Book Three: The Road to War
- Since Chamberlain's diplomatic interventions had fouled up his plans to invade Czechoslovakia, Hitler decided that he wasn't done yet.
- Less than a month after the Munich Agreement was signed, Hitler was getting the German Army ready for an operation that would produce a total conquest of Czechoslovakia.
- Shirer notes that this moment in history represented a turning point for the Reich.
The Week of the Broken Glass
- Growing violence was being directed against Jews in Germany and the newly Nazi-occupied territories.
- The evening of November 9-10, 1938, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), or Night of the Broken Glass. It was the most violent pogrom in the Reich up to this point.
- Although the Propaganda Ministry described the pogrom as a "spontaneous" reaction to the murder of a German Embassy official in France, Shirer's research proves that not only did Goebbels order the demonstrations, but Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich issued clear directives for the burning down of synagogues, the destruction of property, and the mass arrests of German Jews.
- 7500 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed, 267 synagogues were torched, and 91 Jews were killed.
- The destruction of property became a serious cause of concern for the Nazis, who suddenly realized that German insurance firms would be on the hook for the smashed and gutted buildings that had been occupied by Jews, but owned by Gentiles.
- The Jewish community got a bill for the damage, since they started it. Of course.
- Hermann Goering and the other Nazi officials who were managing Germany's economy began to discuss how best to remove Jews from the German economy, seize their property, and evict them from the country.
- Although the German Jews had been subjected to violent oppression before the Kristallnacht, the November pogrom represented the first pogrom carried out by the German government itself.
Slovakia Wins Its "Independence"
- Hitler's plans for what remained of Slovakia were two-pronged. On the one hand, he intended to separate Slovakia from Prague, and at the same time, he intended to liquidate of what remained of the state by occupying the other Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia.
- By the winter of 1939, Germany still hadn't provided a formal guarantee of the smaller nation's borders.
- By March, the Czech government was finding itself in a sticky situation. Strong separatist movements were stirring up trouble in Slovakia and Ruthenia, and the government knew that Czechoslovakia was at risk for breaking up.
- On the other hand, it also knew that if the government tried to put down the rebellion, Hitler could take advantage of the situation by marching into Prague
- The Czech government decided to put down the revolt anyway.
- Hitler did his best to encourage the separatist movement and pave the way for a German invasion.
- By the middle of March 1939, Hitler was ready to sit down with the new Czech president, Emil Hácha.
The Ordeal of Dr. Hácha
- On the night of March 14, 1938, President Hácha arrived with his family in Berlin. Although the Germans gave him the formal honors appropriate to a head of state, their apparently perfect protocol became an ironic backdrop to a massive political travesty.
- Shirer writes that the meeting was "a pitiful scene at the outset." (3.13.98)
- Hácha "groveled" before Hitler, but to no avail. Soon after the meeting began, Hitler informed the Czech president that he had already given the order to invade Czechoslovakia and annex it into the Third Reich.
- Not only that, but Hitler emphasized the wreckage and ruin that would be caused by his armies if the Czechs didn't cooperate.
- He advised Hácha to make sure there was no resistance.
- The Czechoslovakian leader eventually capitulated.
- As Germany occupied its new territory, neither Britain nor France did anything at all to intervene.
- Shirer thinks that despite sitting on the sidelines as Czechoslovakia was destroyed, the two nations seemed to be finally waking up to Hitler's true nature.
- On March 17, just two days after the German Army had marched into Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain made a public declaration that the British wouldn't tolerate any other "adventures" by the Fuehrer.
- Two weeks later, he made another thing clear:
- "In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence," he declared, "and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power." (3.13.160-61)
- The French concurred.