Hitler

circumstances it’s best if I leave straight away. Apparently, it’s all pointless.’ It was an effective counter-thrust to the bluster. Hitler, to Schmidt’s astonishment, retreated. ‘If you recognize the principle of self-determination for the treatment of the Sudeten question, then we can discuss how to put the principle into practice,’ he stated. Chamberlain said he would have to consult his cabinet colleagues. But when he declared his readiness thereafter to meet Hitler again, the mood lifted. Chamberlain won Hitler’s agreement to undertake no military action in the meantime. With that, the meeting was over.
    Immediately after the meeting, Hitler told Ribbentrop and Weizsäcker what had happened, rubbing his hands with pleasure at the outcome. He claimed he had manoeuvred Chamberlain into a corner. His ‘brutally announced intention, even at the risk of a general European war, of solving the Czech question’ – he had not spoken of the ‘Sudeten question’ – along with his concession that Germany’s territorial claims in Europe would then be satisfied, had, he asserted, forced Chamberlain to cede the Sudetenland. Hitler had, he went on, been unable to reject the proposal of a plebiscite. If the Czechs were to refuse one, ‘the way would be clear for the German invasion’. If Czechoslovakia yielded on the Sudetenland, the rest of the country would be taken over later, perhaps the following spring. In any event, there would have to be a war, and during his own lifetime.
    Hitler was clearly satisfied with the way the talks had gone. He spoke to his immediate circle at the Berghof the next day about the discussions. As the night before, it appeared that he might now after all be prepared to consider a diplomatic solution – at least for the immediate future. Chamberlain’s visit had impressed him and, in a way, unsettled him. Dealing at first hand with a democratic leader who had to return to consult with the members of his government, and was answerable to parliament, left a tinge of uncertainty. He was, he said, still basically intending to march on Prague. But for the first time there were signs of wavering. He was starting to look for a possible retreat. Only very unwillingly, he hinted, if it proved unavoidable in the light of the general European situation, would he go along with the British proposal. Beyond that, things could be settled with the Czechs without the British beinginvolved. Czechoslovakia was in any case, he added, difficult to rule, given its ethnic mix and the claims of the other minorities – Poles, Hungarians, and especially the Slovaks. There was, Hitler’s immediate circle felt, now a glimmer of hope that war would be avoided.
    Chamberlain reported to the British cabinet his belief that he had dissuaded Hitler from an immediate march into Czechoslovakia and that the German dictator’s aims were ‘strictly limited’. If self-determination for the Sudeten Germans were to be granted, he thought, it would mark the end of German claims on Czechoslovakia. The extent to which Chamberlain had allowed himself to be deluded by the personality and assurances of Germany’s dictator is apparent in the private evaluation he offered one of his sisters, Ida, on returning to England: ‘In spite of the harshness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word.’
    The next days were spent applying pressure to the Czechs to acquiesce in their own dismemberment. Preferably avoiding a plebiscite, the joint approach to Prague of the British and French was to compel the Czechs to make territorial concessions in return for an international guarantee against unprovoked aggression. On 21 September, the Czechs yielded. Chamberlain’s second meeting with Hitler had meanwhile been arranged for 22 September. Hitler, too, was by now feeling the tension. He relaxed by watching entertainment films. He did not want to see anything more serious. His options remained open. As his comments following Chamberlain’s visit had shown, he was now evidently moving away from the all-out high-risk military destruction of Czechoslovakia in a single blow, on which he had insisted, despite much internal opposition, throughout the summer. Instead, there were pointers that he was now moving in the direction of the territorial solution not unlike the one which would eventually form the basis of the Munich Agreement. He