (New York: Penguin, 2007), 258.

  10. Occupation and Resistance

  129 “Prague children beg for food”: Anecdote adapted from George Kennan, From Prague After Munich, 1938–1940 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 117.

  130 “I am looking forward”: Emil Hácha, quoted in Jan Drabek, “V Krajina: Hero of European Resistance and Canadian Wilderness,
” unpublished manuscript, 31.

  131 “one of humanity’s oldest”: Kennan, From Prague After Munich, x.

  133 “If German authority”: Ibid., 235.

  138 “With great fanfare”: Tahra Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for the Children in the Bohemian Lands 1900–1948 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 203.

  139 “friends went shopping”: Miroslav Karny, “The Genocide of the Czech Jews,” ed. David P. Stern, 2009, www.phy6.org/outreach/Jewish/TerezinBook.htm.

  140 “Milena cried a lot”: Greta Deimlová, letter to Margarethe Deimlová, July 6, 1939.

  11. The Lamps Go Out

  144 “The hour of retribution”: J. Masaryk, Czech-language BBC broadcast, September 8, 1939.

  145 “We huddled around”: Radomír Luža and Christina Vella, The Hitler Kiss: A Memoir of the Czech Resistance (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 29.

  147 “sat down on air”: BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  148 “We shall fight”: Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan (1938–1945), ed. David Dilks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), 214.

  148 “People call me defeatist”: Lloyd George, quoted in Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Churchill Conspiracy of 1940 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 258.

  148 One refugee compared: Sonia Tomara, “Nazi-Red Animosity Described Along Tense Frontier Border in Poland,” New York Herald Tribune, November 20, 1939, in Reporting World War II, part 1: American Journalism 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 30.

  149 “ten times as confident”: Chamberlain, address to the House of Commons, London, April 4, 1940, quoted in Olson, Troublesome Young Men, 276.

  150 “When Winston was born”: Baldwin, quoted in Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941 (New York: Penguin, 2007), 21.

  151 “The flat countryside”: Rommel, quoted in John Carey, ed., Eyewitness to History (New York: Avon Books, 1987), 529.

  151 “an awful day”: Cadogan, Diaries, 283.

  152 “I trust you realize”: Churchill, quoted in Kershaw, Fateful Choices, 209.

  152 “holding the bag”: Kennedy, quoted in ibid., 210.

  152 “drunken French soldiers”: Jan Stránský, East Wind over Prague (New York: Random House, 1950), 10.

  153 “on those terrible encumbered”: Ibid.

  153 “position of B.E.F. quite awful”: Cadogan, Diaries, 290–291.

  153 “From the margin of the sea”: John Charles Austin, quoted in Carey, ed., Eyewitness to History, 532.

  153 “blood, toil, tears, and sweat”: Churchill, address to the House of Commons, May 13, 1940, http://churchill-society-london.org.uk/SpchIndx.html.

  153 “fight on the seas”: Churchill, address to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940, ibid.

  154 “The Battle of Britain”: Churchill, address to the House of Commons, June 18, 1940, ibid.

  12. The Irresistible Force

  157 “charming . . . a pleasure”: Prokop Drtina, Československo Můj Osud (Prague: Melantrich, 1991), 564.

  157 “Madlenka is very cute”: Dáša Deimlová, letter to her parents, January 1940.

  157 “When it rains”: Dáša Deimlová, letter to her parents, July 9, 1939.

  158 “We were living”: M. Korbel, unpublished essay.

  160 “pretty awful”: Cadogan, Diaries, 273.

  163 “That is where the officers”: Renata A. Kauders, “From Prague to Denver: Sketches from My Life,” unpublished manuscript, 38.

  164 “the unbounded French drive”: Hitler, quoted in Hans Kohn, ed., The Modern World (1848–Present) (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 223.

  164 “the war is over, Hermann”: Hitler, quoted in Marcel Jullian, The Battle of Britain, July–September 1940 (New York: Orion, 1967), 6.

  165 “Since, despite its desperate”: Hitler, July 16, 1940, quoted in ibid., 24.

  165 “I feel it is my duty”: Hitler, July 19, 1940, quoted in ibid., 35–36.

  165 “It is a pity!”: Joyce, quoted in J. A. Cole, Lord Haw-Haw: The Full Story (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964), 164.

  166 “German parachutists”: quoted in Jullian, The Battle of Britain, 78.

  167 “Madam, there is no honey”: Philip Ziegler, London at War, 1939–1945 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 159.

  13. Fire in the Sky

  169 “From Reichsmarshal Göring”: Göring, August 13, 1940, quoted in Richard Hough and Denis Richards, The Battle of Britain (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 154.

  172 A Luftwaffe pilot: William Shirer, “Berlin After a Year of War: September 1940,” in Reporting World War II, part 1: American Journalism 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 121–123.

  173 “Since they attack our cities”: Hitler, September 4, 1940, quoted in Hough and Richards, The Battle of Britain, 244.

  173 “The British have been asking”: Hitler, September 4, 1940, quoted in J. A. Cole, Lord Haw-Haw: The Full Story (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964), 171.

  174 “Suddenly we were gaping”: Desmond Flower, quoted in John Carey, ed., Eyewitness to History (New York: Avon Books, 1987), 537–538.

  177 “I’m so sorry”: Roosevelt, quoted in Hough and Richards, The Battle of Britain, 294.

  178 “generally a very pleasant”: Mrs. Orlow Tollett, interview by Libby Cook and Sonia Knight, London, early 2011.

  178 “The pub had a direct hit”: Tollett, interview for HistoryTalk, Reminiscence at Home, London Care Connections, David Welsh, coordinator, May 20, 2004. Interview manuscript forwarded courtesy of Isobel Czarska.

  178 “Don’t be afraid”: Anecdote based on the recollections of the author’s cousin Dáša (Deimlová) Simová.

  179 “The whizz of a flying bomb”: Prokop Drtina, Československo Můj Osud (Prague: Melantrich, 1991), 573.

  179 “I have become”: Hess, quoted in Stanislav Fejfar, A Fighter’s Call to Arms: Defending Britain and France Against the Luftwaffe 1940–42, ed. Norman Franks with Simon Muggleton (London: Grub Street, 2010), 91–92.

  179 “We were flying”: Fejfar, quoted in ibid., 94.

  180 “Stanislav did not take”: Mrs. Fejfar, quoted in ibid., 14.

  14. The Alliance Comes Together

  182 “a man would not say”: Roosevelt, press conference, Washington, D.C., December 17, 1940, quoted in Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941 (New York: Penguin, 2007), 227.

  183 “They’re sustained in part”: Edward R. Murrow, “The London Blitz, September 1940,” in Reporting World War II, part 1: American Journalism 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 87, 93.

  183 “There is a tremendous vitality”: James R. Reston, “Nazi Fliers Foiled by London’s Smoke,” New York Times, October 23, 1940.

  183 “Please pass the marmalade”: Brian Meredith, radio broadcast, July 4, 1940, quoted in Harwood L. Childs and John B. Whitton, Propaganda by Short Wave (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1942), 134.

  184 “It is industrial England”: J. B. Priestley, radio broadcast, quoted in ibid., 117.

  185 “I suppose you wish to know”: Hopkins, January 1941, quoted in Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Alexander Cadogan (1938–1948), ed. David Dilks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), 348.

  187 “at last an Englishman”: Beneš, quoted in Vít Smetana, In the Shadow of Munich: British Policy Towards Czechoslovakia from the Endorsement to the Renunciation of the Munich Agreement (1938–1942) (Prague: Charles University, Karolinum Press, 2008), 217.

  188 “I see no reason”: Churchill, memo to Eden, April 20, 1941, quoted in ibid., 217.

  194 “Any man or state”: Churchill, radio broadcast, June 22, 1941, quoted in Cadogan, Diaries, 389.

  196
“heroic vanguard of mankind”: Josef Korbel, The Communist Subversion of Czechoslovakia (1938–1948): The Failure of Coexistence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), 56.

  196 “You who labor in factories”: J. Masaryk, radio broadcast, September 1941, quoted in Jan Masaryk, Jan Masaryk: Speaking to My Country (London: Lincolns-Prager, 1944), 122.

  15. The Crown of Wenceslas

  201 “Not a single German”: Heydrich, October 2, 1941, quoted in Jiří Doležal and Jan Křen, eds., Czechoslovakia’s Fight (Prague: Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1964), 60–66.

  202 “If we give these gourmands”: Hitler, quoted in Vojtech Mastny, The Czechs Under Nazi Rule: The Failure of National Resistance, 1939–1942 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 206.

  202 “always remained a happy”: Bormann, June 7, 1942, quoted in Reinhard Heydrich: The Ideal National Socialist (Lincoln, Nebr.: Preuss Press, 2004), 48.

  203 “The Jew,” wrote Heydrich: Heydrich, quoted in ibid., 40.

  203 “I too am a Zionist”: Eichmann, quoted in Cara de Silva, ed., In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1996), xxxviii n.

  207 “Theresienstadt will allow us”: Eichmann, quoted in George E. Berkley, Hitler’s Gift: The Story of Theresienstadt (Boston: Branden Books, 1995), 58.

  207 “a spectacular action”: Beneš, quoted in František Moravec, Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General František Moravec (London: Bodley Head, 1975), 210.

  209 “One of them seemed”: Táborský, quoted in Callum MacDonald, The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the SS “Butcher of Prague” (New York: Da Capo, 1989), 125.

  209 “they were both ordinary chaps”: Vladimir Skacha, quoted in Miraslav Ivanov, Target: Heydrich (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 51.

  PART III: MAY 1942–APRIL 1945

  16. Day of the Assassins

  213 “If you need anything”: Marie Moravcová, quoted by Marie Soukupová, quoted in Miraslav Ivanov, Target: Heydrich (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 68.

  215 “You see that wooden crate, Ata?”: František Spinka, quoted in ibid., 117.