Munich

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This novel is the culmination of a fascination with the Munich Agreement that dates back more than thirty years, and I would like to thank Denys Blakeway, the producer with whom I made a BBC television documentary, God Bless You, Mr Chamberlain, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the conference in 1988. We have maintained a mild mutual obsession with the subject ever since.

In Germany, my friends at Heyne Verlag, Patrick Niemeyer and Doris Schuck, helped arrange my research in Munich. I am especially grateful to Dr Alexander Krause for his expert guided tour of what was once the Führerbau and is now the Faculty of Music and Theatre (of which he is Chancellor), and to the Bavarian Interior Ministry for allowing me to visit Hitler’s old apartment in Prinzregentenplatz, now used as a police headquarters.

In Britain, my thanks go to Stephen Parkinson, Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street, and to Professor Patrick Salmon, Chief Historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

I was fortunate, yet again, to benefit from the advice and support of four shrewd ‘first readers’. To my editor at Hutchinson in London, Jocasta Hamilton; and at Knopf in New York, Sonny Mehta; to my German translator, Wolfgang Müller; and to my wife, Gill Hornby, my deepest thanks, as always.

I would also like to acknowledge my debt to the following works:

John Charmley, Chamberlain and the Lost Peace; Jock Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955; David Dilks (editor), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan; Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1935–1938; David Dutton, Neville Chamberlain; David Faber, Munich 1938: Appeasement and World War II; Keith Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain; Joachim Fest, Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler’s Architect; Joachim Fest, Plotting Hitler’s Death: The German Resistance to Hitler 1933–1945; Hans Bernd Gisevius, To the Bitter End; Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect; Sheila Grant Duff, The Parting of the Ways; Ronald Hayman, Hitler and Geli; Nevile Henderson, Failure of a Mission; Peter Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler; Peter Hoffmann, The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; Peter Hoffmann, Hitler’s Personal Security; Heinz Höhne, Canaris; Lord Home, The Way the Wind Blows; David Irving, The War Path; Otto John, Twice Through the Lines; The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel; Ian Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s Road to War; Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle; Alexander Krause, No. 12 Arcisstrasse; Klemens von Klemperer (editor), A Noble Combat: The Letters of Sheila Grant Duff and Adam von Trott zu Solz 1932–1939; Valentine Lawford, Bound for Diplomacy; Giles MacDonogh, 1938: Hitler’s Gamble; Giles MacDonogh, A Good German: Adam von Trott zu Solz; Andreas Mayor (translator), Ciano’s Diary 1937–1938; Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1930–1939; John Julius Norwich (editor), The Duff Cooper Diaries; NS-Dokumentationszentrum, München, Munich and National Socialism; Robert Rhodes James (editor), Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon; Richard Ollard (editor), The Diaries of A. L. Rowse; Richard Overy, with Andrew Wheatcroft, The Road to War; David Reynolds, Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century; Andrew Roberts, ‘The Holy Fox’: A Biography of Lord Halifax; Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter; Robert Self, Neville Chamberlain; Robert Self (editor), The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters, Volume Four; William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary; Reinhard Spitzy, How We Squandered the Reich; Lord Strang, Home and Abroad; Despina Stratigakos, Hitler at Home; Christopher Sykes, Troubled Loyalty: A Biography of Adam von Trott; A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War; Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace; D. R. Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home; Daniel Todman, Britain’s War: Into Battle 1937–1941; Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, 1937–1939; Ernst von Weizsäcker, Memoirs; Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945; Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European.