The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (77 page)

It was on that day, August 3, that Chamberlain had packed off Lord Runciman to Czechoslovakia on a curious mission to act as a “mediator” in the Sudeten crisis. I happened to be in
Prague
the day of his arrival and after attending his press conference and talking with members of his party remarked in my diary that “Runciman’s whole mission smells.” Its very announcement in the House of Commons on July 26 had been accompanied by a piece of prevaricating by Chamberlain himself which must have been unique in the experience of the British Parliament. The Prime Minister had said that he was sending Runciman “in response to a request from the government of Czechoslovakia.” The truth was that Runciman had been forced down the throat of the Czech government by Chamberlain. But there was an underlying and bigger falsehood. Everyone, including Chamberlain, knew that Runciman’s mission to “mediate” between the Czech government and the Sudeten leaders was impossible
and absurd. They knew that
Henlein
, the Sudeten leader, was not a free agent and could not negotiate, and that the dispute now was between Prague and Berlin. My diary notes for the first evening and subsequent days make it clear that the Czechs knew perfectly well that Runciman had been sent by Chamberlain to pave the way for the handing over of the Sudetenland to Hitler. It was a shabby diplomatic trick.

   And now the summer of 1938 was almost over. Runciman puttered about in the Sudetenland and in Prague, making ever more friendly gestures to the Sudeten Germans and increasing demands on the Czech government to grant them what they wanted. Hitler, his generals and his Foreign Minister were frantically busy. On August 23, the Fuehrer entertained aboard the liner
Patria
in
Kiel
Bay during naval maneuvers the Regent of Hungary, Admiral
Horthy
, and the members of the Hungarian government. If they wanted to get in on the Czech feast, Hitler told them, they must hurry. “He who wants to sit at the table,” he put it, “must at least help in the kitchen.”
²⁷
The Italian ambassador, Bernardo Attolico, was also a guest on the ship. But when he pressed Ribbentrop for the date of “the German move against
Czechoslovakia
” so that Mussolini could be prepared, the German Foreign Minister gave an evasive answer. The Germans, it was plain, did not quite trust the discretion of their Fascist ally. Of Poland they were now sure. All through the summer Ambassador von Moltke in Warsaw was reporting to Berlin that not only would Poland decline to help Czechoslovakia by allowing Russia to send troops and planes through or over her territory but Colonel Józef Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, was casting covetous eyes on a slice of Czech territory, the
Teschen
area. Beck already was exhibiting that fatal shortsightedness, so widely shared in Europe that summer, which in the end would prove more disastrous than he could possibly imagine.

At OKW (the High Command of the Armed Forces) and at OKH (the High Command of the Army) there was incessant activity. Final plans were being drawn up to have the armed forces ready for the push-off into Czechoslovakia by October 1. On August 24, Colonel Jodl at OKW wrote an urgent memorandum for Hitler stressing that “the fixing of the
exact
time for the ‘incident’ which will give Germany provocation for military intervention is most important.” The timing of X Day, he explained, depended on it.

   No advance measures [he went on] may be taken before X minus 1 for which there is not an innocent explanation, as otherwise we shall appear to have manufactured the incident…. If for technical reasons the
evening hours
should be considered desirable for the incident, then the following day cannot be X Day, but it must be the day after that … It is the purpose of these notes to point out what a great interest the Wehrmacht has in the incident and that it must be informed of the Fuehrer’s intention in good time—insofar as the Abwehr Section is not also charged with organizing the incident.
²⁸

The expert preparations for the onslaught on Czechoslovakia were obviously in fine shape by the summer’s end. But what about the defense of the west, should the French honor their word to the Czechs and attack? On August 26 Hitler set off for a tour of the western fortifications accompanied by Jodl, Dr. Todt, the engineer in charge of building the
West Wall
,
Himmler
and various party officials. On August 27 General Wilhelm Adam, a blunt and able Bavarian who was in command of the west, joined the party and in the next couple of days witnessed how intoxicated the Fuehrer became at the triumphal reception he was given by the Rhinelanders. Adam himself was not impressed; in fact, he was alarmed, and on the twenty-ninth in a surprising scene in Hitler’s private car he abruptly demanded to speak with the Fuehrer alone. Not without sneers, according to the General’s later report, Hitler dismissed Himmler and his other party cronies. Adam did not waste words. He declared that despite all the fanfare about the West Wall he could not possibly hold it with the troops at his disposal. Hitler became hysterical and launched into a long harangue about how he had made Germany stronger than Britain and France together.

“The man who doesn’t hold these fortifications,” Hitler shouted, “is a scoundrel!”
^*

Nevertheless doubts on this score were rising in the minds of generals other than Adam. On September 3, Hitler convoked the chiefs of OKW and OKH, Keitel and Brauchitsch, to the Berghof. Field units, it was agreed, were to be moved into position along the Czech border on September 28. But OKW must know when X Day was by noon on September 27. Hitler was not satisfied with the operational plan for “Green” and ordered that it be changed in several respects. From the notes of this meeting kept by Major Schmundt it is clear that Brauchitsch at least—for Keitel was too much the toady to speak up—again raised the question of how they were going to hold out in the west. Hitler fobbed him off with the assurance that he had given orders for speeding up the western fortifications.
³⁰

On September 8 General Heinrich von Stuelpnagel saw Jodl and the latter noted in his diary the General’s pessimism regarding the military position in the west. It was becoming clear to both of them that Hitler, his spirits whipped up by the fanaticism of the
Nuremberg
Party Rally, which had just opened, was going ahead with the invasion of Czechoslovakia whether France intervened or not. “I must admit,” wrote the usually optimistic Jodl, “that I am worried too.”

The next day, September 9, Hitler convoked Keitel, Brauchitsch and Halder to Nuremberg for a conference which began at 10
P.M
., lasted until 4 o’clock the next morning and, as Keitel later confided to Jodl, who in turn confided it to his diary, was exceedingly stormy. Halder found himself in the ticklish position—for the key man in the plot to overthrow Hitler the
moment he gave the word to attack—of having to explain in great detail the General Staff’s plan for the campaign in Czechoslovakia, and in the uncomfortable position, as it developed, of seeing Hitler tear it to shreds and dress down not only him but Brauchitsch for their timidity and their military incapabilities.
³¹
Keitel, Jodl noted on the thirteenth, was “terribly shaken” by his experience at Nuremberg and by the evidence of “defeatism” at the top of the German Army.

   Accusations are made to the Fuehrer about the defeatism in the High Command of the Army … Keitel declares that he will not tolerate any officer in OKW indulging in criticism, unsteady thoughts and defeatism … The Fuehrer knows that the Commander of the Army [Brauchitsch] has asked his commanding generals to support him in order to open the Fuehrer’s eyes about the adventure which he has resolved to risk. He himself [Brauchitsch] has no more influence with the Fuehrer.

Thus a cold and frosty atmosphere prevailed in Nuremberg and it is highly unfortunate that the Fuehrer has the whole nation behind him with the exception of the leading generals of the Army.

   All of this greatly saddened the aspiring young Jodl, who had hitched his star to Hitler.

   Only by actions can [these generals] honorably repair the damage which they have caused through lack of strength of mind and lack of obedience. It is the same problem as in 1914. There is only one example of disobedience in the Army and that is of the generals and in the end it springs from their arrogance. They can no longer believe and no longer obey because they do not recognize the Fuehrer’s genius. Many of them still see in him the corporal of the World War but not the greatest statesman since Bismarck.
³²

   In his talk with Jodl on September 8, General von Stuelpnagel, who held the post of Oberquartiermeister I in the Army High Command, and who was in on the Halder conspiracy, had asked for written assurances from OKW that the Army High Command would receive notice of Hitler’s order for the attack on Czechoslovakia five days in advance. Jodl had answered that because of the uncertainties of the weather two days’ notice was all that could be guaranteed. This, however, was enough for the conspirators.

But they needed assurances of another kind—whether, after all, they had been right in their assumption that Britain and France would go to war against Germany if Hitler carried out his resolve to attack Czechoslovakia. For this purpose they had decided to send trustworthy agents to London not only to find out what the British government intended to do but, if necessary, to try to influence its decision by informing it that Hitler had decided to attack the Czechs on a certain date in the fall, and
that the General Staff, which knew the date, opposed it and was prepared to take the most decisive action to prevent it if Britain stood firm against Hitler to the last.

The first such emissary of the plotters, selected by Colonel Oster of the Abwehr, was Ewald von
Kleist
, who arrived in London on August 18. Ambassador Henderson in Berlin, who was already anxious to give Hitler whatever he wanted in Czechoslovakia, advised the
British
Foreign Office that “it would be unwise for him [Kleist] to be received in official quarters.”
^*
Nevertheless Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to the Foreign Secretary and one of the leading opponents in London of the appeasement of Hitler, saw Kleist on the afternoon of his arrival, and Winston Churchill, still in the political wilderness in Britain, received him the next day. To both men, who were impressed by their visitor’s sobriety and sincerity, Kleist repeated what he had been instructed to tell, stressing that Hitler had set a date for aggression against the Czechs and that the generals, most of whom opposed him, would act, but that further British appeasement of Hitler would cut the ground from under their feet. If Britain and France would declare publicly that they would not stand idly by while Hitler threw his armies into Czechoslovakia and if some prominent British statesmen would issue a solemn warning to Germany of the consequences of Nazi aggression, then the German generals, for their part, would act to stop Hitler.
³⁴

Churchill gave Kleist a ringing letter to take back to Germany to bolster his colleagues:

   I am sure that the crossing of the frontier of Czechoslovakia by German armies or aviation in force will bring about renewal of the World War. I am as certain as I was at the end of July, 1914, that England will march with France … Do not, I pray you, be misled upon this point …
^†

   Vansittart took Kleist’s warning seriously enough to submit immediately a report on it to both the British Prime Minister and the Foreign
Secretary, and though Chamberlain, writing to Lord Halifax, said he was inclined “to discount a good deal of what he [Kleist] says,” he added: “I don’t feel sure that we ought not to do something.”
³⁶
What he did was to summon Ambassador Henderson, in the wake of some publicity, to London on August 28 “for consultations.”

He instructed his ambassador in Berlin to do two things: convey a sober warning to Hitler and, secondly, prepare secretly a “personal contact” between himself and the Fuehrer. According to his own story, Henderson persuaded the Prime Minister to drop the first request.
³⁷
As for the second, Henderson was only too glad to try to carry it out.
^*

This was the first step toward Munich and Hitler’s greatest bloodless victory.

Ignorant of this turning in Chamberlain’s course, the conspirators in Berlin made further attempts to warn the British government. On August 21, Colonel Oster sent an agent to inform the British military attaché in Berlin of Hitler’s intention to invade Czechoslovakia at the end of September. “If by firm action abroad Hitler can be forced at the eleventh hour to renounce his present intentions, he will be unable to survive the blow,” he told the British. “Similarly, if it comes to war the immediate intervention by France and England will bring about the downfall of the regime.”
Sir Nevile Henderson
dutifully forwarded this warning to London, but described it “as clearly biased and largely propaganda.” The blinkers on the eyes of the debonair British ambassador seemed to grow larger and thicker as the crisis mounted.

General Halder had a feeling that the conspirators were not getting their message through effectively enough to the British, and on September 2 he sent his own emissary, a retired Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hans Boehm-Tettelbach, to London to make contact with the British War Office and Military Intelligence. Though, according to his own story, the colonel saw several important personages in London, he does not seem to have made much of an impression on them.

Finally, the plotters resorted to using the German Foreign Office and the embassy in London in a last desperate effort to induce the British to remain firm. Counselor of the embassy and chargé d’affaires was Theodor
Kordt
, whose younger brother, Erich, was chief of Ribbentrop’s secretariat in the German Foreign Office. The brothers were protégés of Baron von Weizsaecker, the principal State Secretary and undoubtedly the brains of the Foreign Office, a man who after the war made a great fuss of his alleged anti-Nazism but who served Hitler and Ribbentrop well almost to the end. It is clear, however, from captured Foreign Office documents,
that at this time he opposed aggression against
Czechoslovakia
on the same grounds as those of the generals: that it would lead to a lost war. With Weizsaecker’s connivance, and after consultations with Beck, Halder and Goerdeler, it was agreed that
Theodor Kordt
should sound a last warning to Downing Street. As counselor of the embassy his visits to the British authorities would not be suspect.