Hitler
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In a further major memorandum of 15–16 July, Beck made a last-ditch effort to win over Brauchitsch, stating flat-out: “The prospect of destroying Czechoslovakia with military force without alerting England and France does not exist for the foreseeable future.” The conflict, Beck argued, would “automatically expand into a European or world war, which as far as anyone could predict would end in a general catastrophe and not just a military defeat for Germany.” The chief of staff called upon Brauchitsch to dissuade Hitler of the idea of a violent resolution of the Czech question “until the military situation has changed decisively.”214 In a presentation he gave to Brauchitsch, Beck went even further and mooted the idea of a collective resignation among military leaders in an attempt to get Hitler to abandon his risky policies of conflict. “Soldiers’ obedience reaches its limits when their knowledge, their conscience and their sense of responsibility forbids them to carry out an order,” Beck declared. “Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.”215 But neither Brauchitsch nor the majority of Germany’s military leaders had the slightest inclination to rebel in a way that was utterly atypical of Prussian officers. That became clear at a meeting of high-ranking military leaders on 4 August. Most of the participants were critical of Hitler’s plans for war, but no one said a single word about coming together to resist them.216
Hitler got wind of the meeting and immediately summoned Walther von Brauchitsch to the Berghof. Hitler was already convinced that there were too many doomsayers among his military leadership. “Our generals in Berlin of course once more have their pants full,” he had scoffed in late July in Bayreuth.217 He read Brauchitsch the Riot Act, raising his voice so much that the guests taking some fresh air on the terrace below Hitler’s office decided they would be best advised to go inside. In his many years of service to Hitler, Nicolaus von Below recalled, this was “the only time he had got that loud during a conversation with a general.”218
On 10 August, Hitler ordered the heads of the general staff of the armies and army groups earmarked for mobilisation to come to the Berghof. Most of them were younger generals, and for many it was the first time that they had met their supreme commander in person. Hitler put on a completely different persona to the one he had presented to Brauchitsch. Before lunch, he talked to them casually, “expressing moderate, sensible views, calm in tone and open to objections—in short, he was playing the role of a man you could talk to, and not that of the wild dictator,” Fritz Wiedemann reported.219 In an afternoon speech that went on for hours, Hitler tried to win the officers’ support for his plans, but in the following discussion he encountered both reservations and approval. In the days that followed, according to Gerhard Engel, his disappointment expressed itself in “a long critical litany about the lukewarm, nerveless leaders of the army.”220
Hitler suspected that Beck was behind the resistance, and he interpreted the latter’s memorandum of 15–16 July, which Brauchitsch brought to his attention, as confirmation of that belief. In his diary, Hitler’s military attaché described the dictator’s reaction:
He said people were trying to sabotage his work. Instead of the general staff being glad that it could work in line with its very own way of thinking, it refused any thought of war…It was high time for the chief of staff to disappear…It was a scandal that he now sat in the chair once occupied by Moltke. Moltke had to be restrained by Bismarck. Now the situation was the exact opposite.221
On 15 August, in a speech in Jüterbog to his commanding generals, Hitler rejected Beck’s ideas in no uncertain terms. Three days later, after Brauchitsch had declined to defend him, Beck submitted his resignation. Hitler accepted it after three further days, but insisted that the resignation initially be kept secret because of the tense foreign-policy situation. On 1 September, Quartermaster General and Artillery General Franz Halder was named Beck’s successor.222
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In early August 1938, the British government sent Lord Walter Runciman to Prague to try to get the Czechoslovakian government and the Sudeten German Party to come to an agreement. “Runciman’s whole mission stinks,” wrote William Shirer. “He says he has come here to mediate between the Czech government and the Sudeten Party of Konrad Henlein. But Henlein is not a free agent. He cannot negotiate. He is completely under the orders of Hitler.”223 Although Prague yielded to British pressure and made one concession after another, even going as far as accepting nearly all the demands in the Sudeten Party’s Karlsbad manifesto, the representatives of the German minority always found a pretext to demand more and more. Hitler, of course, was not interested in a peaceful settlement. In early June he had told Goebbels to ramp up anti-Czech propaganda: “We have to keep on stirring up trouble and rebellion. Never let them relax.”224 That entire summer, German newspapers published reports about alleged “atrocities” carried out by Czechs against Sudeten Germans, stoking popular anger.
In mid-July, Fritz Wiedemann made an unofficial trip to London with a message from Hitler to Lord Halifax. Wiedemann was to tell the British foreign secretary that Britain was showing too little regard for Germany’s interests and should learn to accept “German existential necessities.” The Führer was “still quite embittered” about the British government’s behaviour in the “weekend crisis” and dismayed about the British press’s criticism of him. And Hitler formulated his central message in unmistakable terms: “The Sudeten German question must be resolved one way or the other. If the Czechs do not give in, one day it will be solved with violence.” Halifax received Wiedemann on 18 July in his private apartment. When the foreign minister asked for a written statement to confirm that Germany planned no violent measures against Czechoslovakia, Wiedemann answered, as instructed: “You will not be getting this declaration.” The trip did nothing to relax the tension, even though Halifax did articulate the hope that he would some day greet the Führer side by side with the king of England at Buckingham Palace.225
In July, as he did every year, Hitler attended the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, but this time he was preoccupied by thoughts of the imminent military conflict. He inspected the latest designs of fortifications for the West Wall on Germany’s border and made sketches of how he wanted them built.226 Over lunch he declared: “I want to finally get a good night’s sleep. That’s why I’ve ordered the construction of fortifications that will prevent the enemy from invading from the west. Germans shall be able to sleep peacefully again.” Minister Hanns Kerrl, one of the lunch guests, was craven enough to respond: “My Führer, the German people will always sleep peacefully as long as you’re alive.”227 On 31 July, Hitler interrupted his visit for a day to attend the German Gymnastics and Sports Festival in Breslau. There, Sudeten Germans marched by the VIP stand, shouting “Back home to the Reich!,” Goebbels noted. “The people yelled, cheered and cried. The Führer was deeply moved. When the hour is at hand, there will be a true storm.”228
But Hitler still had not set a date for attacking Czechoslovakia. “The Führer is still brooding over the Prague question,” Goebbels wrote on 10 August. “In his mind’s eye he’s already solved it and divided [the country] up into new Gaue.”229 Apparently at this point Hitler still thought that it would take some time to move against Prague. Eight days later, Goebbels summarised Hitler’s thoughts on the western fortifications as: “By the first frost, they’ll be finished. Then we’ll be unassailable from the west, and France will no longer be able to do anything. With that, the solution of our central European problems can begin to ripen. In any case, we’ll have our back free.”230 From 27 to 29 August, Hitler, Keitel and Jodl went on an inspection tour of Germany’s western border. In Aachen, in the salon carriage of Hitler’s special train, the commander of Army Group 2, Colonel General Wilhelm Adam, reported that only a third of the fortifications would be completed by the end of October. When Adam proceeded to express his opinion that the Western powers would not sit back and do nothing if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, Hitler went into a rage. “We have no time to listen to this s
tuff any longer,” he fumed. “The English have no army reserves, and the French are facing massive domestic problems. They’ll be wary of taking us on.” Adam responded coolly that there was no need then for further discussion and suggested they go out into the field. As was so often the case when someone stood up to him, Hitler regained his composure on the spot, and the inspection continued.231
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.232
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.233 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.”234 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.235
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.236
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.”237
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.”238 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.”239 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.”240
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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.241
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.242 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.243
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.”244 If he recognised the princi
ple 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.245
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.”246 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.”247 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.”248
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.249 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.