Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death

listening to them haggling, was to get behind the formidable Czechmountain fortifications.) Chamberlain said he would have to consult, and they alladjourned, Hitler and Goebbels to a city launch that chugged up the Rhine into thegentle autumn evening. The next morning Chamberlain sent over a letter to Hitler.The Nazi wiretaps on the British and Czech international phone lines left no doubtnow that Beneoar(s,ˇ) was playing for time. Word came shortly that BeneO(s,ˇ) hadmobilized. Undeterred, Hitler handed new demands to Chamberlain.There was a lot of play-acting on both sides. At that evening’s crisis session, Chamberlainrose haughtily to his feet and threatened to walk out.46 Goebbels did notknow what to make of it all. His private alarm deepened. War hysteria was seepinginto the German press.47 Flying back to Berlin with Hitler he found a mood there472 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHwavering between noisy jingoism and grim ‘determination’—for want of a moregloomy word which he safely entered in his diary. The wiretaps showed Beneoar(s,ˇ)digging his heels in. Would he give way? The question dominated Hitler’s lunch table.‘The Führer thinks not,’ recorded Goebbels. ‘I say he will.’ Strolling with him afterlunch, Hitler again said that he would attack on or after the twenty-eighth. ‘Thatgives the Führer five days,’ calculated Goebbels, adding: ‘He fixed these dates wayback on May 28.’ He gloomily agreed that the radical solution was the best. Ribbentroppredicted that nobody would lift a finger to help Prague. For once Goebbels foundhimself agreeing with him, but he still did not want war.48On Prague’s response, Hitler proved right and Goebbels wrong. Beneoar(s,ˇ) rejectedHitler’s territorial demands outright. Goebbels again had to lecture his editoron steadfastness, and stepped up the propaganda war still further. Hitler addressed amass meeting at the Sport Palace.The unwitting party faithful might cheer but others—intellectuals, generals, andeven ministers—began bombarding Hitler with warnings.49 Goebbels heard Himmlercomplaining about the uselessness of the older-generation generals. Hitler gave theCzechs until two P.M. on the twenty-eighth to agree to his terms. Wondering onceagain how far the British had been bluffing, Goebbels mechanically told Berndt tostir up discord between Beneoar(s,ˇ) and his people using clandestine transmittersbased in Vienna.50This war of nerves climaxed on the twenty-seventh, when Hitler received Chamberlain’sdapper emissary Sir Horace Wilson. He told Goebbels later that he hadscreamed at the Englishman, accusing him of evasions.51 ‘The Führer,’ summarizedan admiring Goebbels, ‘believes in his mission with the sureness of a sleepwalker.Not for one moment does his hand tremble. A great genius in our midst… One hasto serve him with profound devotion. He is more true, more simple, more farsightedthan any German statesman that has gone before.’52 The German public wasspared these insights. War panic now gripped its heart. That evening Hitler ordered amechanized division to rumble through the capital. He sat watching from the darkenedfoyer of the chancellery as the armour rattled past, while Goebbels mingledGOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 473unseen with the crowds.53 ‘The public,’ he wrote, concerned, afterwards, ‘is filledwith a profound worry. They know that we’re coming into the last lap now.’As the deadline for Hitler’s ultimatum approached Goebbels decided to head himoff. The British and French ambassadors got to Hitler first, bringing fragrant freshproposals. Ribbentrop was furious that war might be averted. ‘He nurtures a blindhatred of Britain,’ decided Goebbels. ‘Göring, Neurath, and I urge Hitler to accept.…You can’t get into what may well turn into a world war over procedural issues. Göring… totally shares my viewpoint and gives Ribbentrop a piece of his mind.’ ‘MeinFührer,’ he blurted out over lunch in Hitler’s chancellery on the twenty-eighth, ‘ifyou think that the German public is thirsting for war, you are wrong. They watch itsapproach with a leaden sense of apathy.’54In that instant Hitler changed his mind. According to Ribbentrop’s StaatssekretärErnst von WeizsäckerÊ it was primarily Goebbels who persuaded Hitler to back offfrom war at this, the eleventh hour.55 Perhaps Hitler even welcomed his moderatinginfluence. He immediately approved suggestions for a four-power conference to takeplace in Munich the next day. Goebbels saw the likely outcome thus: ‘We take theSudeten territories peacefully; the grand solution remains wide open, and we girdourselves for future contingencies.’ He was due to address half a million people inthe Lustgarten that evening. He prudently decided not to revealing anything of themorrow’s certain victory. ‘Nothing would be more improper,’ he explained to hisstaff after that historic luncheon, ‘than to announce Chamberlain’s coming. That wouldunleash incredble public scenes of jubilation; and then the British would realize thetruth—that all our belligerence is just bluster.’56Remaining in Berlin, he warned his editors not to let their campaign about ‘Czechterror’ flag either. Soon Hanke, sent to Munich as his observer, reported that Mussolini,Chamberlain, and Daladier had agreed to Hitler’s demands. Czechoslovakia shouldhand over the disputed territories in the first ten days of October. ‘So that’s all we getfor the time being,’ noted Goebbels. ‘Under the circumstances,’ he added, hiding hisrelief, ‘we are unable to realize our grand plan’—seizing allÊ of Czechoslovakia.57474 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICHHitler had dramatically increased the Reich’s international prestige. In a stingingrebuff to Beneoar(s,ˇ), the four powers had not even invited the Czechs to the Munichconference. ‘And now,’ triumphed Goebbels in his unpublished diary, ‘let usrearm, rearm, and rearm!’ Once more he ordered his gau to prepare a hero’s welcomefor the Führer at the Anhalt railroad station.58He had other causes to rejoice. ‘Ribbentrop fell flat on his face,’ he wrote. ‘Göringis livid with him. Calls him a pompous primadonna.’ He had already commentedduring June on the foreign minister’s pathological hatred of the English—a relic ofthe treatment meted out by the British establishment to him as ambassador.59 ‘TheFührer,’ Goebbels had added in September, ‘is in for a big surprise with him.’60Back in Berlin, Hitler told his lunch guests about the famous ‘piece of paper,’ theAnglo-German declaration that Chamberlain had sprung on him afterwards for signature.He did not believe that the British meant to honour it, he said. Chamberlainwas a fox. ‘He tackles each issue ice-cool,’ he reiterated. ‘We’re really going to havewatch out for these British.’61Over dinner the next day he