Real Dictators - Hitler: The Gathering Storm... (Part 16)

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Hitler expands the Third Reich, annexing Austria and the Sudetenland. Britain and France seek a diplomatic solution at the Munich Conference. But how long will appeasement keep war at bay? Meanwhile, the Nazis stir up an orgy of anti-Jewish violence, Kristallnacht... A Noiser production, written by Jeff Dawson. This is Part 16 of the Hitler Story. Scroll down the Real Dictators feed for episodes on Hitler’s early years and rise to power. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Laupheim, southwest Germany. November the 10th, 1938. At 5 a.m., Hans Kitzinger's alarm goes off. He's a fireman. He's on the early shift. He dresses, grabs a slice of black bread, wolfs a mouthful of coffee, and, in the cold and dark, hops on his bicycle.

Even in the early hours creaking across the cobbles, Hans can sense something is not right. The town should be asleep, but there's a commotion up ahead. Outside the fire station a crowd is gathered, noisy, excitable, and in some cases quite drunk. There are men linking arms, blocking the doors. Hans spots a colleague. He has a bruised face. There's a trickle of blood. What the hell is going on?

He was assaulted, says his workmate, for trying to respond to an incident across town. Where? The synagogue. Hans pleads with the mob to stand aside eventually the picketers will end the crew man the engine slowly they edge it out as they drive east as a glow in the sky soon they can see the flames sure, the synagogue is engulfed. But they're to be thwarted again.

It's been cordoned off, this time by club-wielding brown shirts. They stand there, hands on hips, enjoying the show. There are cans of petrol lying around. The one in charge orders the fire engine to stop. It must wait there until the building has been burnt to the ground. The fire crew eye each other. It's against their nature not to intervene. But they can't voice an opinion openly. Not here. Eventually, with dawn breaking, they're allowed to pass.

But only because a senior Nazi Party member lives nearby. The flames are getting too close to his house. Hoses are engaged, but it's too little too late. When they've finished, the grand old temple is beyond salvation. Just a smoldering ruin. The SA have rounded up some local Jews, men of varying ages. They've been dragged into the street in their nightshirts,

made to kneel with their hands above their heads, forced to watch. An old man struggles to get down. He's wrestled to the ground. The brown shirts strut about, laughing, admiring their handiwork. Before they torched the building, they'd carried out all the religious artifacts, all the old texts, put them in a pile, and burnt them too. The firemen pack up.

Hans wonders if these godless thugs will be coming for their churches next. Where will it all end? From Neuser, this is the story of Hitler and the Third Reich. And this is Real Dictators. To be continued... The anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws have caused outrage abroad. In the Rhineland, the armed forces of the Third Reich have advanced to the border with France and the Low Countries. Not a shot has been fired in opposition. Germany is fast becoming a militarized state, one in search of a conflict. The Wehrmacht is over half a million strong.

Conscription has been introduced. Hundreds of tanks, planes, battleships and U-boats are being manufactured. Hitler's long-term goal, as told in Mein Kampf, is expansion in the East, the acquisition of Lebensraum, living space, land and resources for his people, his folk. But to avoid a war on two fronts, he knows he'll need to neutralize Britain and France, ideally through their acquiescence.

Failing that, he will clobber the French with a lightning war, a blitzkrieg. John Curatola is a military historian and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer. Hitler has to get France out of the way because if he goes into Russia, he's got this monkey on his back, I use that term, of France and to a certain extent Great Britain. Germany lives in a bad neighborhood. She's got clowns to the left, there are jokers to the right, and she's stuck in the middle to steal a quote from Steeler's Wheel. And so she has to deal with this geographic quagmire that she is stuck in. So she's got to neutralize France and then push to the east to get the Lebensraum and to get rid of the, to use their term, the Untermensch,

the lesser peoples that are there. And so this taking of France makes a lot of sense. Not all are enthusiastic. Field Marshal Wernher von Plomberg, Minister for War, is lukewarm. The Army's Commander-in-Chief, Major General Wernher von Fritsch, reminds the Fuhrer that French military capability still exceeds that of Nazi Germany. And as for Britain? At sea, the Royal Navy reigns supreme, points out Admiral Ryder.

But Hitler will brook no dissent. A general should behave, he says, like a butcher's dog who has to be held fast by the collar because it threatens to attack anyone in sight. The German military machine must be at full strength by 1941. In London, the quaint notion persists that Nazi Germany can be persuaded to behave like a responsible neighbour, and the optimism comes in the shape of the new Prime Minister. The Conservative MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston, Neville Chamberlain, has succeeded Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin resigned in the wake of the abdication crisis,

when Edward VIII relinquished the throne. Chamberlain had been a critic of Mrs Simpson, Edward's still-married mistress. An unscrupulous woman, as he called her. The affair, and privately their pro-Nazi sympathies, had made the new king's position untenable. Chamberlain is 69 years old, with the demeanour of a put-upon headmaster. But he's no fool. the demeanour of a put-upon headmaster. But he's no fool. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had quietly increased the budget of the Royal Air Force, believing it to be key to his island's survival. But his approach does remain one of accommodation. Alongside rearmament,

he wants better relations with Germany and Italy. Hitler likes this new mood music. Antony Eden, Foreign Secretary, had proved less forgiving. Perhaps there can be conciliation after all. It is Hermann Goering who spots the opening. Eden's new advisor, Lord Halifax, is an old diplomatic pro. He's also a keen huntsman, master of the Middleton hounds. The Germans have dubbed him Lord Tallyhofax. What better way for a couple of chaps to bond than over a spot of shooting?

Goering invites Halifax to his Prussian estate, Carin Hall. Halifax has had a distinguished career. He was, for five years, Viceroy of India, known as the man who imprisoned Mahatma Gandhi. At six foot five, with an assertive voice, he's an imposing presence, making light of his missing left hand. As an unelected noble, he's a bit of a loose cannon. But, with Eden's blessing, Halifax accepts Goering's invitation. He packs his shotgun. As they blast wild boar out of the undergrowth,

Halifax reports that Goering is quite the charmer. A fluent English speaker, a bon viveur, a man bursting with good humour and saucy anecdotes. When Josef Goebbels shows up, Halifax professes to be taken with him too. Unfortunately, Halifax evidently knows little about Germany and even less about the Nazis. As they arrive at the Berghof, a man in a brown jacket opens the door. Halifax is blissfully unaware

that this is one Adolf Hitler and brushes him off as a flunky. As he gets shown around Hitler's mountain retreat, the lanky lord puts his oversized foot in it again. Eden has cautioned him to stay off the politics, but he just can't stop opining about Hitler's worldview. oversized foot in it again. Eden has cautioned him to stay off the politics. But he just can't stop opining about Hitler's worldview. Hitler, who's been trying to keep a lid on things,

flies off in a rage. His minders lead their Fuhrer away to be placated with a cup of hot chocolate and whipped cream. Despite the standoff, Halifax relays back that Hitler is a man to do business with. Very sincere, he writes. The Foreign Office pens a paper. It's submitted to Chamberlain on New Year's Day 1938. The next steps towards a general settlement with Germany. The policy will become known by a different term,

one which will forever damn Chamberlain. Appeasement. In early 1938, a scandal breaks out in the Nazi party. Blomberg, Minister for War, a widower of six years, is getting married again.

The lucky lady is his secretary, Erna Gruhn. It's uncovered that she was once a prostitute, and she's starred in some pornographic films. Germany has its own abdication crisis. Behind closed doors, Hitler tells Blomberg he must divorce his new wife or give up his job. When Blomberg opts to stand by his woman, it is Major General von Fritsch, his replacement, who hands him his notice. But another twist. Himmler and Heydrich, via their spy network, discover that Fritsch has been engaging in illegal homosexual acts with members of the Hitler Youth, as well as a male escort known as Bavarian Joe.

Fritsch will ultimately be acquitted, but right now, the outrage is all Hitler needs to conduct a purge of the army's top brass, to stamp out the decadence. Sixteen generals are dismissed. Forty-four are transferred. The War Ministry and Army Command are merged. The combined armed forces will come under a new authority,

the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht, or OKW. Hitler reveals the incoming Supreme Commander to be the only man talented enough for the job. Himself. Hitler reveals the incoming supreme commander to be the only man talented enough for the job, himself. Two spotless Prussian generals will do the day-to-day running, Wilhelm Keitel and Walter von Brauchitsch. With Hitler at the helm, he can hasten the next phase of his master plan, and that concerns the country immediately to the south, Austria. Hitler all along has been driven by a desire to unite the Germans of Europe into a single entity, a greater Germany. There are currently 10 million Germans living within other jurisdictions.

Most significantly, there is the state of Austria. As laid out in the opening lines of Mein Kampf, Hitler's avowed intention has been to envelop Austria into the loving embrace of the Third Reich. This he will do via a union, an Anschluss. It's not a new idea, but never has the time been more ripe. Professor Thomas Weber Here we have to of course be in mind that Hitler is an Austrian, but he always saw himself as an Austrian-German. We often hear about how Hitler wasn't even German and so on, but that is of course not how he or most other people in German-speaking lands thought about these matters at that time. They really thought that Austria was a part of Germany, or at least could be a part of Germany. And so the moment Hitler thought he could bring his own homeland into the fold of

a greater Germany, he went for it. And this was of course also a moment of potential crisis because he had to see how world opinion and more importantly how world leaders would respond to this. Just like Germany, since the end of the war Austria has been beset by economic collapse and civil strife. And it's no longer the sprawling multicultural empire of old. With a population of just 6.5 million, the new Austrian Republic is just a tenth of its former imperial might. It is, however, now identifiably ethno-German.

Tensions have been running high in Vienna. There is a split between the ruling nationalists, who are pro-independence, and those, chiefly the Austrian Nazi Party, who advocate Anschluss. The Nationalists are no delicate flowers, by the way. They're fascists, just a Mussolini tribute act rather than a Hitler one. Austrian Nazis, by comparison, seem even more fanatical than the German ones, if such a thing is possible. In 1934, they had assassinated the Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss. The nationalist government has since kicked all Nazis out of high office. This is a problem for Hitler.

He needs his minions running riot. Time to exert some pressure. On February 12, 1938, the new Austrian Chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg, arrives at the Berghof. He finds Hitler's pad packed with army-top brass. Far from a meeting of equals, Schuschnigg is given a dressing down. The two countries fought side by side in the last war, blasts Hitler. Austria's independent line, it's treachery. Schuschnigg repeats that Austria and Germany are separate states, but there's no reason they shouldn't all get along.

Hitler warns him, if Germany wanted to march into Austria, it could do so just like that. Hitler is very clever on how he deals with the leaders of the countries that he ultimately wants to enact. So he invites them, typically to his Alpine retreat. He seemingly initially treats them politely, but then once they're there, he's presenting them with his territorial demands and he's kind of creating a world that is upside and down. For instance, the Austrian chancellor, who is extremely right-wing just as he is, but who has no intention of becoming part of a greater Germany and who obviously has political legitimacy. Hitler is turning things upside and down and he's basically saying,

what you're doing here is not in the Austrian national interest. So you have to do what I'm asking you to do or I will invade your country. what I'm asking you to do, or I will invade your country. Schuschnigg protests that he has international law, the international community on his side. Hitler scoffs. They won't lift a finger. But he is a reasonable man, he says. If Schuschnigg can make certain concessions,

scratch Germany's back, there need be no trouble. All he requests is that all imprisoned Austrian Nazis be released, those dismissed from office be reinstated, and that Austria follow Germany's lead in foreign affairs. Unbeknownst to Schuschnigg, the clock is already ticking. Should things not go Hitler's way, he plans to move into Austria in the spring. Schuschnigg wrings his hands and shuffles nervously. He's a chain smoker. Since his arrival in Hitler's strict non-smoking home, he's been craving a cigarette. He's led away into a small room where he is assured he will be permitted to puff away to his heart's content as long as he signs the document that has been laid out before him,

conceding to Germany's demands. Oh, something else. He must appoint Arthur Zeiss-Inquart, a fanatical Austrian Nazi, as his Minister of the Interior. a fanatical Austrian Nazi, as his Minister of the Interior. All state security and policing must be in his hands. Despite his jitters, Schussnig declines. He must consult with his president. You will either sign it as it stands, or else our meeting has been useless, screeches Hitler. In which case I shall decide during the night what shall be done next." He yells for General Keitel, who bounds into the room.

The two men stand over Schuschnigg. He has three days to change his mind. An ultimatum. Back in Vienna, the Austrian president reluctantly agrees to the demands, but draws the line at the appointment of Seisingquart. Soon, Austrian Nazis are marauding through Vienna's streets. They have a new war cry. Ein Volk, ein Reich, Ein Führer. The country descends into violence.

In Berlin Hitler makes a speech to the Reichstag. The only way to save poor Austria from itself is for the Germans to march in. Schuschnigg calls for a plebiscite to determine Austria's status. Let the people decide. The vote will take place on Sunday March 13th. Hitler considers this compromise a violation of their agreement. The response of the West to Hitler's sabre-rattling is typically lame. The French and British governments suggest a joint letter of protest.

Eden resigns as Foreign Secretary, unconvinced by Chamberlain's softly, softly approach. The French press dubbed the Prime Minister Mr. I Love Berlin, Monsieur J'aime Berlin. The loudest objection actually comes from Rome. Mussolini is apoplectic. His axis packed with Germany, ink still wet, had guaranteed Austrian sovereignty. Chamberlain, meanwhile, persuades his ambassador to Germany, Neville Henderson, to have a cosy chinwag with Herr Hitler. In the Chancellery, Henderson assures Hitler that His Majesty's government will do all it can to accommodate Germany's needs. They can make further concessions

on armaments if he likes. But Hitler sinks back in his armchair. Why, as he puts it, do the British insist on interfering in German family matters? Mussolini, meanwhile, is bought off. After World War I, Italy had annexed a piece of Austrian territory, German-speaking South Tyrol. He can keep it. Professor Helen Roche. Although Italy didn't lose World War I as Germany did, there was this prevalent sense, almost as strong as, say, Germany's revulsion for the Treaty of Versailles. basically went back on the promises they'd made about the colonial dominion that they would grant them from Germany and Austria, Hungary's previous territories. They'd been promised all of Dalmatia and certain bits of Africa and so on. And then that didn't happen. And this was perceived as

just such an injustice that it meant there was this really virulent rhetoric against them as kind of plutocratic, corrupt, lying. It's almost pushing them towards Nazi Germany. With Italy happy to stay out of it, Hitler's generals prepare for Operation Otto. On March the 11th, it goes into play. At 5.30 that morning, Schuschnigg's bedside phone rings. His police chief warns him that the border has been closed. There's a high incidence of German military activity. As he rushes to his chancellery, there come more German demands, including for his own resignation and Seyssenquart's appointment as Chancellor.

Schuschnigg has lost all authority. That evening he throws in the towel. He signs off his radio address with God Save Austria. Seyssenquart will be installed. Hitler has already pre-written the telegram that Seisingquart must now send on behalf of his new administration. To prevent bloodshed,

it requests the German government dispatch troops as soon as possible. The invasion, as ever, takes place on a Saturday. But there is barely a shot fired in defence. It is the Rhineland all over again. By sunup on the 12th, German soldiers are streaming across the border crossings, greeted by ecstatic crowds, strewing flowers and waving swastikas.

Hitler follows not far behind. For a native-born Austrian, it's an emotional moment. He stops for a while at his birthplace, Braunau. Later, when he passes through Linz, where he spent his formative years, tears roll down his cheeks. There he signs the law concerning the union of Austria with the German Reich. In London, an emergency cabinet session is called. But on a weekend, and a good golfing one, it seems an inconvenience.

Hitler's cavalcade rolls onto Vienna. 200,000 turn out to see him in the huge Heldenplatz By Monday morning, Austria is part of the Third Reich But Hitler, don't forget, is a democrat He may have installed a puppet regime, then invaded But he's going to put it all to a vote, just as Schuschnigg had intended. The ballot paper stretches credulity. It features a giant tick box for Ja and a minuscule one for Nein. The Anschluss is approved by 99.7%. It is, says Hitler, the proudest hour of my life.

Austria is now Ostmark, a province of the Reich. Opponents of the regime, socialists, communists, trade unionists, will be rounded up. The persecution of Jews will escalate to a whole new level. Even in Berlin, the zeal of the Austrian Nazis takes them aback. Disproportionately, they will go on to make up 13% of the SS, 40% of the concentration camp personnel, and 70% of those running the death camps. Those who can leave the country.

250,000 Austrians will get out over the next few months. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein make their way to London. A well-known singing group run by an old naval commander escapes over the Alps, the von Trapp family. They are the fortunate ones. All Polish Jews, about 50,000 people, are forcibly expelled from the new Greater Germany. But Poland doesn't want them either.

Many perish in the Red Cross camps that spring up along the border. On the southeast fringes of the Reich, separated by mountains, lies a community known as the Sudeten Germans. They find themselves citizens of a state that has been carved from the remnants of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia. The three million Sudeten Germans represent a sizable minority, over 20% of the population. Emboldened by the Anschluss, a Nazi-style organization, the Sudeten German Party is agitating for union. Under the leadership of Konrad Henlein, the party accounts for 90% of all German ethnic votes.

Two weeks after the Anschluss, Hitler invites Henlein to his home. A paramilitary wing of the party is established, financed covertly from Berlin. Hitler once again hopes he can do a spot of bullying, get the Czechs to sign over the Sudetenland without a fuss. But he also draws up plans for a sneak attack and, as before, he will get his allies on board. Mussolini, mighty conqueror of Abyssinia, thoroughly approves of the annexation of the Sudetenland.

That gift of South Tyrol has gone a long way. Czechoslovakia is an odd shape. Long and thin, not easy to defend. But it has good border fortresses along its German frontier, and a decent army. There's also a defensive pact with France going back to 1924. Britain too will be obliged to back them up. Possibly also the Soviet Union. Surely, Hitler wouldn't stage a land grab here, would he?

It's really the crisis of Czechoslovakia that should have been the turning point. This is the moment when international responses to Hitler should have been the turning point. This is the moment when international responses to Hitler should have changed. Even if that said to Hitler, you can have Sudetenland, but the moment you go beyond that, we will move against you militarily. You could think of a mid-20th century

that would have turned out very, very differently, but that's just not happening. And from that moment onwards, Hitler really realizes that he can do pretty much whatever he wants. In late May, Hitler's troops start mobilizing again. The Czechs and the President Benesch respond in kind. Not all are as gung-ho.

Goering reminds his Fuhrer that Germany is not at full strength yet, but Hitler gathers his generals all the same. It is my unshakable will to wipe Czechoslovakia off the map. By the first week of September, Germany's army, now 750,000 strong, starts manoeuvres along the border. On September 12, Henlein begins his uprising. He is backed by Hitler's radio broadcast, recounting tales of Czech oppression. There is street violence, clashes with the police. On the 14th, Prague declares martial law in the Sudeten areas.

Hitler is all set to move in. The flustered new French premier, Edouard Deladier, contacts London. They must speak to Hitler immediately. Chamberlain cables the Führer. Hitler replies that he will be happy to receive him. But Chamberlain must come to Berchtesgaden. And so begins a frantic period of shuttle diplomacy. At 7am on the morning of September 15th, Neville Chamberlain leaves Downing Street for Heston Aerodrome. People on their way to work stopped to applaud him.

My policy has always been to ensure peace, he tells the BBC. The prompt acceptance of my suggestion encourages me that the visit today will not be without results. Professor Nicholas of Shaughnessy. We see Chamberlain, I mean, he was described as that undertaker from Birmingham, as the ultimate kind of cautious suburban bank manager type. He was nothing of the kind. He was actually not at all the parody he's been represented as. No one had done this before. Nobody you see in history had used shuttle diplomacy. He invented it. Chamberlain had never even flown before.

So it was a new kind of idea and a rather interesting one. But what it did do was, in symbolic terms, donate the power to Hitler. In other words, they weren't meeting on neutral territory. They weren't meeting in Geneva. Chamberlain was going to him. He was sort of begging for peace on bended knee. Hitler really saw in Chamberlain a version of the people, the conservatives, he'd beguiled and deluded and ultimately defeated and even killed in the old days in Germany. At 12.30pm local time, Chamberlain touches down in Munich, where he's met by his ambassador Neville Henderson and cheering German crowds.

A little after 4pm, they're in the Bavarian Alps, winding up to the Berghof. The skies darken, It starts to rain. Hitler will act the polite host, serving tea, but he does not even bother to descend the Berghof steps. He waits at the top, with the ageing British Premier to climb towards him. When the pair retire to an upstairs study for a three-hour private chat, Hitler's interpreter does not provide the Prime Minister with any notes. Chamberlain must recount it all from memory. Hitler, as usual, acts the wounded party.

The villain of the piece is Czech President Beneš, he says. He's the one brutalising innocent Germans. That said, he assures that he has absolutely no intention of going to war. Then why, ventures Chamberlain, did you bother to invite me here? They agree to meet again. Seven days later, the shuttle diplomacy continues. This time at Bad Godesberg on the Rhine, a favourite Fuhrer holiday spot. Here Chamberlain is upbeat. He has met with French leader Deladier, he tells Hitler. The French have persuaded the Czechs to make some territorial concessions. But the Fuhrer does

his usual shifting of the goalposts. There's been a change of plan. He's going to occupy the Sudetenland forthwith, to save the people from further brutalization. An evacuation of non-Germans from the Sudetenland must begin on the 26th, barks Hitler. The territory will be ceded to Germany by 2 p.m. on the 28th. Impossible deadlines, even if the Czechs were willing. Hitler has put a gun to their head. He quotes an old proverb, an end, even with terror, is better than terror without end. It is at this moment that Chamberlain reaches his moment of clarity. Adolf Hitler is insane. As the weary Prime Minister flies home, following the path of the Thames, he

imagines bombers raising London. He simply cannot let another war happen. And it was not just the thought of a resurrection of the Western Front. The other problem was technological. Baldwin had said the bomber will always get through. And the scientists had determined what they thought was true, that millions of people would go clinically mad after six months of aerial bombing. The reckoning was that actually it wasn't survivable psychologically, mentally. And so this is why

you have appeasement. Appeasement is not something which is a bizarre fetish or strange kink of the human mind. It's a purely rational thing based on the data they had, based on their recent history, based on observation. It was not just visceral, emotional, I hate war, I'm a pacifist. It was a highly rational, logical position to take. A sceptic, Duff Cooper, Lord of the Admiralty, urges for immediate British mobilisation.

In Hyde Park, air raid shelters are hacked out. On Whitehall, sandbags are piled around government buildings. The countdown has begun. At 8pm on September 27th, Chamberlain makes a desperate radio broadcast. How horrible, how fantastic, how incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing. In Berlin, the French ambassador warns that Hitler will be lighting the blue touch paper to another war. Chamberlain has one last throw of the dice.

If Hitler won't see reason, then maybe Mussolini can bend his ear. On the 28th, at 10am, four hours before the deadline, Chamberlain puts a call through to Rome. To his great relief, 60 minutes later, Ilduce's people get back. Hitler, it seems, is receptive to a conference in Munich. The Fuhrer pushes back his invasion. The next morning, the 29th, Chamberlain prepares to board his plane. Alongside him is Hermann Goering's shooting pal, Lord Halifax, now Foreign Circuitry. It starts to rain. There's a chill in the air. The mood is sombre.

In his old-fashioned winged collar and Homburg hat, Chamberlain turns to reporters. When I was a little boy, I used to repeat, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. So this was now really seen as a moment of crisis in other countries, because now it was becoming clear this was no longer about undoing Versailles, something else was going on here. This was really aggression against foreign countries and against non-German populations. People like Chamberlain still think this is ultimately maybe just a slightly more extreme version of undoing the Versailles system, of creating a national security for Germany. Because of course, what Hitler would tell someone like Chamberlain is not,

my ultimate goal is to dominate the entire Eurasian landmass. In Munich, amid all the uniforms, Chamberlain and Deladier in their pinstripes seem out of place. Chamberlain is in his tailed morning suit. His sidearm is an umbrella. By contrast, in strides Mussolini, chest puffed out and awash with medals. And then, of course, costumed as a brown shirt, comes Adolf Hitler. The men and their entourages mill around a buffet table. It's all very awkward. Translators and adjutants wander in and out.

The photographer suggests the four leaders go and stand by the fireplace. At 12.45pm they're ushered into a conference room. It's Mussolini, in his self-appointed role as master of ceremonies who takes control. He speaks slow English, some French, a smidgen of German, and not a great deal of sense in any of them. Hitler, meanwhile, just grimaces. It was of course really Mussolini who had brought about Munich, which we now today see as a triumph of Hitler.

But at the time, Hitler was furious. This was absolutely not what he wanted to have. He really had wanted to march into Czechoslovakia, and now Mussolini had forced his hand and had brought about this international agreement, which Hitler absolutely objected to. And yet, he also knew that he was dependent on Italian support. Finally, at 1.30 in the morning, an agreement is reached. Britain, France, Germany and Italy consent to a four-stage transfer of the German-majority regions of the Sudetenland, beginning on October 1, and an evacuation of the Czech population.

An international commission will oversee disputed areas and arrange plebiscites. After this, promises Hitler, there will be no more territorial demands. The four leaders put their names to the necessary documents. Hitler, in a rare slip, lets himself be snapped wearing his glasses. At 2.15 am, the Czechoslovakian delegates who'd been waiting outside are brought in. It's up to the British and French to break the news to them. They've been sold down the river. The Germans and Italians are long gone.

If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, growls Hitler, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers. In the morning, Chamberlain goes to Hitler's Munich apartment for breakfast. Ecstatic crowds throng the route. Over Viennese pastries, Chamberlain asks Hitler for a favour. He needs something material, something to show for his efforts. Could Herr Hitler possibly sign something? A letter of intent, a pledge that their two countries will never again go to war.

No problem, says the Fuhrer. Barely bothering to read it, he scrawls his name. At 5.38pm, Chamberlain's plane touches down at Heston. The waiting crowd bids him hip-hip-hooray. Before the newsreel cameras, the beaming Prime Minister shakes hands and waves his precious letter. Pathé News is equally ecstatic. Our words and thanks are exhausted for a man who has averted another Armageddon. Not all are behind him.

Labour spokesman Hugh Dalton suggests it was a page ripped out of Mein Kampf. There's a protest in Trafalgar Square. Chamberlain is spirited away to Buckingham Palace and paraded on a balcony. He will later appear outside 10 Downing Street, telling reporters that the success of Munich guarantees peace for our time. If we want to understand the major actors who were part of Munich, we really have got to look through the perspective of 1938 and not of 1945, through the legacy of the First World War, of this war that had resulted in the death of so many people, including often the sons or brothers of the statesmen who were now meeting in Munich,

many of whom were veterans themselves. And it's perfectly understandable that they were really trying to find ways of creating a peace order that would actually prevent a new major war. When we now see these images of Chamberlain touching down again in England on his return from Munich, saying that he was bringing peace for our time, we kind of almost burst out laughing. But again, we should really try to use more empathy towards Chamberlain in order to understand what was really happening in 1938. On Monday, October the 3rd, in Parliament, a motion approving the Munich Agreement is passed. But the mood has dampened. Over the weekend, German troops started marching in, and they were treated as heroes.

Referenda be damned, the annexation of the Sudetenland is now well underway. Hungary and Poland, amongst others, have also been waiting to pick at the Czechoslovakian carcass. Within a month, they too will be grabbing their spoils. Czechoslovakia loses 11,000 square miles of territory. Germany seizes two-thirds of its coal resources, 70% of its iron and coal deposits, not to mention the country's key industrial properties. And Hitler has his eye on the rest, too.

He summons General Keitel and draws up a plan, the liquidation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. The Anschluss, Munich, the Sudeten annexation, this has all occurred within just seven months of the year 1938. It's a year which people can't digest. So much has happened, you see. Suddenly you have this speeding up of time. You have historical evolutions,

which would have occurred normally over decades, suddenly condensed into a single year. And no one can really react. Because people are stunned, they're stupefied. They're bamboozled by it, they are rendered dumbstruck by all this action, all this dynamism, which suddenly has achieved a German empire in the middle of Europe. In London, Dov Cooper resigns his position, with a parting shot at Chamberlain.

The Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of sweet reasonableness. I believe that he's more open to the language of the mailed fist. Chamberlain is damned by another Conservative MP, Winston Churchill. They are in the midst, he describes, of a gathering storm. Paris, the morning of the 7th of November, 1938. A young man named Herschel Grinschpan goes to the German embassy. He requests, and is granted, an audience with a diplomat

named Ernst von Rath. Grinchpan is just 17 years old. He's also a Polish Jew. His family have been kicked out of Germany, and he's carrying a revolver. He shoots Rath five times in the stomach. He doesn't attempt an escape. It seems, of of course politically motivated, though there is also a suggestion it may have been a crime of passion.

The pair were allegedly in a relationship, seen together at a gay cabaret club. Rath, ironically, was already under investigation by the Gestapo for his anti-Nazi leanings, but never let the facts get in the way of propaganda. The next day, the German government reacts by shutting down Jewish schools and cultural activities. The community's few remaining publications are banned. Heinrich Himmler makes it punishable by 20 years' imprisonment for a Jew to be in possession of a weapon. On November 9th, when Rath dies of his wounds, the gloves come off. At the behest of Hitler and Goebbels, a full-scale national assault on Jews and their property is orchestrated.

Over the next 48 hours, officially, 7,500 stores have their windows smashed. 267 synagogues are razed, though the true figures are estimated to be significantly higher. Cemeteries are also desecrated. In this orgy of sacking, looting and burning, ordinary citizens, including children, are encouraged to join in. With over 1300 dead, it's the end for Jews in the Third Reich. Himmler tells the SS they must be put down with an unexampled ruthlessness. Heydrich rounds up as many able-bodied males as he can and ships them off to the camps.

Dr Chris Dillon. Perhaps the biggest watershed on the road to the Holocaust would be the mass imprisonment of male German Jews on Hitler's personal order in November 1938. Around 30,000

male Jews are locked up and transported into Himmler's camps. And the pogrom essentially goes on for months inside the camps. So we tend to think of a couple of nights in November 1938. But for tens of thousands of German Jews, it goes on for much longer than that. And pretty much every Jewish family in Nazi Germany is affected by the incarceration of a male relative. And there's hundreds of deaths.

With the streets of German cities awash with broken glass, a name will be coined for this purge. One which diminishes its terror. Kristallnacht. German Jews thought they were the real Germans. Hitler was not the real German. They had fought in the First World War. Many of them had died for Germany in the First World War. They thought that even though the situation was really unpleasant, that they could weather the storm.

And it is in this context that we have got to understand Kristallnacht, that the Nazis thought that they really needed to terrorize the Jewish population into leaving Germany. And the calculation here is that through terror, you can get Jews out of Germany. When it's over, the Jewish community is presented with a bill of one billion Reichsmarks to clear up the mess. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall comes down, it too will fall on November the 9th. But so poisoned is this date, also the anniversary of Hitler's Munich Putsch, that the federal government will decline to make it a public holiday. From his exile in the Netherlands, Kaiser Wilhelm II declares that he is ashamed to be German.

Across the Atlantic, President Roosevelt tells a news conference, I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in 20th century civilization. Conquest and persecution. In Hitler's Reich, this is the new normal. In the next episode... Hitler ignores the Munich settlement and gobbles up the rest of Czechoslovakia. A shock pact with the Soviet Union opens the way for the conquest of Poland. But Britain and France will draw a line. An invasion of Poland will mean war. That's next time.