82. TBJG, I/6, 283 (13 March 1939).
83. Below, 151; Irving, Goebbels, 290; Watt, How War Came, 152.
84. TBJG, I/6, 283–4 (13 March 1939).
85. TBJG, I/6, 285 (14 March 1939); DGFP, D, IV, 243– 5, Doc.202.
86. Watt, How War Came, 150.
87. TBJG, I/6, 285–6 (14 March 1939, 15 March 1939).
88. Schmidt, 435; Watt, How War Came, 144, 152; Toland, 515.
89. TBJG, I/6,287 (15 March 1939); Keitel, 200. According to Keitel, Hacha’s arrival was announced to Hitler around 10.00p.m. He had only been expected in late evening (Below, 151), though photographs of the Czech President inspecting a guard of honour outside the station in Berlin in daylight suggest that he had actually arrived in the city no later than about 7.00p.m. (Domarus, 1093 n.263).
90. Keitel, 200. For Hitler’s relaxed attitude during the evening, see Below, 152.
91. Schmidt, 435–6.
92. DGFP, D, IV, 263–9, Doc. 228; Otto Meissner, Staatssekretar unter Ebert-Hindenburg-Hitler. Der Schicksalsweg des deutschen Volkes von 1918 bis 1945, wie ich ihn erlebte, Hamburg, 1950, 476; Keitel, 201; Schmidt, 437; Below, 150–53.
93. Keitel, 201.
94. Keitel (200–201) claimed Hacha had no knowledge. But, according to Schmidt, Hacha had been told by Mastny on arrival in Berlin that troops had crossed near Ostrau (Schmidt, 437); and Goebbels pointed out that the purpose of sending some troops into Czech territory was to exert further pressure on Hacha (TBJG, 286 (15 March 1939)).
95. Keitel, 201.
96. Irving, Goring, 245.
97. Schmidt, 438–9.
98. Schmidt, 439; DGFP, D, IV, 263–9, N0.228.
99. Schroeder, 88.
100. Below, 153; Keitel, 202; Domarus, 1097.
101. Schroeder, 88; Below, 153–4; Schneider, Nr.47, 21 November 1952, 8; TBJG, I/6, 293 (20 March 1939), where Goebbels noted that Hitler thought the people of Prague had ‘behaved quite neutrally’, and that more could not have been expected of them.
102. Schroeder, 88–9.
103. Reichsgesetzblatt (=RGBl) 1939,I, 485–8, quotation 485; Below, 154.
104. Below, 154.
105. TBJG, I/6, 293 (20 March 1939); Below, 155; Domarus, 1103.
106. See Below, 154, 156.
107. StA Munchen, NSDAP 126, report of the Kreisleiter of Aichach, Upper Bavaria, 31 March 1939: ‘Die Menschen freuten sich uber die gro?en Taten des Fuhrers und blicken vertrauensvoll zu ihm auf. Die Note und Sorgen des Alltags sind aber so gro?, da? bald wieder die Stimmung getrubt wird.’
108. Below, 156. Speer, 162, remarked on the depressed mood in Germany and the worries about the future. See also, for reactions to the latest coup, Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 139–40.
109. DBS, vi.279. Analysts at Sopade headquarters, by now moved from Prague to Paris, concluded that, in the light of Hitler’s broken promises and so many occasions in which to recognize the true essence of the Nazi regime, ‘If the world… allows itself to be deceived, then it alone is to blame… For this system, there is no right other than that of the stronger’ (DBS, vi.372–3).
110. Andreas-Friedrich, Schauplatz Berlin, 32.
111. Eva Sternheim-Peters, Die Zeit der gro?en Tauschungen. Madchenleben im Faschismus, Bielefeld, 1987, 361–2.
112. DBS, vi.278.
113. Chamberlain, Struggle, 413–20, quotation 418.
114. Courcy, 98.
115. Cit. Weinberg II, 542–3.
116. Weinberg II, 545–6.
117. DGFP, D, IV, 99–100, N0.81.
118. Domarus, 510–11, 1029, n.49a, 1109; Benz, Graml, and Wei?, Enzyklopadie, 582; Watt, How War Came, 156.
119. See Weinberg II, 536.
120. Domarus, 1109, How War Came, 156–7.
121. TBJG, I/6, 296 (23 March 1939).
122. TBJG, I/6, 297 (23 March 1939); Domarus, 1109–10.
123. Domarus, 1110–14. There appears to be no evidence for the assertion by Watt, How War Came, 157, that Hitler came on land sea-sick from his stay on the Deutschland.
124. TBJG, I/6, 297 (23 March 1939).
125. TBJG, I/6, 296 (23 March 1939). Hitler had been taking it for granted for a few months that the former colonies would be returned to Germany (Weinberg II, 512–13). The issue was at best, however, of secondary importance to him, and his somewhat vague presumption was that the colonial question would be solved perhaps in the later 1940s when Germany was the master of the European continent and when the battle-fleet was ready (Klaus Hildebrand, Deutsche Au?enpolitik 1933–1945. Kalkul oder Dogma?, Stuttgart etc., 1971, 78–9).
126. DGFP, D, VI, 70–72, No. 61.
127. DBFP, Ser. 3, IV, 463–4, No. 485.
128. Watt, How War Came, 158–9.
129. Below, 157; DGFP, D, VI, 117–19 (quotation, 117), No. 99. Hitler’s stance is not compatible with the post-war claim — on the basis of dubious evidence — that he had already decided upon the military occupation of Poland as early as 8 March, when he spoke to leaders of business, the Party, and the military (Dietrich Eichholtz and Wolfgang Schumann (eds.), Anatomie des Krieges. Neue Dokumente uber die Rolle des deutschen Monopolkapitals bei der Vorbereitung und Durchfuhrung des zweiten Weltkrieges, East Berlin, 1969, 204–5, Dok.88 (based on reports sent to President Roosevelt on 19 September 1939 by William Christian Bullitt, the United States Ambassador in Paris)).
130. TBJG, I/6, 300 (25 March 1939).
131. Domarus, 1115–16; Watt, How War Came, 160–61.
132. As in Domarus, 1116. Hitler was, however, displeased with Ribbentrop’s clumsy alienation of the Poles, which threatened to do just what he wanted to avoid and drive them into the arms of the British (Bloch, 220).
133. TBJG, I/6, 302 (28 March 1939).
134. Watt, How War Came, 160–61.
135. Weinberg II, 554–5.
136. DBFP, Ser.3, IV, 553, No.582. For the background, and the shifts in the British stance towards Germany in spring 1939, though inclined to interpret them as a continuation by other means of existing policy (as Chamberlain himself saw it), aimed at preserving the status quo in Eastern Europe and maintaining Britain’s status as a world power, rather than a change of direction, see Simon Newman, March 1939: the British Guarantee to Poland. A Study in the Continuity of British Foreign Policy, Oxford, 1976, stressing the role of Halifax in urging the Guarantee on Chamberlain. For greater emphasis upon the Guarantee as a decisive turning-point, if not intended as such, in British policy, see A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, (1961), Penguin edn, Harmondsworth, 1964, 253. It is tempting to agree with P. M. H. Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, London, 1986, 252–5, that the simplest explanation for the Guarantee is probably the best: Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia had sharply altered opinion in Britain, including Chamberlain’s own. There had to