[Homer_J_Simpson]

Was the Franco-British surrender at Munich necessary? Was Adolf Hitler not bluffing?

The answer, paradoxically, to both questions, we now know, is No. All the generals close to Hitler who survived the war agree that had it not been for Munich Hitler would have attacked Czechoslovakia on October 1, 1938, and they presume that, whatever momentary hesitations there might have been in London, Paris and Moscow, in the end Britain, France and Russia would have been drawn into the war.

And—what is most important to this history at this point—the German generals agree unanimously that Germany would have lost the war, and in short order. The argument of the supporters of Chamberlain and Daladier—and they were in the great majority at the time—that Munich saved the West not only from war but from defeat in war and, incidentally, preserved London and Paris from being wiped out by the Luftwaffe's murderous bombing has been impressively refuted, so far as concern the last two points, by those in a position to know best: the German generals, and especially those generals who were closest to Hitler and who supported him from beginning to end the most fanatically.

The leading light among the latter was General Keitel, chief of OKW, toady to Hitler and constantly at his side. When asked on the stand at the Nuremberg trial what the reaction of the German generals was to Munich he replied:

We were extraordinarily happy that it had not come to a military operation because ... we had always been of the opinion that our means of attack against the frontier fortifications of Czechoslovakia were insufficient. From a purely military point of view we lacked the means for an attack which involved the piercing of the frontier fortifications.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 423

[CougarGA7]

While many applauded Chamberlain's concessions in Munich the First Lord of the Admiralty Alfred Duff Cooper was so disgusted by the agreement that he resigned. This is only significant in that he went on later to become the British liaison to the Free French (1943) and ambassador to France (1944) under Winston Churchill.

[henkster]

Everything Hitler did was a colossal bluff. In all crises up to Munich, he never had his bluff called. However, from that point on, virtually all of Hitler’s bluffs were called. In every situation but one (Operation Sealion, the cross channel invasion of Britain) he went ahead and played his cards. That was the only time he folded.

Most of his gambles he lost. He would have been a terrible poker player once the canny players figured him out.

I believe that had Chamberlain and Daladier called his bluff, Hitler would have gone to war in 1938. I believe the Czechs could have held out through the winter, and the Allies would have done nothing in the West as they did a year later. In the spring the Wehrmacht would have their act together and would have overwhelmed Czechoslovakia.