Abroad, it was acceptable as a natural step for Germany to gather its leaders into a Pan-German league and the world’s press reported positively. The Times wrote on 4 October 1938, “the first Czechoslovakian State has been destroyed, through its own politics from which it was born. They had never survived a war and its destruction was automatic, even without the reality of war”. Already in January 1938, nine months before the affiliation of the Sudetenland, the Amsterdam newspaper Het Nieuwe Nederland, critically stated that “the shameful treatment of National minorities in Czechoslovakia must be destroyed, in the interest of freedom. The Benes-clique must also be dealt with”.
Till then, Hitler’s foreign policy had been peaceful and successful and the explosive situation caused by the Versailles Pact had been defused. However, that did not mean that the German government accepted the existence of the Czechs. The policy continued in the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler felt very strongly about that. He found a friend and ally in Pierre Cot, the French Minister for Aviation, when voicing the opinion that, in the case of war, German towns and centres of industry could be bombed from Czechoslovakian aerodromes. Did France want to place her planes at Germany’s borders? In order to avoid this dilemma and also win enough living-space for Germany’s self-sufficient politics, the Czech President of State Emil Hàcha was prevailed upon to “re-instate internal order in his land”, which he did. In March 1939, the Wehrmacht marched into Prague, the oldest German university town, without a shot being fired. Bohemia and Moravia having belonged to a Germanic empire for a thousand years, was declared a Protectorate under German supreme command. Slovakia declared itself independent.
After marching in, and in order to avoid being attacked by Poland, the German troops had to take up defensive positions along the Czech/Polish borders. There was no help forthcoming from Russia, on the contrary, they were waiting for a piece of the booty.
Reaction from Britain was surprisingly quiet. On 15 March, Chamberlain gave a speech in the House of Commons saying, “although the State has given certain guarantees to guard these borders, these have now come to an end, having been settled internally. His Majesty’s Government can therefore no longer be bound by these duties”. Many in Britain did not share this opinion and demanded that a ‘Note of Protest’ be sent to Germany, as did the French.
Ernst von Weizsäcker, who was State-Secretary in the NS Foreign Office, returned the protest, defending the move as “Politically, morally and lawfully necessary, in order to correct the foundations of privacy”. This drew enormous protest over Germany from the Press abroad, and one could smell gunpowder.
Although Hitler’s own principle was to give the population the right of referendum, he did not follow his principle at that time. With the success of his latest coup, he set about removing the last and largest injustice inflicted by the Versailles Pact, the ‘Polish Corridor’. Arbitrarily it separated East Prussia, with its 2.5 million population, from their fatherland. It was only by plane, or with sealed railway wagons, that one could reach the north-east province of the land, formerly West Prussia, by using a 30–90 kilometre corridor. The rail connections, meaning everything essential to life, were used as harassment, to the full, by the Polish authorities. For every authoritative party within the Weimar Republic, the division was an impossible situation.
Hitler tried to find a solution. He started to bargain with Poland by suggesting that a motorway and stretches of railway be built through the corridor to West Prussia, this being a long-term guarantee for the German/Polish borders. That guarantee was in earnest. At that time a strong Poland, as a buffer against Russia, was a necessity for Germany.
Poland’s reaction was one of dismissal. Despite every political reception for German politicians in Warsaw, and friendly speeches over drinks, the efforts were without success. In the end, Poland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Beck, threatened Hitler with war, should the existing statutes be altered. By March 1939, with guarantees from France and Britain, Warsaw mobilised for the protection of the corridor. The call for war could not be ignored.
Without inhibition, campaigns in the press started against Germany. At events for the masses and at parades, the cry “off to Danzig and to Berlin” could be heard. Propaganda postcards in extraordinary numbers reached propaganda centres, with an enlarged ‘new’ Poland, its borders stretching over Berlin and Leipzig to Lübeck.
Retribution began against German nationals in Poland. Out of five hundred schools, three hundred were closed. German cultural centres and associations were forbidden. Tension grew in the summer months, resulting in incidents, bloody clashes and gruesome torture of those German nationals. Under the motto “Harvest-festival of the Shining Knives”, very many who had lived in good neighbourly harmony, living and working alongside the Poles, were without reason suddenly arrested, transported away and/or murdered. Out of 2.1 million German residents, 70,000 fled to Germany, reporting their shocking experiences to the German Wochenschau, or newsreels.
Hitler’s speeches became harder and more merciless and with them the menace against the German population increased. Under the cloak of protection from the west, Poland became more pig-headed. At last, in August, came the shameful incident of Lufthansa’s civilian planes, on their way to East Prussia from Hela and Gdingen, being fired on by the Polish Air Force.
For weeks, French and British Military missions had talked with their Russian counterparts in Moscow about the situation for Germany becoming more than critical. Just as had happened twenty years before, Germany’s enemies were circling around her. In order to avoid this, Hitler endeavoured personally to coax goodwill from the Kremlin. They gave it. In August 1939, a State contract was drawn up with signatures from Stalin, and the ministers for foreign affairs, Molotov and Ribbentrop. The Red ‘Tsar’ drank to Hitler’s health.
Seldom was such a Treaty sealed with so many malicious resolutions as the pact between National Socialism and Communism. The unbelievable had happened and the generals of foreign affairs, who had criticised him fearing a two-front war, had to wonder at Hitler’s stroke of genius.
The Dutch watched this military leadership with many a worry about the explosive tension in Europe. Holland had reason to worry with its own army in such a desolate state, due to years of merciless saving, thus producing a grotesque situation. Dutch artillery had to use artillery dating from 1880, and the infantry had rifles which had been produced in 1895. The cavalry used carbines and sabres. Some hundred machine guns from the First World War had been left in south Limberg during the war by retreating German troops. Those then had to be restored. Many of those ‘antiques’ seldom worked properly, and mostly never. The machine guns, weighing a huge amount, were often just as dangerous for those using them as for the enemy.
Things were no better for their Air Force, the accent being on ‘air’ rather than on planes and weapons, which on paper, had the sum total of 130 aircraft, many obsolete. France in contrast, possessed nearly 1,000 fighters. A modernisation for their forces was decided upon, but as it turned out, far too late. Only a small percentage of the modernisation programme was achieved.