Hitler and his God

The Munich Agreement (30 September 1938)

On 29 September 1938 Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier met in Munich to decide on the fate of Czechoslovakia, which itself was barred from participation. Hitler wanted Czechoslovakia to be split up so that the Sudetenland with its majority German population could be incorporated into his Greater Germany, and he threatened to go to war on this issue. The Munich Conference is now held to be the high point of the “appeasement” politics by which the non-German speaking West European nations tried to temper Hitler’s ambitions, soft-pedalling on all hot issues and trying to talk the German dictator, aka the Friedenskanzler, into a more reasonable stance toward the situation. This attitude of appeasement, fully exploited by the sharp-sighted Führer, resulted on the following day in the signing of an agreement which gave Hitler complete satisfaction.

Czechoslovakia was forced to cede to Germany “11 000 square miles of territory in which dwelt 2 800 000 Germans and 800 000 Czechs. Within this area lay all the vast Czech fortifications which hitherto had formed the most formidable defensive line in Europe, with the possible exception of the Maginot Line in France. But that was not all. Czechoslovakia’s entire system of rail, road, telephone and telegraph communications was disrupted. According to German figures the dismembered country lost 66 percent of its coal, 80 percent of its lignite, 86 percent of its chemicals, 80 percent of its cement, 80 percent of its textiles, 70 percent of its iron and steel, 70 percent of its electric power and 40 percent of its timber. A prosperous industrial nation was split up and bankrupted overnight.” 1105

Great Britain and France had omitted to defend Czechoslovakia, although they were in honour bound to do so by their international treaties. Moreover, as Field Marshal von Manstein would later explain: “If war had broken out, neither our western border nor our Polish frontier could really have been defended effectively by us, and there is no doubt whatsoever that if Czechoslovakia had defended herself, we would have been held up by her fortifications, for we did not have the means to break through.” General Jodl, chief of the German High Command, would concur on this point at Nuremberg: “It was out of the question, with five fighting divisions and seven reserve divisions in the western fortifications, which were nothing but a large construction site, to hold out against 100 French divisions. That was militarily impossible.” 1106

On his return from Munich Chamberlain was greeted as a hero. “Brandishing the declaration which he had signed with Hitler, the jubilant Prime Minister faced a large crowd that pressed into Downing Street … He smilingly spoke a few words from a second-story window in Number 10. ‘My good friends’, he said, ‘this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. [The first time had been Disraeli’s return from the Congress of Berlin in 1878, during the Bismarck years.] I believe it is peace in our time.’ The Times declared that ‘no conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come adorned with nobler laurels’.” 1107 The lonely voice of dissent, as it had been against appeasement all along, was that of Winston Churchill, who warned: “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat … Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness … We are in the midst of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France … And do not suppose that this is the end. It is only the beginning of the reckoning.” 1108

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother condemned the Munich Agreement outright. A “corrupt” France had “backed out of her promise” and “betrayed Czechoslovakia”, thereby calling down upon her head her own future difficulties. “The Czechs could have offered good resistance but for the Allies who betrayed them. If the Allies had agreed to help them at that time in combination with Russia [a partner in the French treaty with Czechoslovakia], the Czechs could have given an effective fight to Hitler … Blum and Daladier made the worst possible blunders, the one by his non-intervention policy [in the recently concluded civil war] in Spain, the other by betraying the Czechs.” 1109

Chamberlain was “a crafty fool, thinking that he was dealing most diplomatically with Hitler while he did not see the reality of what he was doing … So long as Chamberlain is at the helm, nothing will happen. He applies only business intelligence to politics.” 1110 (Shirer saw Chamberlain as “gullible almost beyond comprehension”.) “In a photograph of the Munich Pact I saw Hitler with Chamberlain”, said Sri Aurobindo. “This man with a great diabolical cunning in his eyes was looking at Chamberlain, who looked like a fly before a spider on the point of being caught – and he actually was caught.” 1111

Sri Aurobindo explained the role Great Britain had played in Germany’s military recovery. “It was England who thrust Germany into power. She saw that France was getting powerful in Europe after the war [i.e. the First World War]. As is her usual self-interested policy, she raised Germany in order to create a balance of power [on the European continent]. She didn’t expect that Germany would aim her gun at her. At one time France and England came almost to the point of rivalry … I have never seen such a bankruptcy of English diplomacy before.” 1112

“Western civilization is failing”, remarked Sri Aurobindo. “Even the nineteenth century civilization with its defects was better than what we have now. Europe could not stand the test of the last world war … From one point of view there never was a time when humanity came down so low as it has now. It looks as if a small number of violent men are the arbiters of humanity and the rest of the world is ready to bow down before one man … The setback to the human mind in Europe is amazing … We had thought during the last years of the nineteenth century that the human mind had attained a certain level of intelligence and that this would have to be satisfied before any new idea could find acceptance. But it seems one cannot rely on common sense to stand the strain.” 1113

Now Hitler, convinced that he was pressed for time, loosened all the brakes. For a time he had gone easy on the Jews, heading straight for his world war and allowing nothing to come in between. In the back of his mind, though, the idea had taken shape that the war would be the right occasion to realize, unheeded by the outside world, one of the essential components of his fixed idea: the surgical removal of the Jewish race from the body of humanity. Hardly more than a month after the Munich Conference he used an incident of little importance to launch the Kristallnacht, a euphemism for the biggest pogrom in German history.

Soon a series of decrees gradually made life in Germany unbearable for the Jews – and not only for the Jews: Himmler issued his decree “to fight the Gypsy plague” on 8 December. Whatever the half-measures Hitler had been forced to take not to offend world opinion too much, from now on he indubitably worked towards the genocide of the Jewish people in all territories within his power, with the ultimate aim to eradicate them (ausmerzen) in the whole world. Sri Aurobindo read his intentions and signalled the preparations for “the deliberate cold-blooded murder of the Jews” as early as the last day of 1938.

Hitler, the appearances notwithstanding, was sorely disappointed with the results of the Munich Conference. Raving against Chamberlain, he shouted: “That fellow has spoiled my entry into Prague!” But he would not stand much longer that his plans be frustrated. In an impertinent breach of the Munich Agreement the German army marched into Czechoslovakia in the night of 14 March 1939. When the next day Hitler was told that there are was no military riposte from the side of Great Britain and France he exclaimed jubilantly: “I knew it! In a fortnight nobody will talk about this anymore!” And again a day later the triumphant new master of Czechoslovakia entered the Hradshin, the famous castle and traditional seat of the government in Prague.