ON the afternoon of 12th March, 1938, less than twenty-four hours after his troops and aircraft had moved forward into Austria, Adolf Hitler himself crossed the frontier and motored triumphantly through a cascade of flowers and decorations to Linz. In the little town where many years ago he had attended secondary school, the Fuehrer spoke to the cheering crowds who thronged the streets to welcome him.“… If providence once called me forth from this town to be the leader of the Reich, it must, in so doing, have charged me with a mission,” he said, “and that mission could be only to restore my dear homeland to the German Reich. I have believed in this mission, I have lived and fought for it, and I believe I have now fulfilled it….” The following morning the Anschluss became a reality, and Austrian girls were garlanding the German troops with flowers, innocently unaware that there would be no more laughter when the black-clad henchmen of Reinhard Heydrich settled down to work in Vienna. Hitler’s audacity had succeeded yet again—and this time there had been little risk of a major war.
The German troops and aircraft had crossed the frontier in an invasion that curiously enough revealed little of the vaunted military efficiency of the Third Reich. Indeed, General Jodl stated at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 that seventy per cent of all armoured vehicles and cars were stranded on the roads from Salzburg and Passau to Vienna, and the breakdown of so many motorised units probably contributed in some extent to the lapse of almost three days before Hitler made his triumphant entry into Vienna. The Luftwaffe organisation worked more smoothly, and considering that many of the latest aircraft were in action with the Legion Kondor, quite an impressive display of German air power was achieved at very short notice. Yet in 1938 the Luftwaffe was still not ready for anything that Hitler might demand of it, for behind the scenes the Anschluss had brought the same haste and confusion that had marked the occupation of the Rhineland. On paper, the German Air Force possessed an increasing number of operational units, but very few pilot schools and training establishments existed as yet, and consequently there remained an acute shortage of fully experienced aircrews. Hitler’s tendency to risk everything on a single throw of the dice, when the German armed forces had no reserves and were scarcely ready for action at all, was a constant nightmare to the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht generals, who were compelled to put everything “in the shop window” at times when the military organisation was stretched to the limit preparing for what in 1938 seemed to almost everyone an inevitable war.
Nevertheless, the German rearmament programme was in full swing, and not all of it was merely sounding brass and voices; General Jodl also testified at Nuremberg that twenty-seven divisions were in existence by April, 1938. The mechanical difficulties encountered during the conquest of Austria undoubtedly caused Hitler some annoyance and more than a little serious thought, but within a few weeks his agile brain was planning the next moves on the great chessboard of Europe. Czechoslovakia was, of course, the prize; and the Sudeten Germans under Konrad Henlein, aroused by the exciting success of the Anschluss, were already staging violent demonstrations against the Czech Government. Why not strike again, almost at once, while the world was still awed by his strength and audacity? To Hitler, it seemed the time was ripe, but Europe was tiring of his aggression, and he was running too hard a race.
Then Hitler received an unexpected surprise. On 13th September, 1938, twenty-four hours after he had vented his anger against President Benes of Czechoslavakia in a savage speech that thundered out abuse from the microphones in the great stadium at Nuremberg, he received an urgent message from London; the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, proposed to fly at once to Germany and try to find a peaceful solution to the Sudeten problem. Hitler was delighted at the prospect; it pleased him immensely to think that the man in charge of Great Britain’s foreign policy, who had never flown in an aeroplane in his life, and was then sixty-nine years of age, had to come to a one-time street comer agitator to plead the Allied cause. When he received Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden, he attempted, as usual, to drown his audience in a sea of words. “Three hundred Sudetens have been killed,” he shouted, “and … the thing has got to be settled at once. I am determined to settle it; I do not care whether there is a world war or not. I am determined to settle it and to settle it soon; I am prepared to risk a world war rather than allow this to drag on.”
But Chamberlain was no coward, to be bullied and threatened into submission. “If the Fuehrer is determined to settle this matter by force,” he interjected angrily, “without even waiting for a discussion between ourselves to take place, what did he let me come here for? I have wasted my time.”
Taken aback by the objection, Hitler hurriedly began to retrace his steps, replying that: “…if the British Government were prepared to accept the idea of secession in principle, and to say so, there might be a chance then to have a talk.” Chamberlain said that he would have to consult his Cabinet, and left the Berfhof the next day with Hitler’s assurance that he would not take any military action against Czechoslovakia until they had met for a second time.
A week later, Chamberlain was received by Hitler again, this time at Godesberg, on the Rhine. He brought with him a plan for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany; intense pressure brought against the Czech Government by Britain and France had, in effect, forced it to surrender. But Hitler had an unpleasant surprise in store for Mr. Chamberlain, Shielding himself behind a rambling monologue, he quietly turned the proposals down, without giving any clear reason for doing so; the truth was that he did not want the Sudetenland handed to him on a plate, he wanted German troops in Czechoslovakia. Later, he made that perfectly clear by delivering what amounted to an ultimatum. Now he not only claimed the Sudetenland, but demanded that it accept a military occupation by Germany—and within a week. Angry and disillusioned, Chamberlain argued bitterly with the Fuehrer for some time, but Hitler remained unmoved. The British Prime Minister returned to London and the following day, 26th September, Great Britain pledged support to France if she fulfilled her treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia as a direct result of German aggression.
During that last week in September the war clouds hung heavily over Europe. In Berlin the air of tension had given way to a strange foreboding of disaster, as if the people sensed that Germany was ill prepared for war behind the imposing military façade. There was no reckless enthusiasm, as there had been in 1914; sadly, and in almost complete silence, the crowds watched the mechanised divisions rumbling through the streets. The general despondency made a deep impression on Hitler, and finally roused him to send a letter to Mr. Chamberlain that again stressed his demands, but hinted that hope still remained of a peaceful settlement. In a last appeal, the British Prime Minister replied at once by suggesting an international conference.
On 29th September the historic meeting between Chamberlain, Deladier, Hitler, and Mussolini was held in Munich. Beginning as a discussion, it soon deteriorated into a confusion of individual conversations and arguments that terminated in the early hours of the following morning with the Munich Agreement, a document that substantially accepted all the terms of the Godesberg memorandum. By taking Germany to the very brink of war, Hitler had persuaded Britain and France to hand over to him the vitally important Czechoslovakian defensive frontier, and thus achieved his greatest triumph in the political field. The German generals were staggered at his success. On the night of the Munich conference, General Jodl wrote in his diary: “… The genius of the Fuehrer and his determination not to shun even a world war have again won victory without the use of force…” All previous doubts were scattered to the winds; Hitler was now the Man of Destiny, who could twist the statesmen of Europe around his little finger and do with them as he wished
Mr. Chamberlain took the opportunity to ask the Fuehrer to sign a declaration that in future any questions would be dealt with only by consultation between the great Powers. Hitler signed the paper promise without the slightest hesitation—it meant nothing to him at such a time—and Chamberlain returned to London. When he stepped from his aeroplane at Croydon, holding his famous umbrella in one hand and waving the useless scrap of paper at the crowds who awaited Mm, the Prime Minister was elated. “It is peace with honour,” he told the people of Britain, but Winston Churchill saw only the tarnished side of the coin. “Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness,” he said, during the Munich debate in the House of Commons, and it was so; on 1st October German troops were marching across the frontier into the Sudetenland.
Only six months later, in March, 1939, Hitler decided to occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia. The chain of events, so familiar by then that they no longer aroused the world to anger, began with the usual violent outcry in the German newspapers against imaginary Czech atrocities directed at the German minority in Bohemia and Moravia, and ended when President Hacha of Czechoslovakia arrived in Berlin to plead with Hitler to spare his country. A tired old man, so troubled by ill health that he fainted during the audience and had to be revived by Hitler’s doctor, Hacha was no match for the Fuehrer in his most threatening mood. Convinced that war must be averted at any price, he “… confidently placed the fate of the Czech people in the hands of the Fuehrer,” and, with those few words, the deed was done.
On 15th March Hitler arrived in Prague, accompanied by Keitel, Ribbentrop and Himmler. The swastika flags were flying gaily from the battlements of the Hradschin Castle overlooking the city, the tramp of German jackboots resounded through the streets, and far away in Berlin the British and French Ambassadors were protesting loudly, but in vain. Surrounded by the sprawling grandeur of the Hradschin Castle, Hitler signed the documents to finally encircle with steel fingers another little nation that had never desired anything except independence. “Czechoslovakia,” he wrote firmly, “has ceased to exist….”
Sitting in the Hradschin Castle that bright spring afternoon, Hitler might well feel confident of his power as the modem Man of Destiny, but in reality he had gambled and won for the last time; never again would the pitcher return unbroken from the well. The Munich crisis and the final annexation of Czechoslovakia shattered a thousand illusions, and proved that peace cannot always be bought at any price, that only too often futile words are of little avail against the sword. In London, Mr. Chamberlain stated that Hitler would never be able to deceive him again; Britain had been taught a hard lesson, and was girding her loins for war.
The military operations against Czechoslovakia were marked by the usual frenzied activity within the higher ranks of the Luftwaffe. The vast bulk of Hermann Goering had remained conspicuously absent during most of the negotiations, although he made an appearance at the conference with President Hacha to remind that ailing old man of the Luftwaffe’s ability to bomb Prague into smoking rubble should Czechoslovakia try to resist the mighty forces of the Third Reich. In fact, Goering had a very real fear of war, and he did not want to be too deeply involved in any moves that might lead to it; also, less than six months before the invasion of the Sudetenland he had stated openly that Germany had no designs on Czechoslovakia. All things considered, including a slight illness, he decided it would be better to linger in the background and await events, which were moving at far too rapid a pace for his peace of mind.
Then the crisis reached a climax and came to an end, and Goering found himself able to relax again. Now, while the eyes of the world were on Germany, he could use the occupation of Czechoslovakia to display his Luftwaffe for all to see; never would there be a better opportunity to awe the Allied Powers with the might and splendour of German air power. He followed Hitler to Prague, while overhead thundered the élite squadrons of the Luftwaffe; the Messerschmitt Bf 109s of J.G.2, the Richthofen Jagdgeschwader; the Junkers Ju 87s of the first unit to receive that equipment, the Stukageschwader Immelmann; the latest Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 medium bombers. Goering’s own parachute raiment, the former Standarten Feldherrenhalle, tumbled out from behind the spread wings of Junkers Ju 52s over Karlsbad; on the ground, the jovial Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief inspected over fifteen hundred Czech aircraft, mostly obsolete biplane fighters of the Avia B-534 type, now legally the property of the insatiable Third Reich. “The Axis is stronger than ever,” he commented afterwards, once more full of the old boisterous confidence.
But Hitler was on the rampage again, while the shock and tumult of his latest aggression still echoed around the world. Immediately after the occupation of Czechoslovakia he demanded the return to the Reich of Memel, a city lost to Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, and in less than a week the Lithuanian Government had accepted his ultimatum. Poland, however, was actually scheduled to be Hitler’s next victim, his initial aims the Free City of Danzig—separated from Germany in 1919 that Poland might have unrestricted access to the sea—and the construction of a German extraterritorial road and railway across the Polish Corridor which divided East Prussia from the remainder of the Reich. On 26th March, the Polish Government rejected the German demands, and five days later Mr. Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons: “In the event of any action which clearly threatens Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly consider it vital to resist with their national forces, H.M. Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power.” The French Government at once issued a similar guarantee; the shameful ghosts of Munich were being banished into the shadows.
Hitler flew into a raging temper when he heard the news. Never before had he encountered such determined opposition, but his success at Munich had raised his prestige to such giddy heights that now there could be no question of retreat. On 23rd May, he called a meeting of his senior Army, Navy and Air Force officers, and told them; “We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be war. Our task is to isolate Poland. The success of the isolation will be decisive…” In fact, the plans for Case White (the attack on Poland) had already been prepared, and by 22nd June the German general staff had drawn up a detailed time-table for the invasion
Meanwhile, Hitler had been considering the obvious danger from Russia should he become involved in a major war with the Western Powers in the near future. His tentative overtures to Moscow proved distinctly promising; Stalin had been negotiating for a pact with France and Britain for some time, and was tiring of the endless discussions that seemed to be getting nowhere. Now Hitler stepped forward to interest the Soviet dictator with an agreement to divide the whole of Eastern Europe between Germany and Russia—more bluntly, to share the spoils of war—and incidentally never to become involved in war against each other. Invested with plenipotentiary powers, von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow, and in the early hours of 24th August the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact was signed. Ribbentrop returned the same day trailing clouds of glory, to be hailed in Berlin as “a second Bismarck”, although he had done very little except utter the words put into his mouth by Hitler and append his signature to the agreement.
Goering who had never liked Ribbentrop, remained unimpressed by the German Foreign Minister’s apparent success in Russia. Despondent at the worsening political situation, worried by Luftwaffe matters as the trinity of Milch, Udet and Loerzer hurriedly prepared for war, he sought refuge behind a shield of blustering speeches that years later he would recall with bitterness and shame. Returning to Berlin after travelling down the Rhine in his new yacht on a tour of the sadly inadequate Ruhr anti-aircraft defences, he said: “I have inspected personally all measures for the defence of the Ruhr territory. I shall look after every single battery which it may be necessary to install. The Ruhr will not be submitted to a single bomb of enemy airmen!” The vaunted Western Air Defence Zone, or Luftverteidigungszone, to which he referred, was a straggling line of guns not yet sufficiently co-ordinated to oppose even a minor bombing raid, but Goering was trying to convince himself even more than his audience. “If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr,” he told the German people, “my name is not Hermann Goering; you can call me Meier!” The joke seemed amusing enough at the time, but it was never repeated after a thousand bombers had raided Cologne.
Despite his outward display of confidence, Goering’s spirits were at a low ebb as the last hopes of peace faded away. At last, he decided to make a final attempt to localise the now inevitable war; Poland was doomed, but Britain and France might yet be persuaded to grasp his extended hand. He arranged a meeting with Mr. Birger Dahlems, a Swedish industrialist who had business connections in Germany and Britain, and this in tum led to a conference between Goering and a number of important British business men. But his argument that there need not be a European war if Britain would give Hitler a free hand in Poland was not a very satisfactory one; and now the Fuehrer himself no longer cared what happened when he invaded Poland. Nevertheless, Goering struggled to keep the negotiations alive, and Dahlems flew back and forth between Germany and Britain a number of times to report on the progress of his mission.
It was too late. On the evening of 3 1st August, while Goering, harassed and tired, was still in conference with Dahlems, S.S. men acting on the orders of Reinhard Heydrich were staging a faked Polish attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz, near the Polish frontier. The station was “seized” with typical S.S. efficiency, a short proclamation broadcast over an emergency transmitter and a few haphazard pistol shots fired, then the attackers vanished, leaving behind them the scattered bodies of a dozen condemned criminals dressed in Polish uniforms and thoughtfully given fatal injections by a doctor before being shot down. These dead men played an important part in Heydrich’s amazingly simple little scheme; they provided mute, but convincing, evidence that Polish forces were acting with deliberate provocation by attacking German border installations.
The Gleiwitz frontier incident was Hitler’s manufactured excuse for renewed aggression, the “suitable opportunity” he needed to go to war. In the early hours of the following morning the bombers and fighters of the Luftwaffe thundered into the air, hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles rolled ponderously forward along the roads that led to war, and 1,500,000 troops of the Wehrmacht crossed the frontier into Poland. The roar of aircraft engines and the urgent clamour of machine-guns roused simple peasants from their peaceful slumbers to face a violent, incredible dawn; dive-bombers plunged, ugly and screaming, to strike with hammer blows at unsuspecting targets; men shouted orders, sweated behind huge artillery pieces, fought hand to hand—and sometimes died; and soon the stench and smoke of burning villages was drifting lazily over the Polish countryside.
All these things happened on 1st September, 1939, the first day of that five and a half years of struggle commonly known as the Second World War.
When the British ultimatum was delivered at the Reich Chancellery on Sunday, 3rd September, Goering and Dahlems finally acknowledged that they could do no more. The worried Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, his aircraft already in action over Poland, listened in silence to the news that destroyed his hopes of peace for ever, perhaps in that moment recalling an earlier war and the nervous, hopeless existence of a fighter pilot on the Western Front in 1918. Then, his world had been encompassed by the tiny cockpit of a Fokker D.VII, and death had never been very far away, but he had also been his own master, with little to lose; now he had a wife and baby daughter he loved, a magnificent home, untold wealth and priceless art treasures. All the rich tapestry and splendour of his life as the second most important man in the Third Reich seemed to be in danger, and on this Sunday morning he faced a bleak, uncertain future, entangled in the golden web he had so willingly allowed Adolf Hitler to weave around him.
“If we lose this war, then God help us,” said Goering at last, uttering the despairing words of a man who lacked the courage of his convictions, had never been dedicated to any greater cause than Hermann Goering, and now was afraid to accept responsibilities that would soon be the price of a decade of pleasure. His attitude of mind, not so uncommon in the twilight world of Nazi Germany, where personal power was more often achieved by threats and broken premises than skill and bitter experience, drove some men to madness and others to suicide. Goering chose instead to ignore the reality of war and pretend that nothing would ever happen to disturb the tranquil security of Karinhall.