rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

CZECHOSLOVAKIA CEASES TO EXIST 395Army, and Keitel, Chief of OKW. Though they may not have realized it, theSlovaks also found the Fuehrer in a characteristic mood. Here again, thanks tothe captured confidential minutes of the meeting, we may peer into the weirdmind of the German dictator, rapidly giving way to megalomania, and watchhim spinning his fantastic lies and uttering his dire threats in a manner and toan extent which he no doubt was sure would never come to public attention. 447”Czechoslovakia,” he said, ”owed it only to Germany that she had not beenmutilated further.” The Reich had exhibited ”the greatest self-control.” Yet theCzechs had not appreciated this. ”During recent weeks,” he went on, workinghimself up easily to a fine lather, ”conditions have become impossible. The oldBenes spirit has come to life again.”The Slovaks had also disappointed him. After Munich he had ”fallen out”with his friends the Hungarians by not permitting them to grab Slovakia. Hehad thought Slovakia wanted to be independent.He had now summoned Tiso in order to clear up this question in avery short time. ∗ . . . The question was: Did Slovakia want to leadan independent existence or not? . . . It was a question not of daysbut of hours. If Slovakia wished to become independent he wouldsupport and even guarantee it . . . If she hesitated or refused to beseparated from Prague, he would leave the fate of Slovakia to eventsfor which he was no longer responsible.At this point, the German minutes reveal, Ribbentrop ”handed to theFuehrer a report just received announcing Hungarian troop movements on theSlovak frontier. The Fuehrer read this report, told Tiso of its contents, andexpressed the hope that Slovakia would reach a decision soon.”Tiso did not give his decision then. He asked the Fuehrer to ”pardon him if,under the impact of the Chancellor’s words, he could make no definite decisionat once.” But the Slovaks, he quickly added, ”would prove themselves worthyof the Fuehrer’s benevolence.”This they did in a conference which continued far into the night at theForeign Ministry. According to the Nuremberg testimony of Keppler, who hadbeen Hitler’s secret agent in Bratislava, as he had been the year before in Viennaon the eve of the Anschluss, the Germans helped Tiso draft a telegram, whichthe ”Premier” was to send as soon as he returned to Bratislava, proclaimingSlovakia’s independence and urgently requesting the Fuehrer to take over theprotection of the new state. 448 It is reminiscent of the ”telegram” dictated byGoering just a year before in which Seyss-Inquart was to appeal to Hitler tosend German troops to Austria. By this tune the Nazi ”telegram” techniquehad been perfected. The telegram, considerably abridged, was duly dispatchedby Tiso on March 16, and Hitler immediately replied that he would be glad to”take over the protection of the Slovak State.”At the Foreign Office that night Ribbentrop also drafted the Slovak proclamationof ”independence” and had it translated into Slovak in time for Tisoto take it back to Bratislava, where the ”Premier” read it – in slightly alteredform, as one German agent reported – to Parliament on the following day, Tuesday,March 14. Attempts by several Slovak deputies to at least discuss it weresquelched by Karmasin, the leader of the German minority, who warned that∗ Italics in the original German minutes.