Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (134 page)

Hitler also radiated optimism among those closest to him. “He does not think London will intervene and he’s determined to act,” wrote Goebbels, who had been invited to spend a couple of days on the Obersalzberg in late August.

He knows what he wants and is taking a direct route towards his goal. At the slightest provocation, he intends to solve the Czech question…The whole thing will have to be rolled out as quickly as possible. You always have to take a large risk, if you want to make a large gain.
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Goebbels no doubt wrote these words in his diary with an eye towards it being published at a later date; at the time Hitler hardly behaved with that sort of directness on the Sudeten German issue. On the contrary, he continually vacillated between cold-hearted determination and indecision. In late August at the Berghof, he declined to receive the German ambassador to Britain, Herbert von Dirksen, who brought a message from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
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On 2 September, when he was visited by Konrad Henlein, Hitler made no bones about the fact that he was considering a military solution, but he was still undecided as to when the attack should be launched. The two men agreed to let the Czechs “stew in their own juices” in the hope that they would gradually “soften up.”
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Nonetheless, his fundamental decision in late May to destroy Czechoslovakia in the foreseeable future put Hitler under pressure to act. The day after Henlein’s visit, Hitler summoned Brauchitsch and Keitel to the Berghof, where 1 October was provisionally set as a date for the attack.
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Meanwhile, fear of a new war was growing within the German population, to a far greater extent than it had during the
Anschluss
of Austria. In contrast to the spring, when tension had given way to euphoria within the space of a few days, the Sudeten crisis went on for months. The increasingly shrill anti-Czech propaganda rebounded against the regime. Instead of creating sympathy for the allegedly persecuted Sudeten Germans, it stoked fears that this time there would be no way to resolve the issue without violence. Local Nazi reports spoke of a “war psychosis,” and SPD-in-exile observers described much the same. One of them wrote:

People fear that war will come and it will be Germany’s downfall. Nowhere can any enthusiasm for war be felt…No one in the working classes (and very few from other social ranks) thinks that the Sudetenland is so important that Germany must have it at all costs. If war comes, it will be most unpopular in Germany.
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The Nazi Party conference of 1938, with its theme of “Greater Germany,” was also dominated by the Sudeten German issue. Late in the evening of 9 September, after the political directors had turned out for a roll call, there was a discussion in Hitler’s hotel about the operation plan for the Green Scenario. Walther von Brauchitsch and Franz Halder had been specifically summoned to Nuremberg. Hitler had suggested making territorial inroads by sending strong armoured divisions deep into Czechoslovakia and thereby bringing about a speedy outcome, and he was shocked that his generals had not followed this idea. He criticised “the wasting of time” and came straight out and demanded that attack plans be “amended to conform to his wishes.” Brauchitsch and Halder yielded and tried to mollify their commander-in-chief with declarations of loyalty. Nonetheless, afterwards Hitler complained about “fear and cowardice in the army.” In the best of all worlds, he said, he would have turned his armies over to his Gauleiter: “They have faith, while the army commanders do not.”
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Hitler’s concluding speech at the rally on 12 September was highly anticipated. As was his wont, he began by recalling the “days of struggle” before proceeding to his main topic: the “unbearable” fate of Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. The German Reich, he declared, would “no longer accept further oppression against and persecution of three and a half million Germans.” He then issued a threat to the Western democracies: if they were to deny the Sudeten Germans the right of self-determination, it would have “severe consequences.” Hitler also warned Czechoslovakian President Eduard Beneš: “The Germans in Czechoslovakia are neither defenceless nor have they been abandoned.”
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For Goebbels, the Führer was “at the height of his rhetorical powers,” while Shirer remarked: “I have never heard Hitler quite so full of hate, his audience quite so on the borders of bedlam.”
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It did not take long for the speech to have an echo. There was a wave of protests and confrontations in the Sudeten German territories, whereupon the government in Prague imposed martial law there. “Things are developing the way we wished,” noted Goebbels with satisfaction.”
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Then, on 14 September, something no one in the Nazi leadership had anticipated happened. Neville Chamberlain requested a meeting with Hitler, in an attempt to jointly find a peaceful way out of the crisis. Hitler could hardly reject the request without appearing in German and international public opinion like the warmonger he truly was, so he invited Chamberlain to come to the Berghof the following day. On the morning of 15 September, the almost-70-year-old British prime minister got on a plane for the first time in his life. He was accompanied by his close adviser Sir Horace Wilson and the director of the Central Europe division in the Foreign Office, William Strang. The British delegation was received by Joachim von Ribbentrop at Oberwiesenfeld airport in Munich, and they travelled on to Berchtesgaden by chartered train. Not coincidentally, military transports rolled down the tracks next to the train for the entire journey. They provided a martial backdrop to the British government’s struggle to preserve peace.
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Chamberlain arrived at the Berghof shortly after 5 p.m. Hitler welcomed him on the front steps. After greeting one another, they took tea in the Great Hall. To relax the awkward atmosphere, Chamberlain steered the conversation towards the paintings of which the art lover Hitler was so proud.
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At the prime minister’s request, the subsequent talks were held one-to-one in Hitler’s office. As had also been the case with Kurt von Schuschnigg in February, Ribbentrop was made to wait in the anteroom. The interpreter Paul Schmidt was thus the only other witness to Hitler and Chamberlain’s dramatic three-hour discussion. Hitler began calmly but grew increasingly excitable as he levelled more and more severe accusations against the government in Prague. When Chamberlain said that he was willing to discuss all German complaints as long as Hitler ruled out the use of force, Hitler responded: “Violence? Who’s talking about violence here? Herr Beneš uses violence against my countrymen in the Sudetenland…I’m not willing to accept it any longer…In the short term, I’m going to solve this problem myself, one way or the other.” The composed Chamberlain responded that if Hitler had irrevocably decided to move against Czechoslovakia, he need not have let him come to Berchtesgaden and that it would perhaps be better if he left since there seemed to be no point to his visit.

Schmidt had the impression that a critical point had been reached and that the question of war or peace was on a knife-edge. But to his amazement, Hitler changed roles. From one moment to the next, he transformed himself from a hot-headed, unpredictable megalomaniac into a rational, reasonably arguing negotiation partner. “If you agree that the principle of self-determination is the basis of the Sudeten question,” Hitler proposed, “we can then talk about how this principle can be put into practice.” Chamberlain responded that he would first have to consult his cabinet and suggested another meeting. The two men parted with Hitler assuring Chamberlain that he would not use force against Czechoslovakia in the meantime.
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Hardly had Chamberlain departed than Hitler informed Ribbentrop and Weizsäcker about how the talks had gone. “He clapped his hands like someone celebrating a particularly pleasurable success,” Weizsäcker recalled. “He felt he had manoeuvred this dried-up civilian into a corner.”
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If he recognised the principle of self-determination, Chamberlain would have to be willing to support the cession of Sudeten territories to Germany. If the Czechs refused, Hitler believed, there were no further obstacles to a German military attack. If, contrary to expectations, the Czechs accepted this loss of territory, he could claim it as a victory and proceed with the ultimate destruction of Czechoslovakia at a later point, possibly the following spring.
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In the meantime, the situation in the Sudetenland became more and more tense. On the day of Chamberlain’s visit Konrad Henlein issued a statement declaring that it was “ultimately impossible” for Sudeten Germans to remain in Czechoslovakia due to the “irreconcilable will for destruction” of the government in Prague. The declaration ended with the slogan: “We want to return home to the Reich.”
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Two days later, on orders from Berlin, a Sudeten German paramilitary unit was established, whose main task was to foment further unrest and stage acts of provocation. At the same time Goebbels stepped up his propaganda campaign against what he called “Czech terror,” writing that “The mood must be brought to a boil.”
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The military planning of an attack against Czechoslovakia also continued. The main thing, Hitler told Goebbels, who had hurried to the Obersalzberg, was to keep their nerve: “We’re already halfway to winning the war.”
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Chamberlain was anything but impressed by Hitler’s appearance. “He looks entirely undistinguished,” the British prime minister wrote to his sister on 19 September. “You would never notice him in a crowd and would take him for the house painter he once was.” But he also wrote in that same letter that he believed Hitler was a man of his word—a grievous error, as he would soon discover.
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After his cabinet agreed to back him, Chamberlain agreed a joint line with France towards Prague. On 19 September, the British and French governments sent Beneš identical letters demanding that Czechoslovakia cede all territories with a German population of more than 50 per cent in return for guarantees of its new borders. Initially the government in Prague refused, but on 21 September it yielded to Western pressure.

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Ahead of his second meeting with Chamberlain in Bad Godesberg, Hitler settled on a negotiating position that was as extreme as possible. “The Führer intends to present Chamberlain with clear demands,” noted Goebbels on 22 September.

We get to draw the demarcation line as generously as possible. This area will be immediately vacated by the Czechs. The German Wehrmacht will march in. Everything within eight days. It will take that long to march in. If the other side is not happy with our [new] border, then a plebiscite in the entire area. That’s to happen before Christmas…If Chamberlain demands new negotiations at a later date, then the Führer no longer feels bound by any prior agreements and can act as he wishes.
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At noon on 22 September, Chamberlain’s plane landed in Cologne. He was housed with his delegation in the Hotel Petersberg, a short way up from Königswinter, and that afternoon Hitler received him in the Hotel Dreesen on the other side of the Rhine. This time the prime minister had brought along an interpreter of his own, Ivone Kirkpatrick, to avoid any misunderstandings.
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Chamberlain was confident going into the negotiations. He had already secured the agreement of France and the Czechoslovakian government that the Sudeten territories would be ceded to Germany, thereby fulfilling Hitler’s central demand. It was only reasonable to expect that the parties would reach quick agreement on this basis. He was therefore unpleasantly surprised when Hitler revealed that, “after the developments of the past few days,” he could no longer accept this deal. “All at once, Chamberlain sat bolt upright in his chair,” Paul Schmidt reported. “His face flushed in anger at the refusal and the lack of recognition of his effort.” Hitler then presented a map with the new demarcation line and demanded that the occupation of the territories to be ceded “happen immediately.” Chamberlain objected that this was a completely new demand that went beyond what they had agreed in Berchtesgaden, but Hitler remained adamant, declaring that he could no longer tolerate the persecution of Sudeten Germans by the Czechs. He also rejected the proposal for an international guarantee of Czech independence, arguing that Polish and Hungarian demands on Czech territory would also have to be settled soon. As the first round of negotiations concluded, the British contingent was left quite dispirited.
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The following day, Chamberlain did not appear for the scheduled continuation of talks. Instead he sent a letter that declared Hitler’s new demands incompatible with principles previously agreed upon. If German troops immediately advanced into the Sudetenland, the government in Prague would have no choice other than to order their troops to resist. The impact of the letter in the Hotel Dreesen was, in Schmidt’s words, “like a bomb” had been dropped.
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The German delegation grew edgy. William Shirer, who had the chance to observe Hitler up close in the hotel garden, was struck by “ugly black patches under his eyes” and a nervous twitching of his right shoulder, concluding: “I think the man is on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”
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Nonetheless, in the response which his interpreter delivered that afternoon, Hitler stuck to his demands. The negotiations seemed to have reached a complete impasse. “The whole situation is so tense it’s coming apart at the seams,” noted Goebbels.
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But again Chamberlain proved conciliatory, offering to serve as a mediator between Berlin and Prague and asking for the new German demands to be collected in a memorandum. He would travel to Hitler’s hotel on the other side of the Rhine to pick them up and get clarifications from Hitler.
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