But in the long term, you’d have to say it was a very bad idea.
56
The day after the Anschluss, Germany, showing uncharacteristic prudence, sends messages of appeasement to Czechoslovakia. The Czechs shouldn’t have the slightest fear of being the next victim, they are told, even if the annexation of Austria and the consequent feeling of being encircled might seem a legitimate source of anxiety.
To avoid any needless tension, orders are given that no German troops in Austria should approach within ten to fifteen miles of the Czech border.
But in the Sudetenland, news of the Anschluss provokes an extraordinary enthusiasm. Suddenly people talk only of their ultimate fantasy: being reunited with the Reich. There are protests and marches everywhere, political tracts and propaganda pamphlets. The pervading atmosphere is of conspiracy. The Czech government gives orders aimed at suppressing this agitation, but they are systematically sabotaged by public workers and German employees. The boycott of the Czech minority in German-language zones is enforced on an unprecedented scale. Beneš will write in his memoirs that he was stunned by this mystical romanticism that seemed to suddenly seize all the Germans of Bohemia.
57
The Council of Constance is guilty of having called on our natural enemies—all the Germans who surround us—to fight an unjust war against us, when they have no reason to rise up against us except their unquenchable hatred of our language.
(HUSSITE MANIFESTO, C. 1420)
58
Once, and once only, France and Britain said no to Hitler during the Czechoslovak crisis. And even then, the British “no” was rather halfhearted.
May 19, 1938: reports of German troop movements at the Czech border. On May 20, Czechoslovakia orders a partial mobilization of its own forces, sending out a very clear message: if the country is attacked, it will defend itself.
The French, reacting with a firmness we hardly expect of them anymore, immediately declare that they will honor their commitments to Czechoslovakia. In other words, that they will come to the military aid of their allies in the event of a German attack.
The British, unpleasantly surprised by the French attitude, nevertheless fall into line with their ally’s position. With this small qualification: that they will under no circumstances guarantee a military intervention. Chamberlain makes sure that his diplomats do not promise more than is contained in this muddled phrase: “In the event of a European conflict, it is impossible to know if Great Britain will take part.” Not the most decisive of statements.
Hitler will remember these weasel words, but at the time he takes fright and retreats. On May 23, he makes it known that Germany has no aggressive intentions toward Czechoslovakia, and withdraws the troops massed at the border as if nothing had happened. The official line is that these were simply routine maneuvers.
But Hitler is mad with rage. He feels that Beneš has humiliated him, and the urge to make war is rising within him. On May 28, he summons the Wehrmacht’s field officers and barks at them: “It is my staunch desire to wipe Czechoslovakia off the map.”
59
Beneš, worried by Great Britain’s reluctance to honor its commitments, calls his ambassador in London for the latest news. The conversation, recorded by the German secret service, leaves no doubt about the Czechs’ disillusionment with their British counterparts—beginning with Chamberlain, who gets it with both barrels:
“The dirty bastard just wants us to lick Hitler’s ass!”
“You have to talk him around! Make him get his wits back!”
“The old bugger hasn’t got any wits left. All he does is sniff the Nazis’ shit.”
“So talk to Horace Wilson. Tell him to warn the prime minister that England, too, will be in danger if we don’t show ourselves resolute. Could you make him understand that?”
“How do you want me to talk to Wilson? He’s just a jackal!”
The Germans rush to get the tape recordings to the British. Apparently, Chamberlain was dreadfully upset and never forgave the Czechs.
This same Wilson, Chamberlain’s special advisor, made a bid for conciliation between the Germans and Czechs, with Britain acting as referee. Not long afterward, Hitler would talk about it in these terms:
“Why should I care about the British being involved? The filthy old dog is mad if he thinks he can con me like this!”
Wilson is surprised:
“If Herr Hitler is referring to the prime minister, I can assure him that the prime minister is not mad. He is simply interested in the outcome of the peace talks.”
Hitler then really lets loose:
“I’m not interested in what these ass-lickers say. The only thing that interests me is my people in the Sudetenland; my people who are tortured and assassinated by that vile queer Beneš! I won’t take it any longer. It’s more than a good German can bear! Do you hear me, you stupid swine?”
So there is at least one point on which the Czechs and Germans were in agreement: Chamberlain and his clique were a bunch of ass-lickers.
Curiously, however, Chamberlain was far less offended by the German insults than by those of the Czechs. With hindsight, you’d have to say that’s a shame.
60
On August 21, 1938, Edouard Daladier, the French council president, gives an edifying speech on the radio:
Faced with authoritarian states who are arming and equipping themselves with no regard to the length of the working week, alongside democratic states who are striving to regain their prosperity and ensure their safety with a forty-eight-hour week, why should France—both more impoverished and more threatened—delay making the decisions on which our future depends? As long as the international situation remains so delicate, we must work more than forty hours per week, and as much as forty-eight hours in businesses linked to national defense.
Reading this transcription, I was reminded that putting the French back to work was the French right’s eternal fantasy. I was deeply shocked that these elitist reactionaries, understanding so little the true nature of the situation, would use the Sudeten crisis to settle their scores with the Popular Front. Bear in mind that in 1938, the editorials of the bourgeois newspapers shamelessly stigmatized those workers whose only concern was enjoying their paid holidays.
Just in time, however, my father reminded me that Daladier was a radical Socialist, and thus part of the Popular Front. I’ve just checked this, and staggeringly, it’s true: Daladier was the defense minister in Leon Blum’s government! I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I can hardly bear to tell the story: Daladier, former defense minister of the Popular Front, invokes questions of national defense not to prevent Hitler carving up Czechoslovakia but to backtrack on the forty-hour week—one of the principal gains of the Popular Front. At this level of political stupidity, betrayal becomes almost a work of art.
61
On September 26, 1938, Hitler must deliver a speech to the crowds gathered at the Sportpalast in Berlin. He practices his speech on a British delegation who come to tell him that the Czechs have refused to evacuate the Sudetenland. “They treat the Germans like blacks! On October 1, I will do what I please with Czechoslovakia. If France and England decide to attack, let them go ahead! I couldn’t care less! It’s pointless to continue negotiations—they’re going nowhere!” And he leaves.