Posted on 03/13/2009 6:23:48 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
When Tiso and Durcansky arrived at the Chancellery in Berlin at 7:40 on the evening of March 13, they found Hitler flanked not only by Ribbentrop but by his two top generals, Brauchitsch, Commander in Chief of the German Army, and Keitel, Chief of OKW. Though they may not have realized it, the Slovaks also found the Fuehrer in a characteristic mood. Here again, thanks to the captured confidential minutes of the meeting, we may peer into the weird mind of the German dictator, rapidly giving way to megalomania, and watch him spinning his fantastic lies and uttering his dire threats in a manner and to an extent which he no doubt was sure would never come to public attention.
"Czechoslovakia," he said, "owed it only to Germany that she had not been mutilated further," The Reich had exhibited "the greatest self-control." Yet the Czechs had not appreciated this. "During recent weeks," he went on, working himself up easily to a fine lather, "conditions have become impossible. The old Benes spirit has come to life again."
The Slovaks had also disappointed him. After Munich he had "fallen out" with his friends the Hungarians by not permitting them to grab Slovakia. He had thought Slovakia wanted to be independent.
He had now summoned Tiso in order to clear up this question in a very short time, . . . The question was: Did Slovakia want to lead an independent existence or not? ... It was a question not of days but of hours. If Slovakia wished to become independent he would support and even guarantee it ... If she hesitated or refused to be separated from Prague, he would leave the fate of Slovakia to events for which he was no longer responsible.
At this point, the German minutes reveal, Ribbentrop "handed to the Fuehrer a report just received, announcing Hungarian troop movements on the Slovak frontier. The Fuehrer read this report, told Tiso of its contents, and expressed the hope that Slovakia would reach a decision soon."
Tiso did not give his decision then. He asked the Fuehrer to "pardon him if, under the impact of the Chancellor's words, he could make no definite decision at once." But the Slovaks, he quickly added, "would prove themselves worthy of the Fuehrer's benevolence."
This they did in a conference which continued far into the night at the Foreign Ministry. According to the Nuremberg testimony of Keppler, who had been Hitler's secret agent in Bratislava, as he had been the year before in Vienna on the eve of the Anschluss, the Germans helped Tiso draft a telegram, which the "Premier" was to send as soon as he returned to Bratislava, proclaiming Slovakia's independence and urgently requesting the Fuehrer to take over the protection of the new state, It is reminiscent of the "telegram" dictated by Goering just a year before in which Seyss-Inquart was to appeal to Hitler to send German troops to Austria. By this time the Nazi "telegram" technique had been perfected. The telegram, considerably abridged, was duly dispatched by Tiso on March 16, and Hitler immediately replied that he would be glad to "take over the protection of the Slovak State."
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
...Bravo, stumbled on yer posts before, will PM you to ping me...
I’ve been away for a while.
Hitler agitates for the independence of Slovakia to trigger the dismemberment and domination of Czechoslovakia. Hitler really hated the Czechs. In the pecking order of his hatreds, Czechs were tied for third with the Poles and Russians, right behind Jews and Communists.
It was the Czech community of Lidice that was exterminated as a retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
The name Tiso appears again in relation to the Holocaust, and what the Church did or did not, could or could not, would or would not do to stop it.
I remember seeing a show on Heydrich about a year ago and they mentioned Lidice as the sufferers of retribution for his assassination. One of so many Nazi attrocities during the war that it actually gets lost in the white noise.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.