PAGE 4 HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
Sir Nevile Henderson:
INSTALMENT
NINE
September, 1938. The Sudeten
lands were aflame. The quarrel. which Hitler had picked with Corcho- Slovakia had reached its climax. War seemed inevitable.
Mr. Chamberlain flew to Berchtes- gaden to meet Hitler. Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador in Berlin until the outbreak of svar, des- - cribed yesterday what passed at that meeting.
To-day, he reveals the secrets of Mr. Chamberlain's second visit to the Fuchrer.
+
second meeting between the Prime
TMinister and Hitler wook place at Godesberg.
Nothing this time was left undone to minister to our comfort and to create the best possible impression. A guard of honour was awaiting Mr. Chamberlain's inspection at the Cologne nerodrome, and a band greoted him with "God Save the King."
He drove from the aero- drome to the Petersberg Hotel at Godesberg with Ribbentrop. On the opposite side of the river favourite
to us 1er had taken up his quarters at one of his
IL
haunts, an hotel kept by one Dree- sen, who had been a companion of hla curly struggle for power. was thither that Mr. Chamberlain and his party proceeded for his meeting with Hitler ut 5 p.m. that 22nd of September:
To get there, it was necessary to cross the river by ferry, which was done under the eyes of thou- sands of onlookers, who lined the banks In a manner reminiscent of the Varsity boat-race day.
Hitler met the Prime Minister at the door of the hotel, and led him without delay to a room upstairs. They sat down at one end of the long baize-covered table, and the proceedings began.
The German populace by Whic river, had demonstrated its uncon- cealed and spontaneous pleasure at Boeing the British Prime Minister, whom they recognised as the har- binger of peace, but Hitler himself was in an uncompromising mood.
Mr. Chamberlain opened the proceedings by recalling that t Berchtesgaden he bad agreed in principle to the right of the Sude- ten Germatu to self-determina- tion; and, that he had undertaken to endeavour to obtain the assent of his Cabinet and of the French Government,
"It is no Longer enough'
Within a very short lapse of time he had, he continued, been able to obtain the assent of the British Cabinet; the French Ministers had visited London and had likewise, agreed; and furthermore, the ne quiescence of the Czecho-Slovak Government had been secured.
He accordingly outlined the steps which in his opinion should now be taken to arrange for the pence- ful transfer of the Sudeten terri- tory.
When the Prime Minister had finlied, fler aked whether he
From right: Hitler, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop (back to camera), Army. Chief General von Brauchitsch, Navy Chief Admiral Käeder, Chief of Staff General Keitel..
HOW HITLER CHEATED CHAMBERLAIN
He was using the claims of the Polen and the Hungarians and the plight of the Sudeten refugees, which his own agents had manipu- fated, as a pretext which possibly satisfied his own facile conscience, to break his word Mr. Cham- berlain.
Godesberg was the real turning point in Anglo-German relations, and I have always felt that I was there that Hitter made the Arst of his big political mistakes.
He had cheated the British Prime Minister and, by letting him down, therby prepared the way for the revulsion of feeling in England against Millerisin and its methods, which was to become complete after the occupation of Prague in March, 1939.
The first interview at Gödesberi: thus ended without any reference to a subsequent meeting, and until the late afternoon of the following day I looked as if there might be поле.
Chamberlain
was to understand that the British, Tries again
French and Czechio-Slovak Govern- ments had in effect agreed to the transfer of the Sudeten territory from Czecho-Slovakia to Germany. Prime Minister replied:
The
"Yes."
There was a slight pune, a silence in which Hiler appeared for a moment to be making his mind.
up
He then said decisively: "I am exceedingly sorry, but that is no longer of any use."
The Prime Minister expressed his surprise and indignation; he could not be expected, he declar- ed, to ret
return to London with fresh proposals and demands only. to be faced once more with the re- joinder that they were no longer Adequate.
shifted the Hitler thereupon blame by explaining that it was claims the Hungarian and Pollalı which had now to be met.
His friendship with these two countries demanded, he said, that he should give them full support.
To which the Prime Minister re- torted that on Hitler's own show- ing, these claims had not the same urgency as Ulc question of the Sudeten Germans, and that the claims could Hungarian-Poilali only be considered after the Sude- ten problem had been solved in an' orderly manner,
When the discussion thereupon reverted to Mr. Chamberlain's pro- posals. Her declined flatly to conalier them on the ground that they involved too much delny,
Instead, he demanded that the German-speaking areas should be ceded forthwith and occupied by German troops.
This, Mr. Chamberlain in turn declined to accept, and after three hours of somewhat exacerbated debate, the meeting adjourned.
The deadlock that night and most of the next day seemed com- plete. Hitler, having secured one position, was already advancing on the next.
He was no longer prepared to execute his part of the bargain at Berchtesgaden and to discuss quiet». ly the ways and means of a settle- ment.
Two written communications were exchanged in the course of the day without producing any modifications of the respective positions.
The British Press even reported that the negotiations had definitely broken down, and in the Interval London informed Prague that t could no advise against o Czech mobilisutton, while polnting out. nevertheless. that mobilisation might precipitate a conflict.
The Prime Minister's patience was, however, not yet finally ex- hausted.
He was unwilling to refuse dia- cussion of proposals which he had not actually seen in writing, and at 5.m. that afternoon he instructed Sir Horace Wilson and myself to see Ribbentrop and to suggest that Hitler should embody the exact na- ture of his proposals for the occupa- tion of the Sudeten lands in official document.
A
It might have been anticiputed that Hitler would reject this re- quest on the ground that he had proposals suelenily hils clear verbally in the course of the conversation on the preceding day.
made
But the war party in Germany was also not yet finally in the ascendant.
Mr. Chamberlain's refusal to re- new contact had provoked some consternation among the mode- rates in the German
camp, and Hitler, in view of the high hopes placed by the German people in Mr. Chamberlain's Intervention was reluctant to break off the negotiations,
Ribbentrop was' accordingly in- structed to inform us that à Ger- man memorandurn would be pre- pared.
At 10.30 that night the conver- sations were resumed.
much
Although Hitler was in less truculent mood and even made nn effort to appear conciliatory. his memorandum showed that lie
"Willing to work with us for peace in Europe": Signor Mussolini meeting Mr. Neville Chamberlain in the Fuhrer's House, Munich, for the conference which ended in the
famous agreement,~
had not moderated his demands, berlain. "to whom, I have ever which were presented in a mosi, made a concession." peremptory form and described by Hitler or his Inst word.
In this document he required the Czechs to begin the evacuation of the predominantly Sudeten areas at 0 a.m. on September 26, and to complete it by September 28.
Thus, the Czecho-Slovak Govern- ment was to be given a bure forty- eight hours to issue the necessary orders, and only four days in which to evacuate the whole of the Sude- ten land.
It is characterisile of Hitler's methods of argument that when the Prime Minister pointed aut that this was a sheer Dletate (the word always applied by Hitler to the Treaty of Versailles) imposed on a country voluntarily surren- dering a part of its territory without having been defeated in war, the Chancellor replied:
It is not a Dictate: look, the document is headed by. the word
memorandum'"* ·
In the course of the lung dis- cussion which followed. Iller agreed to modify hi time-table slightly, and he also made in lils own handwriting a, number of minor alterations designed 10 nt- tenuate the asperity of the memorandumi.
"You are the only man," he said somewhat bitterly to Mr. Cham-
The Fuehrer
Was relieved
pro-
He appeared, however, relieved when the Prime Minister finally sold that, while he could not accept or recommend the Germun posals, he could nevertheless, as an intermediary, not refuse to sub- mit them to the Czecho-Slovak Government.
Hitler had no desire that the German people should think that the negotiations had broken down as the result of his own intransi- gency.
He was none the less bent on the military occupation of Czecho-Sla- vakia. He tumself was prepared to risk war with Britain, but, on the other hand, his military advisers were not.
On the following morning the Prime Minister left by air again for London. Thanks to the energy anil drive of Colonel Mason-Mac- farlane (of the British Embassy), the Germans memorandum and the map with
line the Godesberg marked on it were in the hands of the Czech Government the zamo night.
It bact mcan! Mason-Macfur- kine's flying back to Berlin, motor- ing to the Czech frontier and then walking ten kilometres in the dark through Czech barbed wire and other entanglements, at the con- stant risk of being shot as a calder by either Germans or Czcelts.
The peak of the crisis was reach- ed after Godesberg. The French mobilised half-a-million men, and the Admiralty, the British Fleet. The French Government re- nfirmed their intention to support Czecho-Slovakia if attacked, and simi- His Majesty's Government
erly reasserted their position in necordance.
the with
Prime Minister's statement of March 24.
British
Stait talks between the and French army chiefs were sumed, and the Czech Government, encouraged by these demonstra- tions of solidarity, refused to accept the Godesberg memorandum.
It looked us if war was inevitable over the point as to the date and munner in which the terrliories, which the Czechs had agreed to cede to Germany, were to be hand- ed over...
TO-MORROW:
Hitler shouts "I will smash the Czechs!"-"By next Monday, we shall all be at war."-A procession that changed the Fuehrer's mind. Goering calls Rib- bentrop a criminal fool.— Italy's eleventh hour inter- vention.
STOLEN FROM THE SOUTH SEAS MAIDEN
Wednesday, MAY J, 1940.
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