Joachim Von Ribbentrop - Munich Agreement and Czechoslovakia's Destruction

Munich Agreement and Czechoslovakia's Destruction

Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, (the State Secretary 1938–1943) opposed the general trend in German foreign policy towards attacking Czechoslovakia: he feared that it might cause a general war that Germany would lose. Weizsäcker had no moral objections to the idea of destroying Czechoslovakia; he was only opposed to the timing of the attack. Weizsäcker favoured the idea of a "chemical" destruction of Czechoslovakia in which Germany, Hungary, and Poland would close their frontiers to destabilize Czechoslovakia economically. He strongly disliked Ribbentrop's idea of a "mechanical" destruction of Czechoslovakia via war, which he saw as too risky. But despite all of their reservations and fears about Ribbentrop—whom they saw as recklessly seeking to plunge Germany into a general war before the Reich was ready—neither Weizsäcker nor any of the other professional diplomats were prepared to confront their chief.

Before the Anglo-German summit at Berchtesgaden on 15 September 1938, Henderson and Weizsäcker worked out a private arrangement that Hitler and Chamberlain were to meet with no advisers present as a way of excluding the ultra-hawkish Ribbentrop from attending the talks. Hitler's interpreter Paul Schmidt later recalled that it was "felt that our Foreign Minister would prove a disturbing element" at the Berchtesgaden summit. In a moment of pique at his exclusion from the Chamberlain-Hitler meeting, Ribbentrop refused to hand over to Chamberlain Schmidt's notes of the summit, a move which caused much annoyance on the British side. Ribbentrop spent the last weeks of September 1938 looking forward very much to the German-Czechoslovak war he expected to break out on 1 October 1938. Ribbentrop regarded the Munich Agreement as a diplomatic defeat for Germany, as it deprived Germany of the opportunity to wage the war to destroy Czechoslovakia that Ribbentrop wanted to see; the Sudetenland issue, which was the ostensible subject of the German-Czechoslovak dispute, had been just a pretext for German aggression. During the Munich Conference, Ribbentrop spent much of his time brooding unhappily in the corners. Ribbentrop told the head of Hitler's Press Office, Fritz Hesse, that the Munich Agreement was "first-class stupidity...All it means is that we have to fight the English in a year, when they will be better armed...It would have been much better if war had come now". Like Hitler, Ribbentrop was determined that in the next crisis, Germany would not have its professed demands met in another Munich-type summit, and that the next crisis to be caused by Germany would result in the war that Chamberlain had "cheated" the Germans out of at Munich.

In the aftermath of Munich, Hitler was in a violently anti-British mood caused in part by his rage over being "cheated" out of the war to "annihilate" Czechoslovakia that he very much wanted to have in 1938, and in part by his realization that Britain would neither ally herself nor stand aside in regard to Germany's ambition to dominate Europe. As a consequence, after Munich, Britain was considered to be the main enemy of the Reich, and as a result, the influence of ardently Anglophobic Ribbentrop correspondingly rose with Hitler.

Partly for economic reasons, and partly out of fury over being "cheated" out of war in 1938, in early 1939, Hitler decided to destroy the rump state of Czecho-Slovakia (as Czechoslovakia had been renamed in October 1938). Ribbentrop played an important role in setting in motion the crisis that was to result in the end of Czecho-Slovakia by ordering German diplomats in Bratislava to contact Father Jozef Tiso, the Premier of the Slovak regional government, and pressuring him to declare independence from Prague. When Tiso proved reluctant to do so on the grounds that the autonomy that had existed since October 1938 was sufficient for him, and to completely sever links with the Czechs would leave Slovakia open to being annexed by Hungary, Ribbentrop had the German Embassy in Budapest contact the Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy. Admiral Horthy was advised that the Germans might be open to having more of Hungary restored to former borders, and that the Hungarians should best start concentrating troops on their northern border at once if they were serious about changing the frontiers. Upon hearing of the Hungarian mobilization, Tiso was presented with the choice of either declaring independence with the understanding that the new state would be in the German sphere of influence, or seeing all of Slovakia absorbed into Hungary. When as a result, Tiso had the Slovak regional government issue a declaration of independence on 14 March 1939, the ensuing crisis in Czech-Slovak relations was used as a pretext to summon the Czecho-Slovak President Emil Hácha to Berlin over his "failure" to keep order in his country. On the night of 14–15 March 1939, Ribbentrop played a key role in the German annexation of the Czech part of Czecho-Slovakia by bullying the Czechoslovak President Hácha into transforming his country into a German protectorate at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. On 15 March 1939, German troops occupied the Czech area of Czecho-Slovakia, which then became the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On 20 March 1939, Ribbentrop summoned the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys to Berlin and informed him that if a Lithuanian plenipotentiary did not arrive at once to negotiate turning over the Memelland to Germany the Luftwaffe would raze Kaunas to the ground. As a result of Ribbentrop's ultimatum on 23 March, the Lithuanians agreed to return Memel (modern Klaipėda, Lithuania) to Germany.

In March 1939, Ribbentrop assigned the largely ethnic Ukrainian Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia region of Czecho-Slovakia, which had just proclaimed its independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, to Hungary, which then proceeded to annex it after a short war. The significance of this lies in that there had been many fears in the Soviet Union in the 1930s that the Germans would use Ukrainian nationalism as a tool for breaking up the Soviet Union. The establishment of an autonomous Ukrainian region in Czecho-Slovakia in October 1938 had promoted a major Soviet media campaign against its existence on the grounds that this was part of a Western plot to support separatism in the Soviet Ukraine. By allowing the Hungarians to destroy Europe's only Ukrainian state, Ribbentrop had signified that Germany was not interested (at least for the moment) in sponsoring Ukrainian nationalism. This in turn helped to improve German-Soviet relations by demonstrating that German foreign policy was now primarily anti-Western rather than anti-Soviet.

Initially, Germany hoped to transform Poland into a satellite state, but by March 1939 German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide, with enthusiastic support from Ribbentrop, upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939. On 21 March 1939, Hitler first went public with his demand that Danzig rejoin the Reich and for "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor. This marked a significant escalation of the German pressure on Poland, which until then had been confined to private meetings between German and Polish diplomats. That same day, on 21 March 1939, Ribbentrop presented a set of demands to the Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski about Poland allowing the Free City of Danzig to return to Germany in such violent and extreme language that it led to the Poles to fear their country was on the verge of an immediate German attack. Ribbentrop had used such extreme language, in particular his remark that if Germany had a different policy towards the Soviet Union then Poland would cease to exist, that it led to the Poles ordering partial mobilization and placing their armed forces on the highest state of alert on 23 March 1939. In a protest note at Ribbentrop's behaviour, Colonel Beck reminded the German Foreign Minister that Poland was an independent country and was not some sort of German protectorate which Ribbentrop could bully at will. Ribbentrop in turn sent out instructions to the German Ambassador in Warsaw, Count Hans-Adolf von Moltke, that if Poland agreed to the German demands, then Germany would ensure that Poland could partition Slovakia with Hungary and be ensured of German support for annexing the Ukraine. If the Poles rejected his offer, then Poland would be considered an enemy of the Reich. On 26 March, in an extremely stormy meeting with the Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski, Ribbentrop accused the Poles of attempting to bully Germany by their partial mobilization and violently attacked them for only offering consideration of the German demand about the "extra-territorial" roads. The meeting ended with Ribbentrop screaming that if Poland were to invade the Free City, then Germany would go to war to destroy Poland. When the news of Ribbentrop's remarks was leaked to the Polish press despite Colonel Beck's order to the censors on 27 March, it caused anti-German riots in Poland with the local N.S.D.A.P headquarters in the ethnically mixed town of Lininco destroyed by a mob. On 28 March, Colonel Beck told Moltke that if any attempt to change the status of Danzig unilaterally would be regarded by Poland as a casus belli. Though the Germans were not planning an attack on Poland in March 1939, Ribbentrop's bullying behaviour towards the Poles destroyed whatever faint chance there was of Poland allowing Danzig to return to Germany.

The German occupation of the Czech area of Czecho-Slovakia on the Ides of March, in total contravention of the Munich Agreement that had been signed less than six months before, infuriated British and French public opinion and lost Germany all sympathy. Such was the state of public fury that it appeared possible for several days afterwards that the Chamberlain government might fall due to a backbencher rebellion. Even Ribbentrop’s standard line that Germany was only reacting to an unjust Versailles treaty, and really only wanted peace with everyone, which had worked so well in the past, failed to carry weight. Reflecting the changed mood, the Conservative M.P Alfred Duff Cooper wrote in a letter to The Times:

“Some of us are getting rather tired of the sanctimonious attitude which seeks to take upon our shoulders the blame for every crime committed in Europe. If Germany had been left stronger in 1919 she would sooner have been in a position to do what she is doing today”.

Moreover, the British government had genuinely believed in the German claim that it was only the Sudetenland that concerned them, and that Germany was not seeking to dominate Europe. By occupying the Czech part of Czecho-Slovakia, Germany lost all credibility with its claim to be only righting the alleged wrongs of Versailles. Shortly afterwards, false reports spread in mid-March 1939 by the Romanian minister in London, Virgil Tilea, that his country was on the verge of an immediate German attack, led to a dramatic U-turn in British policy of resisting commitments in Eastern Europe. Ribbentrop denied correctly that Germany was going to invade Romania, but since his denials were issued in almost identical language to the denials that he had issued in early March, when he denied that anything was being planned against the Czechs, this increased rather than diminished the “Romanian war scare” of March 1939. From the British point of view, it was regarded as highly desirable to keep Romania and its oil out of German hands; since Germany had hardly any natural supplies of oil, the ability of the Royal Navy to successfully impose a blockade represented a British trump card both to deter war, and if necessary, win a war. If Germany were to occupy oil-rich Romania, this would undercut all of the British strategic assumptions based on Germany's need to import oil from the Americas. Since Poland was regarded as the East European state with the most powerful army, it became imperative to tie Poland to Britain as the best way of ensuring Polish support for Romania, since it was the obvious quid pro quo that Britain would have to do something for Polish security if the Poles were to be induced to do something for Romanian security. On 31 March 1939, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain announced before the House of Commons the British “guarantee” of Poland, which committed Britain to go to war to defend Polish independence, though pointedly the “guarantee” excluded Polish frontiers. As a result of the "guarantee" of Poland, Hitler began to speak with increasing frequency of a British "encirclement" policy, and used the “encirclement” policy as the excuse for denouncing in a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April 1939 the A.G.N.A and the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland.

In late March, Ribbentrop had the German chargé d'affaires in Turkey, Hans Kroll, start pressuring Turkey into an alliance with Germany. The Turks assured Kroll that they had no objection to Germany making the Balkans their economic sphere of influence, but would regard any move to make the Balkans into a sphere of German political influence as most unwelcome.

In April 1939, when Ribbentrop announced at a secret meeting of the Foreign Office's senior staff that Germany was ending talks with the Poles and was instead going to destroy Poland in an operation late that year, the news was greeted joyfully by those present. Anti Polish feelings had long been rampant in the agency, and so in marked contrast to their cool attitude about attacking Czechoslovakia in 1938, diplomats like Weizsäcker were highly enthusiastic about the prospect of war with Poland in 1939. Professional diplomats like Weizsäcker who had never accepted the legitimacy of Poland, which they saw as an "abomination" created by the Versailles treaty, were whole-hearted in their support of a war to wipe Poland off the map. This degree of unity within the German government with both the diplomats and the military united in their support of Hitler's anti-Polish policy, which stood in contrast to their views the previous year about destroying Czechoslovakia, very much encouraged Hitler and Ribbentrop with their chosen course of action.

In April 1939, Ribbentrop received intelligence that Britain and Turkey were negotiating an alliance intended to keep Germany out of the Balkans. On 23 April 1939 the Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu told the British Ambassador of his nation's fears of Italian claims of the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum and German control of the Balkans, and suggested an Anglo-Soviet-Turkish alliance as the best way of countering the Axis. As the Germans had broken the Turkish diplomatic codes, Ribbentrop was well aware as he warned in a circular to German embassies that Anglo-Turkish talks had gone much further "than what the Turks would care to tell us". Ribbentrop appointed von Papen Germany's ambassador in Ankara with instructions to win Turkey to an alliance with Germany. Ribbentrop had been attempting to appoint Papen as an Ambassador to Turkey since April 1938. His first attempt ended in failure when the Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who remembered Papen well with considerable distaste from World War I, refused to accept him as Ambassador, complaining in private the nomination of Papen must have been meant as some sort of German sick joke. The German Embassy in Ankara had been vacant ever since the retirement of the previous ambassador Friedrich von Keller in November 1938, and Ribbentrop was only able to get the Turks to accept Papen as Ambassador when the Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu complained to Kroll in April 1939 about when the Germans were ever going to sent a new ambassador. Papen’s attempt to address Turkish fears of Italian expansionism by getting Ribbentrop to have Count Galeazzo Ciano promise the Turks that they had nothing to fear from Italy backfired when the Turks found the Italo-German effort to be both patronizing and insulting.

Instead of focusing on talking to the Turks, Ribbentrop and Papen became entangled in a feud over Papen's demand that he by-pass Ribbentrop and send his dispatches straight to Hitler. As a former Chancellor, Papen had granted this privilege of by-passing the Foreign Minister while he was Ambassador to Austria. Ribbentrop's friendship with Papen, which went back to 1918, ended over this issue. At the same time, Ribbentrop took to shouting at the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin, Mehemet Hamdi Arpag, as part of the effort to win Turkey over as a German ally. Ribbentrop believed that Turks were so stupid that only by shouting at them could one make them understand. One of the consequences of Ribbentrop's heavy-handed behaviour was the signing of the Anglo-Turkish alliance of 12 May 1939.

From early 1939 onwards, Ribbentrop had become the leading advocate within the German government of reaching an understanding with the Soviet Union as the best way of pursuing both the short-term anti-Polish, and long-term anti-British foreign policy goals. Ribbentrop first seems to have considered the idea of a pact with the Soviet Union after an unsuccessful visit to Warsaw in January 1939, when the Poles again refused Ribbentrop's demands about Danzig, the "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor and the Anti-Comintern Pact. During the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact negotiations, Ribbentrop was overjoyed by a report from his Ambassador in Moscow, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, of a speech by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin before the 18th Party Congress in March 1939 that was strongly anti-Western, which Schulenburg reported meant that the Soviet Union might be seeking an accord with Germany. Ribbentrop followed up Schulenburg's report by sending Dr. Julius Schnurre of the Foreign Office's trade department to negotiate a German-Soviet economic agreement. At the same time, Ribbentrop's efforts to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact into an anti-British alliance met with considerable hostility from the Japanese over the course of the winter of 1938–39, but with the Italians Ribbentrop enjoyed some apparent success. Because of Japanese opposition to participation in an anti-British alliance, Ribbentrop decided to settle for a bilateral German-Italian anti-British treaty. Ribbentrop's efforts were crowned with success with the signing of the Pact of Steel in May 1939, though this was accomplished only by falsely assuring Mussolini that there would be no war for the next three years.