Hitler

and the dropping of oil sanctions had lessened the chances of Italian support. Hitler countered by stressing the disadvantages of delay. ‘Attack in this case, too,’ he characteristically argued – to ‘lively assent from Ribbentrop’ – ‘was the better strategy.’
    But he continued to waver. His arguments had failed to convince the diplomats and military leaders. The advice he was receiving favoured caution, not boldness. This was the case as late as the end of February. However determined Hitler was on an early strike, the precise timing still had to be decided. At lunch on 29 February, he had yet to make up his mind.
    But the following day, Sunday 1 March, with Munich bathed in beautiful spring-like weather, Hitler turned up at the hotel whereGoebbels was staying in a good mood. The decision had been taken. ‘It’s another critical moment, but now is the time for action,’ wrote Goebbels. ‘Fortune favours the brave! He who dares nothing wins nothing.’
    The next day, 2 March, Goebbels attended a meeting in the Reich Chancellery at 11 a.m. The heads of the armed forces – Göring, Blomberg, Fritsch, and Raeder – were there. So was Ribbentrop. Hitler told them he had made his decision. The Reichstag would be summoned for Saturday, 7 March. There the proclamation of the remilitarization of the Rhineland would be made. At the same time, he would offer Germany’s re-entry into the League of Nations, an air pact, and a non-aggression treaty with France. The acute danger would thereby be reduced, Germany’s isolation prevented, and sovereignty once and for all restored. The Reichstag would be dissolved and new elections announced, with foreign-policy slogans. Fritsch had to arrange for the troop transport during Friday night. ‘Everything has to happen as quick as lightning.’ Troop movements would be camouflaged by making them look like SA and Labour Front exercises. The military leaders had their doubts. Members of the cabinet were informed individually only on the afternoon of the following day, Frick and Heß as late as the evening. By then, invitations to the Reichstag had already gone out – but, to keep up the deception, only to a beer evening. By Wednesday Hitler was working on his Reichstag speech; Goebbels was already preparing the election campaign. Warning voices from the Foreign Ministry could still be registered on the Thursday. By Friday evening Hitler had completed his speech. The cabinet met to be informed for the first time collectively of what was planned. Goebbels announced that the Reichstag would meet at noon the next day. The only item on the agenda was a government declaration. Plans for the election campaign were finalized. Workers in the Propaganda Ministry were not permitted to leave the building overnight to prevent any leaks. ‘Success lies in surprise,’ noted Goebbels. ‘Berlin trembles with tension,’ he added next morning.
    The Reichstag, too, was tense as Hitler rose, amid enormous applause, to speak. The deputies, all in Nazi uniform, still did not know what to expect. The speech was aimed not just at those present, but at the millions of radio listeners. After a lengthy preamble denouncing Versailles, restating Germany’s demands for equality and security, and declaring his peaceful aims, a screaming onslaught on Bolshevismbrought wild applause. This took Hitler into his argument that the French-Soviet Pact had invalidated Locarno. He read out the memorandum which von Neurath had given to the ambassadors of the Locarno signatories that morning, stating that the Locarno Treaty had lost its meaning. He paused for a brief moment, then continued: ‘Germany regards itself, therefore, as for its part no longer bound by this dissolved pact … In the interest of the primitive rights of a people to the security of its borders and safeguarding of its defence capability, the German Reich government has therefore from today restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.’ At this, wrote the American journalist, William Shirer, witnessing the scene, the 600 Reichstag deputies, ‘little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream “
Heil’s
” ’. When the tumult eventually subsided, Hitler advanced his