K. Planning for the Conquest of the Remainder of Czechoslovakia.
With the occupation of the Sudetenland and the inclusion of the German-speaking Czechs within the Greater Reich it might have been expected that the Nazi conspirators would be satisfied. Thus far in the Nazi program of aggression the conspirators had used as a pretext for their conquests the union of the Volksdeutsche, the people of German descent, with the Reich. Now, after Munich, substantially all the Volksdeutsche in Czechoslovakia had been returned to German rule. On 26 September, at the Sportspalast in Berlin, Hitler spoke these words:
“And now we are confronted with the last problem which must be solved and which will be solved. It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe, but it is a claim from which I will not swerve, and which I will satisfy, God willing.”
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“I have little to explain. I am grateful to Mr. Chamberlain for all his efforts, and I have assured him that the German people want nothing but peace; but I have also told him that I cannot go back beyond the limits of our patience.
“I assured him, moreover, and I repeat it here, that when this problem is solved there will be no more territorial problems for Germany in Europe. And I further assured him that from the moment when Czechoslovakia solves its other problems, that is to say when the Czechs have come to an arrangement with their other minorities peacefully and without oppression, I will no longer be interested in the Czech State. And that as far as I am concerned I will guarantee. We don’t want any Czechs at all.” (2358-PS)
Yet no more than two weeks later Hitler and Keitel were preparing estimates of the military forces required to break Czechoslovak resistance in Bohemia and Moravia. Item 48 of the Schmundt file is a top secret telegram sent by Keitel to Hitler’s headquarters on 11 October 1938 in answer to four questions which Hitler had propounded to the OKW. These were the questions:
“Question 1: What reinforcements are necessary in the present situation to break all Czech resistance in Bohemia and Moravia?
“Question 2: How much time is required for the regrouping or moving up of new forces?
“Question 3: How much time will be required for the same purpose if it is executed after the intended demobilization and return measures?