530. Hitler’s War on Poland: Countdown to Armageddon (Part 1)
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My Führer, your comrades of the First Hour are seated before you, willing to follow your lead nobly as one united whole, to stride forth at your side in the future also, suffused by the single desire to follow you blindly towards the attainment of the greatest of victories.

the victory of our great German Volk. You have led us onward to victories unfathomable. You have restored to us a life worth living, a life splendid und magnificent. It was you who created Greater Germany. How feeble are our expressions of gratitude! Words to express our gratitude to you simply defy us.

The cries with which we jubilantly hail you presently, mein Führer, these shouts of heil sum up everything we feel within ourselves in respect to inspiration, dedication, love, and loyalty. Comrades, to our dearly beloved Führer, the creator of greater Germany, Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

So that, Dominic, was Herman Goering, who you've put down in your note, you've described as a sinister man mountain. I hope that I adequately conveyed your...

Your kind of instructions there. He's a gentleman of size, isn't he? And I hope that that came across. This is going out early in January. And that was actually his New Year address to the Reichstag on the 1st of January 1939. That was how Goering welcomed the New Year, Tom. And of course, we always like to welcome the New Year with the company of these terrible people. So New Year 1939. And Goering there, I think it's fair to say, is speaking for

tens of millions of ordinary Germans. They all love their Fuhrer. Well, Hitler is very popular. And of course, there are people who have issues with the regime of various kinds. There are things that are wrong with the regime.

But a lot of ordinary Germans, I think at the beginning of 1939, would say that Hitler's six years in power have brought a series of great achievements. They've rearmed. The worst hardships of the Depression are over. They've reoccupied the Rhineland. They've unified with Austria. And now, most recently, they have annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. And they've done all of that without provoking the one thing that most of them fear, which is their

a European war. However, against that, it's not all good news, is it? Well, as we all know, and as is very well chronicled at the time in the newspapers of the world, there is the dark side to the Nazi regime, the concentration camps, the murders, the repression, the persecution above all of the Jews, symbolised by the Nuremberg Laws and the pogrom, the Kristallnacht at the end of 1938. All of that is very well known.

However, Hitler is genuinely popular at this point. It's a police state, of course, so it's hard to be certain. But all the evidence we have from journalists, from reports by the Social Democratic Party that were sort of smuggled to their leadership in exile, are that people are delighted at Hitler's foreign policy achievements. And had he stopped, if the 1st of January 1939 he'd dropped dead or he'd stopped right then and said, what we have we hold, we consolidate,

I think Goering's verdict, ludicrously delivered as it was, would have resonated with millions of ordinary Germans. So can I ask you, the previous episode we talked about how the German economy was on the brink. It was staring down the barrel of bankruptcy and this was a huge inspiration for conquering Czechoslovakia because it was a very rich country.

Has the assimilation of the Czech economy enabled the German economy to be stabilized? And the short answer is no. Now, first of all, it's because of course they haven't assimilated the whole of the Czech economy. They've only taken the Sudetenland, which is what, about a fifth of Czechoslovakia's industrial capacity. But actually after they've done that, November 1938, Göring says to the rest of the Nazi high command, "Do you know what? We're actually in a terrible mess."

So exactly as you say, Tom, Goering's four-year plan, as it was called, was predicated on constant conquest, on the constant acquisition of new resources, new labor, all of this. And actually, the wheels are about to come off.

And they're only keeping inflation at bay. So the inflation generated by their massive arms spending, they're only keeping it at bay with price controls. And as lots of people listening to this podcast will know, once you get into that world of kind of price controls to stop inflation, you're often in a bit of a death spiral, a kind of economic death spiral. And actually Goebbels writes in his diary in December 1938 that,

The financial situation of the Reich is catastrophic. We must look for new ways. It cannot go on like this. And the obvious answer is, well, we just acquire new territory. We acquire new resources. Just take stuff from, if we haven't got enough workers, if we don't have enough currency, enough tungsten or whatever it might be. Or enough factories. We just nick the factories. Everything. Take it from somebody else. And of course, the other thing that is propelling Hitler onwards, Hitler cannot stop. I mean, this is the thing. He is not an ordinary dictator.

He is not even an ordinary German nationalist. A.J.P. Taylor, very famously and controversially, in his book on the origins of the Second World War, published I think in the 1960s, said, well, Hitler was just a common or garden German nationalist. His goals were those of German nationalists

down the decades and the centuries. That obviously is wrong, completely wrong. Hitler had said all this stuff in Mein Kampf and all his speeches in the 1920s, all of this stuff about nature, the law of struggle. We talked last time that quotation about people have to fight. Well, racist more specifically, isn't it? That there's a racial logic at play in Hitler's mind. That if the Germans don't continue fighting,

stasis is not a possibility. They will lose. They will be defeated. They will be destroyed. So there's a thing that clearly separates him from...

Another dictator of the same period, like a Franco or a Salazar or somebody like that in Spain and Portugal. But I guess not necessarily Stalin, though, interestingly, because Stalin also, as a communist, dreams of the whole world going communist. Yes, he does. There's like a revolutionary dynamo inside Stalin. But Stalin is clearly much more pragmatic than Hitler is. Stalin doesn't have Hitler's...

Wagnerian urgency, I suppose, which we know that Hitler has. And this, of course, is one reason that Hitler is so disappointed when Munich doesn't give him a war. And he's particularly disappointed, we ended last time, he's so disappointed with the German people. They've let themselves down because they were against war and they cheered Chamberlain because they thought he was a peacemaker. And for Hitler, that suggests that they're on the road to degeneracy. Yes, certainly.

So the longer you leave it, of course, the more degenerate they might well become. Of course, the longer you leave it, the more likely it is that Britain and France will rearm and it'll make also that Germany's economy will fall to pieces. So he really feels like that window is kind of closing all the time and he must move now. I mean, just to ask you on this thing about the economy, do British and French observers, I mean, do they have analysts who are pointing this out?

that if we just leave it another year, the whole regime will implode economically. Because I've never actually read that in any account of the preparations for war. Whereas that today, you know, in a similar situation, people talk about it in terms of, you know, Russia against Ukraine or Iran or whatever, the sense that economic warfare is

can be as effective as, you know, tanks and planes. No, I don't think they do have that sense, Tom. I've never read anything that suggests that they do. Foreign visitors, when they go to Hitler's Germany, are struck by what they think of as his economic miracle. I

I would say. They're like, oh gosh, he's found the magic trick. He's put all these people back to work and Germany is humming again and everybody is happy and the streets are clear and all of that kind of thing. Springtime for Hitler in Germany. Springtime for Hitler, exactly. I think there's much more of a sense of that actually and a sense of great self-doubt in the democracies that maybe democracy doesn't really work. Maybe dictatorship is the future. So no, I don't think there's anything like that sort of sense.

So, beginning in 1939, I think it's fair to say that Hitler is determined to get his war, sooner or later, the accent very firmly on, sooner. And the most obvious unfinished business is in what he would call, what everyone calls at the time, Czechoslovakia. It has been renamed after Munich, so to emphasise the fact that it has become a bit unglued and that the Czech and Slovak parts have become unglued. So if you remember from last week, Hitler didn't just want the Sudetenland, he wanted the lot and he feels cheated.

That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague, he said. Is it not passing brave to be a dictator and ride in triumph through Prague? Exactly. That's part of his kind of Wagnerian fantasy in a life, isn't it? He sees himself riding up to the castle as a conqueror. So just three weeks after Munich, Hitler says to the Wehrmacht, to the German army...

Please draw up plans now for the liquidation of the remainder of the Czech state. Now, the thing about this, of course, which reminds us how unusual Hitler is, is anybody else would say that this was completely unnecessary. Czechoslovakia is now no threat to you. You can really turn it into your puppet eventually. You don't need to risk everything by swallowing the rest of it. It's just supine at your feet. But he wants to have his conquest as a matter of pride. Secondly, I think...

As we talked about last time, he really, really hates the Czechs. He's hated them ever since his days in Vienna before the First World War. And there is that economic thing that you talked about, Tom. So they have the big Skoda works. They have all this foreign currency. They've got loads of gold. And they've got this massive military arsenal. They have enough weapons in Czechoslovakia for 20 divisions. So that is about, if you think there's about 15,000 men in a division.

I mean, that's a hell of a lot of guns. It is. And the Czechs have them. And their guns are better than anybody's. They've been made in this, in Pilsen, in this massive factory. And they're brilliant. And Hitler, for Hitler, there was no question in his mind. He's going to come back and get a lot. So...

Straight away in the new year, as soon as the Goering's splendid oration, the last echoes are dying away, Hitler starts to lay the groundwork with the army. He does three big speeches, the 18th of January, 25th of January, 10th of February, where he meets groups of officers, starting with the younger ones and then moving up to the senior commanders.

And he says to them, you know, he's completely explicit to this point. He says, I want to make the German right the dominant power in Europe. I want to ditch the democratic, pacifist, defeatist mentality that I associate with Weimar. At one point, he says to these guys, the German heroes of the past embraced brutality, meaning the sword, if other methods fail. It is time for Germany, and I quote, to stake its claim to the domination of Europe.

So this isn't the talk of revising the Treaty of Versailles. No. It's not the kind of thing you could discuss with Neville Chamberlain. No. Yeah. A sympathetic journalist from the Daily Telegraph. Yeah. You couldn't lay out these plans and hope to get a warm reception in the drawing rooms of Britain. And then the final one is at the Kroll Opera House, his senior commanders, and he says to them, look, I am determined to get this living space in the East built

And he says, as long as I live, this thought will dominate my entire being. I will never draw back from the most extreme measures and I will need you to put your fervent trust in me. So there's no doubt about where all this is leading. This sort of slightly apocalyptic, you know, teenage boy planning and conquering the world, sort of Alexander the Great style vision. It's not hidden. No. Well, this is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Mein Kampf.

And it had been evident all these years. Yeah. You only had to read it to know what his plans were. I mean, this is the amazing thing, by the way, about Chamberlain's self-delusion. There's that phrase that people say, isn't there? They say it on social media when they're trying to be nasty to somebody. They say, when somebody shows you who they are, believe them. I mean, Hitler showed people who he was.

for 20 years and people continued to underestimate him and to not believe him but it's pretty open anyway 13th of february he tells his aides right we're going to do this let's start with czechoslovakia and let us finish the job

Now, it's going to be easy. The Czechs, we talked about a lot last time, you were very agitated about this, Tom, as I recall. Very agitated. I mean, they've got all these guns and they've got all their defences and they've all been terrible. But they've abandoned their fortified border positions in the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia has federalised itself so he can basically use the Slovaks. He's going to use them as his pawn to kind of pull the whole thing apart.

So the Slovak leader is a guy called Monsignor Josef Tiso. And Tiso is a kind of Catholic priest. He's ultra-conservative. He's anti-Semitic. He's been the prime minister of the autonomous Slovak region since Munich. And he has terrible relations with the government in Prague. And they're always falling out. And on the 9th of March, they have a big row. And the Prague government says, we've had enough of you, mate. And they send their police into Bratislava to dissolve Tiso's cabinet.

And Hitler's like watching this and he says, oh, this is absolutely brilliant. This is the pretext we need. And he says to his inner circle, well, we'll strike on the Ides of March. Hitler loves a bit of a classical. That's deliberate. He deliberately phrases that. Yes, exactly. He does. He references the Ides of March himself. Isn't that nice? So stabbing the Czechs in the back. Stabbing the Czechs in the back. On 13th of March, Tissot is flown to Berlin, this Slovak priest. Hitler says to him,

right, I want you to declare independence and I want you to put Slovakia under German protection. And Tissot actually says, really? German protection? And Hitler says, well, if you don't, I'll give Slovakia to Hungary. The Hungarians can't wait to get Slovakia back. So make up your mind. Tissot goes back to Bratislava.

And slightly sort of, you know, under duress, he proclaims Slovakian independence. But he doesn't follow through with the next part of it, which is calling for German protection. Hitler thinks this is very poor. So he sends German warships down the Danube. They train their guns on Bratislava. And that's it. And basically they say to Tissot, we'll fire on you unless you ask for our protection. Tissot asks for their protection.

So the Czechs have been watching all this. Now the Czechs, Benes, he was left after Munich. So they have a new president and he's called Dr. Emil Hacher.

And he is not the ideal person to take on Hitler. He's a lawyer, very experienced. He's in his late 60s. He's a very clever and gentle and kind of cerebral man. Well, I'm amazed to read in your notes that he translated Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men and a Boat into Czech. He did. And a less Nazi text. Yeah. I find hard to think of. That stuff with the dog and the cheese. Yeah. Brilliant. And the picnic hamper. Yeah. Amazing. And I heartily recommend Three Men and a Boat to our listeners. Yeah.

But I mean, it's not, you don't want an expert on three men and a boat. Doesn't prepare you for confronting the Third Reich. No, it does not. Although you could say all of Britain had read Three Men and a Boat and we defeated the Third Reich, Tom. That's true. So maybe it does. Who knows? Maybe if more Czechs had read Three Men and a Boat, the story would have ended very differently. Right. We shouldn't laugh about this because it's a very tragic story.

Hacher, his daughter and the foreign minister, travel by train to Berlin. He's asked for a meeting with Hitler. It takes them five hours and they arrive in the evening of the 14th of March. Hitler behaves, he's a very poor host, I think it's fair to say. Hitler keeps this guy, Hacher, waiting. This is his standard approach, isn't it? When Brow beating foreign leaders whose countries he's about to take over. Exactly. Same with Austria. Yeah, exactly the same. He keeps him waiting in this hotel. Always hotels with Hitler. What is it with Hitler and hotels?

Keeps this bloke waiting in a hotel for ages while he is finishing watching a film, a comedy, I think, called Ein Hoffnungsloser Fall, which means a hopeless case. An ominous, ominous title there for the Czechs. Finally, at midnight, Hitler says, right, I finished the film. Get this bloke over to the Reich Chancellery. So Hacher is brought to the Reich Chancellery and there they make him inspect the Guard of Honour.

have all their guns and stuff and their steel helmets and... A sort of humiliation for him. Do they have the skulls at this point? Yeah, there's probably a lot of skulls. To be fair, the Kaiser had all sorts of uniforms with skulls on, didn't he? So even great associates of the rest of his history have kind of got a bit of skull decoration.

At 1am, Hager is shown into Hitler's massive study in the Reich Chancellor's. It's absolutely rammed to people. So all the bad guys are there. Ribbentrop's there. Goering is there. Wilhelm Keitel, the general, is there. And Hager, this guy, is very, very nervous. Is he polishing his glasses as they steam up? He undoubtedly isn't thinking about Jerome K. Jerome. Thinking wistfully about comic songs. Exactly.

Hitler launches into this massive rant against the Czechs. He says, I've had enough of you. You know, you're terrible people. And to protect our security, I'm going to impose a protectorate over Czechoslovakia. I'm going to absorb it into the Reich and it'll become a protectorate of Germany. My troops, he says, are on their way. Too late. They can't be recalled. They're going to cross your border at six o'clock in the morning. I want you to ring Prague, tell your people to offer no resistance. And if they offer any resistance, we'll kill you and we'll crush them.

And Goering, he chimes in for good measure. He says, oh, my air force, the Luftwaffe, will be over Prague by dawn. And it's up to you whether they bomb your city into dust or not. It's your call. Presumably, though, Hitler doesn't want Prague bombed into the dust because he wants the castle. No, I don't think he does. It's not exactly an empty threat, but it's pure blackmail.

And at that, I mean, incredibly, although not incredibly, you might say, Harker collapses. He just collapses. He falls to the ground in a dead faint. Some sources say he may well have had a heart attack at that point. And he drops to the ground. And the Nazis are...

They're actually quite thrown by this because they're terrified that everybody will say they've murdered him, which is very bad PR for them to murder the president. Yeah, it's a very bad look. Of course, Hitler's doctor, Dr. Morell, who's the guy who's always giving him cocktails of amphetamine. Amphetamine. So he gives them some speed. Yeah, he's on hand with an injection. They managed to bring Hacher back to life, get him back up. He says, oh, fine, I'll ring Prague. He goes to ring Prague.

It's very like the Munich conference. Telephones don't work. The phones aren't working. And the Luftwaffe are heading towards Prague. At this point, Ribbentrop has a massive strop at this point, a massive meltdown. He says, oh my God, the phones never work here. It's like Britain in the 1970s. The phones aren't working. Nothing works here. Everything is rubbish. You know, he's kind of ranting and raving. Actually, he's being a bit harsh on his own phone system. It turns out the problem is actually with the

exchange in Prague, not with Berlin. So Ribbentrop is being too harsh towards German telephone engineering. He's talking Germany down. Why does Ribbentrop hate Germany? Sad. Shocking. Anyway, finally, Harker does get through to Prague and he says, OK, don't fight, don't fight, don't resist. And at four o'clock in the morning, under tremendous pressure, I mean, it is a really, really tragic scene. He signs a declaration that he is putting his people under the protection of the German Reich.

So Harker kind of collapses again. Hitler is absolutely overjoyed. And this is the first proper annexation that has no kind of pretense that we're irredentism. No. These are German, you know, we're taking them back. This is out and out kind of...

kind of colonial conquest pure colonial conquest and hitler is probably as excited and happy about this as he's been about anything because he goes in to see his secretaries they're called christian schroeder and gerda daranofsky and he famously says to them one of them i can't remember which one it is tells the story he goes in he says so children to the secretaries and he points to his cheeks of his face he says i want each one of you to give me a kiss here and here

This is the happiest day of my life. What has been striven for in vain for centuries, I have been fortunate enough to bring about. I will go down as the greatest German in history. He's no longer crippled by self-doubt at this point. No, I think it's fair to say he's not crippled by self-doubt. So...

Two hours later, right on time, the first German units crossed the border into their new protectorate. Again, this is the first time that they have not been greeted by cheering crowds. So that, again, is a reminder how different this is from the Rhineland or from Austria or even the Sudetenland.

There's nobody cheering. There's nobody with flowers. There's nobody saluting. By and large, the Czech people stay indoors. They are horrified. It's a misty, snowy day. It's a funereal atmosphere. Hitler crosses the border later that day by train. Then he transfers to this kind of fleet of Mercedes cars. And now he can go to Prague, which is kind of what he'd wanted all along, right? I mean, his ultimate object. He's got his arm outstretched in the salute.

As he passes all his troops, who are columns of troops heading into Czechoslovakia, he reaches Prague. Night has fallen. He goes right up to the castle. If anyone's been to Prague,

Amazing. Dominates the city. Dominates the city. The kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors, Rudolf II had been there. He goes up. The castle is dark and abandoned. To his great displeasure, it's like when Ted Heath became prime minister and arrived at number 10 Downing Street. There's no food. This was the case, Tom, in 1970. There's no food at the Prague Castle in 1939. And Hitler sends his military escort out to find food. They bring back ham and bread and some Czech beer, lager.

Hitler doesn't like the beer, which is madness because Czech beer is very good. He says it's too bitter. Not pleased at all. So to add to Hitler's many faults is an inability to appreciate Czech beer. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Add that to the charge sheet.

He issues this proclamation which he says, the Bohemian and Moravian lands have belonged to the living space of the German people for a thousand years, which is not really true. And he says now they've been reunited with their masters. Those are kind of the Habsburg words, aren't they? Those are the words that the Habsburg Empire had used. Bohemian Moravia. Yes, exactly. And they nick the crown jewels, don't they, and take them back to Germany. They do indeed. Yes, they do. The Bohemian Moravia becomes part of the Reich.

The Slovak state becomes, under Monsignor Tissot, becomes a kind of clerical fascist puppet state of Germany. And the last bit of Czechoslovakia, which is over in the east, subcarpathian Ruthenia, is taken initially by Hungary, and then it actually ends up being part of Ukraine in the Soviet Union later on, and remains Ukrainian to this day. So the Czechs never get it back.

And a first in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, there is a sort of pretense of autonomy. So there's still a Czech president, still a prime minister and so on, the Czech courts. But over time, of course, all this begins to disappear. Jews are repressed. The state's assets are plundered. And it really becomes worse when Heydrich from the SS becomes the deputy protector in 1941. And then he gets shot, doesn't he, in their terrible reprisals. Exactly.

So Hitler returns to Berlin in triumph, sort of Roman style, like a conqueror, great crowds, great,

Goering is there with kind of great tears on his fat face. And now everyone's happy. Everyone in Germany kind of happy, are they? Well, this is the interesting thing, right? So the Nazi high command are happy. Nazi true believers are very happy. They've got a conquest. But for ordinary Germans, I don't know that they care very much about Bohemia and Moravia. I mean, nobody thinks that these are an integral part of the right. They've never been part of Germany. In his biography of Hitler, he

Ian Kershaw quotes a teenage girl from Paderborn. Oh, where the Pope went to meet Charlemagne. Right, exactly. I think this is from a girl's diary. The girl's mother said, is he never satisfied? You know, can't he get enough?

And the girl herself writes in her diary, she says, I completely understand why we took the sedation line because it's full of Germans, but why are we taking over an entirely alien people, those are her words, who cannot possibly be turned into Germans? Because, of course, the 1930s, it is an age of nationalist thinking. You know, when ethnic nationalism is so important to people, it constructs the way they view the world. So for Germans who've been brought up on ethnic nationalism,

and linguistic nationalism to suddenly have all these Czechs in the Reich doesn't make any sense. What are they doing there? And I suppose also more Jews and of course more Jews, exactly, which will be even more the case when we turn to Poland later on. And even Nazi party reports themselves

slightly sort of reluctantly said most people are actually pretty they don't quite understand this they're grudging they're even critical they don't understand why it was necessary Richard Evans in his book on the Third Reich he quotes a worker who said we were always winning these days but we were always winning once before and that came to a bad end so in other words there is a slight sense of foreboding about all this

I think this is Hitler's first really, really serious misstep because I think much more than Munich, this is the moment that destroys the case for appeasement. Because if you were massively pro-appeasement, even after Munich, you could say, well, we've avoided war and really the SEDESA is for the Germans. Yeah, you could say that. And he had signed his piece of paper, hadn't he? Of course he had. You were saying in the previous episode how actually that is very important. People laugh at it.

but it now enables Chamberlain, I guess, to feel, I've done my best and now I have no chance. And everyone in Britain to agree with that. I mean, I think this is what you might say would be the revisionist case for appeasement, which is if you give Hitler every possible chance, then when the crunch comes...

You will have a united country where everybody says, look, clearly we gave him every opportunity. Apart from unity, of course. Apart from unity, Medford and Oswald Mosley. We gave him every opportunity and he showed himself to be a total and utter shyster. And the same reaction in France. Absolutely the same reaction in France. So in France, Deladier, the prime minister, who had been there in Munich, of course, looking like a snail, looking very miserable, said,

He says to his Chamber of Deputies, right, OK, fine. It's very clear now. We have to prepare for war. And they vote him emergency powers in the nation's defence after this moment. In Britain, every newspaper, The Observer, which had been a pro-appeasement newspaper, had said this was, and I quote, the most shameful and ominous page in the modern annals of Europe. The brilliant diarist, the Tory MP, Chips Channon, he'd been an ultra-appeaser, a massive admirer of Chamberlain.

No bolder, bolder departure from the written bond has ever been committed in history. The manner of its surpassed comprehension and Hitler's callous desertion of the prime minister is stupefying. I can never forgive him. So in other words, this business, I think, is not as famous actually as Munich or the attack on Poland. I think really, really matters. And Chamberlain at first doesn't quite get it.

Get it? He gives a speech in the House of Commons that's very perfunctory and doesn't quite match the mood of the moment. But then two days later, which is the 17th of March, he goes to give a speech in Birmingham across the Chamberlain Stronghold.

And he clearly, by this point, has changed his tune because he strikes his hardest line yet. He says, it's very clear now, Hitler intends, and I quote, to dominate the world by force. If that's right, we will stop him. He says, Britain will take part to the utmost of its power in resisting such a challenge if it were made. And I think here, actually, as in 1938,

He speaks for the nation. He's reflecting the public mood. You can see it in papers and letters and diaries in Britain and in France. With this attack on Czechoslovakia, Hitler really has crossed the line and there is no going back now. We know what kind of man he is. And so now Chamberlain is looking for, you know, he's abandoned Czechoslovakia. Yeah. But is there another country?

where he can kind of draw a red line along its border. Exactly. He's saying, where are we going to draw the line? And the very next day, 18th of March, he meets his cabinet and he says exactly that. Like, okay, we draw the line now. One more step and it is war. Where will Hitler's next challenge come? And Chamberlain is in no doubt, the key to the future of Europe, he says, will be Poland. Right. So let's take a break now. And when we're back, we will come at last to

to the country where, as everyone listening to this will know, the Second World War begins.

♪♪♪

Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. It's been a long sweep, hasn't it, this history of the rise of the Nazis. They're going to power, the road to the Second World War, and now at last the Second World War is hoving into view because we have come to the country for which Britain and France went to war to defend it, and that, of course, is Poland. Yes, so Poland. Polish History 101.

Poland had vanished from the map of Europe after 1795 for more than 120 years. It had been partitioned between the empires, as lots of people will know, between the empires of Russia, Prussia and Austria. And Poland got its independence back at the end of the First World War. And it's one of the largest countries in Central Europe. It's 31 million people. But Poland, unlike Czechoslovakia, is very, very rickety.

So because it's been carved out of three different end buyers, nothing is joined up. It doesn't even have a joined up railway network. Because they've all got different gauges. Yeah, exactly.

It's very rural by and large. A lot of it is very poor. A lot of the First World War in the East was fought in Poland, so it's scarred by war. Like a lot of Central European countries, it has an issue with minorities. Basically, it's meant to be an ethnic nation state, but you can't draw the boundaries perfectly. So they don't feel that diversity is their strength? They do not feel that diversity is their strength. Only about two-thirds of the population are ethnic Poles.

So if you look at the census, there's about 4 million Ukrainians. There are 3 million people who are identified in the census as Jews. There are a million Belarusians. There are almost a million Silesian Germans. And that, I guess, is the key thing for Hitler. Of course. In fact, again, unlike Czechoslovakia or far more than Czechoslovakia, none of Poland's neighbours like it.

Everybody thinks it's illegitimate. Everybody contests its borders. And it's an extraordinary thing that in the three years after 1918, the Poles fought six separate frontier wars. Well, I guess, I mean, if it's been reconstituted out of the territory of great empires, great powers...

then, I mean, that's inevitable, isn't it? Of course it is. They pretty much fight every single one of their neighbours, most famously the Soviet Union. They turn them back in the miracle on the Vistula when they defeat the Bolsheviks. You know, it's a terrible thing for the Poles. They're trapped between two much larger, much richer neighbours, both of whom regard Poland as illegitimate, and they are Germany and the Soviet Union. And you would have to say that being

Being trapped between Stalin and Hitler is not to have been served first prize in the lottery of life geopolitically, is it? No, it's not. To pick up an analogy that we mentioned in the last week's series about Munich, it's rather like you're on that plane strapped between Goering and Ribbentrop. And actually things don't get any better for the Poles. They suffer massive inflation and unemployment in the 1920s and 30s. A million people emigrate, mostly to the United States.

They can't sustain their democracy. So there's a coup in 1926 by the great wartime nationalist hero, Marshal Pilsudski. And then they have an authoritarian regime called the Sanatsia regime, which means the kind of healing regime. And this is a kind of nationalist authoritarian regime. The key person in this is probably the foreign minister called Josef Beck.

Beck is a Calvinist, very unusually for a Pole. And he's a kind of very clever satanized man, but everybody hates him. Well, except for Goering, I gather. Did Goering like him? Yeah, he did, because Beck had served in the German cavalry, I think. Right. During the war and was very pro-German. Like you, he strongly disliked the French. Oh, my word. Inevitably, he disliked the Russians. Right. So Goering, Goering's a funny man, isn't he? He's a strange man.

Henderson, Beck and Goering, they'd all had a great time going shooting things. Can I just ask, Czechoslovakia was a democracy. Yeah. And presumably that was part of why they were allies with Britain and France. Is it important that Poland isn't?

Poland isn't. Yeah. Is that an issue? I don't think it's a massive issue deep down because, of course, there are lots of countries at this point that are not democracies. And I think it would have been an easier sell if it was. But actually, the French, for example, the French are very Polonophile and have been for a very long time. Yeah, Chopin. They regard themselves as having a kind of special relationship with Poland. Yeah.

And in Britain, do people say, oh, the Poles, really? They're not a democracy? I don't think they do, actually. I don't think they give it that much thought deep down. They don't really know anything about the Poles. They don't really care what kind of government they have. The interesting thing is what Hitler and the Germans make of the Poles. So most Germans...

hold the Poles in very, very low regard. So in the 19th century, when a lot of Poland, of course, had been part of the Wilhelm Ein Reich, the Kaiser's regime, they had looked down on the Poles. Germans had said, well, the Poles are very backward. The Poles are very superstitious. They're very stupid. They actually had an expression, Polenwirtschaft, a Polish business, which meant kind of muddle and incompetence.

You know, they sort of looked on them, I suppose the analogy would be how people in the late 19th century in Britain talked about Ireland, actually, as a kind of, you know, oh, they can never govern themselves. They're so disorganized and they're so backward and primitive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how Germans think of the Poles. Even in the 1920s, lots of Germans said...

Look, in the long run, Poland will have to cease to exist again. There's no way we can live with a country called Poland on our eastern border. I mean, the head of the army of the Weimar Republic, General Hans von Siegt in 1922, said, Poland's existence is intolerable and incompatible with Germany's vital interests. It must and it will disappear through its own weakness and without help through Russia. So even then...

The Germans are thinking that perhaps they should carve it up with the Russians. Yeah, because they have done before, like the partitions of the 1790s. But even though it's actually, of course, not Russia anymore, it's the Soviet Union. But they think, you know, it's kind of the law of nature and of history that the Poles never govern themselves. A bit like, you know, the Kurds don't have a state. They'll be one of those people who never get a state of their own. OK, and so one guy who's very keen on this idea that the strong must prey on the weak is Hitler. What is his take on the Poles? Well, this is fascinating.

Hitler, who of course later on is perceived as incredibly anti-Polish, he doesn't have a strong view about Poland at all before 1938. He barely mentions Poland in Mein Kampf. And the obvious reason for this is that, of course, Hitler is not German. I mean, Hitler is Austrian. Yeah, he's much further south, isn't he? So that's why he hates the Czechs. Yeah. So he never really thinks about the Poles. Why would he? When he's in Vienna, the Galician Poles aren't massively playing on his mind. He doesn't care. Think about Warsaw and all of that kind of stuff.

And actually, in January 1934, he had overruled conservatives in the Foreign Office to sign a non-aggression treaty with Poland because he wanted to secure his eastern flank. But people are always talking about these non-aggression pacts and things. Yeah. Meaningless. They are meaningless, aren't they? They're totally meaningless. They're not worth the paper they're written on. No, unless you're Neville Chamberlain, in which case you love a piece of paper.

But I think it's fair to say Adolf Hitler is not a man who adheres to a non-aggression pact. I think that's the one lesson we can all take from these three seasons on the Nazis. But generally, I mean, do other powers stick by them? I mean, if the Soviet Union signs a non-aggression pact, for instance, I mean, were that to happen, do they think, yeah, we should stick with this? Or is that kind of bourgeois legalism? I think it depends on the country, doesn't it? I think if I signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin...

I wouldn't necessarily have a great deal of confidence in his word. If I signed a non-aggression pact with Neville Chamberlain or Deladier... Then you would. I would. Wouldn't you? Yes, I would. But I mean, all these non-aggression pacts that everyone is furiously signing with Germany and the Soviet Union, I mean, it just seems a waste of effort. They've wasted their time, Tom. I think it's fair to say. Good. I'm glad I've got that sorted. Right. So...

What does Hitler want to do with Poland? He's absolutely, even at the beginning of 1939, I'm not sure he's thinking about attacking and conquering it. He's thinking that Poland will just be a satellite, basically turn it into a client state, which is what he does with Slovakia and what he does with Hungary. Bind Poland to him as a loyal ally in the crusade against Bolshevism. And actually, you can see why he thinks he could do that. They have an authoritarian nationalist regime.

The Poles had rather let themselves down at Munich. Yeah, so Hitler's given them a chunk of Czechoslovakia. He has. The old Silesian Duchy of Teschen. Not the Silesian Duchy of Teschen. Yeah. The Czechs and the Poles had fought each other for this in 1919. The Czechs had got it.

And then the Poles snatch it back at the end of 1938. This actually makes them all pretty pro-German, doesn't it? And they all kind of rush around Warsaw shouting out, long live Hitler. Right. And actually, there's a very famous moment. So two days after Munich, they got it. And the Poles went in and the Czech general who handed it over to them, he said to the Polish general, well, you better make the most of this because I'll tell you what, you're going to be next. And the Poles are like, ha, ha, ha, that will never happen. And how wrong they were. Anyway, three weeks after that moment,

Ribbentrop asks the Polish ambassador, a man called Mr. Lipski, to come and see him. And he says, we actually have a bit of a problem that we need to discuss. You can imagine the blood draining from the Polish ambassador's face. So here is the problem. After the First World War, when Poland had been carved out of these empires, the peacemakers of Versailles

that Poland wasn't going to get any access to the sea at all because it was on the northern flank of Poland. It was all East Prussia, which is German, and Lithuania. And they realised...

that they needed to give Poland an air let to the sea. Otherwise, Germany in particular would have a complete stranglehold over Poland's trade, its exports and imports. So they'd carved out this Polish corridor, as they called it, which is quite narrow. The narrowest point is about 20 miles across. It went through West Prussia

So basically dividing Germany into two parts, into the main bit of the Reich and then East Prussia, and then the Polish corridor between them. And that's not the kind of thing that Hitler would approve of, is it? Not at all. Because the population of the Polish corridor is mixed. It is majority Polish, probably. I mean, this is very contested at the time by kind of rival census takers. But there's a very sizable German minority. And at the north end of this corridor...

on the coast, is the city of Danzig, or Dansk as it is today. And there is no doubt what kind of city Danzig is. It is a Hanseatic League German city. It looks kind of German. Now, it had belonged to Poland. It had belonged to the Teutonic Knights. It had belonged to Poland again. And then it had belonged to Prussia.

The population of Danzig is definitely majority German speaking, at least 90%. I mean, you can go to Gdansk today, which I have, it's the most amazing city to visit. It's incredibly rich architecturally and in history and whatnot. And it looks like a Hanseatic League city. However...

You know, Poland needs its outlet on the sea. So what the Versailles peacemakers did was they made Danzig a free city, an independent city-state under the supervision of the League of Nations.

So very Hanseatic. Yeah, very Hanseatic. It was governed by a Senate, basically a German Senate, but the Poles had the right to use the harbour and they were given a post office there and customs posts. And on this sort of peninsula across the harbour called the Westerplatte, which we'll be talking about a fair bit in the next couple of episodes, there was a Polish military garrison.

And this was a massive running sore. This was a massive affront to German nationalist conservatives, especially if you're Prussian or something. Because Danzig is a place in important role in Prussian hearts. Yeah, absolutely. You're like, this is a Prussian city. These people are Germans. It's not right that it's a free state. You know, it should really be part of the Reich. And who cares about the Poles? That's basically the German position.

So this is what Ribbentrop says to this ambassador. He says, right, we've had enough. We want Danzig back. We also want to be able to build a motorway and a railway across the Polish corridor, which we control.

We'll extend the non-aggression pact for another 25 years. Tom, I know your views on non-aggression pacts. There's a good deal. And we'd like you to join the anti-comintern pact to basically bind you into our alliance, our anti-Bolshevik alliance. The Polish guy says, all right, well, I'll take this back to Warsaw, see what they say. And the Poles reply very quickly and they say, absolutely no way. We can't allow ourselves to be cut off from the sea. They couldn't have built a road under Bolshevik.

the German motorway and railway. What, they could have undermined it with a road of their own? I mean, you'd have bridges. You could have a Polish motorway over the... To be fair, it's not motorway architecture that is the pointed issue. I'm just trying to think creatively. I'm just trying to think of ways that the Second World War could have been stopped. Of course you are. Neville Chamberlain joins us now on the podcast.

Just trying to think creatively. We're going to hear him from Lord Halifax now. Brilliant. Well, because let's face it, the consequences of the Poles deciding that they're going to resist German aggression for Poland. It's disastrous. And for millions and millions of Poles, and especially Jewish Poles, I mean, is literally genocidal. Correct. They are. But I'm just...

wondering whether there was any possibility of a kind of modus operandi that could have been struck. No. And the reason is because if they do this, they turn themselves completely into a satellite of Germany, which they are never, ever, ever going to do. Right. Okay. They think if we give them Danzig, we totally lose control of our trade. Germany will now control everything we export and everything we import because it has to go through this port pretty much. Or if it's going to go by land, it's got to go through Germany.

So we just turn ourselves completely into a puppet. If we join the anti-commentary pact,

you know, we are on Germany's side against Russia. Again, we lose control of our foreign policy. Yeah, and they're bordering Russia. We're not going to do that. The point is, Polish independence, which they fought for, which their forefathers have fought for for decades, for more than a century, they're not going to give that away, you know, like that. Now, Hitler at first thinks, oh, the Poles, they're being very difficult, but he doesn't immediately think, I'm going to attack them. He thinks they will see sense eventually. He

He invites Beck to the Eagle's Nest. Beck goes along to the Eagle's Nest, where Chamberlain went. And Beck says, look, you know, I can't help you. Polish public opinion will not allow us to give you these concessions. At this point, Hitler hasn't yet entered Prague. So he says to his aides, well, when I crush Czechoslovakia and I enter Prague, that will frighten the Poles and they will be more cooperative. So let's see if it does. Let's go forward in time to March.

Six days after Hitler has entered Prague as a conqueror, Ribbentrop again meets the Polish ambassador. And he says, right, I need Beck to come to Berlin.

We're running out of patience. Our newspapers have had enough. They're really putting pressure on us. If you give us Danzig, maybe we'll give you a little bit of Slovakia. We'll get a bit of Ukraine for you or something. Tell Beck to come anyway. We'll talk to him about it. And the ambassador five days later says, you know, Beck's not going to come. He doesn't want to come. You're not interested. He says he's not interested in anything that you could possibly offer him. And if you attack us, we'll fight you. Now, you may say, this is your point here, Tom. This is reckless. This is incredibly bold.

Beck's argument and the polls argument is we saw what happened to Czechoslovakia. I'm aware that I am being inconsistent here because I've been encouraging the Czechs to resist. Yeah. But I suppose also at this point, the polls think that they're only facing a conflict on one of their borders. They are indeed. They don't think there's any possibility of, say, an

an alliance between the Soviet Union. They absolutely don't. The Poles think, look, we saw with the Czechs what happened when you appease Hitler. When you give in to him, he just nibbles more and more and more and eventually he comes back for the lot.

The only way to stand up to him is just to draw a red line and to say no, and then maybe he'll back off. And Beck gives this amazing speech actually to the same, which is the Polish parliament. He says, peace is a precious and desirable thing. Our generation blooded in war certainly deserves peace. But peace, like almost all things of this world, has its price, a high but immeasurable one.

We in Poland do not know the concept of peace at any price. There is only one thing in the lives of men, nations and countries that is without price. And that thing is honour. And that's the attitude that a Prussian nobleman should respect. And it reflects poorly on Prussian noblemen. They don't respect it in this case. Now, Beck is confident that he can back this up because he has sent feelers out to London saying that

Will you back me up here? Please, will you support me? Now, we heard before the break, Chamberlain has already changed his policy and he thinks we need to deter Hitler. And his military chiefs are quite keen on an alliance with Poland because, of course, what they want is if there's a war with Hitler, they want Hitler to be fighting on two fronts, west and east. But, of course, there's no, I mean, real practical possibility of British armed forces.

aid reaching Poland? No, and we will come to this in the next couple of episodes, that unfortunately there is a difference of opinion between London and Warsaw about whether or not Britain can actually help Poland. As we shall see, Britain doesn't.

Now, the French are also keen on an alliance with Poland. They've got a long history of friendship. And Deladier says to London, yeah, we'll fight for Danzig. You know, that's our red line. That's fine. That's the context for Chamberlain going to the House of Commons on the 31st of March 1939 and delivering his famous guarantee that if Polish independence is threatened and if Poland resists...

His Majesty's government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish government all support in their power. Now, you made this point just a second ago. What does that actually mean? Like, what could the British actually do? Britain is a long way from Poland and Germany is in the way. So realistically, what can we do? And actually, even at this point, Chamberlain's military chief say to him,

if Hitler does attack Poland, we're probably not going to do anything. There's nothing much we can practically do to help the Poles. But I suppose what Chamberlain would say in his defense is he doesn't see this as a last step, but as a first step. So he is thinking, we'll get Poland, then we'll maybe get Romania in an alliance, and ideally, maybe the Soviet Union. Well, because that was the card...

that he could potentially have played over the Czech crisis. Yeah. But doesn't. I mean, that's the one card I'm guessing that Hitler would have. Yes, agreed. Of course, that's a very difficult card for any British government, especially a conservative government, to play. They regard the Soviet Union really as the ideological archenemy and have done for 20 years.

The Bolshevik, Stalin's regime, a blood-soaked regime, rumors, reports of the Great Terror coming out. There's been rumors of the famine in Ukraine and the Holodomor. There are big obstacles to a deal with the Soviet Union. And one of the biggest, by the way, is the Poles. The Poles

When they hear talk of this, they're like, what? The Russians? We hate the Russians. No way are we doing an alliance with the Russians. Are the British and the French, are they sufficiently alert to the fact that the Soviet Union is the great object of Nazi hatred? Yeah, they know that. They know that Hitler has rancid and raved about the Soviet Union

for, you know, more than a decade. So the Soviet Union is quite keen on the idea of the capitalist powers fighting themselves, say Britain, France and Germany. Yeah. I mean, is there any enthusiasm in Paris and London for the notion that the Nazis and the Soviets fight each other and we just sit back and watch them? Yes, absolutely. Somebody at Naval Chamberlain would have said to you, that's the dream, that basically they'll destroy each other.

They're both terrible regimes and I hope they fight and they both lose. That's exactly what a lot of people in Britain and indeed in France would have said, I should say. Right, okay. Does the Polish alliance complicate that? Because obviously Poland lies between Germany and the Soviet Union. So if they're allying with Poland, that complicates that strategy. So I think at this point, in March 1939, when they give the guarantee, they realise, of course, the next war is not going to be Hitler versus Stalin.

The war that they're trying to avert is Hitler versus Poland. So Hitler versus Stalin is off the table as a war, realistically, at that point. I just wonder whether they war game it and think if Hitler marches into Poland and seizes Poland, that is then a threat directly on the Soviet Union's doorstep. I mean, that's got to provoke a response, hasn't it? Wouldn't it be better to just sit back?

and let these two monstrous regimes fight each other. No, I don't think they think sitting back is an option at this point because they think they've sat back too much already. There's no appetite for sitting back at all at this point. All the momentum, all the kind of psychological momentum, political momentum is for deterrence. They feel they have to make a stand here.

And they can't just sit this one out. That's the mentality that got them into this mess in the first place would be the argument. Don't you think there's maybe an argument that this actually would have been a good time to apply that strategy in a kind of bleak cynicism? Do you know who would probably make that argument? John Charmley, the historian John Charmley. Are you familiar with him? What's his name? The realist guy over Ukraine. Mearsheimer. John Mearsheimer. He might make this argument, but I wouldn't make it personally. I think they were right to try to deter Hitler in the States. Well, it's not about right. It's about what's kind of cynically wrong.

The most effective. Yeah. You know who's a big fan of Mearsheimer, the realist, uh, Putinophile? Theo. Oh, of course he is. He is a massive fan of John Mearsheimer. Yes. It's one of Theo's worst takes, I think, in my mind. Anyway, that's by the by. Right. Hitler hears about the guarantee to, uh, don't cut that out, Theo. You're better than that. Oh,

Hitler is about the guarantee to Poland and he is stunned. See, this is Hitler misreading things, which he's doing at this point. Hitler can't believe it. He can't believe that the Poles would stand up to him and he cannot believe that the British would be so

in his mind, deranged as to give Poland a guarantee. And Admiral Canaris, the intelligence chief, was with him at the Reich Chancellery when he heard the news and he has this description of Hitler. Hitler flew into a passion. With features distorted by fury, he stormed up and down his room, pounded his fists on the marble tabletop and spewed forth a series of savage imprecations.

Then with his eyes flashing with an uncanny light, he growled the threat, I will brew them a devil's potion.

I've always been struck by that because it just seems such a bizarre threat to make. I will brew them a death. Must be some German expression, no? Do you think, Tom? I guess. I mean, it's not an expression that people are bandying around in the 1930s. Hitler's been spending too much time with Wagner. That's what it is, isn't it? Yeah, maybe. I mean, if the devil is the embodiment of evil, he does what he brews for Poland. I mean, it is the essence of evil. It is. It is. But you wouldn't say that of yourself, would you? I don't know. I mean, I find it striking that he talks in...

I know it's just a phrase, but kind of implicit theological terms, because in the long run, what happens in Nazi-occupied Poland will change.

raise all kinds of questions about evil and the absence of good. Absolutely it does. So inevitably now he tells his generals to draw up their plans for war and they present him on the 11th of April with a plan for Fallweiss, case or operation white. So they're all colours aren't they? They're always colours, yeah. Green, white and so on. The blueprint for the invasion of Poland which their plan is to begin in September. And um

The army chief of staff, General Halder, he briefs the senior officers. He says, we're going to destroy the Polish army at record speed. We're going to stop the British intervening. He says, the Poles are no serious opponents. We know we can defeat the Poles. But even at this point, Halder says to the other officers,

This is not going to be an ordinary war. We are going to take the SS and we are going to take Nazi paramilitary formations with us. We must ensure that, and I quote, Poland as rapidly as possible is not only defeated, but liquidated. And do we have a sense of what that means? Well, we'll come to this in the next couple of episodes, exactly what that means. At this point, it is vague.

So he might be talking about the state. Yes. But he might, I mean, be talking about people. Yes, exactly. Exactly. We're going to do it in three weeks, Halder says, and then we will be ready either to confront Bolshevism or to hurl our army against the West. So at this point, there is still a question mark there. After we've finished with Poland, do we go West or do we go East? And now...

We had a few twists last week. Here is the biggest. One of the most momentous, ominous and extraordinary twists in world diplomatic history. Yeah. I mean, it's the greatest coup de t'artre in the history of diplomacy, I would guess. It is. Because it's about this point, April 1939, that some of Hitler's courtiers begin kind of quietly to discuss a U-turn that would change everything.

And they mention it to Hitler. And when they first mention it to Hitler, he says, I don't know about this. That would be a massive ideological shift. I'm not sure about it. And then a couple of weeks later, in early May 1939, the story goes that Ribbentrop shows him footage of another world leader reviewing a military parade. And Hitler watches this footage intently and he's staring at this bloke's face, like it said, like he had taken a fancy to him.

And then at last he says, he looks like a man that you could do business with. And that man is Stalin. Well, Dominic, what a twist. What a bombshell. And we will be back on Thursday to see how the rapprochement between these two mustachioed dictators with a taste for killing people works out.

But if you can't wait to hear about the Nazi-Soviet pact, which will be the subject of our next episode, and then our final episode, the countdown to the Second World War and the tragic story of the fall of Poland, then you can hear all three episodes right now by joining the Rest Is History Club at therestishistory.com. Goodbye. Goodbye.