A Fatal Submission to the Territorial Demands of Adolph Hitler
“How could honourable men with wide experience and fine records in the Great War condone a policy so cowardly? It was sordid, squalid, sub-human, and suicidal.” Winston Churchill speech before the House of Commons
The Munich Pact, an agreement between France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain, led ultimately not only to World War II, for it weakened the coalition of forces that sought to curtail the territorial ambitions of Adolph Hitler. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Edouard Daladier, the Premier of France, supinely catered to the demands of the rapacious Chancellor of Germany, Adolph Hitler. It hindsight, we shutter at the abandonment of Czechoslovakia, a thriving democracy that represented a pivotal line of defense against the eastward territorial ambitions of Germany.
After occupying Austria in 1938, Hitler focused his efforts ostensibly on incorporating a portion of Czechoslovakia, the Sudatenland into the greater German empire. Hitler in his negotiating ploy to the Western powers verbalized a desire to merely incorporate the ethnic Germans of the Sudatenland into Greater Germany. In truth, in a meeting in Berlin on May 28, 1938 he told his generals, “It is my unshakable will that Czechoslovakia be wiped off the may.” He instructed his generals to develop a military plan to completing this goal by October 1, 1938. The high command of Germany resented the exalted status of this “corporal upstart” and planned a coup d tat against the Nazi regime in case Hitler sought and failed to acquire the Sudatenland.
Initially, Hitler sought to stir up the ethnic Germans to demand incorporation into the German empire. The leader of the Sudenten Germans, Konrad Henlein, initiated a series of terrorist attacks as well as marches and rallies. Using these attacks as a front, the German propaganda machine began to cry for justice of these so-called persecuted Germans in Czechoslovakia. By the beginning of September 1938, Hitler vocalized his willingness to go to war to redress the situation. In response, President Benes of Czechoslovakia declared martial law.
The English and French at this point sought to intervene. Their willingness ultimately to submit to Hitler’s demands without any consultation with the Soviet Union led Stalin to renounce his previous efforts of collective security with the western democracies. That is, prior to the Munich crisis, several small countries—Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Lithuania—and the Soviet Union had some understanding either formal or informal to oppose German territorial expansion. In essence, the loose confederation of states with vastly different economic regimes and ethnic constituencies had a common purpose of repulsing Germany. Munich forced each of these nations to appease Hitler.
The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had a business background. Unfortunately, his lack of knowledge of political affairs failed to limit his desire to control British foreign policy. He rejected both in spirit and in fact the advise of Churchill who begged the British and French to make every attempt to form an alliance with the Soviet Union to deter German territorial ambitions. Chamberlain felt that Hitler could be handled like any other negotiation. The key to success was to determine the opponent’s bottom line; and, if possible, give it to him. Chamberlain felt that giving the Sudatenland was a small, in unseemly, price to “pay for the prevention of a continental war.” It never occurred to Chamberlain that Hitler was lying. What Churchill would have taken with an enormous grain of salt, Chamberlain gladly swallowed. Chamberlain perceived the fate of Czechoslovakia, a small, distant country, inconsequential. He did not realize the fatal domino consequences of “their sellout.”
Despite a formal treaty that bound France to protect Czechoslovakia, the French Premier Edouard Daladier cooperated fully with Chamberlain in demanding Czechoslovakia concede to the demands of Hitler. Maximum Litvinoff, the Soviet Union’s foreign Minister, addressed the League of Nations in Geneva during the crises. Litvinoff accused Britain and France of avoiding a problematical war today in return for a larger war later. Litvinoff indicated his desire to coordinate with the French and Czechoslovakia army for joint action. Russia appeared ready to meet her obligations to the Czech government; however, she required martial support of the French. It must be understood that Joseph Stalin, the absolute dictator of Russia, approved explicitly every word spoken by Litvinoff. Instead, Chamberlain and Daladier successfully demanded that the Czechs perform the following:
The evacuation from the Sudatenland beginning on October 1, 1938.
The Czechoslovakia government must retain all existing installations for their German occupiers
A plebiscite will be held to determine other territories that might become incorporated into the German empire. (The plebiscite never took place)
The repercussions of this act of appeasement (the word treachery maybe should be inserted) were total bankruptcy for the foreign policies of France and Great Britain.
First of all, Molotov replaced Litvinoff (a Jew) within several months, signaling to Hitler that a non-aggression pact between these seemingly irreconcilably enemies were possible and maybe even desired by Stalin. That is, Stalin now deeply distrustful of France and England renounced the doctrine of collective security in favor of giving his nation needed time to mobilize for an eventual war with Germany. Litvinoff in essence warned the world of the likelihood of a change in foreign policy to reflect Stalin’s feelings that the western powers were conspiring against the Soviet Union in his last speech to the League of Nations on September 21, 1938: “A fire brigade was set up in the innocent hope that, by some lucky chance, there would be no fires…every State must define its role and its responsibilities bore its contemporaries and before history. That is why I must plainly declare here that the Soviet Government bears no responsibility whatsoever for the events now taking place, and for the fatal consequences which may inexorably ensue.”
Secondly, the German generals who were considering a coup d tat that would replace Hitler were effectively silenced. That is, the German people after Munich embraced Hitler as a successor to Frederick the Great and Wilhelm I, thereby, consolidating his power over both domestic and foreign affairs further.
Thirdly, nations such as Romania, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary determined to either form an alliance with Germany, or renounce their alliances with France to become neutral.
Fourthly, Hitler sensed that the western democracies were weak and could be pushed into further concessions. Within months, Czechoslovakia lost its presence as an independent state.
Unfortunately, Chamberlain never learned from his mistake at Munich. Instead, even after the Fall of France, he felt that (1) England could coexist with Germany and (2) that communism spearheaded by the Soviet Union posed a greater threat than fascism.
