The current crisis in Ukraine is darkened by distant shadows of the Munich Conference in 1938, during which the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy ceded the Czech Sudetenland to the Third Reich.
The full story of this catastrophe, however, was long shrouded in secrecy.
Upon Hitler's accession to power in January of 1933, the German army was limited by the Treaty of Versailles to a mere 100,000 soldiers. The Kriegsmarine had only coastal patrol ships and the Luftwaffe was entirely nonexistent. A vast rearmament program initiated in 1935 had yet to have much impact when Hitler demanded the Sudetenland in late 1938.
As testified German Gen. Alfred Jodl at the Nuremberg trials in 1946: “It was entirely out of the question, with five fighting divisions and seven armored divisions in the western fortification, to keep 100 French divisions at bay. From a military point of view, that was impossible."
Cognizant of this, a conspiracy led by Gen. Franz Halder, the German chief of staff, planned to depose and imprison Hitler if he insisted on war. Likely, he would be “shot down at close quarters without more ado.”
As Halder and his cohorts flatly despised the Fuhrer, excoriating him as a “criminal, madman and bloodsucker,” their resolve was strong.
In what seems incredible in the light of subsequent events, moreover, the British and French governments were fully aware of the conspiracy. To trigger it, Neville Chamberlain had only to stand firm on the Sudetenland.
Yet, in the single worst misjudgment of the 20th century, Chamberlain swallowed Hitler's lie that this was “the last territorial claim I have in Europe.” The prime minister crumpled and the plot against Hitler collapsed.
To the spineless Chamberlain, Hitler's sham promise meant “peace in our time.”
But the dictators had been emboldened and now war was inevitable.
None of this was lost on French Premier Edouard Daladier, who on his return to Paris feared being lynched. Noticing that the airport crowd actually was euphoric, he whispered: “The idiots!”
The Fuhrer told Mussolini: “We saw our enemies at Munich and they were little worms.”
Replied the Duce: “The democracies exist to swallow toads.”
All, perhaps, except for Winston Churchill. In a fierce oration to the House of Commons on Oct. 5. 1938, the future prime minister declared: "We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into darkness.
“And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”
Eventually, the democracies would indeed rise and fight and triumph, but at far greater cost than should have been.
History cries out loud and clear: Abandoning Ukraine would not prevent a more destructive war. It would ignite one.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
