It is against this background that we must see the fateful editorial in the London Times of September 7, which proposed ceding the Sudetenland to the Reich. For after many weeks in which the crisis continued to worsen of its own accord, while Hitler seemingly restrained himself, the whole world was awaiting the speech with which he would wind up the Nuremberg party rally on September 12. It is quite possible that the many evidences of the spirit of appeasement contributed to the exceptionally violent and challenging tenor of that speech. But the unforgotten humiliation of May, to which he repeatedly reverted at length, was also a factor. He spoke of “infamous deception,” of “terroristic blackmail” and the “criminal aims” of the Prague government. He once more worked himself up over the imputation that he had retreated in the face of his opponents’ resolute posture, and he denounced their preparations for war. He had now drawn the necessary conclusions, he continued, which would permit him to strike back at once in the future. “In no circumstances shall I be willing any longer to regard with endless tranquillity a continuation of the oppression of German compatriots in Czechoslovakia…. The Germans of Czechoslovakia are neither defenseless nor deserted. Let this be noted.”
The speech was the signal for an uprising in the Sudetenland that cost many lives. In Germany a period of hectic military activity began. Blackout drills were held and automobiles requisitioned. For a moment war seemed inevitable. Then events took a surprising turn. Prime Minister Chamberlain, in a message dispatched on the night of September 13, declared his willingness to come to any desired place, without consideration of questions of prestige, for a personal discussion with Hitler. “I propose to come across by air and am ready to start tomorrow,” Chamberlain wrote.
Hitler felt exceedingly flattered, although the proposal involved slowing down on the collision course on which he had been hurtling. “I was thunderstruck,” he later declared. But the insecurity that all his life had made him incapable of gestures of magnanimity continued to govern his behavior. His guest was almost seventy and about to enter a plane for the first time in his life. But Hitler was incapable of meeting Chamberlain halfway. He proposed Berchtesgaden as the place for the conference. When the British Prime Minister arrived at the Berghof on the afternoon of September 15, after having traveled for nearly seven hours, Hitler went no farther to meet him than the top step of the large outside staircase. Once again he had placed General Keitel intimidatingly among the members of his entourage. When Chamberlain expressed the desire for a private conversation, Hitler agreed, but with the probable intention of further tiring the old man poured out upon him a rambling review of the European situation, Anglo-German relations, his own degree of resolution, and his successes. Despite his stoic equanimity, Chamberlain undoubtedly saw through Hitler’s tricks and maneuvers, and in his report to the cabinet two days later he referred to him as “the commonest little dog” he had ever seen.84
When Hitler at last came round to talking about the current crisis, he demanded nothing less than the annexation of the Sudeten territory. Chamberlain interrupted to ask whether he would be content with that or whether he wanted to dismember Czechoslovakia entirely. Hitler replied by referring to Polish and Hungarian demands. But all that did not interest him, Hitler declared, nor was the present the time to discuss the technical arrangements: “Three hundred Sudeten Germans have been killed, and that cannot go on, that has to be settled at once. I am determined to settle it; I don’t care whether or not there is a world war.”
Chamberlain responded testily that he did not see why it had been necessary for him to take so long a journey if Hitler had nothing to say to him except that he had decided on force anyhow. Hitler then became somewhat more conciliatory. He would “today or tomorrow look into the question of whether a peaceful solution of the question was still possible.” The decisive factor, he continued, would be “whether England is now ready to consent to a detachment of the Sudeten German region on the basis of the right of peoples to self-determination; with regard to which he [the Führer] must remark that this right of self-determination had not recently been invented by him in 1938 especially for the Czechoslovakian question, but had been created in 1918 in order to establish a moral basis for the changes resulting from the Versailles Treaty.” They agreed that Chamberlain would fly back to England for a cabinet session to discuss this question; in the meantime, Hitler promised, he would take no military measures.
As soon as Chamberlain had departed, Hitler propelled the crisis and his own preparations further. The obliging attitude of the British Prime Minister had thrown him into consternation, for it threatened to frustrate his further plans for annexing the whole of Czechia. But in the hope that Chamberlain would be overruled by his own cabinet, by the French, or by the Czechs, Hitler continued his arrangements. While the German press unleashed a savage campaign of atrocity stories, he set up a Sudeten German Free Corps “for the protection of the Sudeten Germans and the continuance of disturbances and clashes.” It was placed under the leadership of Konrad Henlein, who had fled to Germany. Hitler also urged Hungary and Poland to make territorial demands upon Prague, while also encouraging the Slovaks in their efforts to secure autonomy. Finally, in order to stir clashes on a larger scale, he had members of the Sudeten German Free Corps occupy the cities of Eger and Asch.
He was consequently stunned when Chamberlain, at their second meeting in the Hotel Dreesen in Godesberg on September 22, brought word that England, France, and even Czechoslovakia acquiesced to the cession of the Sudeten territory. Moreover, in order to remove Germany’s fears that Czechoslovakia might be used as the “tip of a lance” against the flank of the Reich, the British Prime Minister proposed that the existing treaties of alliance between France, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia be dissolved. Instead, an international guarantee would assure the country’s independence. All this was so astonishing that Hitler asked once more whether this offer had the approval of the Prague government. Chamberlain replied that it had. There was a brief, embarrassed pause before Hitler answered quietly: “I am very sorry, Mr. Chamberlain, that I can now no longer enter into these matters. After the developments of the past few days this solution will no longer do.”
Chamberlain showed his vexation. He asked angrily what circumstances had meanwhile changed the situation. Hitler once more evaded an answer by referring to the demands of the Hungarians and the Poles, then indulged in denunciations of the Czechs, lamented the sufferings of the Sudeten Germans, until at last he found the saving obstacle and immediately seized upon it: “It is vital to act quickly. The decision must be made in a few days…. The problem must be settled once and for all by October 1, completely settled.”
After three hours of fruitless bargaining, Chamberlain returned to the Hotel Petersberg across the Rhine. When an exchange of letters likewise proved fruitless, he asked for a written memorandum on the German demands, and announced that he was leaving. Hitler, State Secretary von Weizsäcker has related, “clapped his hands as if he had witnessed a successful entertainment” when these events were described to him. The news of the Czechoslovak mobilization, which exploded right in the middle of the chaotic, highly emotional concluding conversations, intensified the sense of approaching disaster. Nevertheless, Hitler now seemed ready to make a few trivial concessions, while Chamberlain showed signs of giving up and made it plain that he would no longer permit himself to be used by Hitler as a mediator.