Hitler's war

29 SEPTEMBER 1938-MUNICH

Adolf Hitler was not a happy man. Oh, yes, he was going to get Czechoslovakia. The British and French had come here to hand him his hateful neighbor-what an abortion of a country! one more crime of Versailles!-all trussed up on a silver platter, ready for the slaughter.

But, for all the fuss the Sudeten Germans had kicked up inside Czechoslovakia (fuss orchestrated from the Reich), to Hitler the Slavic state wasn’t an end in itself, only a means to an end. The end was dominating Europe. Had that required dropping the Sudeten German Party he’d fed and watered for so long, he would have dropped it like a live grenade.

Getting his hands on Czechoslovakia would be nice, yes. What he really wanted, though, was war.

He was ready. He was convinced the enemy wasn’t. Chamberlain and Daladier wouldn’t have been so pathetically eager to sell their ally down the river if they were.

The trouble was, they were too damned eager. They kept falling all over themselves to make whatever concessions he demanded. The more they yielded, the less excuse he had to send in the Wehrmacht.

His generals would be relieved if he got what he wanted without fighting. He wasn’t happy with the halfhearted way so many of them were readying themselves and their units. And Mussolini, while a good fellow, had more chin than balls. The Duce kept insisting Italy wasn’t ready to take on England and France, and wouldn’t be for another two or three years.

“Dummkopf,” Hitler muttered under his breath. The real point, the point Mussolini didn’t get, was that England and France weren’t ready. Not only did they not want war, their factories weren’t geared up for it. And the Russians were in even worse shape. Every day, it seemed, Stalin knocked off a new general, or a handful of them. When the Reds laid on a purge, they didn’t fool around.

General Sanjurjo got it. Spain stood foursquare behind Germany. Well, actually, Spain stood about two-and-a-half-square behind Germany; the Communists and anarchists of the Republic still hung on to the rest of the battered country. But Sanjurjo had a proper Spanish sense of honor and obligation. He would do what he could against his benefactor’s enemies.

The time was now. The Fuhrer could feel it in his bones. Of all the gifts a great ruler had, knowing when to strike was one of the most vital. He’d shown he had it when he got rid of Ernst Rohm in the Night of Long Knives, and again when he swallowed Austria in the Anschluss. (Oh, all right-the Beer-Hall Putsch hadn’t quite worked out. But that was fifteen years ago now. Back in those days, he was still learning which end was up.)

He was ready to fight. The Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe were ready, even if some generals tried dragging their feet. Even if the French and English did declare war when he hit Czechoslovakia, he was sure they wouldn’t do anything much in the West. They’d wait, they’d dither…and then, as soon as he’d stomped the Czechs into the mud, he’d turn around and smash them, too.

Yes, he was ready. But tall, stork-necked Chamberlain-with Daladier scuttling along in his wake like a squat, swarthy little half-trained puppy-was also ready: ready to hand him Czechoslovakia without any fighting at all. The British Prime Minister was so abject about the whole business, even the hard-bitten Fuhrer would have been embarrassed to order the panzers to roll forward and the bombers to take off. Chamberlain, damn his gawky soul, gave away so much, Hitler couldn’t very well demand more. There was no more to give.

And so they played out the charade here in Munich. Hitler and Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier sat down together and calmly arranged for the transfer of the Sudetenland-and its mountain barriers and its fortifications, second only to those of the Maginot Line-from Czechoslovakia to Germany. Without those works, the Czechs hadn’t a prayer of being able to fight.

They knew it, too. They’d sent a couple of nervous observers to Munich to learn their fate. The Czechs cooled their heels at a distant hotel; the Fuhrer wouldn’t let them attend the conference. The Soviet Union was similarly excluded.

On with the farce, then. The Fuhrerbau was the National Socialists’ chief office building in Munich. Hitler had taken a major role in its design, but it wasn’t a full success. A hundred yards long and fifty deep, it was only three stories high. To an uncharitable observer, it looked like nothing so much as an overgrown barracks hall.

Nevertheless, Hitler thought the big bronze eagle over the entryway particularly fine. Mussolini, Chamberlain, and Daladier were already there by the time the Fuhrer and the interpreter, Paul Otto Schmidt, came in. So was Goring, in a fancy white uniform-he’d motored in with Daladier.

The Duce spoke with Chamberlain in English and Daladier in French. He spoke German, too, after a fashion. Hitler, who knew only his own language, envied his fellow dictator’s linguistic skills. He consoled himself by noting how plain the handful of British and French aides in civilian clothes appeared in contrast to his uniformed henchmen, and Mussolini’s.

Hitler led the heads of government into his office. The big oblong room had a fireplace at one end, with a portrait of Bismarck above it. Light-colored chairs and a matching sofa faced the fireplace. There were no name tags-not even any pads and pencils for taking notes. There was no agenda. Discussion darted where it would. Everyone already had a good notion of how things would end up.

“Now that we are all here, we must decide soon,” Hitler said, and smacked one fist into the palm of the other hand.

But things moved more slowly than he wanted them to. The heads of the two leading democracies had to get their views on record. The Fuhrer supposed that was for domestic consumption. It wouldn’t change anything here.

His temper began to fray. “You know nothing of the dreadful tyranny the Czechs exert over the Sudeten Germans,” he said loudly. “Nothing, I tell you! They torture them, showing no mercy. They expel them by the thousands, in panic-stricken herds. They have even forced the Sudeten Germans’ leader, Konrad Henlein, to flee from his native land.”

“One jump ahead of the gendarmes, I shouldn’t wonder,” Daladier said dryly.

“Joke if you care to, but I-” Hitler stopped in surprise at a loud knock on the door.

“What’s going on?” Neville Chamberlain asked.

“I don’t know,” Hitler answered after Dr. Schmidt translated the question. “I left clear orders that we were not to be disturbed.” When he gave orders like that, he expected them to be obeyed, too.

But, even for the Fuhrer, expectations didn’t always match reality. The knock came again, louder and more insistent than before. Hitler sprang to his feet and hurried toward the door. Somebody out there in the hallway was going to regret being born.

“Whatever he’s selling, tell him we don’t want any,” Mussolini said in his inimitable German. Daladier and Chamberlain both smiled once the interpreters made them understand the crack. Hitler didn’t. He’d never had much of a sense of humor, and the interruption pushed him towards one of his volcanic eruptions of fury.

He flung the door open. There stood Colonel Friedrich Hossbach, his adjutant. “Well?” Hitler growled ominously. “What is the meaning of this-this interruption?”

Hossbach was a stoic man on the far end of middle age. “I’m sorry to bother you, mein Fuhrer, but-”

“But what?” Hitler demanded. “Whatever the devil it is, it had better be important.”

“Yes, sir. I believe it is.” Hossbach took a sheet of flimsy yellow paper from his left breast pocket. “Here is a telegram we have just received. You will know Herr Henlein has had to take refuge in the Reich because of Czech outrages…”

“Of course, of course,” the Fuhrer said impatiently. “I was just now talking about his plight, as a matter of fact. What’s going on with him?”

Colonel Hossbach licked his lips. “Sir, he has been shot. Shot dead, I should say. The murderer is in custody. He is a certain Jaroslav Stribny: a Czech, sir. His passport shows a Prague address.”

Hitler stared at him in astonishment, disbelief, and then sudden crazy joy. “Ich bin vom Himmel gefallen!” he blurted. I’ve fallen from heaven! was what the words meant literally, but what they really conveyed was his utter amazement.

“What shall we do, mein Fuhrer?” Hossbach asked nervously.

A moment later, it was his turn to be amazed, because Hitler bussed him on both cheeks like a Frenchman. “Leave that to me, my dear Hossbach,” he answered. “Oh, yes. Leave that to me!”

He was almost chortling as he turned back to the statesmen and officials and interpreters inside his office. He’d thought about getting rid of Henlein to give himself a casus belli against Czechoslovakia. He’d thought about it, yes, and put it aside. It would have been too raw, too unlikely, for anyone to swallow.

But Herr Jaroslav Stribny had just handed him that casus belli in a fancy package with a ribbon around it. The Reich would have to execute Stribny as a murderer. Hitler understood the need, and he’d never been shy about disposing of anyone who needed disposing of. All the same, what he wanted to do was pin a medal on Stribny’s chest. Talk about advancing Germany’s cause…!

“What is it, Fuhrer?” Mussolini asked. “By the look in your eye, it is truly important, whatever it is.”

“Ja,” Hitler said, and the pause that followed gave him the chance to pull his thoughts together and figure out how best to use the extraordinary opportunity that had fallen into his lap. “Truly important, indeed. Colonel Hossbach brings me word that Konrad Henlein, whom I mentioned only a few minutes ago, has been viciously and brutally assassinated. Assassinated by one Jaroslav Stribny, of Prague. Not content with forcing him out of the Sudetenland, the Czechs followed him into Germany and finished him off here.”

“Dio mio!” Mussolini exclaimed, eyes bulging in astonishment.

Dr. Schmidt translated for Chamberlain. Daladier had his own interpreter. The leaders of the two democracies gaped at the Fuhrer. Chamberlain murmured something. Hitler looked sharply at Schmidt. “He says he can hardly believe it, mein Fuhrer,” the translator said.

“Well, I can hardly believe it, either,” Hitler said. “I can hardly believe the perfidy of the Czech government, the perfidy of the whole Czech race, that has brought things to such a pass. You can surely see that we in the Reich did everything we could to be reasonable, to be generous, toward Czechoslovakia. But what thanks do we get? Murder! And I am afraid, gentlemen, that I see no choice but to avenge the insult with blood.”

Edouard Daladier frowned. Hitler almost told him how ridiculous he looked, with a few long, pathetic strands of hair combed over a vast bald pate. “This seems too convenient for words,” Daladier said. “Too convenient for you, too convenient for your aggression.”

Hitler almost told him he hadn’t rubbed out Henlein for just that reason. But, while he might have been so frank with Mussolini, whom he esteemed, he felt only contempt for the miserable little Frenchman. “Before God and before the spirit of history, I had nothing to do with it,” he declared.

“Monsieur Daladier is right,” Chamberlain said. “The advantage you gain from this almost surpasses belief.”

“Believe whatever you please.” No, Hitler hadn’t arranged for Henlein’s elimination. But he intended to use it. Oh, yes! Warming to his theme, he went on, “I have said all along that these Slavs are not to be trusted. I have said all along that they do not deserve nations of their own. Look what happened to Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Those murderous Serbian maniacs plunged a continent into war. And now the Slavs have done it again!”

“This need not be,” Neville Chamberlain said urgently. “As a result of this most unfortunate incident, I am sure we can extract more concessions from Mr. Masarik and Mr. Mastny.” The Foreign Ministry counselor and the Czech minister to Germany waited to hear what the great powers would decree for their country. The British Prime Minister continued, “And I do not see how the government of Czechoslovakia can fail to ratify whatever agreement we reach.”

“No,” Hitler said. “Not a soul can claim I was unwilling to meet you halfway, your Excellency. My thought all along was that Czechoslovakia deserved punishment for her arrogance and brutality. But I restrained myself. I convened this meeting at your request. You persuaded me the Czechs could be trusted far enough to make it worthwhile. In this we were both mistaken.”

He paused to let Dr. Schmidt translate. Schmidt was an artist, keeping a speaker’s tone as well as his meaning. Hitler’s tone, at the moment, had iron in it. So did the interpreter’s when he spoke English.

“You could overlook the enormity if you chose,” Chamberlain insisted. When turning his words into German, Schmidt somehow sounded like a fussy old man. “Henlein was, after all, a citizen of Czechoslovakia, not of the German Reich -”

“He was a German!” Hitler thundered, loud and fierce enough to make every pair of eyes in the room turn his way. “He was a German!” he repeated, a little more softly. “That is the whole point of what we have been discussing. All the Germans of the Sudetenland belong within the Reich. Because the Czechs will not allow this and go on persecuting them, we see disasters like this latest one. I am very sorry, your Excellency, very sorry indeed, but, as I said, blood calls for blood. As soon as I leave this office, Germany will declare war on Czechoslovakia.”

“May Monsieur Daladier and I have a few minutes to confer with each other?” Chamberlain asked, adding, “The situation has changed quite profoundly in the past few minutes, you understand.”

Would they throw Czechoslovakia over the side because of what Stribny had done? If they would, Hitler was willing to give them as much time as they needed. Their turn would come next anyhow. “You may do as you please,” the Fuhrer said. “I must ask you to step outside to talk, though; as I said, I shall not leave the room without declaring war.”

Chamberlain, Daladier, and their flunkies almost fell over one another in their haste to leave. As soon as they were gone, Mussolini asked, “Did you-?”

He left the question hanging, but Hitler knew what he meant. “Nein,” he said roughly. As he shook his head, a lock of hair flopped down over one eye. Impatiently, he pushed it back. “The Czechs did it themselves. They did it to themselves. And they will pay. By God, they will pay!”

“Italy still is not truly ready for this struggle,” the Duce warned.

“When the Czechs murder the leader of an oppressed minority, will you let them get away with it?” Hitler asked in astonishment. Full of righteous indignation that the Untermenschen should dare such a thing, he forgot for the moment all his own murders.

“They shouldn’t,” Mussolini admitted. “Still, England and France and Russia…”

“Russia? What good is Russia?” Hitler said scornfully. “She doesn’t even border Czechoslovakia. Do you think the Poles or the Romanians will let her ship soldiers across their territory? If she tries, we’ll have two new allies like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“I suppose so…” Mussolini still didn’t sound convinced.

Hitler was ready to argue with him all day, but didn’t get the chance. Chamberlain and Daladier returned to the office. Both heads of government looked thoroughly grim, their aides even grimmer. Daladier spoke for them: “I regret to have to say that, if Germany attacks Czechoslovakia, the French Republic and the United Kingdom will honor their commitments to their ally. We cannot believe that the murder of Monsieur Henlein is anything but a trumped-up provocation. Peace and war, then, lie entirely in your hands.”

Hitler almost screamed wild laughter. He wanted war, yes. But to have the leaders of the democracies ready to fight him because they were sure he’d done something of which he was entirely innocent…If that wasn’t irony, what was?

“I must tell you, you are making a dreadful mistake,” he said. “That Czech, that Stribny, murdered Herr Henlein on his own. I had nothing to do with it. Germany had nothing to do with it. Henlein left Czechoslovakia and entered the Reich because he feared for his own safety. And now we see he had reason to fear. If anyone inspired Stribny, it was the wicked Slavs in Prague, just as the wicked Slavs in Belgrade inspired Gavrilo Princip a generation ago.”

Every single word of that was the gospel truth. But it fell on deaf ears. He could tell as much even while Dr. Schmidt was translating. Chamberlain and Daladier had made up their minds. If he told them the sun was shining outside, they would call him a liar.

Chamberlain murmured something in English. “What did he say?” Hitler asked sharply.

“He said, ‘And then you wake up,’ mein Fuhrer,” Schmidt replied.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s slang, sir. It means he doesn’t believe you.”

“Donnerwetter!” Hitler could see the Allies’ propaganda mill spewing out endless lies. They would shout that he was a murderer, that he’d got rid of his own henchman to start a war. They would make him look bad to all the neutrals in Europe and Asia and the Americas. The Allies had trounced Germany and Austria-Hungary in the propaganda war during the World War. Now they had a great chance to do it again.

“If you are truly innocent of this crime, then do not assume the guilt of plunging the world into battle because of it,” Daladier said.

“This is madness!” Hitler cried. “If I had ordered Henlein killed, maybe a guilty conscience would keep me from taking advantage of it. But my conscience is clean.” Of this, anyhow he added, but only to himself. He got angrier by the word as he went on, “Konrad Henlein must have vengeance. The Sudeten Germans must have vengeance. Germany, to which they were about to return, must have vengeance. Czechoslovakia must be punished. If you want to line up behind a pack of skulking, cowardly assassins, go ahead-and be damned to you!”

“Mein Fuhrer-” Goring began.

“No!” Hitler roared. He was in full spate now. Nothing could stop him, or even slow him down. “They want war? They can have war! They will have war! War!…War! War! War!”

He threw open the doors to his office. “Is everything all right, mein Fuhrer?” one of the guards asked. “We could hear you shouting…”

So even the thick oak doors hadn’t muffled him? Well, too bad! “It is war!” he bellowed. “Colonel Hossbach!”

“Ja, mein Fuhrer?” his adjutant said.

“Begin Case Green. Immediately! War with Czechoslovakia! Now!” Yes, Hitler had what he most wanted, handed to him by, of all people, a Czech.