Late that afternoon a motorized division began its ominous parade through Wilhelmstraße past the government buildings. For three hours, Hitler stood at his window as it rumbled past.363 According to the recollections of his Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below, he had ordered the display not to test the martial spirit of the Berlin people, but to impress foreign diplomats and journalists with German military might and readiness for war.364 If that was the aim, the attempt misfired. The American journalist William Shirer reported on the sullen response of the Berliners — ducking into doorways, refusing to look on, ignoring the military display — as ‘the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen’.365 Goebbels, who had been uninvolved in the arrangements, recorded that the display had made ‘the deepest impression’.366 But in contradiction to this comment he apparently acknowledged that people had taken little notice of the parade.367 Hitler was reportedly disappointed and angry at the lack of enthusiasm shown by Berliners.368 The contrast with the reactions of the hand-picked audience in the Sportpalast was vivid. It was a glimpse of the mood throughout the country. Whatever the feelings about the Sudeten Germans, only a small fanaticized minority thought them worth a war against the western powers.
But if Hitler was disappointed that the mood of the people did not resemble that of August 1914, his determination to press ahead with military action on 1 October, if the Czechs did not yield, was unshaken, as he made clear that evening to Ribbentrop and Weizsäcker.369 The Foreign Minister was, if anything, even more bellicose than Hitler. He told Rudolf Schmundt, Hoßbach’s successor as Hitler’s chief military adjutant, that acceptance by the Czechs of the German ultimatum would be the worst that could happen.370 But Ribbentrop was by now practically the only hawkish influence on Hitler.371 From all other sides, pressures were mounting for him to pull back from the brink.
For Hitler, to retreat from an ‘unalterable decision’ was tantamount to a loss of face. Even so, for those used to dealing at close quarters with Hitler, the unthinkable happened. The following morning of 28 September, hours before the expiry of the ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, he changed his mind and conceded to the demands for a negotiated settlement. ‘One can’t grasp this change. Führer has given in, and fundamentally,’ noted Helmuth Groscurth.372
The decisive intervention was Mussolini’s. Feelers for such a move had been put out by an increasingly anxious Göring a fortnight or so earlier. Göring had also tried, through Henderson, to interest the British in the notion of a conference of the major powers to settle the Sudeten question by negotiation.373 Before Mussolini’s critical move, the British and French had also applied maximum pressure. Chamberlain had spoken the previous evening on the radio of the absurdity of war on account of ‘a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing’.374 He had followed this up with a reply to Hitler’s letter, emphasizing his incredulity that the German Chancellor was prepared to risk a world war perhaps bringing the end of civilization ‘for the sake of a few days’ delay in settling this long-standing problem’.375 His letter contained proposals, agreed with the French, to press the Czechs into immediate cession of the Sudeten territory, the transfer to be guaranteed by Britain and to begin on 1 October. An International Boundary Commission would work out the details of the territorial settlement. The British Prime Minister indicated that he was prepared to come to Berlin immediately, together with the representatives of France and Italy, to discuss the whole issue.376 Chamberlain also wrote to Mussolini, urging agreement with his proposal ‘which will keep all our peoples out of war’.377
