5
Dec. 45
humble,
though the President of a sovereign state. He
thanked Hitler for receiving him and he said he
knew that the fate of Czechoslovakia rested in
the Führer's hands. Hitler replied that he
regretted that he had been forced to ask Hacha
to come to Berlin, particularly because of the
great age of the President. Hacha was then, I
believe, in his seventies. But this journey,
Hitler told the President, could be of great
advantage to his country because, and I quote, "It
was only a matter of hours until Germany would
intervene." I quote now from the top of
Page 3 of the English translation. You will bear
in mind that what I am reading are rough notes
or minutes of what Adolf Hitler said:
"Slovakia
was a matter of indifference to him. If
Slovakia had kept closer to Germany it
would have been an obligation to
Germany, but he was glad that he did not
have this obligation now. He had no
interests whatsoever in the territory
east of the Little Carpathian Mountains.
He did not want to draw the final
consequences in the autumn. . . ."
THE
PRESIDENT: Mr. Alderman, don't you think you
ought to read the last sentence on Page 2?
MR.
ALDERMAN: Perhaps so; yes. The last sentence
from the preceding page was:
"For
the other countries Czechoslovakia was
nothing but a means to an end. London
and Paris were not in a position to
really stand up for Czechoslovakia.
"Slovakia was a matter of
indifference to him."
Then
I had read down to:
"But
even at that time and also later in his
conversations with Chvalkowsky he made
it clear that he would ruthlessly smash
this State if Beneš' tendencies
were not completely revised. Chvalkowsky
understood this and asked the Führer
to have patience." — He often
bragged of his patience. — "The
Führer saw this point of view, but
the months went by without any change.
The new regime did not succeed in
eliminating the old one psychologically.
He observed this from the press,
mouth-to-mouth propaganda, dismissals of
Germans, and many other things which, to
him, were a symbol of the total
perspective.
"At first he
had not understood this but when it
became clear to him he drew his
consequences because, had the
development continued in this way, the
relations with Czechoslovakia would in a
few years have become the same as 6
months ago. Why did Czechoslovakia not
immediately reduce its Army to a
reasonable size? Such an army was a