Notes on WWII: The Prelude to WWII in Europe

German foreign policy decisively changes in 1938, as Hitler announces that Germany is now strong enough to pursue its goals even at the risk of starting a war. Prior to this point, Germany did not behave aggressively toward other nations because it was militarily weak, internationally isolated, and strategically exposed. Hitler felt that securing an alliance with Italy, remilitarizing the Rhineland, and 3 years of official rearmament made Germany strong enough to fight a general war. Moreover, the inaction of France and Britain over his remilitarization of the Rhineland convinced him that France was weak and isolated. In fact, Hitler actively sought war with France in 1938.

 

During the period of 1938 and 1939, Hitler tried to prepare Germany for the upcoming conflict against the USSR. This means provoking France into an aggressive war so that it can be eliminated as a threat, uniting the German race, and preparing the German population for a war against the Jews. These are the same plans as before, but now we are in the final stage at which they are put into action. Hitler approaches these objectives opportunistically, striking when conditions seem best for a conflict. It is his sense of opportunity that leads Hitler to attack, in order, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, and, eventually, Poland. If you ever have a question about why Hitler is doing something, the answer is that this is something Hitler has always wanted to do and that now seemed like an opportune time to do it.

 

During the first two crises (Austria and Czechoslovakia), Hitler faced considerable pushback from his generals, who believed that these schemes would start a war that Germany would lose. A major part of the politics of these wars is Hitler outmaneuvering the army to prevent a coup. 

 

 

Anschluss

The word ‘Anschluss’ is German for ‘union’. It refers to the idea of a union between Austria and Germany, the two German-speaking nations. The idea became very popular following the dismemberment of the Austrian Empire in 1918 and had been a demand of Pan-German nationalists in both Germany and Austria. It is prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Saint Germain.

 

The origins of the Anschluss, which eventually occurred in March 1938, are in the reconciliation between Germany and Italy in 1936. As part of German-Italian rapprochement, Schuschnigg was expected to patch things up with the Austrian Nazis. Submitting to Mussolini’s wishes, Schuschnigg came to an agreement with the Austrian Nazis in 1936, whereby the Austrian government would pardon all participants in the 1934 attempted coup and dissolve the Heimwehr, a rightist paramilitary group that supported Austrian independence and opposed the Nazis. In return, the Nazis promised to stop trying to overthrow the government. The Nazi promise was partially a lie. The Austrian Nazis had a deep leadership divide, so around half of the Nazis planned to honor the agreement (under Arthur Seyss-Inquart) and half ignored it. 

 

This deal severely weakened the Schuschnigg regime, as it gave his enemies room to maneuver and abolished the regime’s most loyal military defenders. The Heimwehr had crushed the 1934 coup and would not be around to do the same in 1938. Schuschnigg agreed to reconcile with the Nazis, who had assassinated his predecessor, out of a keen awareness that Austria was threatened by Germany and that Italy would no longer protect them. So, he tried to play nice with the Nazis and not to give Hitler a pretext to intervene. He believed the best way to this was to include the Nazis in government.

 

In January 1938, a prominent Nazi criticized the Schuschnigg government in a newspaper, for which he was arrested. His apartment contained evidence that the Nazis were planning to overthrow the Austrian government in Spring 1938. Schuschnigg responded by having the Nazi headquarters raided and its leadership, excepting Seyss-Inquart, arrested. Schuschnigg had the headquarters raided, even though he was trying not to provoke an incident, because his government had been presented with a direct threat; not arresting the Nazi leadership would have risked the coup being successfully carried out.

 

The raid was exactly the kind of incident that Hitler wanted as a pretext to invade Austria. He informed Schuschnigg that they needed to talk about the activities of the Austrian Nazis and asked Schuschnigg to meet him in Obersalzberg. In early February 1938, Schuschnigg and Hitler met in Obersalzberg. Hitler told Schuschnigg that he intended to invade Austria and that the only way to prevent it was to legalize the Nazi Party, grant amnesty to all political prisoners (including the Nazis arrested in January), and appoint a Nazi as Minister of Interior, giving him control of the police.

 

Schuschnigg, desperate to buy time, conceded to all of Hitler’s demands and, on 15 February, legalized Nazi political activities, released all political prisoners, and appointed Seyss-Inquart as Minister of Interior. The effects of the legalization of the Nazis and the appointment of Seyss-Inquart were immediate, as they held rallies and gathered large crowds in favor of Anschluss. In Graz, on 24 February, Nazis seized control of the town and tore down Austrian flags.

 

During the time that the crisis was developing in Austria, Hitler was fighting with his generals over invading Austria. The German Army was strongly opposed to an invasion of Austria, arguing that it could trigger a war with Italy and/or France, a war which Germany would badly lose. The army was the last institution that remained independent of NSDAP and was able to challenge Hitler. This angered Hitler, particularly because the army strongly opposed his aggressive plans, including the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

 

In January 1938, Hitler saw an opportunity to remove von Blomberg, who had opposed the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the invasion of Austria, from his position as Commander-in-Chief. Von Blomberg had recently married a young woman who the SS discovered had used to be a prostitute; the SS then blackmailed von Blomberg into resigning his command. Hitler, however, was also unhappy with von Blomberg’s successor, Werner von Fritsch, who similarly opposed Hitler’s war plans. So, Hitler had the SS fabricate evidence of von Fritsch being a homosexual and blackmailed him into resigning in February 1938. Von Blomberg and von Fritsch’s replacement, Wilhelm Keitel, was a supremely loyal Nazi who was willing to carry out Hitler’s plans in Austria and elsewhere. It was at this point that Hitler announced that he now held supreme military authority in Germany. This isn’t the end of military opposition to Hitler, but it is a major blow to military independence. As we’ll see, there is still opposition to Hitler within the army, around Chief of Stall Ludwig Beck. But, now, many senior staff officers are Nazis.

 

Schuschnigg was in a bad position in February 1938, as there was a large amount of public support for the Nazis and he could no longer depend on Italy for protection. Schuschnigg decided to hold a referendum on Austrian independence, planned for 13 March and announced on 9 March. The idea of the referendum was that Schuschnigg could get the people to declare their support for Austrian independence and against Anschluss, thus undermining Hitler’s claim to represent the popular will and potentially stop a German invasion. It is unlikely that Schuschnigg would have allowed the referendum to be anything but rigged. Moreover, the high voting age (24 y/o) excluded so many young Nazis that it could be certain that the result would come back in favor of independence.

 

Hitler recognized the danger that the referendum posed to his plans, as he did care about his legitimacy and felt uncomfortable invading a country that had voted against Anschluss. Thus, he demanded that the referendum be cancelled or he would invade Austria on 12 March. Hitler expected Schuschnigg to resist and so had the army prepare for an invasion. He also instructed Seyss-Inquart to send him a telegram on 12 March, claiming that the country was in chaos and requesting German intervention. This was meant to give a German invasion the pretext of legality.

 

Schuschnigg conceded to the threat of a German invasion and cancelled the referendum on 11 March. Unfortunately for him, Hitler was no longer satisfied with the cancellation of the referendum and now ordered Schuschnigg to resign and for Seyss-Inquart to replace him as Chancellor. If this did not happen, Hitler would invade on 12 March. Schuschnigg resigned as Chancellor on the evening of 11 March and Seyss-Inquart, despite President Wilhelm Miklas’s refusal to appoint him, declared himself Chancellor.

 

Despite Austria having essentially conceded to all German demands, Hitler had gone to bed before Miklas finally agreed to legally appoint Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor and, upon being woken up, instructed the army to invade anyway. Knowing that Austria was guaranteed to lose any war with Germany and wanting to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, Miklas ordered the Austrian army to abandon border fortifications and not resist the German army. The police, under Seyss-Inquart, also did nothing to resist the Germans. The German army crossed into Austria on the morning of 12 March, in what was more like a military parade. On their way through the country, the German army was greeted by cheering crowds.

 

Why did other countries do nothing to stop the Anschluss?

Italy had abandoned its commitment to Austrian independence when it joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1937, deciding to prioritize expansion in the Mediterranean. Moreover, in 1938, Italy was entangled in the Spanish civil war and did not have either the finances or the manpower to wage an effective war against Germany.

 

Austria’s other guarantors, Hungary under the Rome Protocols, and Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Saint Germain, were unwilling to defend it. Hungary and Yugoslavia were now aligned toward Germany. Czechoslovakia, the last remaining democracy, was unwilling to support autocratic Austria.

 

France, as during the Rhineland crisis in 1936, was unwilling to act alone to defend the Treaty of Versailles. France expected Italy, the traditional defender of Austrian independence, to do something, but, when Italy did nothing, was unwilling to act alone. Neither Britain or France was aware of the full extent of the change of Mussolini’s opinion on the issue of Austria. They believed that this would mark another reversal of Italian policy and push it into conflict with Germany.

 

Britain also refused to intervene over Austria for the same reasons as its refusal to act over the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Britain had not completed its own rearmament program and wanted to buy time before fighting Germany and did not want to fight Germany over Austria, whose independence ranked low on British priorities and was not even broadly supported within Austria.

 

 

Austria under Nazi rule

Initially, Hitler had intended to turn Austria into a puppet government. Austria would remain nominally independent, but with Hitler serving as Chancellor and President of Austria in addition to his positions in Germany. However, upon seeing the popular support for Nazism during his visit to Austria after the Anschluss, Hitler decided to directly annex Austria into Germany. This annexation of Austria was confirmed via a rigged referendum on 10 April, which displayed overwhelming support for the absorption of Austria into Germany. After 10 April, Austria ceased to exist and its state symbols were destroyed. Austria was divided into German provinces.

 

Nazi political, social, and economic organizations were expanded to include Austria. Austrian law was abolished and replaced by German law. All political authority in Austria was reworked around NSDAP. Nazi professional associations and youth organizations were introduced into Austria. Austrian business was subjected to the Four Year Plan.

 

Compared to the Nazis, the Dollfuss and Schuschnigg dictatorships had been relatively mild. After Anschluss, Hitler subjected Austria to the same harsh dictatorship that existed in Germany. The civil rights that had been left intact by the previous government were abolished under the Nazis. Unions and other civil society groups were dissolved and their leaders arrested. Supporters of Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, namely the Heimwehr and Catholic political groups, were persecuted and their leaders arrested. Leftists were arrested and sent to concentration camps, where they were often killed.

 

The Anschluss was a boost for the German economy, as Austria provided raw materials and manpower that were in short supply in Germany. Germany also seized the foreign currency reserves of Austrian banks, providing it with more foreign currency to stave off a balance-of-payments crisis.

 

 

Kristallnacht

The Nazis had been impressed by the Austrian population’s eager support for the imposition of German antisemitic measures and the proactive antisemitism of the Austrian Nazis, including forcing Jews to scrub the word ‘Austria’ off the streets. This convinced Hitler and the Nazi leadership that Austria would be a great place to prepare the Germans for the next stage of the fight against the Jews. Austria was selected both because of the eager antisemitism of the Austrian Nazis and their supporters and because of the relatively large Jewish population there, with some 200k Jews in Vienna.

 

Hitler sought to intentionally start a pogrom (Kristallnacht) against the Jews, which he believed would get Germans used to the concept of violence against the Jews and make antisemitic violence easier to organize in the future.

 

On 7 November 1938, a Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan shot a German embassy official, Ernst vom Rath, in Paris after his family had been expelled there. As vom Rath’s death on 9 November coincided with the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Nazi leadership decided to use it as a pretext to stage a massive pogrom. SA, SS, and Hitler Youth detachments were given instructions to attack Jewish businesses and homes on the evening of 9 November and 10 November.

 

The pogroms were organized, so that no foreign Jews were to be attacked and records were removed from synagogues before they were burnt. Murders were very few, only around 91 total, with beatings, robbery, and public humiliation being more common. The SS and Gestapo arrested 30k Jewish men (they were around 15% of the Jewish population left, as around 60% of the pre-1933 population had already emigrated) and incarcerated them in concentration camps from which they were only released on the condition that they agree to emigrate from Germany. The Nazis claimed that Kristallnacht was a spontaneous reaction to the murder of vom Rath by a Jew. This was mainly for domestic propaganda, to convince Germans than their neighbors were violently antisemitic.

 

Why were foreign Jews spared? So that the pogrom would not spark an international incident. This remains a consistent trend, with German not persecuting foreign Jews; e.g., not a single American Jew was killed by the Nazis.

 

The Nazis claimed that the Jews were to blame for having incited the pogroms and should pay back 1 billion reichsmarks. Most of this money came from confiscating insurance payouts to Jewish homes and businesses. In connection with the impoverishment of Jews, there was a push to get Jews to transfer their property to Aryans, these transfers were often coerced under threat and for a fraction of the property’s value.

 

In the aftermath of Kristillnacht, Jews were banned from most public events, Jewish children were prohibited from attending public school, and Jews lost their driver’s licenses.

 

The goal of Kristallnacht was to get Jews to leave Germany. The fact that the goal of Kristallnacht was to expel Jews, not kill them, shows where the Nazis are at this time. Hitler believed that expulsion was sufficient and that Jewish power could be destroyed by destroying the USSR, not necessarily killing all the Jews. At this point, Hitler is not committed to genocide.

 

The expulsion of the Jews served two purposes: first, it strengthened Germany by removing the Jews, who might sabotage or otherwise undermine Germany; second, it allowed the Nazis to test the willingness of the German population to accept the persecution of Jews. Kristallnacht showed to the Nazis that the German population’s passivity in the face of pogroms was evidence that they would tolerate greater persecution of Jews. What the Nazis learned from Kristallnacht was that, even if they wouldn’t spontaneously attack Jews, the Germans will do nothing to stop violence against Jews. The Nazis decided that this meant the population was ready to tolerate greater antisemitic violence in the future.

 

So, wait, did Germans not hate Jews? They did, but it takes a lot to get someone to kill another or harm them. Almost no really deadly riots are spontaneous. All pogroms in Nazi Germany are orchestrated.

 

 

Germany and Czechoslovakia 

The next target for Hitler’s aggression after the completion of the Anschluss was Czechoslovakia. Hitler started trying to stoke tensions immediately after the Anschluss, with the plan of starting a war in October 1938.

 

Czechoslovakia is a target of German aggression because it is home to the largest German minority in Europe, with roughly 3 million ethnic Germans residing in the country, most in a border region called the Sudetenland. Uniting the Germans under his leadership was a crucial part of Hitler’s plan to start and win the race war that would follow the destruction of Jewish power. The Sudetenland is also heavily industrialized and rich in natural resources. The addition of the Sudetenland’s labor force, industry, and resources would strengthen Germany and increase the pace of the Four Year Plan.

 

Additionally, Czechoslovakia is France’s most dedicated eastern European ally and the cornerstone of the Cordon Sanitaire. Germany believes it can split up the French-Polish alliance, but any plan to isolate France requires crushing Czechoslovakia, which has remained resistant to German overtures. Czechoslovakia’s alliances with France and the USSR make it Germany’s most dangerous adversary in eastern Europe.

 

 

The Sudeten Germans

The Sudeten Germans provided Hitler a perfect pretext to attack Czechoslovakia in Spring 1938, as tensions between the Sudeten German leadership and the Czechoslovak government reached new heights.

 

Germans faced discrimination in Czechoslovakia, including economic neglect, loss of their language’s official status, and political marginalization. These problems intensified during the Great Depression; German areas were hard hit (Germans constituted 22% of the population, but 60% of the unemployed) and received little government support. In 1933, two fascist parties were disbanded and their leadership arrested. The German Sudeten Front (later German Sudeten Party) faced harassment by Czechoslovak officials and had many leaders arrested without charges.

 

Neglect, economic hardship, and political oppression led the majority of Sudeten Germans to support the German Sudeten Party, led by Konrad Henlein. By 1938, his party was winning over 80% of the German vote. The German Sudeten Party was a broad nationalist front, including rightist, political Catholic, and Nazi elements. They demanded an end to discrimination against Germans and greater minority rights. After 1933, Germany became a major sponsor of the German Sudeten Party and Henlein came into direct contact with Hitler in March 1938. Henlein sees Hitler as the protector of the Sudeten German minority and, during the crisis period of September, will obey his directives.

 

 

The Karlsbad Program

On 24 April 1938, on his own initiative, Henlein presented a list of demands, known as the Karlsbad Program, to the Czechoslovak government. It asked for expanded language rights, an end to discrimination, and autonomous self-government in the Sudetenland. The Czechoslovak government was reluctant to grant any concessions to the Sudeten Germans, especially autonomy, but came under pressure from Britain. Reluctantly, President Edvard Beneš opened discussions with the German Sudeten Party.

 

Hitler saw the Karlsbad Program as an opportunity to annex the Sudetenland into Germany and weaken Czechoslovakia. He immediately ordered German troops to conduct threatening military exercises on the Czechoslovak border to intimidate the government. Hitler believed that the Karlsbad Program could lead to multiple outcomes, all of which would be beneficial to Germany.

    1. The Czechoslovak government is intimidated by Germany and gives into the Karlsbad Program.                 Hitler then gets Henlein to use Sudetenland’s autonomy to hold the plebiscite on union with                         Germany, after which Germany annexes the Sudetenland in the same way as it did Austria.

    2. The same scenario as above, but Czechoslovakia tries to stop the plebiscite from taking place. Now             Germany invades a Czechoslovakia isolated from France and Britain because of its opposition to                 democratic self-determination.

    3. Czechoslovakia rejects the Karlsbad Program, straining its alliance with France. Germany can now             invade Czechoslovakia and not face British or French opposition because it is intervening on the                 basis of legitimate protection of minority rights.

 

On 19 May 1938, Czechoslovakia detected the large German troop formations gathered on its borders and feared imminent invasion. In a display of military might, the Czechoslovak government called up 170k reservists to the borders by 20 May. Hitler had vastly unestimated the willingness of the Czechoslovak government to stand up to German intimidation. As the Czechoslovak government had not rejected the Karlsbad Program, he felt he didn’t have the pretext to invade without risking French or British intervention, and ordered German troops to retreat from the border.

 

Hitler felt that his retreat from the Czechoslovak border was a humiliation. It was unacceptable for Aryan soldiers to retreat from facing a racially inferior enemy. The only way to correct this was to invade Czechoslovakia as a demonstration of German racial superiority. It is in the aftermath of the border tensions of May 1938 that Hitler changes his objective from annexing the Sudetenland into the Third Reich to invading and occupying Czechoslovakia.

 

 

What are Hitler’s war plans?

Hitler hopes to place Czechoslovakia in the same isolated international position as Austria. He hopes that, by stoking the Sudeten German crisis, he can alienate Czechoslovakia from France and Britain, thus allowing him to invade without outside opposition.

 

The initial war plans that had been proposed to Hitler were fairly conventional, focused on combined arms assaults backed by artillery. The date of the operation was set for 1 October 1938. Hitler demanded a different tactic, the blitzkrieg, with tanks rushing to capture strategic points. Hitler said that Prague must be captured within 4 days, the time it would take France to mobilize, so that France would be met with a fait accompli of having to liberate, rather than defend, Czechoslovakia.

 

 

Hitler and the Generals’ Coup

Even more than the invasion of Austria, Hitler faced an immense amount of pushback from his generals over his proposed invasion of Czechoslovakia. A group of senior officers, organized around Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck, intended to remove Hitler from power in a coup d'etat before his invasion of Czechoslovakia. Beck and his co-conspirators were disgusted by the forced resignations of von Blomberg and von Frischt. They also believed that Hitler’s expansionism would start a general war that Germany would lose. The conspirators’ plan was that, when Britain and France declared their military support for Czechoslovakia, the generals would capture Hitler and intern him in an insane asylum. They would then form a military government justified on the basis of having prevented Germany from entering a destructive war on the losing side.

 

The generals are so certain that Germany will lose the war because Hitler’s plan makes little sense, either militarily or with relation to international politics. Unlike Austria, Czechoslovakia has major allies, including France and the USSR. The Czechoslovak army is also fairly strong and likely able to halt a German attack. Czechoslovakia had a military alliance with France, a more conditional alliance with the USSR, and the sympathy of Britain. Poland, despite its anger at Czechoslovakia for harboring Polish political dissidents, may have also joined a war against Germany.

 

In 1938, Czechoslovakia alone would have been able to fight Germany to a standstill for at least 3 months. Germany’s air forces were superior, but both land forces were roughly equal and Czechoslovakia had a formidable network of border fortifications. In the long run, Germany would win, but at a high rate of casualties and over multiple months. Hitler’s plan for a blitzkrieg to Prague could not have been carried out. This essentially meant that any German invasion of Czechoslovakia would have involved a two-front war against France.

 

Despite the fact that Hitler was convinced that Germany could hold off a ‘weak’ France, French forces in 1938 were greatly superior to those of Germany. French forces were capable of capturing the Rhineland in a solo battle against Germany and could have easily defeated the few detachments that Hitler planned to leave on the border during his war with Czechoslovakia. By Summer 1938, the French army had already moved reserves to the border in preparation for an invasion in the case of war between Germany and Czechoslovakia.

 

Hitler’s generals were right to be concerned. If war had broken out, Germany would have had to fight Czechoslovakia for months. An extended war like this would have drawn in Czechoslovakia’s allies, guaranteeing a rapid German defeat.

 

The coup plotters escalated their plans in August 1938, when they sent one of their members, Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, to Britain to inform the government of Hitler’s planned invasion of Czechoslovakia on 1 October and the opposition of senior military leadership to the plan. Von Kleist-Schmenzin told Britain that if they made a statement decisively saying that they would militarily intervene to protect Czechoslovakia, the generals would overthrow Hitler before the invasion could take place. Because Beck’s coup was set up to be triggered by the threat of war with Britain and France, it required Britain or France to threaten war in order to be successful. In this way, the domestic threat to Hitler was made dependent upon British and French policy.

 

The British government largely discounted von Kleist-Schmenzin’s warning, did not factor a potential coup into their planning, and never issued the recommended injunction about coming to the aid of Czechoslovakia. Britain ignored the warning because many members of the British government suspected that von Kleist-Schmenzin’s group was marginal and without the power to actually do anything. As a result, they did not review the intelligence as reliable and did not respond.

 

 

The Sudeten Crisis

Czechoslovakia had agreed to discuss the Karlsbad Program and, in July 1938, had even agreed to arbitration in the Sudetenland by Lord Walter Runciman. Czechoslovakia did not want to make any concessions toward the Sudeten Germans, but it saw conciliation as the best way to avoid German intervention and guarantee the backing of France and Britain.

 

On 5 September 1938, Beneš decided to resolve the Sudetenland crisis by meeting with Henlein and giving into any and all demands he made. A shocked Henlein demanded full autonomy and received it. Beneš really doesn’t want to give anything to Henlein, but he is under pressure from France and Britain to give concessions to the Sudeten Germans. He fears that displeasing France and Britain will mean fighting against Germany alone. For their part, Britain and France are putting pressure on Czechoslovakia because they really want to avoid a war. Since Hitler is intransigent, they are leaning on Czechoslovakia to give the concessions needed to avoid war.

 

The results of the meeting had been great for the Sudeten Germans, but not for Hitler. Hitler still wanted a war with Czechoslovakia and reconciliation between the Czechoslovak government and the Sudeten Germans stood in the way of that, so Hitler ordered Henlein to break off negotiations, which he did on 7 September. At this point, Hitler doesn’t just want the Sudetenland, but also to avenge his humiliation in May by invading Czechoslovakia. He needs an unresolved conflict as the pretext for invasion.

 

On 12 September, Hitler gave a speech at a rally in Nuremberg denouncing the oppression of the Sudeten Germans and demanding action. Sudeten Germans take this as a call to revolt and start to riot and attack Czechoslovak police and officials. In response, Czechoslovakia declares martial law in the Sudetenland and sends in soldiers to quell the riots on 14 September. Henlein and other Sudeten German leaders flee to Germany in the aftermath. Prior to the uprising, German generals had hoped that Sudeten Germans could be mobilized into the Sudeten Freikorps and used to sabotage Czechoslovak positions in aid of a German invasion. That hope vanished when the Czechoslovak army crushed those militias. The suppression of the uprising, the military occupation of the Sudetenland, and the tens of thousands of Sudeten refugees fleeing into Germany made French and British politicians believe that Germany had a point about Czechoslovak oppression. The result was greater pressure on Czechoslovakia to give concessions to the Sudeten Germans.

 

British PM Neville Chamberlain was eager to avoid war and decided to resolve the Sudetenland crisis personally. On 15 September, he flew to Obersalzberg to meet with Hitler.       At the meeting, Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia and informed Chamberlain that the only way to avoid war as to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany. He also promised, however, that this would be his final demand as then he would have succeeded in uniting all Germans into one nation.

 

Chamberlain said he had to think about the proposal and met with French PM Édouard Daladier in London on 18 September. Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to transfer all areas of Czechoslovakia with an 80% German majority to Germany, while the security of the rest of the state would be militarily guaranteed by both France and Britain. Britain and France agreed to this because both countries sought to avoid war, particularly before their rearmament programs were completed. They also greatly overestimated the size and capability of the Germany army. They hoped that war could be delayed significantly by making this concession. Moreover, Britain thought that German grievances over the Sudetenland were legitimate and this seemed like a fair solution.

 

Beneš initially rejected the proposal made in London, but on 21 September he was informed that if he did not accept, then Britain would remain neutral in any future conflict. Beneš changed his mind and reluctantly agreed to the deal. Beneš remembered the Rhineland crisis and knew that, if Britain remained neutral, France would also do nothing. The Soviets would do nothing without France, nor did he want them to. He was thus left with a choice between fighting Germany alone or giving up the Sudetenland and gaining an alliance with Britain.

 

On 22 September, Chamberlain met with Hitler in Bad Godesberg and announced that Czechoslovakia had accepted his proposed transfer of Sudetenland and that a committee composed of officials of Germany, Czechoslovakia, and a neutral power would determine the new border. Hitler announced that this was no longer sufficient and Germany would declare war unless Czechoslovakia allowed Germany to occupy the entire Sudetenland by 1 October. Hitler rejected the proposal because he didn’t just want the Sudetenland; he wanted to provoke a war. He would prefer a war where Czechoslovakia had been isolated from its allies, but also believed the present was an opportune time to strike against France.

 

Chamberlain told Hitler that his ultimatum was unacceptable and advised Czechoslovakia to prepare for war. Czechoslovakia fully mobilized its army and France called up more reserves to the frontier. Britain put the Royal Navy on a war footing. Chamberlain decides to resist Germany this time because, although Britain sought to avoid war, Chamberlain also had too much pride to submit to an ultimatum. Britain would make concessions, but it would never have terms dictated to it.

 

On 26 September, Hitler publicly announced what he had told Chamberlain in Bad Godesberg: he would declare war on Czechoslovakia on 1 October unless it submitted to his demands. Following this declaration, Mussolini told Hitler that Italy was unprepared for a general war and would not join Germany in fighting Czechoslovakia or anyone else. Spain and Hungary informed Hitler that they would also be remaining neutral. This was a major setback for German war planning, as Hitler had been hoping that Italy would keep France occupied and prevent it from coming quickly to Czechoslovakia’s aid. Hitler’s position was very weak. He had committed himself to war with Czechoslovakia. It now looked like that war would be fought without allies. It was also very likely that France, Britain, and potentially the USSR would join the war on the Czechoslovak side.

 

 

Munich Accords

At the end of September, it looked like another general European war would break out in October 1938. Then, on 28 September, Mussolini proposed a grand peace conference between Germany and the Entente powers (Britain, France, Italy) to resolve the crisis. Hitler agreed and the Munich Conference met on 29 September.

 

Why did Hitler agree to a peace conference? Hitler was deeply conflicted about the conference. He had finally gotten his war against Czechoslovakia, but it would also probably be against the rest of Europe. At some level, Hitler knew that he would lose that war. Although, looking back, Hitler cited the Munich Accords as one of his biggest mistakes.

 

Why did Mussolini, of all people, set up the peace conference? Mussolini saw that Hitler was going to start a general war that Germany would badly lose. Germany getting trounced by Britain and France would mean that Italy is out an ally and once again isolated, so he tried to prevent Germany from launching the suicidal war. Plus, Mussolini had always wanted to play the heroic diplomat and brokering peace made Italy seem like a ‘great power’.

 

During the Munich Conference, Britain and France made virtually all of the concessions that Hitler had demanded at Bad Godesberg. The Munich Accords stated that Czechoslovakia would evacuate the Sudetenland by 7 October, at which point Germany would occupy that territory. Zalozie would be similarly evacuated and occupied by Poland.

 

Britain and France give in to German demands at Munich because they were still overwhelmingly unwilling to go to war at this time.  France and Britain both greatly overestimated the strength of the German army, particularly the power of the German air force. They wanted to avoid war with Germany, if possible, until after their rearmament programs were completed. France was still unwilling to go to war without Britain. Its defense of Czechoslovakia depended on Britain’s attitude. As a consequence of its overestimate of German strength, Britain believed that any war with Germany would be a protracted global conflict on the scale of WWI. The calculation they were making was, therefore, whether to start WWII.

 

The announcement of the Munich Accords led Beck and the other generals to abandon their plans for a coup. Their plan depended on France and Britain resisting Hitler and both countries had capitulated. Hitler never became aware of the coup plan. Beck and many other senior conspirators were forced into retirement in October 1938 for opposing the war without their treason being uncovered.

 

Czechoslovakia originally balked at the Munich Accords and said it would resist, but was informed by France and Britain that, if Czechoslovakia rejected the Accords, they would remain neutral in any resulting war. On 30 September, Czechoslovakia accepted the Munich Accords and began evacuating the Sudetenland. The Czechoslovaks were very aware of the threat of German aggression and prepared to resist. But, they understood the ultimatum given to them on 30 September was either fighting Germany alone or giving up the Sudetenland but retaining their alliance with France and gaining an alliance with Britain.

 

Beneš also doubted the capacity of Czechoslovakia to resist. It would be fighting without allies and Beneš anticipated (likely incorrectly) that Poland and Hungary would invade alongside Germany. Beneš feared that any resistance would result only a pointless slaughter of Czechoslovak forces.

 

Why was preserving the alliance with France so important to Czechoslovakia? France had been the primary advocate of Czechoslovakian independence at Versailles, its ally since independence, the strongest continental power, and one of the only other democracies in Europe. Moreover, Czechoslovakia didn’t really have any other choice of allies. Germany was hostile, Italy was allied with Germany, the USSR was unreliable, and everyone else was weak.

 

Why didn’t Czechoslovakia invoke its alliance with the USSR? Firstly, the Soviets probably wouldn’t have responded. Their treaty said they only had to fight alongside France, so, if France didn’t join, they were under no legal obligation. Czechoslovak leadership also feared that the Soviets would occupy their country and install a Communist government. Lastly, both the Czechoslovaks and the Soviets feared that a fight between Germany and the USSR would be painted as a crusade against Communism and result in Britain and France supporting Germany. This would be bad for the USSR and Czechoslovakia.

 

 

Czechoslovakia after Munich

On 30 September, Czechoslovakia ordered its forces to retreat from the Sudetenland and Zaolzie. On 7 October, German and Polish forces moved in to occupy these areas. In the Sudetenland, the retreating Czechoslovak forces were followed by over 200k refugees, mainly Czechs, Jews, and opponents of Nazism. The remaining Sudeten Friekorps carried out attacks on these groups, trying to drive all racial or political opponents of Nazism out of the Sudetenland. The Sudetenland contained many important industrial centers, including its arms industry, and the majority of its border fortifications. Czechoslovakia was a much poorer and more exposed country without the Sudetenland.

 

In the immediate aftermath of the Munich Accords, Beneš was pressured to resign under threats from Germany that their soldiers may occupy more than the Sudetenland if he remained the Czechoslovak president. On 5 October, Beneš resigned, leaving for Britain later that month under Nazi threats to his life. An interim government was created under PM Jan Syrovy to manage the implementation of the Munich Accords until another president could be elected.

 

The caretaker Syrovy government had to handle the immediate aftermath of the Munich Accords. Seeing the Czechoslovak government as weak, the Slovaks and Ruthenians demanded autonomy and threatened to leave the Czechoslovak parliament if denied. The caretaker government gave into their demands, granting Slovakia and Ruthenia autonomy on 16 October.

 

Who are the Ruthenians and why do they want autonomy? A Slavic ethnic group related to Ukranians; like other non-Czechs, they feel marginalized in Czechoslovakia and exploited economically.

 

Who are the Slovaks and why do they want autonomy? The other major ethnic group in Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks feel politically marginalized and dominated by the Czechs. Compared to Czechia, Slovakia was poor and underdeveloped and, due to a high rate of illiteracy among Slovaks, most professional and government jobs were filled by Czechs or Jews. Those Slovaks who did have positions tended to be liberals Protestants hostile to the conservative Catholic population. By the 1930s, Slovaks had gathered around the nationalist Slovak People’s Party of Andrej Hlinka, which one over half of all Slovak votes. This party lobbied for Slovak autonomy and, under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, became the dominant force in the Slovak autonomous government.

 

 

The Czechoslovak-Hungarian Border Dispute

Hungary, which has a long-standing border dispute with Czechoslovakia, also decides to exploit the situation and demands that Czechoslovakia agree to talks about revising their border. Czechoslovakia agrees and negotiations are set to begin on 9 October in Komarom. As Hungarian territorial demands primarily concerned Slovakia and Ruthenia, the Czechoslovak government sent senior figures of the Slovak autonomous government to negotiate with the Hungarians in Komarom, including Tiso.

 

What disputes does Hungary have with Czechoslovakia? Hungarians were around 5% of Czechoslovakia’s population, concentrated in several border areas in which they were the majority. This Hungarian minority, which had been dominant under the Austrian Empire, had been economically marginalized and politically oppressed and agitated for union with Hungary. Hungary wanted this territory.

 

Why did Czechoslovakia agree to negotiations? They agreed in the aftermath of the Munich Accords and feared (incorrectly) that Hungary’s claims were supported by the threat of German invasion.

 

The Hungarians demanded that Czechoslovakia transfer a large slice of southern Slovakia and Ruthenia to Hungary, including the major cities of Bratislava, Košice, Nitra, Ujhorod, and Mukachevo. This would transfer 1 million people to Hungary, including 80% of the Hungarian minority and over 100k Slovaks and Ukrainians. The Czechoslovak delegation found this demand unacceptable, particularly because many of the cities named were major transport hubs and controlled regional infrastructure. They counter-proposed marginal territorial concessions but wide-ranging autonomy to the Hungarian minority.

 

Hungary refused to accept a proposal that didn’t involve the transfer of territory. It countered that plebiscites should be held in all disputed territories, including the entirety of Ruthenia, over whether to join Hungary or remain part of Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia also rejected this plan, out of a deep fear that huge portions of the country with Hungarian or Jewish majorities would vote to join Hungary, including all of Ruthenia and the five disputed cities.  This concern was demonstrated on 27 October, when, after having suggested the day before that a plebiscite be held in the territory, Andrej Brody, head of the Ruthenian autonomous government, was arrested and replaced. 

 

Negotiations never really moved beyond this point, with Hungary demanding large territorial concessions or a plebiscite and the Czechoslovaks giving the minimum. There was a concern that conflict might break out over the dispute. Italy, Hungary’s patron, promised to militarily assist Hungary should the negotiations break down into conflict.  Germany, which was now trying to make Czechoslovakia into a client, tried to manage negotiations, but failed to make any progress.

 

 

The First Vienna Award

In late October, Italy suggested that the issue should be solved by the Munich powers, an offer that Hungary eagerly accepted. Hitler, however, was opposed to the inclusion of Britain or France. Mussolini agreed that only Italy and Germany should arbitrate and got the Czechoslovaks and Hungarians to agree. Hitler objected to Britain and France being involved because he believed that Britain and France would back Czechoslovakia and that, if he wished to preserve a good relationship with Italy, he would be forced into backing Hungary and alienating the Czechoslovaks. This spoiled his plans for a Czechoslovak client state.

 

Both Hungary and Czechoslovakia accepted German-Italian arbitration. Hungary understood the value of its Italian ally and believed that the international community couldn’t resist its claims after accepting German and Polish claims on the same basis. Czechoslovakia accepted because Germany was now actively courting the Slovaks and Czechoslovakia believed Germany could help them resist Hungarian claims more effectively than they would be able to otherwise. Hungary makes its final proposal on 22 October, which the Czechoslovaks once again reject. They both agree to request German and Italian arbitration on 28 October. 

 

The conference is held in Vienna on 1 and 2 November, wherein the Hungarian and Czechoslovak delegations present their cases to Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

 

The final Czechoslovak position argues that control of all five disputed cities is necessary for Slovakia to remain viable and only offer minor territorial concessions; they also support the status quo within Czechoslovakia. Germany broadly supports this claim.

 

The final Hungarian position demands the five disputed cities and the surrounding territory for Hungary, as well as plebiscites to determine the status of Slovakia and Ruthenia. Italy broadly supports this claim. Hungary believes that Ruthenia might vote to rejoin Hungary and that an independent Slovakia will be easier to control than Czechoslovakia.

 

The foreign ministers decide that a strip of southern Slovakia and Ruthenia, including the cities of Košice, Ujhorod, and Mukachevo, will be given to Hungary, while Bratislava and Nitra will remain part of Czechoslovakia. Hungarian soldiers moved into the awarded areas on 5 November and, by 10 November, all awarded areas had been transferred. Hungary had received some 800k people, including 2/3s of the Hungarian minority; approximately 80% of the transferred population was Hungarian or Jewish.

 

Germany had two goals going into the First Vienna Award: forcing Czechoslovakia into a position of dependence on Germany and preventing Hungary and Poland from allying against it. Other Germans didn’t share Hitler’s belief that Poland would agree to an alliance and worried that Poland and Hungary would ally and cut off Germany’s access to Romania, and, thus, to the USSR. Adding to these reasons to support the Czechoslovak claim, Hitler personally resented Hungary for refusing to join his planned invasion of Czechoslovakia before Munich. He also believes (likely incorrectly) that the German minority prefers to live in Czechoslovakia. Germany opposed the transfer of any cities to Hungary – having been convinced by the Slovaks that these cities were vital to economic life – and any plebiscites, which would likely result in the transfer of those same cities.

 

Italy supported Hungary as its client. However, this goal was balanced with a desire to not upset its alliance with Germany by pressing too hard against Czechoslovakia. Italy’s alliance with Germany meant that Mussolini was not willing to support Hungary going to war over the issue. It also meant that the outright annexation of Slovakia was off the table. In discussions with von Ribbentrop prior to meeting in Vienna, Ciano had determined that Germany would be unwilling to budge over Bratislava. His proposal succeeded in Vienna: that Hungary be awarded all territories except Bratislava and Nitra.

 

 

The Partition of Czechoslovakia

After presiding over the federalization of Czechoslovakia and territorial losses, Syrovy was replaced as president by Emil Hacha on 30 November 1938. Hacha was a largely apolitical bureaucrat selected because he lacked strong ties to a party. In recognition of the trying times facing Czechoslovakia, democracy was suspended and Hacha was granted the right to rule by decree in December 1938, with the goal of preserving the republic. One of his first acts is dissolving the Communist Party. Hacha and the Czechoslovak government had no faith whatsoever in French and British guarantees and so tried to develop a positive relationship with Germany. Germany continued to threaten Czechoslovakia, demanding in January 1939 that it leave the League of Nations, reduce the size of its army, and enact antisemitic laws; the Hacha government complied.

 

In March 1939, Hitler decided that he was prepared to take the final step toward annexing Czechoslovakia, completing his plans for a military occupation originally developed in May 1938. These plans first involved breaking off Slovakia from Czechia. Although, originally, Hitler did just want the Sudetenland, since May 1938, he also wanted to assert German military and racial dominance over Czechoslovakia. Thus, he still desired an invasion even though the Czechoslovak government was so subservient.

 

Hitler wanted to split Slovakia and Czechia because, from his perspective, his quarrel is with the Czechs, not the Slovaks. More importantly, Hungary has aspirations to annex Slovakia, meaning annexing it directly would damage Germany’s relationship with Hungary. Allowing Hungary to take it, however, made the generals worry about a future Hungarian-Polish alliance cutting off Germany’s military access to the USSR. In early 1939, German agents actively supported Slovak separatism, which had mixed support at the time among the Slovak People’s Party. Largely as a result of German backing, Slovak politicians openly talked of independence.

 

Hacha was unaware of Germany’s intentions in Slovakia and viewed talk of separatism as a threat to Czechoslovakia’s existence. So, on 9 March 1939, Hacha declared martial law in Slovakia and removed the Tiso government. Hitler viewed the removal of the Tiso government as a great opportunity to split Slovakia off from Czechia. So, on 12 March, German agents contacted Tiso’s replacement, Karol Sidor, and told him to declare independence. He refused, arguing he lacked the constitutional authority to do so. Sidor’s refusal was unsurprised to everyone except Hitler, as the Slovak leadership had always been divided on the issue of independence. Some liked their current status in a federal Czechoslovakia, while others did support full independence. Sidor and Tiso were on the side of remaining within Czechoslovakia.

 

Hitler was frustrated by the Slovaks not playing into his plans for their independence. So, he summoned Tiso to Berlin and told him that Czechoslovakia was going to be destroyed: Slovakia could either be independent or it could be given to Hungary. Now Germany is still opposed to Hungary taking control of Slovakia, but he knows that so are the Slovaks so it is a pretty good threat, which was its purpose. Also, the fear of Hungary controlling Slovakia was always more an opinion of the military than of Hitler himself, who remained sure that he could secure an alliance with Poland.

 

Faced with this choice, Tiso opted for independence. On 14 March, he returned to Bratislava and convinced the assembly to declare an independent Slovak Republic. Ruthenia sensed the changes going on and decided to declare its own independence as the Republic of Carpathian Ukraine on 15 March.

 

Hitler now ordered Czechoslovakia to accept Slovakian and Ruthenian independence. Hacha asked to discuss the issue personally with Hitler and travelled to Berlin on 14 March to do so. At their meeting, Hitler informed Hacha that he had already ordered Germany to invade Czechia and that the occupation should be completed by 15 March. If Czech forces resisted, Hitler would bomb Prague into rubble. Hacha had an actual no-hyperbole heart attack at the news, but when he recovered he telephoned the government to tell them not to offer any resistance.

 

Hacha didn’t contact Britain or France because, despite officially guaranteeing Czechoslovak independence, Hacha knew there was little they could or would do. Without the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia could not resist German invasion, especially absent the aid of Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine. Hacha knew that resistance would mean the destruction of Prague and the mass slaughter of Czechs. Moreover, Hacha did not believe that Britain and France actually would do anything.

 

 

The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

On the morning of 15 March, German forces moved into and occupied Czechia. The following day, on 16 March, Hacha and his government asked Hitler’s permission to continue running Czechia’s civilian affairs instead of subjecting the Czechs to military rule. Hitler accepted this offer, retaining Hacha as the head of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. However, he only ran administration. All important decisions were made by the new Reichsprotektor, Konstantin von Neurath. Although generally more lenient that Nazi governors in Germany itself, Nazi rule in Czechia was harsh and involved imprisonment and persecution of political enemies and Jews.

 

 

The Slovak-Hungarian War

Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine were now independent, but soon found themselves challenged by Hungary. Hungary had been clued in to Hitler’s intentions for Czechoslovakia and had received Hitler’s blessing to invade and annex Carpathian Ukraine. Hitler was much less concerned than anyone else about Poland and Hungary sharing a border and he was the one who made the decision. Moreover, Hungary sent an ultimatum rather than a request and Germany was unwilling to threaten force against Hungary to deny it control over Carpathian Ukraine.

 

On 14 March, Hungarian forces crossed into Carpathian Ukraine and began skirmishes with Czechoslovak forces. Aware of Ruthenian nationalist aspirations and already engaged in a civil war with Ruthenian paramilitaries, Czechoslovak forces withdrew from Carpathian Ukraine that evening. The Ruthenian paramilitary, the ‘Sich’, continued fighting the Hungarians but was overwhelmed. By 18 March, Carpathian Ukraine was entirely occupied by Hungary. The Hungarian occupation came with reprisals against those who had supported Ruthenian independence in part to crush a guerrilla resistance that continued throughout 1939. Over 27k were extrajudicially killed and 75k (10% of the population) fled as refugees.

 

Hungarian forces did not stop at the annexation of Carpathian Ukraine, but also decided to seize additional territory from Slovakia. Seeking to benefit from the chaos, Hungary asked Germany on 17 March to mediate new discussions between Slovakia and Hungary. Before waiting for a response, Hungary invaded Slovakia on 23 March, sending soldiers to occupy the Uj river valley, north of Ujhorod. There, the Hungarian advance was stalled by Slovak resistance.

 

Germany put pressure on both countries to end the war, as it feared further conflict would force it to risk its relationship with either Slovakia or Hungary. Both sides agreed to a ceasefire on 31 March and signed a peace treaty on 4 April, which transferred the seized Uj valley to Hungary.

 

In April 1939, the partition of Czechoslovakia was completed. Ruthenia was annexed into Hungary, Czechia occupied by Germany, and Slovakia gained its independence under Tiso and the Slovak People’s Party.

 

 

The Slovak Republic

The Slovak Republic, with Tiso as president, was a parliamentary democracy that broadly guaranteed political and civil liberties with the exceptions of freedom of the press and its persecution of Jews, both to appease the Germans. Although some fascists were in power, the government was mostly composed by political Catholics.

 

Slovakia was a German client state and its leadership recognized that its independence depended on Germany. Accordingly, Slovakia followed Germany’s foreign policy directives and passed antisemitic laws. Slovakia also allowed German troops full access to its territory. Slovakia’s antisemitic measures were actually a source of tension between Germany and Slovakia because, to the Slovaks, the problem was not racial, but the fact that Jews (3% of the population) control over half of Slovakia’s wealth. Accordingly, Slovakian antisemitic laws focused on getting Jews to transfer property to Gentiles, not their expulsion and isolation.

Germany after the invasions

This occupation of Czechia greatly increased the resources available to Germany, as it now controlled the most industrialized country in eastern Europe, including its massive arms and automobile industries. Czechoslovakia had more industry than every other eastern European country combined. Germany also took all of the gold and foreign currency reserves in Czechia, further aiding the Four Year Plan.The war booty from the invasion of Czechia was massive. It is estimated that a full 25% of the military equipment and materiel used in the invasion of France was stolen from Czechia. After the occupation of Czechia, Germany was a much more formidable military adversary.

 

 

German Annexation of Memelland

During the chaotic weeks following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Hitler made his final territorial gain: Memelland, modern day Klaipėda.

 

Memelland had been part of the German Empire, but was made into a free city under the Treaty of Versailles to accommodate Lithuania’s dependence upon its port. In 1923, it was seized by Lithuania, whose occupation was lately legalized. Germans constituted the majority of the Memelland population and consistently advocated in favor of union with Germany. This led to Lithuanian government oppression, with newspapers being shut down and prominent German political figures arrested. Pro-German political parties consistently won majorities to the Memel Landtag. By the late 1930s, the German coalition won 80% of votes. There was also significant support for Nazism, despite its suppression by the Lithuanian government.

 

On 21 March 1939, von Ribbentrop gave an ultimatum to Lithuania: surrender Memel to Germany or Germany will take it by force. Lithuania tried reaching out to Britain or Poland for support, but neither was willing to fight Germany on behalf of Lithuania, which was hostile to Poland and had no treaty relationship with Britain.

 

The Lithuanian government immediately conceded to German demands and began withdrawing government agents, soldiers, and police. The transfer was confirmed by treaty on 23 March. Lithuania gave up so easily because it recognized that it had no chance of beating Germany at any point and it might end up losing more than Memel if it resisted.

 

If this was so easy, why did Hitler wait until March 1939? Hitler knew that his violation of the Munich Accords would be provocative, so he decided that he could annex Memel without provoking a strong reaction by doing it at the same time as his occupation of Czechia.

 

After the annexation of Memelland, Germany started turning Memel into a major naval base. This base, alongside Germany’s massive naval expansion, was meant to facilitate a maritime invasion of Leningrad.

 

The annexation of Memelland had major implications for German international relations. Both Britain and Poland saw German aggression in Memelland as a red flag and prepared themselves for war with Germany in the near future.

 

Hitler had specifically promised British officials in 1935 that he had no intention of annexing Memelland, and had made a similar promise to Chamberlain at Obersalzberg in 1938. To Britain, the annexation of Memelland destroyed any remaining faith in Hitler’s promises. Britain now operated under the assumption that Germany would continue to aggressively expand until and unless stopped. To this end, on 31 March, Britain announced that it would militarily guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of Poland, which it expected would be the next target of German aggression.

 

Poland clearly saw the analogue between Memel and Danzig, another German-majority port city. Poland mobilized its soldiers along the German border and stated that no revisions in the status of Danzig or the Polish Corridor would occur; ongoing negotiations were stopped. Poland believed that they would soon receive a similar ultimatum to Lithuania and prepared to go to war with Germany over Danzig. To Hitler, the termination of negotiations and Poland’s hostile attitude finally changed Hitler’s plans for the Poles. He abandoned his hopes for alliance with Poland and instead made preparations for an invasion.

 

 

Italian Invasion of Albania

Mussolini has been observing Germany’s aggression toward Czechoslovakia and Lithuania and worried that these conquests were going to allow Germany to become the dominant partner in the Pact of Steel. So, Mussolini decided that to prove that he is the better fascist and dictator of the stronger country, he would invade Albania.

 

Why Albania? Albania had been the focus of Italian ambitions in the Balkans since the 1910s and Italy exerted a lot of influence there. Plus, between 1931 and 1935, King Zog had tried to resist Italy, which displeased Mussolini. Albania was isolated, weak, and promised an easy Italian victory.

 

In March 1939, Italy delivered a series of demands to Albania: that Italy be given control over all ports, airports, and major roads; that Italian advisors to each minister be appointed; that Italians be granted full political and civil rights, including being able to vote and serve in parliament. King Zog rejected these demands. Mussolini used this as the pretext to issue a further ultimatum on 25 March 1939 that Albania would surrender itself to Italian occupation or face war.  When King Zog did realize the threat posed by Italy, he begged Mussolini to reopen negotiations to achieve some deal that wasn’t occupation. Mussolini, however, was dedicated to invasion and refused to negotiate.

 

On 6 April, Italian planes dropped pamphlets over the major Albanian cities, urging the population surrender. This was seen as a prelude to invasion and most members of the Albanian government fled the country. King Zog and his family fled to Greece on the morning of 7 April. Before fleeing, King Zog called on the Albanians to resist invasion. The army, however, viewed the cities as indefensible and established bases in the mountains. Facing minimal resistance, Italy managed to capture Tirane by 8 April and occupy the entire country by 9 April. The army was largely commanded by Italians and officers sympathetic to Italy. Many defected, surrendered, or otherwise refused to contest the invasion.

 

King Zog was unpopular in much of Albania, so few defended him. Albanians broadly accepted the Italian occupation. On 12 April, the Albanian parliament voted to dethrone Zog and appoint Victor Emmanuel III the King of the Albanians, making Albania an Italian possession. Shefqet Verlaci, a political enemy of Zog, was returned from exile in Italy and appointed PM of Albania. He ran the country alongside the King’s personal representative, Francesco Jacomoni.

 

Italy intended to turn Albania into a settler colony, similar to Mussolini’s plans in Africa. The Albanians were to be made into Italians. As part of this project, around 20k Italian colonists settled in Albania. A local fascist party, a branch of the PNF, was established to advance the spread of Italian fascist culture. All members of the Albanian government were expected to join.

 

The Italian occupation of Albania was mainly waged to satisfy Mussolini’s ego, but it did serve strategic interests. Control of Vlore meant that Italy controlled the entrance to the Adriatic Sea, cutting off Yugoslavia’s access to the Mediterranean.

 

The Italian invasion of Albania set off alarm bells to both the other Balkan countries and Britain. Yugoslavia, which had large territorial disputes with Italy over its Adriatic coastline, and Greece, which had previously contested the island of Corfu with Italy, both feared that this was the prelude to broader Italian aggression. Britain also believed that the invasion of Albania would be the start of aggression in the Balkans by Italy and its revisionist allies, Hungary and Bulgaria. To deter conflict, Britain promised to militarily guarantee the territorial integrity of Greece and Romania in April 1939.

 

 

Danzig and the Polish Corridor

A crisis over Danzig and the Polish Corridor, beginning in April 1939 and reaching its culmination in September 1939, is German’s final aggression in Europe. This triggered the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.

 

What is the Polish Corridor? This term refers to the strip of the German Empire that was given to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles. Although majority Polish, it had a large German minority. It gave Poland access to the sea, but split East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

 

What is Danzig? A free city created by the Treaty of Versailles so that Poland had access to a major port not controlled by Germany. Both Poland and Germany claimed the city and wanted to end its independence. It had a large German minority that agitated for union with Germany; in the 1930s, Danzig politics were dominated by the Nazis.

 

There had been considerable tension over Danzig and the Polish Corridor in the 1920s and early 1930s, as the Weimar Republic refused to recognize the Polish border. Hitler considerably calmed tensions because he wanted an alliance with Poland. Hitler did not entirely abandon claims to Danzig, but kept negotiations open and refused to bully Poland in the way he had Czechoslovakia or Lithuania. Hitler repeatedly asked for permission to annex Danzig and an extraterritorial road and railway through the Corridor, but was okay when Poland said no.

 

 

Hitler’s Plans for Poland

Hitler’s plan was that he would form an alliance with Poland, preferably through its inclusion in the Anti-Comintern Pact. This would break the Cordon Sanitaire, allowing Hitler to defeat a friendless France and then turn to invade the USSR alongside Poland. The Poles, however, remembered the border tensions with the Weimar Republic and never trusted Germany to not take this land. Additionally, it was clear that alliance with Germany would be against the USSR (which they could support) and France (which they could not). France was a much better ally than Germany and had been Poland’s ally since the Napoleonic Wars.

 

If Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland, why did he keep pressing for the transfer of Danzig? Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland, but being a German ally wasn’t all fun and games. Hitler expected Poland to be a junior partner and that meant some concessions on issues important to Germany.

 

 

Poland and Germany as Enemies

The relationship between Germany and Poland fundamentally changed when Hitler’s aspirations for an alliance died. This happened in late March or early April 1939, in response to Polish hostility following the annexation of Memelland and the British military guarantee to Poland.

 

Poland, seeing the analogues between Memel and Danzig, viewed German aggression there as a prelude to German aggression against Poland. Accordingly, Poland began mobilizing its reserves along the German border on 23 March. Germany viewed this as a deeply hostile and unexpected reaction. Around the same time as the ultimatum to Lithuania, Germany again asked Poland to consider the transfer of Danzig and an extraterritorial road through the Corridor. Poland, believing it was being intimidated as Lithuania had been, refused and said it would never make any concessions on the issue. Again, the impression given to Germany was that Poland was unwilling to be a cooperative partner. On 31 March, Britain said it and France would militarily guarantee Polish independence and territorial integrity. This was a direct reaction to the German annexation of Memelland and the belief of Poland and Britain that Danzig would be Hitler’s next target. To Hitler, this is a betrayal and proves Poland’s hostility to Germany.

 

Together, the deployment of Polish reserves on the frontier, refusal to negotiate over Danzig, and quasi-alliance with Britain convinced Hitler that the Polish leadership is implacably hostile to Germany and that Poland will never become an ally.

 

If Poland cannot be an ally, Hitler decided that it would be treated as an enemy; Danzig and the Corridor would be taken by force and the remainder of Poland be reduced to a client state like Slovakia. On 3 April, Hitler ordered that plans be drawn up for a military invasion of Poland to be carried out in September. Now that Poland was an enemy, the gloves came off in foreign affairs. The Germans returned to their propaganda from the 1920s of the abuse of the German minority in Poland. They also let the Danzig Nazis off the leash, as that city’s government actively demanded union with Germany and mobs attacked Polish customs officials and boycotted Polish goods.

 

Germany’s plan for Poland is a repeat of its plan for Czechoslovakia. Hitler intended to isolate Poland from its allies in France and Britain by raising tensions and then threatening war if his demands weren’t met. He expected France and Britain to pressure Poland into conceding to German demands, as they had Czechoslovakia. Just like Czechoslovakia, though, Hitler was fully prepared for war.

 

Unlike Czechoslovakia, however, Poland stands up to German demands and allows the situation to escalate to war. Poland remembered what had happened to Czechoslovakia. Submitting to Germany was no guarantee of survival, so it was better to resist from the strongest possible position because you would have to resist at some time. Poland had also received a formal alliance from Britain and France. These were the two strongest nations in Europe. Moreover, they didn’t pressure Poland to submit, but stood behind it in resisting Germany. Additionally, unlike Britain and France (who overestimated the strength of Germany), Poland underestimated German strength and overestimated its own. The general opinion of Polish leadership was that Poland could effectively resist Germany for a while until France came to its aid.

 

Whereas Britain and France pressured Czechoslovakia to give into German demands, they both stand beside Poland in its refusal to give into Germany. France’s whole thing has been its refusal to fight alone. Britain has changed its opinion after the invasions of Czechia and Memelland, so France now has the promise of British support. Britain decided to support Poland because Hitler’s invasions of Czechia and Memelland had taught Britain that German promises were worthless and that Hitler was not only interested in German areas. He would continue expanding aggressively until and unless he was stopped. Britain had a good chance of stopping it in Poland, one of the largest armies in Europe. Chamberlain also believed that the credible threat of war with Britain would be enough to stop Germany from invading Poland. Thus, the normal concerns about Britain’s rearmament being incomplete were not as pressing, since Britain didn’t need to go to war, only threaten war.

 

 

Courting allies

Hitler raises the pressure on Poland and its allies in a speech on 28 April. In response to a letter from President Franklin Roosevelt, asking if he was going to invade any other European countries, Hitler denounced both the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Treaty and the 1934 Nonaggression Agreement with Poland. Both of these actions were meant to raise the threat of war in hope of getting Britain to give concessions. Hitler claimed both agreements had been violated by the hostility of Britain’s guarantee of Poland. The unilateral termination of the nonaggression agreement with Poland was meant to raise the credibility of Germany’s threat of war. Instead of intimidating Britain with the threat of war, this speech only further convinced Britain that Germany was a belligerent nation and war could only be prevented by a firm opposition to its demands.

 

Britain and France still overestimated the strength of the German army and, to make their threat as credible as possible and to hedge their bets in case of a war, sought additional allies against Germany. Britain wanted Poland to sign treaties with Hungary and Romania to form an anti-German bloc. This proved impossible, however, as Romania and Hungary viewed each other as enemies and an alliance with one would disrupt relations with the other.

 

The USSR had been asked about the possibility of alliance against Germany, but until Spring 1939 it had been ignored. Now that war seemed likely, Britain and France agreed to discuss an alliance between the USSR, themselves, and Poland. The Soviets want an alliance because the USSR was deeply threatened by Germany, as it was the target of the Anti-Comintern Pact and identified as Germany’s primary adversary in Mein Kampf. The Soviets believed war with Germany was likely and wanted to avoid fighting it alone.

 

 

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Germany paid attention to the meetings between Britain, France, and the USSR. It soon started its own overtures to the Soviets, seeking Soviet neutrality in the upcoming conflict. Hitler understood how much trouble the two-front war with France and the USSR had been in WWI and sought to avoid that scenario. If he could, he wanted to defeat France before beginning his eventual war against the USSR, so he pursued some kind of agreement with the USSR. The overriding Soviet strategic aim was to avoid being the primary target of German aggression during a time when they were relatively weak. The Soviets hoped better relations with Germany could delay war and shift its focus away from them, so it was willing to consider an agreement with Germany.

 

The USSR had discussions both with Britain and France and with Germany in Summer 1939, seeing which deal to choose. The decision comes around 14 August, when negotiations with Britain and France collapse. The point that killed the negotiations was that the Soviets demanded permission to cross Poland or Romania to fight Germany. Poland and Romania both adamantly refused this request. Both countries had been subject to Soviet aggression before and believed that Soviet troops would never leave if they entered. They also both believed French and British assistance was sufficient without the risk of Soviet involvement. The negotiations had always faced some difficulty due to Britain’s reluctance to negotiate with the Soviets in the first place. Chamberlain didn’t trust the Soviets and neither Britain nor France believed that Soviet assistance was important enough to pressure Poland or Romania to let them pass.

 

After negotiations with Britain and France grind to a standstill, the Soviets start taking German proposals much more seriously. On 23 August, von Ribbentrop was invited to Moscow to sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov. Officially, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a nonaggression agreement between Germany and the USSR. However, it also contained a secret annex that divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence: Germany would receive Lithuania and Poland west of the Narev, Vistula, and San rivers; the USSR would receive Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland east of those rivers, as well as a free hand in settling territorial disputes with Romania.

 

Germany never actually intended to respect the Pact, but viewed it as a temporary measure to ensure Soviet neutrality until they could finish fighting Poland and France. Giving the Soviets a big sphere of influence in eastern Europe didn’t matter (because they’d just take it back later) and had the potential upshot of showcasing Soviet aggression, hopefully leading to British support for a German campaign against the USSR.

 

Why did the USSR cut a deal with Germany?

    1. The USSR really doesn’t care about Poland, which had been an implacable enemy of the Soviets.                 They also dislike Britain and France. The official theoretical view is that there is an ongoing conflict          between capitalists that the USSR should try to avoid involvement in. So, the only Soviet concerns             are strategic, not ideological or moral.

    2. The primary Soviet foreign policy goal was to avoid being the main target of German aggression and,         particularly, to avoid a joint German-Japanese invasion. If this could be accomplished by a better                 relationship with Germany, than so be it. The Soviets had no reason to doubt Germany’s short term             commitment, as that was based on their own self interest in avoiding a two-front war.

    3. The Soviets don’t actually trust Germany or think that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact will exist long-            term. The purpose of the agreement is A) to buy time for the USSR to build up its army for an                     eventual conflict with Germany while Germany is weakened fighting Britain and France, and B) get         Germany to give the most concessions possible in eastern Europe. The hope is that, when war comes,         the Soviets will be in a stronger position because of the Pact.

    4. The USSR understood the degree of its leverage over Germany and used this to extort the maximum         possible concessions in eastern Europe. The deal did much to fulfill Soviet territorial ambitions going         back to the 1920s.

 

The announcement of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a major disruption in global diplomacy. It frightened Britain, France, who sought to shore up their commitments to Poland. It also alienated Germany from its allies in the Anti-Comintern Pact, as Japan and Italy were angry that Germany had abandoned the entire aim of their alliance. Britain worried that the unexpected announcement of a nonaggression agreement between Germany and the USSR would make Hitler think that Poland and its backers could be intimidated, so, to dispel that notion, Britain signed a formal alliance with Poland on 25 August.

 

 

Hitler’s Strategic Calculus

Having secured Soviet neutrality, or assistance, Hitler felt even more confident than before about his plans for war. His expectation was that Britain would not intervene, regardless of what it said, and Poland would submit to his demands. If war did break out, Hitler believed France and Britain were ‘paper tigers’ and Germany could take them. Hitler doesn’t seem to have understood the fundamental change in Chamberlain’s attitude that occurred after the invasions of Czechia and Memelland. He assumed that Britain would refuse to intervene as it had in 1935 and 1938. If Britain did nothing, France would be too weak to act alone.

 

Yet again, virtually the entire German military disagreed with Hitler’s positive assessment of German chances in a war. They agreed that Germany would be able to defeat Poland, but argued that Germany was exposed to a French attack on the western border. The generals begged for more time to rearm and build up the Siegfried Line, but Hitler rejected their concerns.

 

Hitler’s war plans were imperiled, however, by news on 25 August that Italy was unprepared for a general European war and would not fight Britain and France if they declared war on Germany. Italy had signed the Pact of Steel in May 1939, but had assumed that war would not come for a number of years, not within months. Italy expected to be prepared for war around 1943 and lacked everything needed to perform well in a modern conflict. Germany had been expecting Italy to tie down the British and, especially, the French in the Mediterranean. Without Italian involvement, Hitler was in a much weaker position. He still considered Germany strong enough to start and win the war, but it did disrupt his plans.

 

 

Danzig Crisis

Receiving the news on 25 August that Britain had signed an official alliance with Poland, meaning there was more likely to be actual war, and Italy would not honor the Pact of Steel, Hitler postponed the invasion of Poland, which had been set for 26 August, to 1 September and tried some last-minute negotiations. Hitler’s first tactic was trying to buy off Britain and France by promising them guarantees. He said that Germany had no ambitions in the British Empire (true) and that he would respect the current border with France (lie). Britain said it didn’t care and would stand behind Poland.

 

Hitler then tried issuing an ultimatum to Poland, in the hope that Britain and France would pressure Poland into accepting to avoid war. On 29 August, Hitler said he would invade Poland unless Danzig was given to Germany and a plebiscite on return to Germany was held in the Corridor. On 30 August, Poland rejected the German ultimatum. In response, von Ribbentrop, who refused to meet directly with the Poles, read out a statement that negotiations had ended to the British ambassador in Berlin. However, he read it very rapidly in German and didn’t supply a written copy, so it is unclear if anybody understood that war was imminent. On 31 August, Hitler signed the orders for the German invasion of Poland to begin on 1 September. No hostilities were to be initiated against Britain or France unless they attacked, on the assumption that they would back down at the last moment.

 

On the evening of 31 August 1939, German soldiers in Polish uniforms staged an attack on a number of border cities, including the radio station at Gleiwitz, broadcasting a short signal announcing that Poland had invaded Germany. Hitler used this as the immediate pretext for the invasion of Poland. He claimed that German soldiers had been forced to return fire to repel the invasion, thus justifying the undeclared conflict beginning on 1 September. At 04:45, on 1 September 1939, the battleship Schleswig Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison posted on the entrance to Danzig’s harbor. This was the start of the Second World War in Europe.

 

Britain and France did try to defer war, issuing an ultimatum to Germany to stop its attack on Poland and withdraw, but, as Germany did not respond, on 3 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

— Eunice Noh, August 2020