additional letter, was published as a pamphlet in Johannesburg in 1947. (15)
Another plotter who appears to be close to the Milner Group was Adam von Trott zu
Solz, a Rhodes Scholar who went to the Far East on a mission for the Rhodes Trust in
1936 and was in frequent contact with the Institute of Pacific Relations in the period
1936-1939. He seems to have attended a meeting of the Pacific Council in New York late
in 1939, coming from Germany, by way of Gibraltar, after the war began. He remained in
contact with the democratic countries until arrested and executed by the Nazis in 1944. It
is not without significance that one of the chief projects which the plotters hoped to
further in post-Hitler German foreign policy was a "federation of Europe in a
commonwealth not unlike the British Empire."(16)
All of this evidence and much more would seem to support the theory of a "Munich
plot"—that is, the theory that the British government had no intention or desire to save
Czechoslovakia in 1938 and was willing or even eager to see it partitioned by Hitler, and
only staged the war scare of September in order to make the British people accept this
abuse of honor and sacrifice of Britain's international position. The efforts which the
British government made after Munich to conceal the facts of that affair would support
this interpretation. The chief question, from our point of view, lies in the degree to which
the Milner Group were involved in this "plot." There can be no doubt that the
Chamberlain group was the chief factor in the scheme. There is also no doubt that various
members of the Milner Group second circle, who were close to the Chamberlain group,
were involved. The position of the inner core of the Milner Group is not conclusively
established, but there is no evidence that they were not involved and a certain amount of
evidence that they were involved.
Among this latter evidence is the fact that the inner core of the Group did not object to
or protest against the partition of Czechoslovakia, although they did use the methods by
which Hitler had obtained his goal as an argument in support of their pet plan for national
service. They prepared the ground for the Munich surrender both in
the danger spot of the next few months. It will require high statesmanship on all sides to
find a peaceful and stable solution of the minorities problem. The critical question for the
next six months is whether the four great Powers represented by the Franco-British
entente and the Rome-Berlin axis can make up their minds that they will not go to war
with one another and that they must settle outstanding problems by agreement together."
In this statement, three implications are of almost equal importance. These are the time
limit of "six months," the exclusion of both Czechoslovakia and Russia from
the"agreement," and the approval of the four-power pact.
In the September 1938 issue of
are told: "It is one thing to be able, in the end, to win a war. It is a far better thing to be
able to prevent a war by a readiness for just dealing combined with resolute strength
when injustice is threatened." Here, as always before 1939,
meant appeasement of Germany.
After the dreadful deed was done,
hardly a kind word for the great sacrifice of the Czechs or for the magnificent
demonstration of restraint which they had given the world. In fact, the leading article in
the December 1938 issue of
Czechoslovakia for failure to reconcile her minorities, for failure to achieve economic
cooperation with her neighbors, and for failure to welcome a Hapsburg restoration. From
that point on, the article was honest. While accepting Munich, it regarded it solely as a
surrender to German power and rejected the arguments that it was done by negotiation,
that it was a question of self-determination or minority rights, or that Munich was any
better or more lenient than the Godesberg demands. The following article in the same
issue, also on Czechoslovakia, is a tissue of untruths except for the statement that there
never was any real Sudeten issue, since the whole thing was a fraudulent creation
engineered from Germany. Otherwise the article declares categorically: (1) that
Czechoslovakia could not have stood up against Hitler more than two or three weeks; (2)
that no opposition of importance to Hitler existed in Germany ("A good deal has been
written about the opposition of the military commanders. But in fact it does not and never
did exist."); (3) "There is no such thing as a conservative opposition in Germany." In the
middle of such statements as these, one ray of sanity shines like a light: in a single