Download or read book Munich 1938 written by David Faber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing “Peace with honour—Peace for our time.” Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax’s ill-fated meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain’s secret discussions with Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler’s regime. He takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler. Resonating with an insider’s feel for the political infighting Faber uncovers, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and scandals upon which the world’s fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.

Download or read book The Bell of Treason written by P. E. Caquet and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined material, this staggering account sheds new light on the Allies’ responsibility for a landmark agreement that had dire consequences. On returning from Germany on September 30, 1938, after signing an agreement with Hitler on the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain addressed the British crowds: “My good friends…I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Winston Churchill rejoined: “You have chosen dishonor and you will have war.” P. E. Caquet’s history of the events leading to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath is told for the first time from the point of view of the peoples of Czechoslovakia. Basing his work on previously unexamined sources, including press, memoirs, private journals, army plans, cabinet records, and radio, Caquet presents one of the most shameful episodes in modern European history. Among his most explosive revelations is the strength of the French and Czechoslovak forces before Munich; Germany’s dominance turns out to have been an illusion. The case for appeasement never existed. The result is a nail-biting story of diplomatic intrigue, perhaps the nearest thing to a morality play that history ever furnishes. The Czechoslovak authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler’s threat for what it was, and appeasement as the disaster it proved to be. In Caquet’s devastating account, their doomed struggle against extinction and the complacency of their notional allies finally gets the memorial it deserves.

Download or read book In the Shadow of Munich written by Vít Smetana and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book In the Shadow of Munich. British Policy towards Czechoslovakia from the Endorsement to the Renunciation of the Munich Agreement (1938 to 1942) analyses the varying attitudes and gradual change of British policy towards Czechoslovakia in the period from the Munich Conference in September 1938 to August 1942 when the British government proclaimed the Munich Agreement as dead and thus having no influence whatsoever on the future territorial settlement. The key focus of this work lies in the influence of 'Munich' upon the British political scene and upon the resulting British policy towar.

Download or read book 1938 written by Giles MacDonogh and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world.

Download or read book The Munich Crisis 1938 written by Erik Goldstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the works on the crises of the 1930s and especially the Munich Agreement in 1938 were written when it was virtually impossible to gain access to the relevant archive collections on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This text studies the Czechoslovak-German crisis and its impact from previously neglected perspectives and celebrates the post-Cold War openness by bringing in new evidence from hitherto inaccessible archives.

Download or read book The Munich Agreement of 1938 written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Explains the appeasement of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia and Austria, and reactions to it *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "My good friends," the mustached, bony man with thick eyebrows and large, strong teeth somewhat reminiscent of those of a horse, shouted to the crowds from the second-floor window of his house at 10 Downing Street, "this is the second time in our history, that there has come back to Downing Street from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." (McDonough, 1998, 70). The man addressing the crowd, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, had just returned from the heart of Nazi Germany following negotiations with Adolf Hitler, and the crowd gathered outside the English leader's house on September 30, 1938 greeted these ringing words with grateful cheers. The piece of paper Chamberlain flourished exultantly seemed to offer permanent amity and goodwill between democratic Britain and totalitarian Germany. In it, Britain agreed to allow Hitler's Third Reich to absorb the Sudeten regions of Czechoslovakia without interference from either England or France, and since high percentages of ethnic Germans - often more than 50% locally - inhabited these regions, Hitler's demand for this territory seemed somewhat reasonable to Chamberlain and his supporters. With Germany resurgent and rearmed after the disasters inflicted on it by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the pact - known as the Munich Agreement - held out hope of a quick end to German ambitions and the return of stable, normal international relations across Europe. Of course, the Munich agreement is now notorious because its promise proved barren within a very short period of time. Chamberlain's actions either failed to avert or actually hastened the very cataclysm he wished to avoid at all costs. The "Munich Agreement" of 1938 effectively signed away Czechoslovakia's independence to Hitler's hungry new Third Reich, and within two years, most of the world found itself plunged into a conflict which made a charnelhouse of Europe and left somewhere between 60-80 million people dead globally. Many people hailed Chamberlain's "success" at defusing Nazi aggression by handing over Czechoslovakia tamely to Hitler's control, but others remained dubious. Edouard Daladier, the French prime minister, "later told Amery that he turned up his coat collar to protect his face from rotten eggs when he arrived in Paris." (Gilbert, 1963, 179-180). A Foreign Office man, Orme Sargent, was disgusted, and he later said bitterly, "For all the fun and cheers, you might think they were celebrating a major victory over an enemy instead of merely the betrayal of a minor ally." (Gilbert, 1963, 180). Winston Churchill, the deal's most famous critic, bitterly remarked, "England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war." Munich is widely reviled today and is held up as the epitome of appeasement, but historians still debate its effects on the Second World War, as well as Neville Chamberlain's character and motivations. Some believe the attempted appeasement of Nazi Germany hastened, or even caused, the mayhem occupying the next seven years. Others believe that the pact merely failed to alter war's inevitable arrival in either direction. Historians and authors alternately interpret Chamberlain as a bumbling, arrogant fool, a strong-willed statesman who simply miscalculated the nature of Hitler and Nazi Germany, or even a man with dictatorial ambitions surreptitiously inserting himself into the Fuhrer's orbit and prevented from further damaging democracy only by his fall and death from bowel cancer. Another possible interpretation, with considerable documentary support, asserts Chamberlain wished to enlist Germany's aid against the state most Europeans perceived as the true threat of the era, the Soviet Union."

Download or read book Failure of a Mission written by Nevile Henderson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-02 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THIS UNIQUE PERSONAL NARRATIVE REVEALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DRAMATIC DETAILS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE COMING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR The thousands of Americans who read the spirited account of Sir Nevile Henderson’s conversation with Ribbentrop in the fateful hours before the German invasion of Poland will realize the importance and guess at the interest of this book. Henderson, a British diplomat of long experience and proven character, was ambassador for his country in Berlin from 1937 to 1939. This is the story of his attempt, and his failure, to avert the calamity of European war... “Sir Nevile Henderson’s book is the first personal memoir we have had of the beginnings of the second world war. This would in itself ensure its importance. But quite aside from this it is a book of exceptional quality. It tells things that very few other people in the world could tell with such detachment. Henderson describes in detail his allegedly ‘pro-German’ course at the beginning, and then his swiftly rising disillusion, until—step by excruciating step—the grisly business was complete. It is not an indiscreet book—no one of the type of Sir Nevile Henderson could ever be more than mildly indiscreet—but there are sidelights on the Nazi leaders of the utmost value. I read these pages with complete fascination. They are indispensable to the student of the contemporary world tragedy.”—JOHN GUNTHER, Authority on World Affairs “Upon his recollections of those last stirring days of peace historians will base much.”—THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “Failure of a Mission reveals the failure of diplomacy when faced by brute force....Here is history itself recorded by one of its helpless human instruments. It is not often that a diplomat records his failure with such engaging frankness. This is the first source book on the second World War. It will remain one of the most important.”—H. V. KALTENBORN, Radio News Commentator

Download or read book Munich written by Robert Harris and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of V2 and Fatherland—a WWII-era spy thriller set against the backdrop of the fateful Munich Conference of September 1938. Now a Netflix film starring Jeremy Irons. With this electrifying novel about treason and conscience, loyalty and betrayal, "Harris has brought history to life with exceptional skill" (The Washington Post). Hugh Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving at 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Paul von Hartmann is on the staff of the German Foreign Office--and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Hugh flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Hartmann travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course. And once again, Robert Harris gives us actual events of historical importance--here are Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, Daladier--at the heart of an electrifying, unputdownable novel.

Download or read book Appeasement written by Tim Bouverie and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich on the eve of World War II"--

Download or read book Water Under the Bridges written by Sir Nevile Henderson and published by Hassell Street Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book BELL OF TREASON written by P.E. CAQUET and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Devils Alliance written by Roger Moorhouse and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: antly, the pact laid the groundwork for Soviet control of Eastern Europe, a power grab that would define the post-war order. Drawing on memoirs, diaries, and official records from newly opened Soviet archives, The Devils' Alliance is the authoritative work on one of the seminal episodes of World War II. In his characteristically rich and detailed prose, Moorhouse paints a vivid picture of the pact's origins and its enduring influence as a crucial turning point, in both the war and in modern history.

Download or read book 1939 written by Michael Jabara Carley and published by Ivan R. Dee. This book was released on 2009-02-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union became the last chance to halt Hitler’s aggression. Incredibly, the French and British governments dallied, talks failed, and in August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Michael Carley’s gripping account of these negotiations is not a pretty story. It is about the failures of appeasement and collective security in Europe. It is about moral depravity and blindness, about villains and cowards, and about heroes who stood against the intellectual and popular tides of their time. Some died for their beliefs, others labored in obscurity and have been nearly forgotten. In 1939 they sought to make the Grand Alliance that never was between France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. This story of their efforts is background to the wartime alliance created in 1941 without France but with the United States in order to defeat a demonic enemy. 1939 is based upon Mr. Carley’s longtime research on the period, including work in French, British, and newly opened Soviet archives. He challenges prevailing interpretations of the origins of World War II by situating 1939 at the end of the early cold war between the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, and by showing how anti-communism was the major cause of the failure to form an alliance against Hitler. 1939 was published on September 1, the sixtieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the start of the war.

Download or read book The Triumph of the Dark written by Zara Steiner and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 1248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magisterial narrative, Zara Steiner traces the twisted road to war that began with Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Covering a wide geographical canvas, from America to the Far East, Steiner provides an indispensable reassessment of the most disputed events of these tumultuous years. Steiner underlines the far-reaching consequences of the Great Depression, which shifted the initiative in international affairs from those who upheld the status quo to those who were intent on destroying it. In Europe, the l930s were Hitler's years. He moved the major chess pieces on the board, forcing the others to respond. From the start, Steiner argues, he intended war, and he repeatedly gambled on Germany's future to acquire the necessary resources to fulfil his continental ambitions. Only war could have stopped him-an unwelcome message for most of Europe. Misperception, miscomprehension, and misjudgment on the part of the other Great Powers leaders opened the way for Hitler's repeated diplomatic successes. It is ideology that distinguished the Hitler era from previous struggles for the mastery of Europe. Ideological presumptions created false images and raised barriers to understanding that even good intelligence could not penetrate. Only when the leaders of Britain and France realized the scale of Hitler's ambition, and the challenge Germany posed to their Great Power status, did they finally declare war.

Download or read book The Meaning of Munich Fifty Years Later written by Kenneth Martin Jensen and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the implications of the 1938 Munich conference on international foreign policy and conflict resolution in the 1980s.

Download or read book Britain at Bay written by Alan Allport and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From statesmen and military commanders to ordinary Britons, a bold, sweeping history of Britain's entrance into World War II—and its efforts to survive it—illuminating the ways in which the war permanently transformed a nation and its people “Might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written.” —The Wall Street Journal Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict’s first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles pressing questions such as whether the war could have been avoided, how it could have been lost, how well the British lived up to their own values, and ultimately, what difference the war made to the fate of the nation. In answering these questions, he reexamines our assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of the ways in which the Second World War transformed British culture and society. This bracing account draws on a lively cast of characters—from the political and military leaders who made the decisions, to the ordinary citizens who lived through them—in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. A sweeping and groundbreaking epic, Britain at Bay gives us a fresh look at the opening years of the war, and illuminates the integral moments that, for better or for worse, made Britain what it is today.

Download or read book O D Skelton written by Norman Hillmer and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: O.D. Skelton: The Work of the World, 1923-1941 is a lively and compelling trip through the letters, diary entries, and official memoranda of O.D. Skelton, one of the most important and influential civil servants in twentieth-century Canada. Skelton was a towering foreign policy advisor to Canada's prime ministers and a lonely advocate for the country's independence from Great Britain. His accounts detail his work as he co-operated and clashed with William Lyon Mackenzie King and R.B. Bennett over Canada's participation in the international arena. Norman Hillmer's selection and assessment of Skelton's writings offer a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the federal government as Skelton systematically built up the Department of External Affairs and the Canadian diplomatic service as instruments of the national interest, confronted the Manchurian, Ethiopian, and Czech crises of the 1930s, aligned himself with senior francophone politicians such as Ernest Lapointe and Raoul Dandurand, and watched in despair as Europe and Asia descended into war. Providing avenues into a time when Canada was struggling to define itself, this collection shows the ways in which O.D. Skelton pushed the country onto the global stage.