Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

Already on 21 October 1938, only three weeks after the Munich settlement, Hitler had given the Wehrmacht a new directive to prepare for the ‘following eventualities’: I. securing the frontiers of the German Reich and protection against surprise air attacks; 2. liquidation of remainder of the Czech state; 3. the occupation of Memelland.’ The third point referred to the district of Memel, a seaport on the Baltic with a largely German population, which had been removed from Germany by the Versailles Treaty. On the key second point, the directive added: ‘It must be possible to smash at any time the remainder of the Czech State should it pursue an anti-German policy.’⁴⁷ Recognizing the perilous plight they were in, the Czechs in fact bent over backwards to accommodate German interests. In extremis, rather than end their existence as a country, the Czechs were prepared to turn themselves into a German satellite.⁴⁸ Why, then, was Hitler so insistent on smashing the remnants of the Czech state? Politically it was not necessary. Indeed, the German leadership cannot fail to have recognized that an invasion of Czechoslovakia, tearing up the Munich Agreement and breaking solemn promises given only such a short time earlier, would inevitably have the most serious international repercussions.

Part of the answer is doubtless to be found in Hitler’s own personality and psychology. His Austrian background and dislike of Czechs since his youth was almost certainly a significant element. Yet after occupation, the persecution of the Czechs was by no means as harsh as that later meted out to the conquered Poles. ‘They must always have something to lose,’ commented Goebbels.⁴⁹ And, following his victorious entry into Prague, Hitler showed remarkably little interest in the Czechs.

More important, certainly, was the feeling that he had been ‘cheated’ out of his triumph, his ‘unalterable wish’ altered by western politicians. ‘That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague,’ he was overheard saying on his return to Berlin after the agreement at Munich the previous autumn.⁵⁰

His ‘sheer bloody mindedness’ — his determination not to be denied Prague — probably also has to be regarded as part of the explanation.⁵¹ And yet, the Goebbels diary entries, which we have noted, indicate plainly that Hitler had decided before Munich that he would concede to the western powers at that point, but gobble up the rest of Czechoslovakia in due course, and that the acquisition of the Sudetenland would make that second stage easier.⁵² That was Hitler’s rationalization at the time of the position he had been manoeuvred into. But it does indicate the acceptance by that date of a two-stage plan to acquire the whole of Czechoslovakia, and does not highlight vengeance as a motive.

There were other reasons for occupying the rump of Czechoslovakia that went beyond Hitler’s personal motivation. Economic considerations were of obvious importance. However pliant the Czechs were prepared to be, the fact remained that even after the transfer of October 1938, which brought major raw material deposits to the Reich, immense resources remained in Czecho-Slovakia (as the country, the meaningful hyphen inserted, was now officially called) and outside direct German control. The vast bulk of the industrial wealth and resources of the country lay in the old Czech heartlands of Bohemia and Moravia, not in the largely agricultural Slovakia. An estimated four-fifths of engineering, machine-tool construction, and electrical industries remained in the hands of the Czechs.⁵³ Textiles, chemicals, and the glass industry were other significant industries that beckoned the Germans. Not least, the Skoda works produced locomotives and machinery as well as arms. Czecho-Slovakia also possessed large quantities of gold and foreign currency that could certainly help relieve some of the shortages of the Four-Year Plan.⁵⁴ And a vast amount of equipment could be taken over and redeployed to the advantage of the German army. The Czech arsenal was easily the greatest among the smaller countries of central Europe.⁵⁵ The Czech machine-guns, field-guns, and anti-aircraft guns were thought to be better than the German equivalents. They were all taken over by the Reich, as well as the heavy guns built at the Skoda factories.⁵⁶ It was subsequently estimated that enough arms had fallen into Hitler’s possession to equip a further twenty divisions.⁵⁷ Significantly, Hitler had refused the previous autumn to allow the Poles to occupy the area of Moravská-Ostrava, of importance for its minerals and industries. It was the first area to be taken over by the Germans in March 1939.⁵⁸