Price is Increased – 2-3
Developments in Europe – 2
3 Border Incidents – 4
Italy Warns Poles Not to Fight – 5
Reich Army Ready on Polish Border – 6
Reich Marks Anniversary of Hitler’s Enlistment – 7
Nazi-Soviet pact update at reply #2.
This appears to be the first public demand by Germany not just for Danzig, which was a “free city” not technically part of Poland, but also for the entire Polish Corridor, which was. If so, it is clearly a significant raise in the stakes. I wonder if the demand for the Corridor was made public because of the initial overtures with Moscow. If so, Hitler was jumping the gun. On the Soviet side, Stalin had to see that Hitler was showing his cards to early, and was desperate for a deal. And Stalin knew how to bargain; thus his overture on what would eventually be known as the “Secret Protocol” to the Non-Aggression Pact where Germany and the USSR partitioned all of Eastern Europe and the Baltic between them.
I wonder at this time; did people believe war was really going to take place, or did they believe there would be another Munich?