1938: Hitler’s Gamble, by Giles MacDonogh
Hitler’s greatest gamble in 1938 was his determination to occupy the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, even at the risk of sparking a European war. Neither Neville Cham- berlain nor the French prime minister, Edouard Daladier, was prepared to play for such high stakes and they threw in their chips, giving the Führer what he wanted without bloodshed. It will therefore come as a surprise that in Giles MacDonogh’s 1938: Hitler’s Gamble, a mere seven paragraphs are devoted to the Munich conference that effectively sealed Czechoslovakia’s fate.
Instead it is the Austrian capital that takes centre stage in this compelling survey of a tumultuous year. Given the extensive literature on the Munich carve-up, most recently and successfully by David Faber, the focus on Vienna is certainly justifiable. There is, after all, a natural tendency to see Hitler’s unopposed invasion of Austria in March 1938 as a fait accompli, with the details of the anschluss skimmed over as a mere prelude to the main event at Munich six months later.
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