Why London and Paris presented Vienna and Prague to Hitler

 

 

People are the ones who define the state

 

borders and they are the ones who change

 

them.

 

Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf

 

Diplomacy despite its all conditional

 

shapes acknowledges only real facts.

 

Charles de Gaulle

 

Triumph after triumph is exactly how the result of all the actions of Adolf Hitler can be described. He had solved all the set tasks: he became the head of the country, he returned all the lost territories without striking a ball, he received permission from England and France for rearmament. But he had to solve one more task. Without this last task all his intermediate achievements had no value. The new powerful and confident Germany was to attack the USSR. To implement this aggressive motion, Germany needed a springboard for attack. Without such springboard it was impossible to make a strike at Russia. After all it was not that important how many tanks and planes Hitler had, whether they were old or new until Germany had no common border with USSR. Missiles and supersonic planes were not yet invented and it had to be done the old way — troops had to approach the country and only then attack. How do you do it if the Third Reich and the Soviet Union are separated by the territories of other countries?

 

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No mistake it was a complicated task but the decision was found. The idea was to make buffer states disappear from the map. The best English and French diplomats were trying to tackle this task.

To get the logic of the further events, it is better to take a look at the map of Europe. Better have a look at the map of those times though a contem-porary one will also do. What countries cut off the territory of the future aggressor from his victim? Have a look and you will easily predict the direc-tion of further steps of the German Fьhrer. Since German military machine moved in the right direction — to the Russian Border, loyal attitude from the British and French diplomacy was guaranteed to Hitler.

Until those days, in case with Saar and Rhineland, Hitler annexed lands that were earlier a part of the Kaiser Empire that deep down of course gave “indulgence” to the western politicians. For instance, that Germans returned what they used to own and we just overlooked it.

At that moment the situation was different. Hitler’s first real “foreign” victim was Austria. The matter was not that Austria was the homeland for Adolf Schicklgruber, where the future German Fьhrer grew up and came to maturity. We should not either mention the ethnic proximity of Germans from Austria and Germany. Let this issue be discussed by philologists and ethnographers. The point was that Hitler for the first time using threats and “strong-arm” made the chancellor of an independent Austrian state sign an agreement with Germany which virtually deprived the country of its independence.

 

On February 11, 1938 Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg was requested to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden. At once Fьhrer declared that the head of Austria had no grounds for relying upon the support of Italy, France and England and that he better not indulge in illusions1.

After such “fruitful” talk but leaving Hitler without the consent to sign an agreement with Germany despite all the threats, Schuschnigg left for Vienna. The only thing that Austrian chancellor could use to oppose Hitler’s pressure was to make public Hitler’s threats. Tough respond of the world community would not allow Hitler to swallow Austrian state.

 

 

Schuschnigg was a chronic smoker (he could smoke 60 cigarettes per day) so Hitler deliberately prohibited him to smoke during the negotiations (see Melnikov, D., Chernaya, L. Criminal Number One. P. 289–290).

 

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Who made Hitler attack Stalin

 

 

Winners of World War One cut off the significant pieces of German territories. The territories were cut off that much that those-times Weimar Germany could not attack the USSR. Western countries had to “fear” Germany to return to Hitler everything that had been lost

 

Kurt von Schuschnigg had the hope to get protection from the “civilized world”. Just recently England and France were as firm as rock concerning the Austrian issue. They had used all the tools to prevent establishment of the united German state in Europe.Upon breakup of the Habsburg’s Empire National Assembly of the new democratic Austria made a decision on re-unification with the new democratic Germany. Everything was performed in the democratic manner and “in accordance with legislation then in force”. However, the Entente countries were not that happy about strengthening of their former enemies. They did not only made everything possible to make the will of the Austrian National Assembly to remain on the paper but also secured in the Treaty of Versailles that Germany could not swal-low up its neighbor: “Germany acknowledges and will strictly respect the independence of Austria... it acknowledges that such independence shall

 

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not be alienated without the consent of the League of Nations”1. Just in case similar prohibition was included into the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye executed between the winners and Austria: “Independence of Austria is inalienable. Thus, Austria shall refrain from any act that could directly or indirectly compromise its independence...”2

Thus, both England and France opposed Germany’s attempts of unifica-tion. But only until Adolf Hitler came to power!

Let us confront several dates.

 

‰ Besides the Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Saint-Germain there wasalso the Geneva Protocol signed in October 1922 under the pressure of the Entente countries that in line with the two mentioned above refrained convergence of Vienna and Berlin. Under this Protocol Austrians had a direct obligation not to enter into any agreements with Germany3.

 

‰ OnAugust 28, 1931the Permanent Court of International Justice in theHague made a resolution that the planned customs union between Ger-many and Austria contradicted the Geneva Protocols and thus was illegal.

 

‰ OnJuly 15, 1932in accordance with the Geneva Protocol Austria waspromised a large financial loan provided it will refrain from Anschluss (unification) with Germany until 1952.

 

But once Germany has Hitler at the helm, position of England and France turns 180 degrees round. That was the position that Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg ran into. The West had grounds for a firm position: German Fьhrer had the guts to threaten the head of the neighboring state and violated the Agreement between Germany and Austria that he himself had signed. However representatives of the western diplomacy kept silent. Austria and its Chancellor were left alone.

 

Austro-German Agreement of July 11, 1936 guaranteed mutual non-interference into inner affairs and independence of Austria as of “the sec-

 

Article 80. Cited from book by Shatzillo, V. World War One 1914–1918. P. 395–396.

 

Article 88. Cited from book by Shatzillo, V. World War One 1914–1918. P. 405.

 

After the end of World War I and after building of the “fair” peace with the Entente, Austria had seen just as much sorrow as Germany had: hunger, cold, terrible unemployment and galloping inflation rates. In January 1922 100 Swiss Francs cost 135 thousand krone and in August — already 1.1 million krone (World History. M., 2001. V. 22. P. 89).

 

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ond German country”. One specific detail is that while Schuschnigg was trying not give up the country to Hitler, he was working out a back-up variant of restoration of the Gabsburgs’ power in the country. But the English and the French needed no restoration of the monarchy but strengthening of Germany instead. That is why solution that was pro-posed by Schuschnigg was “not supported by the European states”. But Austrian Chancellor had the solid ground to feel hatred to Nazis. Even before the whole story with signing the agreement with Germany, his wife had gotten into mysterious car accident. Chancellor’s wife and her driver had died. What made this car accident suspicious was that chan-cellor’s wife might have Schuschnigg’s briefcase with the documents compromising Hitler. The briefcase disappeared in the accident.

 

We should though give Schuschnigg his due: he was trying to resist the pressure until the very end. Schuschnigg scheduled the referendum to Sunday, March 13, 1938. Negative respond to the question whether Austrian citizens would like to join Germany would be the legal reason for the world com-munity to prohibit Hitler to occupy Austria. Hitler had to be slowed down just for a few days. Berlin understood that such development of the events could be harmful and that is why the next day Schuschnigg received from Berlin the ultimatum: to call off the plebiscite and resign at a short notice.

 

Why Hitler was all of a sudden scared of the Austrian referendum? Did he not believe that most of the Austrians would want to become citizens of the Third Reich? Quite possible that he did not. Anyway Nazi’s leader was perfectly aware of how the required results of voting were obtained. If Austrian officials imitated the figures that they needed, further existence of Hitler’s state would be quite questionable. The West would sponsor Germany only until it moved in the right direction. That direction was the East. Along that way Hitler could be allowed to swallow entire countries and peoples but only provided that such actions were sufficient and in line with Hitler’s obligation to launch a war with Russia. No one would finance the Third Reich simply for nothing which meant that the country with abnormal extent of militarization could hold balance only moving forward like a bicyclist. Austrian referendum with its hardly predictable results could put a barrier in front of such a “bicyclist” for indefinite time1. This is

 

By 1938 Germany spent for armament program 52 % of the entire state expenses and 17 % of GDP (Bullok, A. Hitler and Stalin. P. 155). To compare: military expenses of the Russian Federation shall not exceed 2.7 % of GDP, this is what President V. V. Putin declared in one of his interviews.

 

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where the hysterical ultimatum comes from with its firm request to call of the plebiscite...

Was London, Paris and Washington aware of this situation? They were and that is why they kept quiet. Meanwhile Chancellor Schuschnigg delayed his respond to Hitler waiting for support. Berlin repeated the order three times. Finally on March 11, 1938 Schuschnigg received another ultimatum: if Germany’s demands were not fulfilled, the same day 200 thousand German soldiers would cross the Austrian border. When Austrian Chancellor received no diplomatic support from the leading world powers, he made a speech on the radio and informed Austrian people that he resigned to prevent the bloodshed. Arthur Seyss-Inquart replaced Schuschnigg and immediately turned to Berlin with the request of help to suppress the riots supposedly organized by the Reds. At dawn of 12 March German troops entered Austria1.

As the referendum had already been declared, it was undiplomatic to call it off. Hitler declared that plebiscite in Austria should certainly take place, only a little later of the due date. Under the frame of referendum’s prepara-tion works three authorised representatives of the national will arrived at Berlin. Major specialists to organize democratic procedures turned out to be Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, SD chief SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich and SS- Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer Kurt Dluege. Having such a solid team in Austria Hitler could be calm about the results of the referendum. At the same time it was decided to hold plebiscite on the entire territory of the Third Reich.

 

members at once started adjustment of their suppression machine in Austria. Persecutions of Jews started at once. Another notorious personality of SS — Adolf Eichmann hurried to Vienna. His task was to do everything possible to make Austrian Jews to emigrate. Reality of the German cities of those days became the reality of Austrian cities: humiliations, insults, assaults of Jews. World community did not notice anything just as before it had not “seen” the sufferings of the German Jews...

 

In general 1938 was “rich” for anti-Jew acts in the Third Reich. On 16 July

 

officials were prohibited to spend nights at Jewish hotels; on 23 July Jews were obliged to always carry IDs; on 27 July the decree on renam-

 

Resistance to Hitler’s plans cost Kurt von Schuschnigg dear. After Austria was joint to Germany, he was kept in custody at Gestapo for several weeks and later was sent to the concentration camp until 1945.

 

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ing the streets named after Jews came out; on 7 August the order came out in accordance with as of January 01, 1939 Jews were prohibited to give their kids the original German names, and every name of the Jewish child had to be added wi the second name: “Israel” for boys and “Sarah” for girls; on 31 August limits for postings made by Jews were introduced, while the back side of every envelope intended for Germans had to be marked “Not for Jews”; on 11 November studying of Jewish kids in com-mon German schools was abolished. World community did not take notice of all the above facts...

 

USA President Franklin Roosevelt refused to give any comments of the events in Austria. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of England Lord Simon declared that the United Kingdom never gave any special guarantees on the independence of that country. All the obstacles that England put in the way of unification of German and Austrian Germans were instantly removed. On March 14, 1938 the issue on Austria joining Germany was discussed at the House of Commons. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Cham-berlain informed the parliament that the English and German ambassadors submitted a protest to German government in regards of the violent actions in Austria. Interesting fact that German Minister of Foreign Affairs simply refused to accept the English protest! What did follow next? An appeal to boycott, mobilization?

 

No. In two weeks, on April 2, 1938, British government officially acknowledged the seizure of Austria by Germany.

 

Reaction of the French government was even less expressive. It turned out that exactly on March 11, 1938 the French government had changed. What a “coincidence”! The old government could not already while the new government1 could not yet judge the actions performed by Germany. Another fact is that it existed for only three weeks. The next government of France had nothing left but to acknowledge the new state of affairs in Europe after the United Kingdom…2

 

The so-called second government of Lйon Blum.

 

On April 10, 1938 the new Cabinet headed by Йdouard Daladier came to power in France, on 2 April An-schluss was acknowledged by English. Why did that always happen so that all the diplomatic and “inde-pendent” steps European countries had always performed only after the United Kingdom? In contemporary history only after the United Kingdoms and the USA?

 

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As a matter of fact entry of the Nazi troops to Vienna was not so trium-phal as it was portrayed by Hitler’s propaganda. The matter was that “fero-cious” column of German tanks was stuck on the way to Austrian capital. While it was not the bad road or fire of antitank guns that prevented the tanks from moving forward — on the contrary the road was perfect road. “Despite the wonderful weather and good conditions largest part of tanks was out of order. Defects of heavy motor artillery were discovered and the road from Linz to Vienna was locked by heavy machines”1, notices Winston Churchill rather acidly.

 

Hitler failed to make a triumphal entry to Vienna. His mood with regards to inclusion of his motherland into the Reich was shaded. Later he person-ally went via Linz2, when heading to Austrian capital and instead of the fine columns of his army, he saw helpless stuck tanks, armored infantry cars and artillery pieces. To make the triumphal entry to Vienna on schedule many efforts had to be made. Armored cars and heavy motor artillery pieces were loaded onto railways trucks and only thanks to that fact they achieved to be in Vienna on time. Tanks were removed from the columns and in entire disorder entered Vienna only the next day in the morning.

 

Speaking of Hitler’s annexing Austria, we have to mention the important role of Mussolini in the Anschluss. Being one of the winning countries Italy was one of the major guarantors of Austrian neutrality and sovereignty. The explanation was very simple: In accordance with Article 36 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain Italy got from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire large ter-ritories and as no other country Italy was interested in Austrian sovereignty.

 

That is why Vienna most of all relied on Mussolini. And in the begin-ning he justified the hopes: in 1934, when locals Nazis became active, Italy sent the troops to the Austrian border messaging that it would not stand German rule in Austria. However during the Anschluss Italy made nothing to support the neighbor. In estimations of the change of Mussolini’s posi-tion we should remember that though officially there was the agreement between Berlin and Rome, there were yet no solid reasons for the head of Italy to consider this friendship the strong one3. Not in the least fascist

 

Churchill, W. World War Two. V. 1. P. 122.

 

Linz was Hitler’s home town. He was born and grew up there.

 

The so-called “Axis” Berlin-Rome appeared on October 25, 1936 during the visit of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ciano, to Germany. Japan joint German-Italian alliance considerably later — on December 11, 1940.

 

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Mussolini had to unconditionally support the Nazi Hitler! Similar spiritualand ideological views are one thing while perspective of the return to the country populated with ethnic Germans, former Austrian and now Italian territories was quite another concept1.

 

Benito Mussolini did not protest against the Anschluss of Austria not because of his affection to Hitler or Nazi ideas but simply for the particular political dividends. Dividends that were to come from England and France and not from Germany

 

Foremost Hitler personally was aware of that. “Tell duce that I will never forget him that... If he ever needs support or occurs in unsafe situation, he may be sure, I will be standing by him, whatever happens, even if the entire world turns its back to him!”2 — this was Fьhrer’s reaction to the message from Mussolini where he clearly explains that he will not interfere into the Anschluss.

 

Why on earth did Mussolini act like this? Certainly not because of affec-tion to his “friend Adolf”. There are no such feelings in politics. Italy made benefit of such position in regards of the Austrian issue. Benefit from where? From England and France. Mussolini was so exhilarated by heroic deeds of the ancient Romans that he also decided to build in Italy the new empire. The first challenge for the fascist state was the attack of Ethiopia, at that time called Abyssinia. On October 4, 1935 Italian troops invaded the country.

 

Up until our days a part of the so-called Southern Tirol, populated by Germans, is a part of Italy.

Seward, D. Napoleon and Hitler. P. 208.

 

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History of the Italian-Ethiopian relations had a long background. Long before Mussolini Italy made attempts to conquer this small African coun-try. Around Abyssinia the lands were already conquered and divided, but Abyssinia’s Christian monarchs achieved to maintain independence. In 1896 during the Battle of Adwa Italian army that was forwarded to conquer Ethiopians was totally defeated. This one day Italy lost as many soldiers as it had lost during all Italian wars in Africa. After this victory a new country — Ethiopia “appeared” on the world map. It was left alone just for a little while: in 39 years the aggression was repeated1.

 

Abyssinia requested to apply international sanctions against Italy. On October 7, 1935 Assembly of the League of Nations acknowledged Italy as aggressor which nevertheless had no significant consequences for Mus-solini’s regime because the introduced sanctions allowed Italy to continue the war. No actions on introducing serious sanctions like breach of relations or military pressure on the aggressor were performed. It is no coincidence that there was nothing in the documents of the League of Nations on prohibition of the supply of the most important types of raw materials for Italy: oil, iron ore and coal. Besides, the USA and Germany were not the members of the League of Nations and consequently they were not obliged to fulfil the regime of sanctions at all. On the contrary, in 1935–1936 United States of America dramatically increased the volumes of oil supply to the aggressor, while the United Kingdom government declined the offer on naval blockade of Italy and closing of the Suez Canal for Italian ships that could be a significant means of pressure2.

 

The powers were unequal but still badly armed Ethiopians put up the strong resistance. In response Italian army applied against the civilian population of Ethiopia poisonous gas. Instead of condemning such barbar-ian actions, the United Kingdom took up a rather weird position: it did not only make anything to strengthen the sanctions but actually started making efforts to abolish them. On June 18, 1936 Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Eden made a speech at the House of Commons say-ing the sanctions that had been introduced against Italy were not giving the

 

Ovsyaniy, I. D. The Secrecy in Which the War was Born. P. 111.

 

So export of oil from the USA to Italy in 1935 increased by 140 % compared to the previous year, and in the Italian Africa it was increased by tens (same source p. 111–112).

 

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result that was anticipated. We already had multiple chances to make sure that London was the “law-maker” on the political market of the world arena. And already on July 4, 1936 after occupation of the Ethiopian capital Addis-Abeba, the League of Nations made a decree to abolish further sanctions.

 

The “civilized world” practically had not “noticed” the slaughter commit-ted by Italian fascists at lake Ashenge on April 03, 1935 when 140 planes dropped chemical bombs onto civilians. Nobody paid special attention to the crimes of Japan that attacked China either. Without going into details about that terrible war let us refer to just two expressive facts. Within the siege of Shanghai Japanese were so thorough in killing the civilian population that one of the witnesses described the events like that: from the area of 4.5 square kilometers nobody came alive. During the storm of Nanjing Japanese troops killed 200 thousand people — every second citizen of the city1.

 

How is then the siege of Abyssinia related to the Anschluss of Austria? It is actually related very directly. Yielding position of Mussolini that allowed Hitler to take over its neighbor was immediately rewarded. On March 12, 1938 German tanks filled all the roads to Vienna and on April 16, 1938 the agreement between England and Italy was signed in Rome without unneces-sary publicity. In accordance with that agreement England and Italy were to establish “good neighborly relations”. But the major thing was that England acknowledged the siege of Abyssinia by Italy. Practically British gentlemen exchanged Vienna for Addis-Abeba.

 

The list of the European capitals that were “given up” to Fьhrer with-out specific disguise can be added with Spanish Madrid. Hitler who was creating the new and huge army in real hurry badly needed the grounds for testing new machinery, training officers and so on. And such grounds were created for him.

Many facts about the Spanish War are well known in our country because the USSR actively participated in it. However the true sense of unleashing this conflict was deliberately distorted in the Soviet historiography. The underlying cause of the civil war in Spain was not so much the struggle between the communism and fascism. It was the general rehearsal of the

 

Falin, V. The Second Front Line. Anti-Hitler Coalition: Conflict of Interests. M.,2000. P. 44–45.

 

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future all-out military clash between the USSR and Germany. In this civil war England and France, under disguise of complete neutrality, in reality actively supported one of the parties of the conflict — the rebel General Franco but not the legitimate government of Spain. The support of “democracies” to Spanish fascists was not only of the indirect character but was actually the most direct. However historians prefer not to remember about that...

Clear those London gentlemen had no concern of either General Franco or his ideas. If fascists won in the Spanish civil war, British diplomacy would have a chance to solve several important issues at once:

 

‰ Hitler and Mussolini would acquire the possibility to launch their warsand win, believe in their power and test their army and military machines in real life;

 

‰ in case of victory the future aggressors would obtain the important rawmaterials base1;

 

‰ major core of the Nazi ideology — struggle with communism and itsdestruction — would obtain the plain evidence.

 

The coup against Spanish government started in the evening of July 17, 1936 in Spanish Morocco, on Canary and Balearic islands. The next day the Ceuta’s radio channel broadcast the famous as of today conventional sign — the signal to start the coup: “Over all of Spain, the sky is clear”. After this message military units rose in revolt on the territory of Spain but ma-jor military contingents were on the territory of Africa. The notion of this problem was perfectly expressed by Herman Goering when he was giving evidence at the Nuremberg Trials: “Franco asked Germany for help. He needed support from the air. Together with its military units Franco was in Africa and couldn’t move the military units because the communists gained control of the fleet and the crucial factor in that war was the possibility of landing operations of the troops in Spain...”2

 

There appeared a dangerous situation: the coup could be suppressed due to impossibility to move a part of the African army of Franco onto the

 

Spain gave about 45 % of the world’s mercury, over 50 % of pyrite, it was the large exporter of iron ore, tungsten, lead, zinc, potassium salts, silver and other mineral deposits required for war industry. Control over these sources of strategic raw materials allowed Hitler to significantly strengthen its economic potential (Behind the Scenes of Non-Intervention Policy. M., 1959. P. 22–23).

 

Thomas, C. The Spanish Civil War. M., 2003. P. 213.

 

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continent. Without a doubt Hitler made a decision to help. In less than two weeks after beginning of the coup two German military squadrons arrived at the shore of Spain, while German transportation planes arrived at Mo-rocco. With Hitler’s support Moroccan military units safely landed on the territory of continental Spain.

How can the world community react on the intervention of the third country into the inner conflict in Spain? Especially when that third country was going to support the military parts that revolted against the legitimate government? The reaction may be rather tough. It could be sanctions, boycott, request of immediate stop of the intervention. Let us not forget that Berlin was going to host the Olympic Games in 1936, a significant and important event for the Nazi regime. And just a month before such an important event Hitler got involved into the civil war in Spain! And the committee seating in New York at the very same time lacked the argu-ments to boycott the German Olympic Games! No matter what the world community did not want to take notice of the plates like “No Entry for Jews and Dogs” hanging on the doors of the public toilets in the Nazi Reich. All of a sudden Fьhrer makes such a gift to all those who wanted to deprive him of the Olympic flame — he performed a military intervention into an independent country. Maybe now the world community would boycott the fascist Olympic Games?

 

Why did Hitler take such risks? Because he knew well that the Third Reich was guaranteed the regime of the most-favored treatment! Until then theThird Reich was exactly in line with the agreements with its British partners...

Nazi did not confine only to the transportation of the rebels. The next day, on July 31, 1936, English newspaper Daily Herald informed on the dispatch from Hamburg to Spain of 28 planes filled with bombs, shells and other mu-nitions. Such situation would continue within the entire war: Germany and Italy undertook to provide supplies to Franco supporters. On the contrary there would be big problems with the supplies to the Republicans: the United Kingdom and France would proclaim the non-intervention policy into the Spanish affairs. Already on July 25, that is after a week from the beginning of coup, the French government made a decision on the prohibition of arms export to Spain. France was supported by the United Kingdom in this matter. While Germany and Italy were in no hurry to proclaim non-intervention getting ready to transport Franco’s army to the continent. Neutrality of France was so consistent that Paris banned export of those arms and planes

 

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to Spain that had been ordered and paid for by the Spanish government long before the agreement on neutrality and non-intervention!

“Why our orders from France that had been made before 18 July should not be fulfilled only because the plotters attacked us?” — asked puzzled head of the Spanish government Giral. There was no response. All the protests and demands of the republican Spain remained a voice in the space. Until September. Why exactly until this month? Because Olympic Games were to start in September in Berlin and there had to be no single cause, even a tiny one, to spoil it. Hitler’s regime had to demonstrate its respectability.

 

There is one quite noteworthy but rather little known fact: the support-ers of boycott of the Olympic Games in Berlin offered to hold alternative Olympics in Spain, Barcelona. The civil war was just started there at that time and nothing came out of this idea. Please understand me correctly: the war was started in Spain not to spoil this alternative Olympic Games. The grounds for Fьhrer were prepared in advance and for world-class politicians it was as clear as a sky that Spain would soon be involved into turmoil. That is why this idea of holding alternative Olympics in Barcelona was thrown to the supporters of boycott simply to provide an additional insurance for “dear” Hitler to avoid useless complications. Knowing in advance that nothing would come out of this idea.

 

Once the Olympic battles were over, the situation changed. On Septem-ber 9, 1936 the International Committee on non-interference into Spanish affairs started its work in the English Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its major purpose was to block any support to the republicans under the pretext of false neutrality and to push USSR to independent actions that would violate international legislation. And so the events were developing in the direction very much favorable for the English. On October 22, 1936 Soviet ambassador in London sent the note to the English Ministry of Foreign Affairs which proposed to acknowledge and restore the right of the Spanish government to purchase the armaments. The note warned that otherwise the Soviet government would not consider itself bound by the agreement on non-interference more than other countries — participants of the agreement1.

If Germany and Italy supplied weapons to Spain, USSR would also make the supplies. That was just for the benefit of England. The Soviet Union got

 

Izvestiya of 30 October 1936.

 

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involved into the conflict and it only required the correct accentuation. Be-cause that “bloodthirsty communists” craved to establish the rules in Europe. That is why in response to our note England published its own where all the incidents of violation of the obligation on non-interference that required investigation were enumerated. From the point of view of England there were four of such incidents all in all: one in the responsibility of Italy and three were supposedly performed by the Soviet Union...

Not it is the right time to answer the question why after all USSR got involved into the badly stinking Spanish turmoil. There are several reasons: ‰ Republican government paid for all the supplied military weapons in

 

gold and Soviet Union did nothing for a song.

 

‰ Germany got the chance to test its tanks and planes, Soviet Union hadthe same opportunity.

 

‰ Only the blind one could not realize what European countries bring upthe Fьhrer for. It was a very attractive idea to detain and defeat the aggres-sor on the foreign territory and moreover practically by somebody else.

 

‰ Some ideological likeness between the USSR and republican Spain couldonly be placed as the last reason in this list.

 

If Hitler and Mussolini were smart enough to get mixed into the Spanish affairs, it was stupid to miss the opportunity to smash the op-ponent by somebody else and additionally get some money for that!

 

While the republican government simply had no choice. It owned the gold reserves but thanks to the “non-interference” nobody would sell anything to the country. Stalin’s USSR was the only country where Spain could purchase weapons, Indeed there were the United States but in 1935 American Congress passed an act on “neutrality”1. What does that mean? That means that Spain could not buy weapons from America but Germany could. That is why the republicans did not get any American armaments while their opponents were richly supplied with American weapons through the German firms. In May 1937 American Congress passed the new law on neutrality. It permitted the president of the country to sell military materials to the fighting party for cash and provided the buying party did the transportation itself. What a misfortune that republicans had no relevant ships. While Franco (or better say his German friends)

 

Falin, V. The Second Front Line. Anti-Hitler Coalition: Conflict of Interests. P. 34.

 

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had both the ships and cash and that is why American weapons in large amounts were supplied to Franco.

There is one issue that has never been properly studied. For some reason historians pass it around. They tell us in big detail about the bad Germany and Italy that supported Franco and supplied weapons and military equip-ment to him. Then they tell us about Hitler and Mussolini who started sending military forces to Spain. All this was great expenses. Maintaining only one German legion Kondor by estimations of the German army, that included 250 planes, 180 tanks, hundreds of antitank guns and other weap-ons, from November 7, 1936 to December 31, 1938 cost over 190 million Reich marks1. Any person that knows some deal about the war economy is aware that planes and tanks are not the most costly part of the army. The most expensive is combat ships. So the fleets of the revolts was regularly reinforced due to supplies from Berlin and Rome2. Total sum of entire sup-port from Germany and Italy to Franco’s supporters amounted to no less than 1 billion dollars3.

 

What General Franco paid for such a generous support? Where did hefind such great amounts of money? Nobody gave answer to this question, historians keep silent. Because Franco had no financial resources — all gold reserves of Spain were in the hands of the republicans. The head of the coup had nothing to pay with. It turns out that Germany burdened with enormous growth of its own military expenses, simply threw great sum of money for nothing. Italy did exactly the same. Franco did not receiveand economic dividends from victory, did he? During the war he would be selling all the strategic raw materials of Spain to Germany and Italy, he did not present them. There would be no political dividends either: in several years Franco will reject to fight for its German “friends” against England, France and USSR4.

 

War and Revolution in Spain. 1936–1939. V. 1. P. 204.

 

Kuznetsov, N. The Day Before. M., 2003. P. 208, 219.

 

War and Revolution in Spain. 1936–1939. V. 1. P. 200.

 

Hitler and Franco met in Endai in 1940. “Thankful” Franco said that he was in the middle of siesta and made Hitler wait for him for half an hour. Later Fьhrer said that he would rather agree to pull out three or four teeth than meet with caudillo ever again. The only thing that Hitler would be able to squeeze from Franco was to send to the Eastern front “volunteers” — one division that got the name the “blue” one.

 

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He would remain the only dictator who did not only successfully survive through World War Two but remained at the head of the country until his death1.

 

Incidentally neither Hitler nor Mussolini settled no scores or held a grudge with Franco. Why? Because all the bills for the Spanish war and all German military supplies were covered by the same secret sponsors of Nazi as well as the Hitler’s “economic” miracle.

 

Evidences of the “unselfish support” of the Nazi economy may be found anywhere, one just needs to search. Due to Hitler’s takeover of Austria, for example, there occurred an issue on discharge of the Austrian ex-ternal debts by the German government to England, the USA, France and other countries. On April 12, 1938 English government proclaimed that it supposed that Germany would take Austrian’s responsibility for the external debts. In the response application of May 12, 1938 German government informed England that it did not consider it possible to take over the obligations on discharging of the Austrian external debts. What did Berlin hear in reply? Nothing! London and all the other “peace-loving” nations kept silent and did not demand money from Hitler.

 

While with the Soviet supplies everything is quite clear. They were paid to the last kopeck but not by the Soviet Union. USSR historians enjoy writ-ing about the campaigns of collecting money to support Spanish workers and that those funds were used to purchase everything necessary for the republicans. It’s a lie. All the supplies were paid by the Spanish party because as we have already mentioned the legitimate government had gold reserve of Spain. Republicans had no cash but Soviet Union didn’t mind to take the gold and additionally delivered all the cargoes on its ships — not only weapons but medications and many more. Military advisers, the integral evil within supplies of the complicated weapons, arrived to Spain on the same ships. It was not quite enough to have the tanks and the planes, one required to know how to use them. The difference was in the number of military experts: during the war in Spain USSR sent 2 thousand “volunteers” there2. While

 

The Decree of August 04, 1939 proclaimed Franco the lifelong “supreme governor of Spain, responsible only before God and history”. In 1955 Spain was accepted to United Nations. In 1973 Franco resigned from the post of Prime Minister maintaining the title of the supreme governor of the state and of the Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish army. Spanish dictator died on November 20, 1975.

War and Revolution in Spain. 1936–1939 V. 1. P. 221.

 

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Italy and Germany operated with completely different figures. Averagely at the height of war 10–12 thousand of Germans and 40–45 thousand of Italians were in actions1.

 

Those who accuse USSR in the attempts to unleash the world revolution, prefer not to compare the dates and figures. Such absent-mindedness is no coincidence — otherwise all their fragile and unsteady structure would fall apart. Everybody knows that Stalin achieved to carry through a very successful operation: a considerable part of the gold reserve of Spain, about 510 tons, was transferred to USSR. When dates are not indicated, a reader might get an impression that everything was done a day before the crash of the republicans. In reality the gold was exported right after the beginning of the civil war! The coup began on July 17–18, 1936 and at the end of October 1936 the valuable cargo already arrived at Odessa. While the civil war lasted until April 1939 afterwards! Where is ideology here? This is pure pragmatism. This gold was used to pay not only for the supplies of the Soviet weapons but for the weapons that were supplied from the third countries. As a matter of fact USSR became the bank for the fighting Spain. The total sum of the cost of all the military cargoes delivered to the republican Spain amounts to 202.4 million dollars2. Cost of the gold was considerably higher: about 518 million dollars3.

 

 

As war efforts still brought no victory to Franco’s supporters, in Novem-ber 1937 it was decided to suppress the republicans by blockade. The party was played magnificently: Franco sent to England the note notifying that his command decided to block the Spanish port Bilbao and not provide access to Spain for the English ships with grocery. Proud Mistress of the sea, the owner of the most powerful fleet in the world, did not even try to “explain” that there was no option for negotiating with England in such a way but moreover simply swallowed the blow to its successful trade4.

 

Striving to give the invaluable experience to as many soldiers as possible Italians and Germans were constantly rotated. All in all between 1936 and 1939 over 300 thousand soldiers managed to fight for the rebels. War and Revolution in Spain. 1936–1939 V. 1. P. 202–203.

 

War and Industry Courier. 2006. No. 28 (144).

 

Sudoplatov, P. Special Operations. Lubyanka and Kremlin 1930–1950. P. 117.

 

Not long before the civil war 50 % of Spanish export went to the United Kingdom while Spain received from this country 17 % of its entire import (Thomas, H. Civil

 

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Meeting of Franco and Hitler on the Spanish and French border, 1940.

 

Spanish dictator rejected to fight in the World War Two on the side of the German and Italian “benefactors” appreciating the help for the victory from completely different countries

 

British government immediately refused to send more ships to Bilbao reasoning that the port was blocked and mine studded. The purpose of that Franco’s maneuver was transparent. Since “civilized” countries did not send their ships to Spanish shores, fascists could quietly drown any ships. And it would be really hard to complain about such actions: one had to be more attentive to Franco’s declarations!

To catch the republicans in the blockade, Italian military ships started the real war against the merchant ships, obviously against the Soviet ones. Because only our ships delivered to Spain equipment and grocery besides weapons. On November 11, 1936 the ship Soyuz Vodnikov was detained in the Strait of Gibraltar. It was the first “sign”. Within the following next months attacks of the Soviet ships became more and more frequent and sometimes they ended tragically. On December 14, 1936 in the area of Gibraltar the

 

War in Spain. P. 199). Having a powerful economic lever, England could actively impact the state of affairs in the country. Thus they impacted — the civil war started...

 

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Soviet ship Komsomol was drowned, on 31 August and on 1 September two more Soviet ships — Timiryazev and Blagoev1 were drowned. This is what Soviet ambassador Maysky would later write in his memoirs.

Relations between the USSR, Italy and Germany were becoming tense while the tension of the civil war became less tense. The scale was per-sistently inclined by the British and French diplomacy in favor of Franco and finally it started moving in his direction. From the beginning of 1939 the United Kingdom and France shed all the vestiges of responsibility and openly took the side of the conflict where they were actually present from the very beginning — the side of fascists. “At the very high point of the battle for Catalonia (December 1938 — February 1939) there was a great number of planes, weapons, tanks, torpedo boats, etc. accumulated at the French and Spanish border. If they occurred in the hands of republicans on time, the entire course of battle could be changed”2, — admiral Kuznetsov who was a military-marine advisor in Spain writes in his memoirs. But France refused to open the border that in the end led to defeat of the republicans who were left without weapons. Defeated troops moved back to the French territory. Together with them there were thousands of the refugees. Speak-ing in contemporary words there occurred the “humanitarian disaster”.

To save people the republican Minister of the Foreign Affairs of Spain applied to Paris with request to let Spanish refugees to enter the French territory. Once again French government refused to open the border, how-ever after the outrage of the French society, it slightly “opened” the border. Small groups of refugees began to leak onto the French territory. Wounded soldiers of the Spanish army crossed the border with them. Then France tightly closed the border again and event returned all injured soldiers back to Catalonia. On February 3, 1939 Italian aviation made the mass attack on the borderline town Figueres. Over a thousand people were killed, a crowd of panicking people rushed running removing on its way the borderline cordons and moving into France. Only after that the French government post factum decided to authorize what already had happened, France of-ficially opened the border both for the refugees and retreating soldiers of the republican army.

 

 

Maysky, I. M. Spanish Diaries. M.: VIMO, 1962. P. 139.

 

Kuznetsov, N. The Day Before. P. 198.

 

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Such outcome was not hard to predict. Crowds of refugees simply had nowhere to go. From one side there was the enemy that knew no compas-sion1. From the other side there was the French border. Where else were they supposed to seek the salvation? Soviet ships transported just a small number of Spanish people. The rest of them in search of salvation rushed to neighboring France2. How did the French government get prepared for the future inflow of refugees? No preparation there was!

“In short notice the government of Daladier constructed several huge concentration camps (in Saint-Cyprien, Pratt de Mollo and some other places). Tens of thousands of hungry and suffering people were left there without water, bread and soap, in the open sands. Epidemics soon began and the death rate was extremely high...”3

The French camp for the refugees was an open space in sands surrounded by barbed wire. People themselves started to dig burrows in sand. The first ten days there was no food, water or even medical help to the injured. People were dying in great numbers. Why French were so inhuman? Of the best motives, of course. It turns out that by hosting refugees in such terrible conditions they were trying to persuade them to return home, to Spain...4

Spanish civil war was organized and meticulously fulfilled for the pur-poses that have no direct relation to the country itself. If manganese and lead were in Portugal or in Luxembourg, the grounds for testing the Ger-man military machine would be established there. Authors of the Spanish tragedy thoroughly cleaned after themselves. According to their concept the “non-interference” policy was the best alibi for the generations to come. Additionally after all Hitler did afterwards, they could bravely put all the blame on him. The major criminal of all times and peoples was accused of unleashing the civil war in Spain. But nobody could ever hide all the facts.

 

Spanish civil war as probably any civil war had the examples of terrible cruelty from both parties. Supporters of Franco were shooting workers and communists, their opponents burnt down the churches, brutally killed the monks, raped nuns. Franco himself became notorious for the words that not a single request on forgiveness should be given to him until the sentence was executed.

 

All in all 10 thousand injured, 170 thousand refugees and about 250 thousand soldiers of the republican army ran onto the French territory. (Thomas, C. Civil War in Spain. P. 526.)

Maysky, I. M. Spanish Diaries. P. 153.

 

Thomas, C. Civil War in Spain. P. 526–527.

 

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They sometimes can be slightly disguised under the layer of stereotypes and clichйs. Shaking the bloody and dusty history of the people of the XX century can reveal horrible nightmares...

Not long before the coup General Franco was in the so-called exile on the Canary Islands appointed to the position of the governor. He had to fly to Morocco to become the leader of the coup. Spanish planes could not deliver him there — they were controlled by the army loyal to the govern-ment. “Friends” of the General helped. They managed to freight the foreign plane with the crew for Franco. Guess what country was the owner of the plane? Exactly! The plane was English and was called the Swift Dragon1. British pilot, captain Bebb, was the pilot. Supposedly Franco could not trust any of his fellow citizens2.

 

After departing from London, the plane first arrived to Canary Islands and then delivered general Franco to Ceuta where he became the head of the Moroccan troops of the army. If you think that this was the only single charter flight, you are mistaken. After delivery of Franco to Africa the plane with the emissaries of the Spanish general flew further to Mussolini3. Pilot was the same captain Bebb. The flight turned out to be quite useful: in Italy they came to final agreement on providing support to the rebels. Flight on the English plane saved them from many possible troubles. Who would venture to knock down an English plane?

 

This is the starting point of the Spanish civil war. The final point would be drawn in the very same “ink”. Civil war in Spain officially ended on April 1, 1939. Let’s remember the year 1939: Not only was the local conflict on the agenda already but a full-scale war in Europe. It was time to get Hitler’s hands free. No time for getting mixed in such trivial matters, it was time to fulfil the obligations and attack the Soviet Union. Why England and France suddenly set aside “shyness” and quickly started finishing off the republicans to end the war in Spain in the shortest terms possible. On February 27, 1939 England and France officially acknowledged Franco’s cabinet and in the same official way broke off the relations with the republican government. The next step was made by the Americans. The same month British cruiser

 

Thomas, C. Civil War in Spain. P. 115.

 

On November 7, 1936 the British newspaper New Chronicles published a story about the brave captain Bebb.

Thomas, C. Civil War in Spain. P. 200.

 

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Devonshire rendered direct support to Spanish rebels in taking over Menorca Island. British cruiser did not only delivered there Franco’s representative but under the threat of artillery bombardment it forced the commander of the naval base to transfer all the powers and authorities to Franco’s officer…1 In Europe it was time to transfer to Hitler the next territory on his way to the USSR’s frontier. That was the territory of Czechoslovakia. It should

be noted that the background for making claims against it were provided to Fьhrer by the authors of Treaty of Versailles and Saint-Germain Agree-ment. Eventually 3.4 million of former Austrian Germans began living on the territory of Czechoslovakia, a new state, shaped of pieces of the Aus-trian monarchy, making up 22 % of its population2. Sometime in the past Czechs were a minority that had no national establishment in the borders of Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Then they exchanged roles with the Austrian Germans and in that situation there was no way to avoid oppressions. If you have any doubts about that, have a look at the contemporary Baltic States and the position of the Russian speaking population there...

 

When we study a long list of countries that were sacrificed to Hitler on his way to the war, we have a quite reasonable feeling of sympathy for the victim. However we should be aware that countries occurring under Hitler’s rule in the game of political roulette were not exactly that meek and mild “innocent lambs”. The grounds of independent Czechoslovakia were laid...

in the tsar’s Russia, when refugees of the First World War were united into a special separate corps. In the middle of 1917 it consisted of two full-grown divisions and hardly had time to fight against the Germans. Real “fame” came to the Czechoslovak corps during our Civil War. As a matter of fact the coup of Czechoslovak officers in May 1918 became the starting point of the Russian internecine actions. It was the oil spilt into the fire ready to flash out. When Czechoslovak officers had done their duty, they were in no hurry to liberate “Slavic brothers” from Bolsheviks, but let the Russians fight

 

Franco knew very well who was the boss on our planet. When on 01 September 1939 the World War started, the head of Spain applied with the request to provide a loan to restore the country. In September 1939 the war actions were between Poland, France and England, from one party, and Germany, from the other. Franco asked for money not from his “friends” Mussolini and Hitler but ... from the United Kingdom (Thomas, C. Civil Wars in Spain. P. 567).

 

Preparata, G. D. Hitler Inc. How Britain and USA Created the Third Reich.P. 350–351.

 

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with each other leaving into the rear of the Kolchak’s army. There they were busy protecting the railway. That is, they burnt down the villages, thrashed peasants and filled their stomachs with peasants’ food.

 

When Kolchak’s army failed, actions of these heroic Czechoslovak of-ficers, in particular, turned the defeat of the White into a disaster. Czechs blocked the railway and deprived the troops and the refugees from the op-portunity to evacuate. Eventually Kochak’s army on foot (!) crossed entire Siberia along the railway road! Slowly moving warm carriages hosted Czechs while right near, in taiga, tens of thousands of soldiers and women and kids were dying of hunger and cold. This extraordinary betrayal of the ones and exceptional heroism of the others was entered into our history as Siberian Ice March1. Final point of all their activities was the arrest and giving out General Kolchak for massacre to the Bolsheviks. The order was given by the French General Janin and executed by the Czech General Syrov.

 

Czechs were brining from Russia not only piles of clothes and goods squashed into heated carriages. Heroic legions took with them a part of the gold reserve of our country known as “Kolchak’s gold”. This exact despicable metal stolen from Russia became the foundation of the Czech koruna, a con-verted currency which became one of the strongest currencies in Europe. And the economy of Czechoslovakia, as strange as it may sound, became one of the most successful among the countries that had survived the terrible events of the World War One. The newly established state of Czechs and Slovaks was the only country in Central and South-Eastern Europe that was widely exporting the capital. Growth was witnessed in all the spheres of the Czech economy but in some of them it was simply fantastic. Most developed industries of Czechoslovak economy were weapon and ... shoes industries. In 1928, for example, Czechoslovakia was on the first place for exporting boots, high boots and sandals2. However such flourishing did not last for long — history of that young Czechoslovak state lasted only 20 years (from 1918 to 1938) when the allies from London and Paris decided to give the country to Hitler. The Third Reich had to move closer to the USSR’s frontier while Czech workers had to provide shoes and weapons for the German army.

 

German media inspired by numerous bloodless Hitler’s achievements rolled out an active campaign aimed to fulfil demands of the Germans living in Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. Activity of the German community inside

 

See details: Starikov, N. 1917. Who Murdered Russia?

 

World History. V. 22. P. 95.

 

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the country also increased. The vanguard of the idea “to return all Germans to one Reich” was proclaimed by the Sudeten German Party governed by Konrad Henlein. Austrian Anschluss gave many reasons to talk about the infringement of Germans national minority rights in Czechoslovakia. All the Austrian Germans joined “one family” — why should not Sudeten Germans do the same? Henlein’s party demanded “territorial autonomy” for the Sudeten Land1.

Government of Czechoslovakia was not going to surrender to Germans at all. And Czechs had all the ground for such a position. Czech army, one of the most powerful in Europe, was ready to protect its country in case of aggression. The correlation of powers was quite promising for such determi-nation. In spring 1938 the army of Czechoslovakia consisted of 34 divisions against 28 divisions of Vermacht2. By the fall of the same year the rapidly growing German army became considerably more powerful but still Hitler’s army did not have that many advantages. The fight would be: 39 German divisions with 1.8 million people against 36 Czech divisions with 1.6 million people; against 2,400 German planes and 720 tanks, Czechoslovakia had 1,500 planes and 400 tanks3. Let’s not forget that the Czech army was going to defend while the German army gad to attack.

 

After celebrated Hitler’s declarations in German parliament, the Czech government was getting ready and was taking serious actions to defend: including transfer of the military plants inside the country, introduction of 24h working day at eight aviation plants and completion of mobilization of the industry and food reserves. Poland was also optimistic due to the treaty of alliance made with France. Simple logic naturally gave Czechs the idea that Paris would not so easily give away such a strong and useful ally. Look at the map: even the geographic position of Czechoslovakia had to persuade the French to actively defend it: in case of the armed conflict between France and Germany, Czechs could attack Germany from the rear. Besides military plants Skoda located in Czechia had such annual output of weapons that the entire war industry of the United Kingdom produced in the same period of time4. Who in their full senses would give away such riches to Hitler?

 

Schellenberg, W. Labirinth. M., 1991. P. 46.

 

Seward, D. Napoleon and Hitler. P. 210.

 

Volkov, F. D. All Secrets Ever Come to Light. M., 1989. P. 9.

 

Churchill, W. World War Two. V. 1. P. 150.

 

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Only those who want to become even richer. That is why events around Czechoslovakia began to take a very “strange” turn. Instead of active resis-tance against Hitler’s aspirations, there started some kind of peanut policy. Its result was the notorious Munich Agreement of September 1938 in ac-cordance with which Fьhrer obtained everything that he aspired for. Did the West fear the German military power again? “There is no way German troops could defeat the French in 1938 or 1939”1. — Winston Churchill wrote. That means that Hitler could not defeat the Czechs, French and English at once, that is quite obvious. Why then the heads of the “democratic countries” were not determined enough? Because they did not need the victory over Germany which they brought up themselves so carefully! Hitler had not yet fulfilled all the obligations and it was not very productive to remove him into a disposal area. Nobody would kill the trained and well -fed fighting dog before the start of the fight. Why waste the food and the time? While it is a good idea to feed to the fighting dog a stupid turkey that is used to masters’ kind words and caress and does not see the obvious fact that pets are loved until their masters do not need their meet!

 

The role of the unlucky pet prepared for slaughter by the allies this time was played by Czechoslovakia. The first meeting of its masters was held in London on April 28–30, 1938. To Czechs surprise French diplomacy joined the demand of the English diplomacy to avoid the clash with Germany what-ever the cost. On May 15, 1938 New York Herald Tribune published news from London that had a direct message that since neither France nor USSR would fight for Czechoslovakia, England would least of all want to take up the arms to defend the Slavic republic. And since Czechoslovakia needed to make a sober estimate of its position and to understand that the only way out was the peaceful solution of the issue with the Sudeten Germans2.

 

Naturally after such declarations the intonation of Hitler’s aspirations was becoming less and less compromising. Moreover the note in the American newspaper “miraculously” concurred with the one quite revealing event.

 

Same source. P. 151.

 

In May 1938, as if had been ordered, the “free” and “independent” British newspapers started publishing numerous similar articles. On 6 May Daily Mail claimed Czechoslovakia in its front page article as the terrible country populated exceptionally by racists whose outrageous attitude to the German speaking population of Sudeten Britain could not stand any longer (cited from Preparata, G. D. Hitler Inc. How Britain and USA Created the Third Reich. P. 351).

 

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Two days before the publication in New York Herald Tribune the head of the Sudeten German party Konrad Henlein arrived in London. Only the fact of his visit gives grounds for certain thoughts. Henlein had several visits to the members of the British parliament and meetings with the representa-tives of opposition. After this visit his demands (and consequently the key intonation of the speeches) changed from the autonomy to breakdown of Czechoslovakia.

 

Not only representatives of German but also of English intelligence service actively worked with the head of Sudeten Germans. Key people of Germany knew about that communication but never prevented the contacts. Because at the moment everybody including the German and the English were playing for one team, the team that prepared Czechoslovakia to be transferred to Hitler. “English intelligence service was aware... one of its agents, colonel Christie, already had several meet-ings with Henlein, another one was at the beginning of August of 1938 in Zurich”, wrote in his memoirs the head of the SS intelligence service1.

 

On July 18, 1938 personal adjutant to Adolf Hitler, captain Wiedemann brought a personal message to London from Hitler to British Prime Minister Chamberlain. The next day this letter was already discussed in Paris where English Prime Minister arrived with the British royal couple. The Czechs were not invited to be present at this meeting. Indeed would you advise with the turkey about the way and time you are going to slaughter it?

Hitler’s proposals were acknowledged as acceptable. On July 22, 1938 England demanded from Czechoslovakia to take all determinate actions to “maintain European peace”. Czechs replied that agree to provide autonomy to Sudeten Germans. However Henlein immediately, on July 29, 1938, ad-dressed the public with the declaration: all the Germans in any country shall obey “only to the German government, German laws and the voice of the German blood”.

After that speech English diplomacy continued it pressure of the Czechs. On 3 August the authorised representative of Chamberlain, Lord Runci-man, arrived in Prague. This impartial mediator in reality had the mission to persuade Czechoslovakia to give away Sudeten land to Germans. The Czechs resisted: they did not want to understand that everything had been

 

See: Schellenberg, W. Labirinth. P. 46.

 

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decided already. On September 7, 1938 London newspaper Times published an article where it was offered to Czechs not to be obstinate and make everything in a friendly way — “become homogeneous from the national point of view state”1.

The situation around Czechoslovakia was especially curious because except for the agreement between France and Czechoslovakia there also ex-isted an agreement between Czechoslovakia and USSR. In case of attack The Soviet Union had to come to a rescue of the victim of aggression. However there was one interesting snag in the text of the agreement: Moscow was to support Prague only provided the same support would be performed by Paris. At the beginning of September 1938 the French government applied to the government of USSR with a question on its position if Czechoslovakia were attacked. The reply from Moscow was very simple: representatives of USSR, England and France were to get together at a short notice and publish a declaration on behalf of its countries warning that Czechoslovakia would be supported in the event Germany attacked it. As for the Soviet Union, it was ready to fulfil its obligations under the agreement2.

What do you think was the reaction to our proposals? Hard to answer? Then there is another question: Did the countries that had prepared Hitler to attack USSR need this attack never to happen? Did they need Germany to be defeated by joint forces of France, Czechoslovakia and USSR? Did they need Hitler to back off and to stop his approaching to our frontier?

 

As the West’s goal was quite different, “Soviet proposals were practi-cally ignored” as Winston Churchill wrote. “These proposals were not used to impact Hitler, they were treated with significant negligence, not to say with defiance which Stalin kept his mind. The events proceeded with its customary routine as if Soviet Union was not existent”3.

 

Melnikov, D., Chernaya, N. Criminal Number One. P. 295.

 

When the crisis between Germany and Czechoslovakia was at its very height, USSR coordinated its army to battle alert, moved the troops to the Polish border which territory would have to be crossed to support Czechs; the troops included 60 infantry regiments, 16 cavalry divisions, 3 tanks corps, 22 separate tank battalions, 17 squadrons. 330 thousand reservists were sent to the troops and additionally several tens of thousands of soldiers that had completed their service were detained (Bullok, A. Hitler and Stalin. V. 2. P. 196).

 

Churchill, W. World War Two V. 1. P. 176.

 

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Understanding the logics of the British politics, it is not hard to predict the actions of the Western diplomats. Rather “strange” actions of the English who were literally beseeched by the anti-Hitler opposition in Germany “to display intractability on the Sudeten issue” would not seem so surprising any more. In the middle of August 1938 the emissary of the German military with the hard pronounced surname von Kleist Schmenzin arrived in London. In his talks with the British politicians he told Churchill, in particular, that German armament was “not on the high level”. He informed that complete rearmament of Vermacht would be fulfilled in 1943 at the earliest and con-sequently at that moment England, France and Czechoslovakia could take up a rather hard position in relation to the Third Reich without any serious risk1. Churchill wrote in his memoires that “according to the evidences from generals Halder and Jodl during the Munich negotiations only 13 German divisions remained in the West, of them 5 consisted of cadre soldiers”2.

Seeing that London gentlemen were not going to repulse Hitler, head of the German General Staff colonel general Halder in the first days of Septem-ber 1938 sent the new emissary to London. Lieutenant colonel with another complicated surname as the first delegate, Boehm Tettelbach, had the similar task. “My task was to ask the very narrow circle of major politicians in the English Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be very solid in regards of Hitler’s demands. People that had given me this task reckoned that respond from the English government would be a definite “no”3, — he later told himself to the newspaper Rheinische Post on July 10, 1948.

 

German officers could not get the meaning of the political game. They thought that if the new arguments were provided to the English, they would change their position. Especially if the British were informed that in case of proclaiming the full mobilization in Germany, there was plan of arrest of Adolf Hitler4. Straightforward generals and colonels could not make it out that the “real” politics which they were observing was only the derivative of those solutions that were taken privately and behind the curtain. It didn’t occur to them that “takeover” of Czechoslovakia by Hitler had already been resolved by the United Kingdom and was in the process of fulfilment upon

 

Ribbentrop, I. von. Memoires of the Nazi Diplomat. Smolensk, 1998. P. 149.

 

Churchill, W. World War Two V. 1. P. 150.

 

Cited from book Ribbentrop I. von. Memoires of the Nazi Diplomat. P. 149.

 

Schmidt, P. Hitler’s Translator. P. 119.

 

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mutual consent. And that Hitler’s arrest would be the collapse of all their thoroughly structured plans...

Instead of giving the rebuff and taking up the solid and joint position with the USSR, England was continuing to exert additional pressure on Czechs. First the government of Czechoslovakia was offered to annul the agreements with France and USSR. Next the joint English and French note of 19 September offered Prague to transfer to Hitler the Sudeten Land at short notice. “...Further maintaining in the borders of Czechoslovakia state the areas primarily populated by the Sudeten Germans, — the document explained, — cannot be practically continued without endangering the interests of Czechoslovakia and interests of the European world... Keeping peace, safety and live interests of Czechoslovakia cannot be further provided if these areas are not immediately transferred to the German Empire”1. It was offered to transfer the lands promptly, without holding the plebiscite. The term to respond was also limited — only two days! Because on 22 September the meeting of British Prime Minister Chamberlain and Hitler was planned...

Think about it: Actions offered to Czechoslovakia were literally the sui-cide of the whole country. Could that quite independent and really sovereign state agree for something like that? Well, Czechs did agree. Decades have passed since those events. And nobody learnt anything. Again we see in Europe those “independent”, “sovereign” states that are ready to satisfy any fancies of their “older friends”. They will happily allocate on their territories American radars and missiles, without hesitation will send their soldiers to the remote Iraq, will wreck any profitable deal with the Russian state or our private companies. The master just makes a speech and they are sticking their heads into a noose smiling, like in September 1938 Czechoslovakia did...

We should say to Czechs credit that they did resist. However the turkey before going under the knife, also makes a run around the yard. While this will not change anything since the master has decided to make her the decoration of the table. On September 20, 1938 English and French ambas-sadors received an answer from Czechoslovakia. It contained a request to reconsider the decision and transfer the issue to be studied by the arbitration procedures in compliance with the Agreement between Czechoslovakia and Germany of 19252.

 

Ovsyaniy, I. D. The Secrecy in Which the War was Born. P. 190.

 

Ovsyanniy, I. D. The Secrecy in Which the War was Born. P. 206–207.

 

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Czechs’ stubbornness could spoil everything. The point was that in case of the military conflict with Germany, France would have to support Czechoslovakia! And in that case USSR could come to the rescue of not only Prague but Paris as well! The system of allies would be in action: Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance of May 2, 1935, Soviet-Czech Agreement of May 16, 1935. And the entire beautiful combination of the West would scatter like a house of cards.

Meanwhile London and Paris began to lose patience. Evening of the same day, 20 September, English ambassador Newton informed the Czech government that “if they continue persisting, English government will stop getting involved into their fortune”. The French delegate Delacroix supported that threatening warning. But the diplomats would not settle down on that. At two in the morning (!) ambassadors of the “friendly” England and France woke up the Czechoslovak president Beneљ. It was their fifth visit for that day. The night guests presented him with a note, and in fact, the real ultimatum: “if they (government of Czechoslovakia. — N. S.) do not accept the English and French plan, the whole world will call Czechoslovakia the only faulty party of the inevitable war”1.

 

On September 21, 1938 the ultimatum of allies was discussed at the ses-sion of the Czechoslovak government. It’s decision is not hard to predict. After a little wagging around the yard, the turkey let the master to hold it tightly and carry to the execution spot. There were too many reasons for slaughtering it. The answer to the question “why” we can read in Churchill’s book: “...One should remember such a significant fact: within one year of 1938 Hitler as a result of annexation joint to the Reich and placed under absolute power 6 million 750 thousand Austrians and 3 million 500 thou-sand of Sudeten Germans — all together over 10 million citizens, workers and soldiers”2.

 

On September 29–30, 1938 the notorious Munich Agreement was signed in the Bavarian capital, legally binding the transfer of the Sudeten Land to Germany. The Agreement was signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier. Cezch representatives were not invited into the meeting hall

 

Melnikov, D. N. Chernaya Criminal Number One. P. 296.

 

Churchill, W. World War Two. V. 1. P. 151.

 

 

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Why London and Paris presented Vienna and Prague to Hitler

 

where the “masters” were sitting; they were in the next room. And only after all the negotiations and signing procedures had been completed, they were informed what was going to happen to their country. There was such a hurry to sign the Munich Agreement that the inkpot in the room where the world politics was ruled turned out to be empty1. As a matter of fact ink and the signatures were just a formality, because everything had already been agreed long ago.

 

It is rather interesting what the leaders of the countries were discussing in Munich behind the closed doors. As everything had been decided already, the only question that the British Prime Minister Chamberlain asked was: “Will Czech population that will be moved to the central regions of Czechoslovakia be able to take cattle with them?” Hitler an-swered: “Our time is too expensive to think about such rubbish!” British Prime Minister said nothing2.

 

Sudeten Germans greet Fьhrer at the end of 1938

 

 

Melnikov, D., Chernaya N. Criminal Number One. P. 301.

 

Ovsyanniy, I. D. The Secrecy in Which the War was Born. P. 199.

 

 

179

Who made Hitler attack Stalin

 

 

Ribbentrop, Chamberlain and Hitler during the negotiations in Munich, when Czechoslovakia’s destiny was settled

 

On October 1, 1938 German troops entered the territory of Czechoslo-vakia. There was no resistance in the country. Later, when German generals were inspecting Czech fortifications, they could only nod and say that it was very smart of Fьhrer to resolve that issue peacefully because particularly in Sudetes there were the first-class fortification structures. In case they had to storm the lands, many soldiers would die while approaching the territories1. “During the firing exercises experts were surprised and acknowledged that weapons which they were going to use against that fortifications would not work and would not bring the accepted result”2, — Albert Speer diplomati-cally wrote in his memoires. In practice such evaluation meant complete impossibility for the German army to storm and defeat Czech fortification. That was the reason why western diplomats were realistic in their estima-tions of the still modest possibilities of Vermacht and solidly insisted on unconditional surrender of Czechoslovakia!

 

Still that was not yet the end of the “turkey’s” sufferings. Right after signing of the Munich Agreement there started the second part of the per-formance which was never ever described. “...Germans were not the only beasts to tear Czechoslovakia. After the Munich Agreement was executed on

 

Bullok, A. Hitler and Stalin. V. 2. P. 201.

 

Speer, A. Memories. M., 1997. P. 169.

 

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Why London and Paris presented Vienna and Prague to Hitler

 

30 September ...sh government sent the ultimatum to the Czech government which had to be responded within 24 hours. ...sh government demanded to promptly transfer to it the border region Teshin. There was no possibility to resist such a gross demand”1.

We intentionally missed the name of the country in the quotation of the British Prime Minister that behaved with such a terrible attitude towards Czechoslovakia. What country was it? Fascist Italy? Communistic USSR? Militaristic Japan? Who else among the historians of the World War Tow has only bad references?

 

The country that made an offer “impossible to resist” to the Czech government was the government of Poland!

 

Just another ally to France as Czechoslovakia! Neither London nor Paris said a single word to protect Czechs in that situation. The “innocent vic-tim” of the future aggression, Poland, behaving as a regular scavenger was in a hurry to nip off a piece of the Czech territory. No later Teshin region occurred in the ownership of Poland. While in 1938 Poland had no senti-ments about tearing off the territory of Czechoslovakia, in a year it will be Poland’s turn already...2

Seeing like other countries are enjoying the meal consisting of foreign territory, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Imredy declared that the interests of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia were “discriminated”. And he also achieved his goal: On November 2, 1938 Hungary received 12 thou-sand kilometers of the territory of the Southern Slovakia and a small part of the so-called Transcarpathian Ukraine (Transcarpathia) with the population around 1 million people...

 

So who presented to Hitler Vienna and Prague?3This question is a very simple one to answer.

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