of impregnability, faced by potential opponents who were mentally bewildered and militarily unprepared, and divided both geographically and ideologically, was in a position to dictate his terms. In conferences at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg with Mr Neville Chamberlain, and then at Munich, where M. Daladier and Mussolini, as well as Mr Chamberlain, were present, he put forward demands that France and Britain were not in a position to refuse. To save the peace of the world and to avoid their own destruction the Czechs were told that they must submit to the arrangements made by the four Great Powers at Munich, whereby all the German districts of Bohemia, together with the immense fortifications of the Erzgebirge, were handed over absolutely to Germany. In eight months Hitler had added 10,000,000 of Germans to the Third Reich, had broken the only formidable bastion to German expansion south-eastwards, and had made himself the most powerful individual in Europe since Napoleon i.
Czechoslovakia a ‘protectorate’
In the course of his conversations with Mr Chamberlain Hitler had assured him that he had no more territorial claims to make in Europe – a phrase he had also used after the seizure of Austria. On March 15, 1939, the world was, however, startled to hear that the German Army was invading and overwhelming Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, all that remained of the independent Republic. President Hacha, who under German pressure had succeeded Dr Benesh in the autumn, was summoned to Berlin and forced to accept terms which made his country a ‘Protectorate’ of the Reich. Hitler went to Prague to proclaim there another bloodless victory and then while the going was good travelled to Memel, which had been ceded under the Versailles Treaty to Lithuania, and announced its annexation on March 23.
Poland had profited from the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia by being allowed to annex the disputed region of Teschen. But she was marked down as the next victim. While German troops were still moving into Slovakia Hitler proposed to the Polish Government that Danzig should be returned to Germany and that Germany should build and own a road connecting East Prussia with the rest of the Reich, in return for which Germany would guarantee the Polish frontiers for 25 years – though a 10-year treaty of non-aggression already existed between the two countries, of which five years had still to run. Poland rejected the proposals and appealed to Great Britain and France for support. These countries at once gave Poland pledges to defend her independence, if necessary by war. The action of the Western Powers came as a shock to Hitler, who was further alarmed by negotiations shortly afterwards set on foot in Moscow by the French and British with the Soviet Government. The spectre of war on two fronts again arose to damp the German ardour for acquisition. Hitler, faced with the prospect of a check and a rebuff, fatal contingencies for an aspiring dictator, made his decision. Rather than give up his cherished, and indeed loudly proclaimed design of seizing Danzig and the Polish Corridor, he was prepared to eat every word he had uttered in condemnation, derision, and defiance of the Bolshevist regime, and to invite the Russians to agree to a non-aggression pact. Stalin on his side, finding the danger of a German attack suddenly exorcized, and distrusting the constancy of the Western Powers, was not unwilling to accept Hitler’s overtures, and the Pact was signed on August 23.
Hitler Starts War
With the disappearance of any likelihood of Russian assistance being given to the western allies Hitler saw no further obstacle in the way of an immediate attack on Poland, and on August 31, 1939, he ordered the German Armies to cross the frontier. The Second World War had begun. With typical falsity Hitler and Ribbentrop – now his intimate and most pernicious adviser – had offered the Polish Ambassador terms of settlement, and broadcast them to the world, a few hours before the soldiers began the invasion, without, however, allowing the Ambassador time or means to convey them to his Government.
The attack on Poland gave the world its first taste of the horrors of a German Blitzkrieg. Hitler went East to superintend the slaughter in person. It was a swift and terrible war which he waged in bitter hatred and, when the issue was clear, with crude boastings and gross lies at the expense of a broken nation. In a speech at Danzig on September 19 he had the effrontery to declare that: ‘Poland has worked for this war’ and ‘peace was prevented by a handful of (British) warmongers’. On the same occasion he took up what he called the British ‘challenge’ to a three years’ conflict and announced that Germany possessed a new weapon. The grim business was over in a few weeks. Warsaw surrendered on September 24 and on October 5 Hitler visited it and swaggered among the ruins which were garlanded for the occasion.
The next day, speaking in the Reichstag, he made what he called his last offer to the allies. It was a remarkable rhetorical performance, though, obviously nervous, he hurried through the phrases in which he described his new friendship with the Russians. As a plea for peace it could, if only one of its premises had been sound and one of its promises could have been believed, scarcely have been bettered; but he had by that time to pay the price of his habitual contempt for truth. In early November he made a speech at Munich, on the anniversary of the Putsch of 1923, in which he said that he had given Göring orders to prepare for a five years’ war. He ended earlier than had been expected and left the Burgerbräu beer cellar in which he made it for Berlin. Shortly afterwards there was an explosion in which six people were killed and over 60 injured. The official German News Agency claimed that the attempt had been inspired by foreign agents and offered a reward of half a million marks for the discovery of the instigators. One George Elsen was arrested. Official Germans were infuriated with The Times for suggesting that the explosion was no surprise to the Führer and that he had left early to avoid it.
France Crushed
On New Year’s Day, 1940, Hitler declared that he was fighting for ‘a new Europe’. On March 18 he met Mussolini on the Brenner, a presage, as it was later recognized to be, of great events. In April came the invasions of Norway and Denmark, and in early May he was congratulating his troops on their success and authorizing decorations for them. On May 10 his armies invaded Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, and on the same day he went to the Western Front. On the morrow he proclaimed that the hour for the decisive battle for the future of the German nation had come. In less than a month the bells were rung in Germany to celebrate the victorious conclusion of what he called ‘the greatest battle of all time’. A few days later he congratulated Mussolini on the entry of Italy into the war. On June 22 the Armistice with France was signed. At that moment Hitler stood at the zenith of his success and power. Western Europe was his and there remained no one there to crush except Great Britain, weakened by her losses on the Continent and without an effective ally. As usual Goebbels was turned on to prepare the way.
Battle of Britain
Victory Promised for 1941
On July 19, speaking in the Reichstag, Hitler ‘as a victor’ made his final appeal to ‘common sense’ before proceeding with his campaign against her. He spoke with an unusual sobriety, but there was no mistaking his threats. He had his answer from a united and determined Empire. On September 4 he reiterated his menaces. Then he unleashed the Luftwaffe and the Battle of Britain began in earnest. On October 4 after a month of it he was back at the Brenner to talk things over with Mussolini. In a few days his troops entered Rumania. A little later he went to the Spanish frontier for a discussion with General Franco with a view, it was thought, to tightening the blockade of Great Britain. Before the end of the month he was back with Mussolini in Florence. He seemed about this time to understand that Great Britain could not be conquered from the air and to think increasingly in terms of U-boats. He described himself as the ‘hardest man the German people have had for decades and, perhaps, for centuries’.
In his New Year’s proclamation to the army Hitler promised victory over Great Britain in 1941 and added that every Power which ate of democracy should die of it. He continued, for he always seemed uneasy on this score, to place the blame for unrestricted air warfare on Mr Churchill, and he kept on expressing his confidence in the U-boat. All that spring, indeed, he seemed particularly eager to encourage his followers. In April he invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and went to join his advancing armies. And all the time he kept hammering at Great Britain from the air and striking under water at her supply lines.
On June 3, 1941, there was another meeting of the dictators on the Brenner Pass, and it was suggested that there would be an immediate start in the organization of a Continental peace; but on June 22 he cast aside