During 1937, Hitler finally gave up hope of an alliance with Britain, which he believed had declined as a world power; he now focused entirely on securing an alliance with Italy.1 He still received prominent British guests and tried to convince them of his earnest and heartfelt desire for friendship, but he increasingly showed his disappointment and incomprehension that his advances met with no response.2
In Hitler’s view, the new alliance was being forged above all by German and Italian cooperation in the Spanish Civil War. For this cooperation would inevitably provoke tensions (and, therefore, common diplomatic interests) in the relationship of both powers with Britain, which was continuing to try to reduce the conflict through a Non-Intervention Committee, in which Germany was also represented. From April 1937 onwards, German warships were taking part in international naval patrols in order to impose an embargo on the two civil war belligerents; but simultaneously, since summer 1936, Germany had been supplying Franco with weapons and actively supporting him with a unit of the Condor Legion composed of Wehrmacht soldiers and airmen.
On 29 May, the heavy cruiser ‘Deutschland’, docked in Ibiza harbour, was bombed by a Spanish Republican plane, a raid which caused thirty-one deaths and numerous casualties. Hitler used this as an excuse to launch a ‘revenge attack’ on 31 May, using several German warships to bombard Almería harbour. Germany also suspended its cooperation with the Non-Intervention Committee until 12 June.3 On 23 June Germany withdrew its ships from the international naval patrols after the cruiser ‘Leipzig’ was torpedoed, presumably by a Republican submarine, and the committee failed to agree on a common response.4 Hitler also postponed indefinitely a planned trip to London by Foreign Minister Neurath.5
Hitler believed that the now firm alliance with Italy would allow him to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Reich in the not too distant future; he would no longer need to take account of the views of Britain, his previous alliance candidate. In autumn 1936, he had already persuaded a number of Balkan politicians to agree to a German move against Czechoslovakia on the basis that a fundamental clash was developing between a communist-led bloc and an emerging bloc of ‘authoritarian’ states led by Germany. In March he had already told Goebbels bluntly that ‘we must have [Austria and Czechoslovakia] to round off our territory’.6 The Propaganda Minister had already altered German propaganda vis-à-vis Czechoslovakia a fortnight earlier. Now, the emphasis was no longer on its alleged bolshevization, but rather on the unfulfilled demands of the Sudeten Germans, which from now onwards were going to be used as a lever against the government in Prague.7
During 1937, Hitler also increased the pressure on Austria. In the course of his visit to Italy in January 1937, Göring had openly raised the issue of the Anschluss with Mussolini; however, the upshot of the exchange of views was unclear. The Italians relied on Göring’s remark that Germany was not planning any ‘surprises’ in relation to the Austrian question; Göring relied on Mussolini’s promise that he would not deploy any troops to the Brenner pass in the event of an Austrian crisis. In any event Göring was left with the impression that the ‘Duce’ had not been totally opposed.8 Visits to Rome by Göring in April and Neurath in May convinced the Germans that a move on Austria would not provoke Italian intervention.9 Over the next few months, the Austrian government was forced to make further concessions to the Austrian Nazis and the Reich Germans living in Austria.10 During consultations in Vienna, which took place a year after the July 1936 agreement, the Germans managed to push through additions to the previous arrangement,11 and, on 12 July, Hitler appointed his economic adviser, Keppler, who had taken part in the negotiations, to be his representative for Austrian affairs.12
The choral festival in Breslau, which Hitler opened at the end of July, saw a strong emphasis on ‘Greater German’ solidarity: 30,000 singers from abroad, mainly from Austria and Czechoslovakia, took part in the two-day event. In his address to the participants Hitler made a significant reference to the ‘95 million Germans’ of whom only two-thirds lived within the borders of the Reich.13 Back in Berlin and evidently still under the impression of the event in Breslau, Hitler told Goebbels in a private conversation that one day he would ‘make tabula rasa [in Austria]. . . . This state isn’t a state. Its people belong with us and will join us.’ Goebbels commented: ‘The Führer’s entry into Vienna will one day be his greatest triumph.’ But Hitler’s ambitions were not limited to Austria: ‘Czechoslovakia also isn’t a state. It will be overrun one day.’14 A few weeks later, just after the end of the Party Rally, Goebbels noted:15 ‘He says that Austria will one day be dealt with by force. That will be the final judgement of world history.’*
The Party Rally in Nuremberg, which began on 7 September, clearly demonstrated the regime’s growth in self-confidence. Anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism were the main themes of the event, and Hitler linked them together in his concluding speech. He warned that the Bolshevik movement, which was directed from Moscow, had an ‘international character’. In Russia, ‘by taking over the leadership of the Russian proletariat, the Jewish minority’ had succeeded in ‘not only deposing the previous leadership of society and the state, but in exterminating it without further ado’. As a result, Russia was now nothing but the ‘brutal dictatorship of an alien race’. By exploiting democracy and getting control of the communist movement, this ‘racial germ’ was now striving to dominate other nations. In describing this ‘threat to the world’ Hitler developed a positively apocalyptic vision: the Jews were taking ‘the torch of Bolshevist revolution right into the heart of the bourgeois–democratic world. . . . Just as when, in the past, the masses, driven wild by incitement, and supported by asocial elements released from prisons and penitentiaries, exterminated the natural and racially pure educated classes of various nations, bleeding them to death on the scaffold, the Jew will remain as the sole bearer of an albeit pathetic store of intellectual knowledge.’ Since the Jews were a ‘totally uncreative race’, ‘if they want to establish permanent rule somewhere, they have to exterminate quickly the existing intellectual elites of the other nations’.16 In his speech to the Party Rally Goebbels too claimed ‘the Jews . . . [are] mainly responsible for the spread of the Bolshevik world revolution’. However, Hitler struck out the passage in the script of his speech where Goebbels had claimed that Germany was the leader in the ‘world struggle against Bolshevism’, telling Goebbels he had done so ‘out of consideration for Mussolini, who is sensitive about this matter’.17
The visit of Benito Mussolini at the end of September represented the hitherto most important state visit in the history of the Third Reich, a high point in the regime’s attempts to acquire international recognition. The ‘Duce’ arrived in Munich on 25 September, where he was ceremonially received by Hitler at the railway station. The programme for his visit included, among other things, a visit to Hitler’s private apartment, a wreath-laying ceremony at the ‘Temples of Honour’ on Königsplatz, and a visit to the House of German Art. During this first meeting, Mussolini gained the impression that they were in such full agreement on the need for German–Italian cooperation that further political discussions between him and Hitler could be omitted from the programme.18 Thus, the main emphasis of the visit was on the joint appearances of the two dictators. During the following days, Mussolini, accompanied by Hitler, visited Wehrmacht manoeuvres and the Krupp armaments works.19
At the end of his visit Mussolini went to Berlin, where the reception accorded the ‘Duce’ was intended to put everything that had gone before in the shade. 28 September was declared a national holiday. The centre of Berlin was elaborately decorated. Hitler’s interpreter, Paul Schmidt, had the impression of being an ‘extra in a gigantic opera production. Huge flags hung from attics down to the ground in rows along the fronts of houses. In the dusk big searchlights brought out the last bit of colour in the green-white-red Italian flags and the red of the Nazi swastikas.’20 The whole population was urged by the press to participate in the spectacle and, thanks to the Party organization, the majority of Berliners did join in: a total of three million people were assembled on the Olympic grounds as well as on the approach route.21 Hitler was the first to speak to what was officially termed this ‘Demonstration of 115 Million People’. He emphasized that ‘the current strength of these two nations represents the strongest guarantee of the survival of a Europe that still possesses a sense of its cultural mission and is not prepared to allow destructive elements to cause it to collapse!’ Mussolini underlined ‘German–Italian solidarity’; it was the ‘expression and result of sharing natural bonds and common interests’. The visit ended the following day with a military parade.
On 20 October, four weeks after Mussolini’s visit, the German ambassador in Rome, Ulrich von Hassell, approached the foreign minister Ciano with the suggestion that Italy should join the German–Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact as third partner. Ciano was surprised by this idea and asked urgently whether there were secret clauses, since the text of the agreement seemed to him suspiciously thin. Hassell mendaciously denied this was the case, but Ciano remained unconvinced.22 Nevertheless, the Italian government accepted the idea and, on 6 November in Rome, Ribbentrop signed the document in which Italy declared its agreement to join the Anti-Comintern Pact.23
Meanwhile, on 5 November, Hitler signed a German–Polish Minorities Declaration, in which each state committed itself to protect the national group of the other, not to discriminate against their members in any way, and to respect their cultural autonomy. On the occasion of the signing of this agreement, Hitler received members of the Polish minority in Germany, declaring that it was the aim of his government to ensure that ‘the Polish ethnic group can live harmoniously and peacefully together with German citizens’, in order in this way to further strengthen friendly relations between the two countries. Moreover, Hitler met ambassador Lipski and a communiqué was issued stating ‘that German–Polish relations should not be damaged by the Danzig question’.24
The idea of also including Poland in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been mooted since the previous year, was not raised during these conversations. But it had not been dropped; in January 1939, Ribbentrop was to return to this project once again with foreign minister Beck.25
It was not by chance that, at the beginning of November 1937, Hitler initiated a major change in his foreign policy. The mass demonstrations at the Breslau Choral Festival, the Party Rally with its strongly anti-communist theme, the consolidation of the friendship with Italy, and indeed the prospect of forging an alliance under Germany’s leadership, all encouraged him in his decision now to embark on a policy of overt expansion. This policy was directed initially at Austria and Czechoslovakia.
In Hitler’s view Czechoslovakia was an artificial construct created by the Allies after the end of the First World War and he quite simply refused to recognize as a legitimate nation state. The anti-Czech prejudices of his youth played a part in this as well as geopolitical considerations. A glance at a map showed that, after the planned Anschluss with Austria, Czechoslovakia would be like a stake penetrating deep into the future ‘Greater Germany’. Protected by a strong ring of fortifications, it was a relatively well-armed state, which in May 1935 had made a defensive pact with the Soviet Union and was closely allied with France. As far as Hitler was concerned, it represented an important potential pillar of an anti-German bloc that was in the process of being constructed under communist leadership. Moreover, he was acting on the assumption that, by neutralizing this alleged threat, he would be expanding the ‘living space’ of his Reich by incorporating territories to which, from a traditional ‘Greater German’ perspective, there was already a historic claim.26 During 1937, Hitler became increasingly convinced that the alliance he was seeking – with Italy at its core, but with Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Spain, and possibly the Baltic states as potential candidates – would give him superiority over the ‘Bolshevik’ camp and so he could now go on the offensive. Franco’s military advances in the Spanish Civil War and France’s domestic political difficulties strengthened him in this view. The fact that the alliance with Britain had not come about seemed to have made many things easier.
The German minority in Czechoslovakia now provided Hitler with an important factor that could be utilized for undermining and violently breaking up Germany’s unloved neighbour. Using the pretext of securing the legitimate minority rights of ethnic Germans, the Reich government now began to exploit the Sudenten German Party (SdP), the German minority’s most important political organization, to implement its aggressive policy aimed at undermining Czechoslovakia.27
Germany’s relations with Czechoslovakia, which since the spring had been a target of its press propaganda, rapidly deteriorated during autumn 1937. The Propaganda Ministry exploited an incident in Teplitz-Schönau, in which Karl Hermann Frank, the leader of the strong Nazi group within the SdP and a member of the Prague parliament, became involved in a violent confrontation with the Czech police, to launch a new press campaign against Czechoslovakia.28 At the same time, Konrad Henlein, the chairman of the SdP, sent a protest to Prime Minister Beneš, in which he demanded autonomy for the ethnic Germans. The Czech government responded immediately to these developments, which had clearly been coordinated, by postponing the local government elections scheduled for 22 November and banning all political meetings. On 3 November, Goebbels stopped the campaign after Henlein had explained to him in a private conversation that he was afraid that events might get out of control, which the Reich government did not want to happen at that particular juncture.29 A ‘press truce’ was eventually agreed through negotiations with the Czech government30 lasting into the early months of 1938.31 Meanwhile, Henlein, who had been forced into a serious confrontation with the Prague government by the Nazis in his party, had concluded that the only way out of this difficult situation was total subordination to Hitler.32
On the afternoon of 5 November, in other words immediately after the agreement with Poland and a day before Italy’s signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Hitler invited War Minister Blomberg, Foreign Minister Neurath, and the commanders-in-chief of the army, navy, and air force to a meeting in the Reich Chancellery, at which he informed them in a lengthy address of his strategic plans. His Wehrmacht adjutant, Colonel Hossbach, took notes of the two-hour monologue for his own purposes.33 Right from the start, Hitler tried to convince his audience of the exceptional importance of what he was going to say by stating that, ‘in the event of his death, his words should be regarded as his last will and testament’. During this autumn, he was evidently seriously concerned that he might not have much time left to him. At the end of October, he had already told the Party’s propaganda chiefs that, as far as could be judged, he did not have much longer to live. Based on this assumption, in his address he described the ‘solution to the need for space’ as the German nation’s most important future problem with its ‘over 85 million people’. He estimated that a solution could only be ‘sought for a foreseeable period of about one to three generations’.
Before reaching the core of his reflections and sketching the war scenarios he was planning, Hitler spent a long time rejecting possible alternatives. ‘Total autarky’ could not be achieved even if domestic raw materials were fully exploited and substitutes were mass-produced, and it would in any case be impossible to provide sufficient foodstuffs. Increasing participation in the ‘world market’ would be equally incapable of providing real solutions to Germany’s existential problems. This had been his standard argument since the 1920s.
Hitler was thereby conceding the fact that, a year after the launching of the Four-Year Plan, Germany’s own sources of raw materials, essential to the expansion of the Wehrmacht, had not been significantly increased. On the contrary, the rearmament programme had stalled during 1937, forcing the three branches of the Wehrmacht, which had originally been gearing their rearmament planning to achieve full-scale mobilization by 1940, to extend the schedule. The main reason was the shortage of steel in Germany, which in February 1937 had, among other things, required the introduction of a quota system and prompted Göring to establish his own steel concern. The ‘Hermann Göring Works’ were designed to exploit the (comparatively low-grade) deposits of German iron ore. However, all these efforts had failed to solve the steel crisis. On 3 September, Blomberg had told Göring that ‘there [is] no way that either the plan or the schedule for the Wehrmacht to be totally prepared for action, in accordance with the directives issued by the Führer and Reich Chancellor, . . . can be achieved’.34
Thus, in his address Hitler was obliged to deal with the political consequences stemming from the altered schedule for the rearmament programme. Basically, Hitler stated, German policy must reckon with two ‘hate-inspired opponents’, Britain and France, for whom ‘a strong German colossus in the middle of Europe was a thorn in their side’. Neither country would accommodate the establishment of German bases overseas nor willingly give up former German colonies. After thereby conceding the failure of his previous British policy, he attempted to downplay the strengths of this new ‘hate-inspired opponent’ by asserting that Britain could not maintain power over the Empire in the long run ‘on the strength of 45 million English’. France’s position by comparison was relatively favourable, but it was faced with massive ‘domestic problems’.
Finally, Hitler came to the main point of his address. The ‘lack of space’, of which he complained, ‘could only be solved through the use of force’, which, however, ‘was never without attendant risk’. Taking this into account, the only remaining issues to be decided were ‘when’ and ‘how’. The latest date for a German war of conquest was during the years 1943–45, in other words after the completion of rearmament; after that, time would be working against Germany. In addition to this first scenario, however, there were two other possible ones that would justify striking earlier: if the French armed forces were tied up by either a serious domestic crisis (scenario 2) or a war against Italy (scenario 3). In both cases ‘the time for action against Czechoslovakia [would have] come’. If France was embroiled in a war then Austria should be simultaneously ‘crushed’. However, it was quite possible that this eventuality might already occur during 1938. And that was the decisive message of this conference of 5 November: the extension of the rearmament period by no means implied that the move towards expansion was being postponed into the distant future.
Thus, the speech revealed Hitler’s short-, medium-, and long-term foreign policy ideas. In the first place, Hitler told his military leaders that, in the short term and under certain favourable conditions, he had decided to move against Austria and Czechoslovakia through surprise military attacks. When Henlein decided to subordinate himself to Hitler and, on 19 November, wrote to him offering the assistance of his party in incorporating the ‘whole of the Bohemian-Moravian-Silesian area’ into the Reich, the dictator failed to respond. Evidently, at this stage, Hitler was still thinking of a purely military move against Czechoslovakia. He only accepted Henlein’s offer the following spring. Secondly, Hitler made it clear in his address of 5 November that he was absolutely determined to deal with the ‘space issue’ by 1943–45, in other words during his lifetime, and to do so through the incorporation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. On this occasion, however, he did not refer to the realization of far-reaching plans for conquests in eastern Europe, such as he had developed in the 1920s, or to a great ‘world conflict’, which he had predicted for the period 1942–43 in a conversation with Goebbels in 1937.35
Hitler’s limitation of his plans to Czechoslovakia and Austria resulted from the fact that he was engaged in a comprehensive analysis of the attitude of powers that might potentially intervene during the 1943–45 war scenario, referring specifically to the positions of Russia and Poland. In his view it was unlikely that they would intervene in a German war against Czechoslovakia and Austria. Thus, Hitler was concerned to develop a future scenario in which a war against Russia and Poland could be avoided rather than one involving the conquest of these states.36
Had he, therefore, postponed or given up his plans for acquiring living space in eastern Europe? He certainly gave his audience the impression that these plans would no longer be realized during his lifetime, but at best in the distant future after a period of between one and three generations. However, it would be a serious mistake to interpret Hitler’s address of 5 November 1937 in the first instance against the background of his far-reaching plans for living space for that would be to confuse his utopia with his actions as a politician. For Hitler’s aim in making this speech was not primarily to provide insights into his far-reaching plans for conquest. Rather, in view of the growing shortage of resources for rearmament, as a practising politician he was faced with the need to present his military leaders with more or less realistic short- and medium-term goals, and he did this by ordering them to prepare for aggressive action against Czechoslovakia and Austria, at the latest by 1943–45, and at the earliest during the following year. For the moment this task offered a political goal that would provide the context for further rearmament measures. As he evidently did not intend to stop full-scale rearmament after a war in the coming year, he was in fact keeping all his options open.
However, Hitler’s address provoked misgivings and objections from his audience, not to the extent of fundamentally challenging his aim of going to war, but in questioning some of his premises. Blomberg and Fritsch argued ‘that we should not let England and France become our opponents’; in the event of a war with Italy France would only have limited forces tied down on the Alpine frontier and would be able to direct its main forces against Germany. At the same time, the strength of Czech fortifications should not be underestimated. Neurath argued that a conflict between Italy and France and Britain was ‘not yet so close . . . as the Führer seems to assume’, to which Hitler responded that he was thinking of summer 1938 as ‘the possible time’. He was ‘convinced’, and this was aimed at Blomberg and Fritsch, that ‘England would not take part’ and for that reason did not believe ‘in military action by France against Germany’. Since he had not absolutely committed himself to a war during the following year, but had linked it to various conditions, he was able to calm the misgivings that had been expressed.37
The second part of the meeting was concerned with the armaments bottlenecks, which had been the real reason why it had been convened. The content was not recorded in as much detail as the first part. We know, however, that Blomberg gave a comprehensive account of the Wehrmacht’s raw materials and armaments situation followed by attacks by Blomberg and Fritsch on Göring.38 Thus it was Göring, as the main person responsible for the distribution of the limited amount of raw materials, who was in the firing line and not Hitler, who in his address had modified his aims to the extent that he had not been forced to admit failure as far as the armaments bottlenecks were concerned.
However, the generals soon overcame their misgivings. In the new version of the deployment order for ‘Operation Green’ of 21 December 1937 Blomberg took account of Hitler’s statements of 5 November. The previous military plans for a two-front war against France and Czechoslovakia had been purely defensive and in his basic directive for the Wehrmacht’s war preparations of June 1937 Hitler himself had still been operating on the assumption that Germany was not threatened and did not intend to launch a European war.39 Now the new version stated that when Germany had achieved complete readiness for war in all spheres ‘the military preconditions will have been created for an offensive war against Czechoslovakia, so that the solution of Germany’s problem of space can be carried to a victorious conclusion even if one or other of the great powers intervenes against us’. The assumption was that the war against Czechoslovakia would occur ‘simultaneously with the resolution of the Austrian question, in the sense of incorporating Austria into the German Reich’. However, the directive also envisaged a war against Czechoslovakia (and Anschluss with Austria) before Germany had achieved its full wartime strength, if intervention by the Western powers was not anticipated, either as a result of a lack of interest (Great Britain) or because of involvement in other conflicts (France).40
On 19 November, two weeks after the meeting with the military leadership, Hitler received an important member of the British cabinet in Berchtesgaden in the shape of the Lord President of the Council and future Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.41 Halifax put forward the idea of closer cooperation between the four main European powers, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany, in order to lay the foundations for lasting peace in Europe. Hitler would have seen in this proposal the first step towards a revival of a system of collective security, which he had been strongly resisting since 1933. Thus, his response to Halifax was sceptical verging on aggressive. In particular, he pointed out to his British guest that, since 1919, Germany had not been treated as an equal by the Western powers, but rather had been humiliatingly discriminated against. The main point dealt with in the further discussions was the German demand for colonies. While Halifax cautiously indicated a willingness to discuss the issue, he referred in what was more of an aside to Germany’s wish for a revision of the frontiers in Central Europe. He noted ‘possible alterations in the European order, which might be destined to come about with the passage of time. Amongst these questions were Danzig, Austria, and Czechoslovakia’. His government was ‘interested to see that any alterations should come through the course of peaceful evolution and that methods should be avoided which might cause far-reaching disturbances that neither the Chancellor nor other countries desired’. Hitler only responded briefly to these comments and declared that the agreement with Austria reached in July 1936 would lead to the ‘removal of all difficulties’, while it was up to the Czech government to deal with the existing problems by treating the German minority well. He did not refer to the question of Danzig.42 However, the signal that Hitler had received from Halifax was clear: a revision of the German borders was possible provided it occurred through ‘evolution’, in other words not by Germany using force without the agreement of other powers.43
Two days later, at the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the founding of the Rosenheim Nazi Party local branch, Hitler significantly and after a long interval once again used a public speech to demand living space. ‘Our people’s living space is too small,’ he insisted: ‘One day the world will have to respect our demands. I have not the slightest doubt that, just as we were able to raise up our nation domestically, in foreign affairs we shall be able to gain the same rights to live as those possessed by other nations.’ After that he once again dropped the subject for a long time.
It is clear from the Hossbach memorandum and his behaviour during his meeting with Halifax that, during the course of 1937, Hitler had finally given up the idea of an alliance with Britain. The reception of the Duke of Windsor at the Berghof in October, officially described as ‘private’, represented for Hitler an opportunity to reconcile himself to the idea that an alliance with Britain was impossible, as in the past he had vested great hopes in the British monarch, who had abdicated in December 1936.44 The notion that he had still had at the beginning of 1937 of forcing Britain to make an alliance by threatening naval rearmament and demanding colonies had, in the meantime, been reduced to the aim of keeping Britain from intervening in a war in central Europe.
In his detailed ‘Note for the Führer’ of 2 January 1938 Ribbentrop, who had been sent as ambassador to Britain in the summer of 1936 in order to clinch the alliance with Britain,45 reinforced Hitler’s decision to move away from the idea of an alliance. Indeed, Ribbentrop went a step further. He proposed that, while ‘outwardly our declared policy should be an understanding with England’, in fact Germany should construct ‘secretly, but with absolute determination’ ‘a network of alliances against England’ by ‘strengthening our friendship with Italy and Japan’ and also by ‘drawing in all states whose interests either directly or indirectly coincide with our own’.46 In other words, the German alliance with Italy and Japan, which according to Hitler’s original ideas was supposed to be open to future British membership, was to be built up into an anti-British alliance. Slightly more than a month later, Hitler appointed Ribbentrop as his Foreign Minister.47
After his meeting with Halifax had confirmed Hitler’s view that Britain had no fundamental objections to a revision of the German–Czech border, in November 1937 he set about approaching a number of governments that were also interested in destroying Czechoslovakia, for that, rather than ‘liberating the Sudeten Germans’, was his real aim.
At a reception in the Reich Chancellery on 25 November he recommended to the Hungarian Prime Minister Kálmán Darányi and his Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya that Hungary should not dissipate its policy but rather concentrate it on one target and this target was Czechoslovakia. Kánya agreed with this in principle, but emphasized that Hungary had a considerable interest in winning back Slovakia and also Carpatho-Ukraine, where there was a significant Hungarian minority that until 1918 had belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary.48
On 14 January 1938, Hitler received the Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, in Berlin. He expressed the fear that ‘a Bolshevik infection would almost automatically spread from a Red Spain to France and then would grip Belgium and Holland, and so a new and powerful centre of Bolshevik activity’ would be created. Germany, Hitler emphasized, did not want a change to the status quo in Danzig. He was anxious to develop further Germany’s relationship with Austria in a peaceful fashion. The only case in which he would intervene immediately and without considering the attitude of France and Britain would be in the event of a ‘Habsburg restoration’. As far as Czechoslovakia was concerned, the Germans were seeking ‘initially only better treatment of the German minority’. Apart from that, ‘the Czech state was, in terms of its whole construction, an aberration and, because of the mistaken policy of the Czechs in Central Europe, it too was in danger of becoming a source of Bolshevism’. Beck agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with this view. Poland was above all interested in annexing the Olsa region with its Polish-speaking majority and was, therefore, pursuing the plan of removing Slovakia from the state of Czechoslovakia and placing it under a Polish protectorate. Hitler’s soundings had begun to pay off.49 Shortly afterwards, Göring left the impression in Warsaw that the Reich was willing to coordinate a move against Czechoslovakia with Poland and would respect its interests in the Olsa region.50
At the beginning of 1938, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Milan Stojadinovic´ was anxious to move his country closer to Italy and Germany, and paid a visit of several days to Germany. On 17 January, Hitler warned him of the danger of a ‘slow Bolshevization of Europe’. Czechoslovakia was a ‘source of trouble’, but nevertheless he ‘still had hopes that Prague would come to its senses’. As far as Austria was concerned, he would ‘crush with lightning speed any attempt by the Habsburgs to return to Vienna’. Göring interjected: ‘Yugoslavia could rely on the fact that if Austria one day joined Germany and so Germany became Yugoslavia’s neighbour, it would never make any territorial claims on Yugoslavia’. Hitler expressly confirmed this remark.51
Thus, in terms of foreign policy, 1937 was entirely dominated by Hitler’s move away from the idea of an alliance with Great Britain, while he increasingly turned towards Italy, thereby putting added pressure on Austria. It now seemed to him feasible to ‘crush’ Czechoslovakia the following year if France became paralysed domestically or as a result of conflict with Italy, thereby creating the opportunity for a surprise military intervention.