Hitler

the bunkers – since new recruits in their first battle often suffered from diarrhoea, he claimed to recall. The Westwall had priority over all other major building projects. By the end of August, 148,000 workers and 50,000 army sappers were stationed at the fortifications. Autobahn and housing construction had been temporarily halted to make use of the workers.
    By this time, the end of August, the crisis was beginning to move towards its climacteric phase. When Goebbels saw him on the Obersalzberg on the last day of August, Hitler was in a determined and optimistic mood: he did not think Britain would intervene. ‘He knows what he wants and goes straight towards his goal,’ remarked Goebbels. By now, Goebbels too knew that the planned time for action was October.
    Ordinary people were, of course, wholly unaware of the planned aggression. The weeks of anti-Czech propaganda, often near-hysterical in tone, had shaped the impression that the issue was about the despicable persecution of the German minority, not the military destruction of Czechoslovakia. But whether or not the Sudeten Germans came ‘home into the Reich’ was, for the overwhelming majority of the population, less important than avoiding the war which Hitler was determined to have. ‘The war psychosis is growing,’ noted Goebbels. ‘A gloomy moodlies over the land. Everyone awaits what is coming.’ Reports on popular opinion compiled by the SD and other agencies uniformly registered similar sentiments. ‘There exists in the broadest sections of the population,’ ran one report in early September, ‘the earnest concern that in the long or short run a war will put an end to the economic prosperity and have a terrible end for Germany.’
    IV
    During August, the British had indirectly exerted pressure on the Czechs to comply with Sudeten German demands through the mission of Lord Runciman, aimed at playing for time, mediating between the Sudeten German Party and the Prague government, and solving the Sudeten question within the framework of the continued existence of the state of Czechoslovakia. By the end of the month, the British government had learnt from their contacts with oppositional sources in Germany that Hitler intended to attack Czechoslovakia within weeks. The crucial moment, they imagined, would probably follow Hitler’s speech to the Reich Party Rally in Nuremberg in mid-September. On 30 August, in an emergency meeting, the British cabinet declined to offer a formal warning to Hitler of likely British intervention in the event of German aggression. Instead, it was decided to apply further pressure on the Czechs, who were effectively given an ultimatum: accept Henlein’s programme to give virtual autonomy for the Sudeten Germans within the Czechoslovakian state, as laid down in his Karlsbad speech in April, or be doomed. On 5 September, President Eduard Beneš, faced with such an unenviable choice, bowed to the pressure.
    This in fact left Henlein and the Sudeten German leadership in a predicament: entirely against expectations, their demands had been met almost in their entirety. With that, Hitler’s pretext for war was undermined. Desperate for an excuse to break off negotiations with the Czechs, the Sudeten Germans grasped at an incident in which the Czech police manhandled three local Germans accused of spying and smuggling weapons. It was enough to keep matters on the boil until Hitler’s big speech on 12 September.
    Increasingly worried though the Sudeten German leaders themselves were about the prospect of war, Henlein’s party was simply dancing toHitler’s tune. Hitler had told Henlein’s right-hand man, Karl Hermann Frank, as early as 26 August to instigate provocative ‘incidents’. He followed it up with instructions to carry out the ‘incidents’ on 4 September. He had left Frank in no doubt at all of his intentions. ‘Führer is determined on war,’ Frank had reported. Hitler had verbally lashed Beneš, saying he wanted him taken alive and would himself string him up. Three days later, on 29 August, it was known, from what was emanating from Hitler’s entourage, that Czech compliance, under British pressure, to the Karlsbad demands would no longer be sufficient. ‘So the Führer wants war,’ was the conclusion drawn by Helmuth Groscurth, head of Department II of the Abwehr.
    When he met Henlein at the Berghof on 2 September, however, Hitler was giving little away. He implied to the Sudeten leader that he