Robinson of the United States Army, and analyzed in a report which he submitted to the
Secretary of War in October 1947. This document, entitled Foreign Logistical
Organizations and Methods, shows that all of the accepted estimates of German
rearmament in the period 1933-1939 were gross exaggerations. From 1936 to the
outbreak of war, German aircraft production was not raised, but averaged 425 planes a
month. Her tank production was low and even in 1939 was less than Britain's. In the first
9 months of 1939, Germany produced only 50 tanks a month; in the last 4 months of
1939, in wartime, Germany produced 247 "tanks and self-propelled guns," compared to a
British production of 314 tanks in the same period. At the time of the Munich crisis,
Germany had 35 infantry and 4 motorized divisions, none of them fully manned or
equipped. This was no more than Czechoslovakia had alone. Moreover, the Czech Army
was better trained, had far better equipment, and had better morale and better
fortifications. As an example of this point, we might mention that the Czech tank was of
38 tons, while the Germans, before 1938, had no tank over 10 tons. During 1938 they
brought into production the Mark III tank of less than 20 tons, and in 1939 brought into
production the Mark IV of 23 tons. Up to September 1939, the German Army had
obtained only 300 tanks of the Mark III and Mark IV types together. Most of these were
delivered during 1939. In comparison, the Germans captured in Czechoslovakia, in
March 1939, 469 of the superior Czech tanks. At the same time they captured 1500
planes (of which 500 were first-line), 43,000 machine-guns, and over 1 million rifles.
These figures are comparable with what Germany had at Munich, and at that time, if the
British government had desired, Germany would have been facing France, Britain, and
Russia, as well as Czechoslovakia.
It should perhaps be mentioned that up to September 1939 the German Navy had
acquired only 53 submarines during the Hitler regime. No economic mobilization for war
had been made and no reserve stocks built up. When the war began, in September 1939,
Germany had ammunition for 6 weeks, and the air force had bombs for 3 months at the
rate of expenditure experienced during the Polish campaign. At that time the Air Force
consisted of 1000 bombers and 1050 fighters. In contrast, the British air program of May
1938 planned to provide Britain with a first-line force of 2370 planes; this program was
stepped up in 1939. Under it, Britain produced almost 3000 military planes in 1938 and
about 8000 in 1939. The German figures for planes produced in these 2 years are 5235
and 8295, but these are figures for all planes produced in the country, including civil as
well as military airplanes. As Hanson Baldwin put it, "Up until 1940, at least, Germany's
production did not markedly outstrip Britain's." It might also be mentioned that British
combat planes were of better quality.
We have no way of knowing if the Chamberlain government knew these facts. It
should have known them. At the least, it should not have deluged its own people with
untrue stories about German arms. Surprisingly, the British have generally refused to
modify these stories, and, in order to perpetuate the fable about the necessity for the
Munich surrender, they have continued to repeat the untrue propaganda stories of 1937-
1939 regarding German armaments. This is as true of the critics of Munich as of its
defenders. Both have adopted the version that Britain yielded to superior and
overwhelming force at Munich. They have done this even though this story is untrue and
they are in a position to know that it is untrue. For example, Winston Churchill, in his
war memoirs, repeats the old stories about German rearmament, although he has been
writing two years or more after the Reichswehr archives were captured. For this he was
criticized by Hanson Baldwin in The New York Times of 9 May 1948. In his recent book,
Munich: Prologue to Tragedy, J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, the British editor of the captured
papers of the German Foreign Ministry, accepts the old propaganda tales of German
rearmament as axiomatic, and accordingly does not even discuss the subject. He merely
tells his readers: "By the close of 1937 Germany's preparedness for war was complete.
The preference for guns rather than for butter had brought forth results. Her rearmament
had reached its apogee and could hold that peak level for a certain time. Her economy
was geared to a strict regime of rationing and output on a war level." None of this was
true, and Mr. Wheeler-Bennett should have examined the evidence. If he had, he would
not have been so severe on what he calls Professor Frederick Schumann's"fantastic theory
of the 'Pre-Munich Plot.'" (14)
The last piece of evidence which we might mention to support the theory—not of a
plot, perhaps, but that the Munich surrender was unnecessary and took place because
Chamberlain and his associates wanted to dismember Czechoslovakia—is even more
incriminating. As a result of the inadequate rearmament of Germany, a group of
conservatives within the regime formed a plot to liquidate Hitler and his close supporters
if it appeared that his policy in Czechoslovakia would result in war. This group, chiefly
army officers, included men on the highest level of government. In the group were
Colonel General Ludwig Beck (Chief of the General Staff), Field Marshal von Witzleben,
General Georg Thomas, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (Mayor of Leipzig in 1930-1936),
Ulrich von Hassell (ex-Ambassador to Italy), Johannes Popitz (Prussian Minister of
Finance), and Paul Schmidt (Hitler's private interpreter). This group formed a plot to kill
Hitler and remove the Nazis from power. The date was set eventually for 28 September
1938. Lord Halifax, on 5 September 1938, was informed of the plot by Theodore Kordt,
the German charge d'affaires in London, whose brother, Erich Kordt, chief of
Ribbentrop's office in the Foreign Ministry, was one of the conspirators. The message
which Kordt gave to Halifax begged the British government to stand fast with
Czechoslovakia in the Sudeten crisis and to make perfectly clear that Britain would go to
war if Germany violated Czechoslovakian territory. The plot was canceled at noon on 28
September, when the news reached Berlin that Chamberlain was going to Munich. It was
this plot which eventually, after many false starts, reached fruition in the attempt to
assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944.
There can be little doubt that the Milner Group knew of these anti-Nazi plots
within Germany. Several of the plotters were former Rhodes Scholars and were in
touch with members of the inner circle of the Milner Group in the period up to
1943, if not later. One of the leaders of the anti-Hitler plotters in Germany, Helmuth
von Moltke, was probably a member of the Milner Group as well as intellectual
leader of the conspirators in Germany. Count von Moltke was the son of the German
commander of 1914 and grandnephew of the German commander of 1870. His mother,
Dorothy Rose-Innes, was the daughter of Sir James Rose-Innes, whom Milner made
Chief Justice of the Transvaal in 1902. Sir James was a supporter of Rhodes and had been
Attorney General in Rhodes's ministry in 1890. He was Chief Justice of South Africa in
1914-1927 and was always close to the Milner Group. The von Moltkes were Christian
Scientists, and Dorothy, as Countess von Moltke after 1905, was one of the persons who