Five Brothers and a War

The Sudetenland

Hitler then moved to plan his next conquest—Czechoslovakia, which was already home to about three million ethnic Germans, and was flanked by Germany on three sides of its border. The edges of Czechoslovakia on the north, west and southwest were inhabited by German speakers, an area that became known in the Treaty of Versailles as the Sudetenland, derived from the Sudetes Mountains. Hitler became more and more belligerent with regard to “repatriating” the Sudetenland. In his enormous September 1938 Nürnburg rally, both Hitler and Göring referred to solving the Sudeten issue. The world had been put on notice that Hitler was still expanding German territory. In response, the French did nothing. The British, under Neville Chamberlain, requested a meeting with Hitler. A pleasantly surprised Hitler quickly agreed to a meeting, to be held in the same villa in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria in which Austrian Chancellor von Schuschlegg was dressed down and then undone. Chamberlain arrived on September 15, 1938, and as with the Austrian Chancellor, spent almost all of the time listening. However, unlike the bombastic diatribe the Austrian received, Hitler was far calmer with Chamberlain, no doubt because the British actually had a strong military that could do Hitler great harm. Hitler, having spent considerable time complaining about the plight of the Sudeten Germans, suggested that the problem could be resolved simply by having Czechoslovakia cede the territories to Germany. Shockingly, Chamberlain said that he would go back to London to see what he could do. He had Hitler agree not to invade Czechoslovakia until they could meet again. Hitler agreed, and Chamberlain got his own cabinet, and then the French, to agree. Behind the scenes, Hitler proceeded with his war plans, and also got Poland and Hungary to agree to do nothing to stop him from taking over Czechoslovakia, in exchange for getting a part of the spoils. On September 19, the British and French ambassadors to Czechoslovakia informed Czech officials that they would have to give up any territory where at least 50% of the population was ethnic German. As Czechoslovakia then had no military support from its former allies, it acceded to the demands. Three days later, a happy Chamberlain flew to Germany again to give Hitler the good news. Upon telling Hitler, he was told that this was no longer good enough, and now he wanted to have the German army also occupy the Sudetenland and then have the non-Germans expelled. When Chamberlain responded that this was not possible, Hitler answered that he did not care, it was going to happen. Chamberlain returned to London, and the entire Royal Navy was put on alert. France mobilized its 100 army divisions and moved them into position along the German border. Czechoslovakia put its million man army on alert. Hitler then took a small step back by saying that if Germany got the Sudetenland, he would guarantee that the rest of Czechoslovakia would be protected, and even offered to help France and Britain guarantee this promise. Chamberlain, buoyed by this news, offered to meet again. The meeting was held in München, on September 29 th . It included Germany, Britain, France and Italy.

nazi germany

Five Brothers and a War

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