In English alone there have been more than 200 bookson the subject, but this one is worth picking out of the pack. It is wellwrittenby a historian and former member of the British Parliamentas well asdocumented and detailed down to the ground, and helpfully analytical to afare-thee-well.
Czechoslovakiawas a country cobbled together only 20 years before out of the wreckage, leftby World War I, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Faber shows that the dominantCzechs were not exactly welded in harmony with the Slovaks and that theBohemians and Moravians distrusted each other and everyone else.
Still, it was a functioning democracy and might havestumbled along indefinitely had it not been for another, sizable minority, theSudeten Germans. And Adolf Hitler. Living in a region bordering Germany called the Sudetenland,the Sudeten Germans were unaware of how oppressed they were by the Czechjackboot until the Führer began cooing it in theirand the world'sears loudly,stridently and often.
With the help of opportunist sympathizers in the Sudetenland, German Nazis told them how eager they wereto be “endlich Heim ins Reich” (“home in the Reich at last”) until even theleast interested among them believed it. After all, a similar strategy hadworked with Austriajust months beforebut then, the majority of Austrians actually were happy to be absorbed into the NaziFatherland.
The history of what has come to be called “Munich” is essentially the history of two things: (1)Chamberlain's continued willingness to be deceived by Hitler, and (2) becauseof that, the rapid unraveling of Czechoslovakia. Faber depictsChamberlain as a vain man, proud of his (mistaken) belief in his ability totake the measure of the other man.
The prime minister and the Führer held threemeetings in September 1938, only one of which was in Munich. Before Munichthey met at Hitler's mountaintop aerie in Berchtesgadenand at Godesberg. At no time was any Czech representative allowed to take part,except at a mediation held in August in Prague.
By this point Czech President Edvard Benes had beenforced into accepting the loss of the Sudetenland.But Hitler kept upping the ante. The author makes it abundantly clear thatHitler had absolutely no intention of ever coming to any agreement. All the while he was supposedly negotiating with theBritish and the French, his military was preparing to invade Czechoslovakia, knowing that Britain and France were highly unlikely to goto war to uphold whatever promises they had made to the unhappy country.
Faber also makes clear, correspondingly, the“breathtaking naïvete” of the British and French in dealing with Hitler. Amongthe few prominent men opposing appeasement were Anthony Eden, Chamberlain'sforeign secretary, who had recently resigned over the issue, and, mostfamously, Winston Churchill.
The piece of paper that Chamberlain brought back to London from Munichon Sept. 30, which he said offered “peace with honour” and “peace for ourtime,” of course brought about neither. Hitler had signed it not caring what hesigned. He told Joachim von Ribbentrop, his foreign minister, that it had “nofurther significance whatsoever”; another observer said Hitler remarked, “Well,he was such a nice old gentleman I thought I'd give him my autograph as asouvenir.”
The agreement allowed for the entry of Germansoldiers into the Sudetenland and its absorption into the Reich along withguarantees for the “new” Czechoslovakia.But within two months the various regions had been gobbled up by Germany. OnDec. 17, Hitler rode in triumph into Prague, satat Benes' desk and drafted a proclamation declaring that Czechoslovakia,having “ceased to exist,” was incorporated into the Reich.
