GERMANY: Time Table

From the East a bitter wind bearing snowflakes bigger than bullets swept over the land of the Czechs and Slovaks last week. From the West came Hitler.

In power politics Adolf Hitler exhibits all the amazing intuitive timing and swift footwork that his namesake, Adolf Wolgast, pugilist of German extraction, used to show in the prize ring. Adolf Hitler has made only one error in timing—when he started a punch at Austria in 1934 and was blocked by Benito Mussolini. The speed, precision and preparation with which Adolf Hitler moves should no longer surprise the world. But last week he outdid himself. The four familiar steps of a Hitler conquest—preliminary propaganda, conference with victims, march of troops, and triumphal entry—followed each other like the rapid fire of a machine gun. His culminating campaign in Czecho-Slovakia lasted exactly three days.

Monday. “German boys,” lied Berlin papers on Monday, “are mishandled with brass knuckles . . . while Jews applaud. . . . German houses are fired on by Czech armored cars. . . . Murder and arson rule again in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. . . .” Radio announcers talked of “Communists in Czech gendarme uniforms.” Next day the push began in earnest.

Tuesday, 4 p.m. Peremptorily Hitler commanded President Emil Hácha to come to Berlin from Prague for a conference. Accompanied by his daughter and Foreign Minister Frantisek Chvalkovsky, Dr. Hácha boarded a special train. Week’s best example of how fast the Hitler machine was turning over: Dr. Hácha’s train was one hour late in Berlin because of traffic congestion caused by troop trains already on their way to Bohemia.

10:40 p.m. Dr. Hácha and his party, arriving in Berlin, were treated with the greatest consideration. The President’s daughter was given a great big bouquet of yellow roses tied with a red bow (on which was stamped a swastika). The party, taken to the Adlon Hotel to wash up, found their suite banked with “more flowers than had ever been in the hotel before.” (There were also more steel-helmeted military sentries in the hotel than usual.) As a sobering sight, Nazis let Dr. Hácha review some troops while he waited.

Wednesday 1 a.m. A summons called the visiting diplomat to the Chancellery. Dr. Hácha was ushered into Herr Hitler’s work room. There, besides the Führer and his aides, were numerous army generals, who throughout the interview were periodically sent out for mysterious phone calls to Prague. (The same form of pressure was applied to Kurt von Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden.)

4:15 a.m. Dr. Hácha, still in conference, was handed a communiqué describing the conference and told to sign. He did.

“Both sides,” it read, “unanimously expressed the conviction that the aim must be to assure calm, order and peace in this part of Central Europe. The Czechoslovak State President . . . trustfully laid the fate of the Czech people and country into the hands of the Führer of the German Reich. . . .”

Soon after, Herr Hitler issued two other proclamations. One officially mobilized the Army, which of course had got its real marching papers long before: “Wherever the march meets resistance, it shall be broken immediately and with every means. …” A third manifesto announced the new triumph to the German people. They showed no emotion. Herr Hitler has never let them think for a minute that any of his adventures have the smallest chance of meeting defeat.

6 a.m. One hour and 45 minutes after the first proclamation was issued the Army’s march on Prague began. “Attention! Attention!” blared Czech radios every five minutes all day. “German Army infantry and aircraft are beginning occupation of the republic. . . . The slightest resistance will bring . . . utter brutality. All commands have to obey the order. The units will be disarmed. Military and civil airplanes must remain in airports. . . .”

From dawn until dusk 200,000 tank troops and motorized infantry poured across the border, successively occupying Moravská Ostrava, Pilsen, Koblovice. The huge iron works at Vitkovice were taken (according to the official German News Bureau) “so fast that Communist workmen could not carry out their plans to damage the plant.”

Meanwhile in Prague Germans began arrogant demonstrations. Storm Troopers in Henleinist uniforms posted themselves outside German schools. Squads of German students in jack boots and arm bands jostled their way through the bewildered crowds shouting “Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil!” When Czech policemen tried to shut up one obstreperous young Storm Trooper, he shouted “Let me alone! The time for all this is over.”

9:15 a.m. Repeatedy warned that resistance would be fatal, dazed by surprise, their spirit broken since Munich anyhow, crowds greeted the first armored cars in Prague’s streets in dumb despair. Later in the day they grew defiant. Whistles and jeers greeted each new squadron. Groups sang the Czech anthem and wept openly. Some shouted “Pfui! Pfui! goback home!” But the only physical resistance Herr Hitler’s tanks met was a volley of snowballs. Down in Prague’s Jewish district there was terror. Two lovers shot themselves, a couple jumped from their apartment window. By week’s end suicides had mounted to 100.

The soldiers, acting under incredibly detailed orders obviously worked out weeks in advance, closed all banks, took over hotels, invaded barracks to disarm one of the best-equipped armies in Europe, and began to arrest political prisoners from a list of over 2,000. Residents were ordered to fly swastika flags which had been systematically distributed a few days before (ostensibly for the annual memorial to German War dead).

5 p.m. Adolf Hitler had snatched a few minutes’ sleep on a train from Berlin to the border, had then driven in swirling snow and over icy roads through Sudeten villages and Czech towns to Prague. There he had an emperor’s triumph exactly eight hours after the arrival of his vanguard, exactly 25 hours after having summoned Dr. Hacha to Berlin, exactly one year and a day to the hour after his triumphal entry into Vienna after Anschluss.

At dusk his car climbed the hill to ancient Hradschin Castle. Slowly he ascended its stairs to his suite, rooms used by Thomas Masaryk and Eduard Benes, founders of the republic. Adolf Hitler’s personal gold-bordered swastika was unfurled overhead, he stepped to a window and looked down on the twinkling lights of another subject city.

Thursday he announced the previously devised organization of Bohemia and Moravia as a protectorate. Konrad Henlein, who did yeoman service as the whiplash of the Sudeten Germans, was named civil administrator of Bohemia; and Joseph Bürckel, Nazi deputy leader in Austria, of Moravia.

Thus the campaign was completed, all but the mopping up operations. On Thursday morning Chancellor Hitler announced receipt of a telegram from Dr. Jozef Tiso, for two days stooge President of newly “independent” Slovakia. “In supreme confidence in you,” it said, “. . . the Slovak State places itself under your protection.” With equally supreme confidence in himself, Adolf Hitler swallowed Slovakia whole. Now Germany had a common border with Carpatho-Ukraine, which Hungary announced she was annexing (see col. 3).

Just before leaving Prague, Herr Hitler wired his army: CONGRATULATIONS ON RESTORING PEACE AND ORDER IN BOHEMIA IN SPITE OF INCLEMENT WEATHER. Continuing his triumphal tour, Herr Hitler drove to Brünn.

From Brünn he went by special train not as expected to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, but to Vienna ; and from there back to Berlin.

To celebrate his fourth successful, large-scale occupation by intimidation the Führer was given a fireworks display and the plaudits of 1,000,000 Berliners. Field Marshal Hermann Goring was beside him self as he eulogized his leader’s latest accomplishment. “Your proudest,”he significantly called it, “so far.”