Hitler at Nuremberg (NYT Editorial-9/12/38)

Today Hitler closes out the Nuremberg rally with a rousing speech. I have been working many hours to prepare a post showing the international reaction to the speech which you will see tomorrow. It is sickening to learn the extent to which Hitler controlled events during this period. Whatever outcome he desired would come to pass. The leaders of the once-great British and French empires behaved like frightened boys hoping the schoolyard bully wouldn’t beat them up and take their milk money. It was truly a low point for Western civilization. Ah, well, enough subjectivity. Here is an eyewitness account.

In these crisis-ridden years that have followed World War II [This was published in 1959-Homer] it is difficult to recall the dark and almost unbearable tension that gripped the capitals of Europe as the Nuremberg Party Rally, which had begun on September 6, approached its climax on September 12, when Hitler was scheduled to make his closing speech and expected to proclaim to the world his final decision for peace or war with Czechoslovakia. I was in Prague, the focus of the crisis, that week, and it seemed strange that the Czech capital, despite the violence unleashed by the Germans in the Sudetenland, the threats from Berlin, the pressure of the British and French governments to yield, and the fear that they might leave Czechoslovakia in the lurch, was the calmest of all—at least outwardly.

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And so all Europe waited for Hitler's word on September 12 from Nuremberg. Though brutal and bombastic, and dripping with venom against the Czech state and especially against the Czech President, the Fuehrer's speech, made to a delirious mass of Nazi fanatics gathered in the huge stadium on the last night of the party rally, was not a declaration of war. He reserved his decision—publicly at least, for, as we know from the captured German documents, he had already set October 1 for the attack across the Czech frontier. He simply demanded that the Czech government give "justice" to the Sudeten Germans. If it didn't, Germany would have to see to it that it did. The repercussions to Hitler's outburst were considerable. In the Sudetenland it inspired a revolt which after two days of savage fighting the Czech government put down by rushing in troops and declaring martial law. Henlein slipped over the border to Germany proclaiming that the only solution now was the ceding of the Sudeten areas to Germany.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pg. 382-384

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