World War II Day by Day

Berlin, Germany • July 19, 1940

Military operations between France and the Axis powers—that is, Germany and Italy—ended on June 25, 1940. A week and a half earlier, on June 14, the German Wehr­macht (armed forces) marched unchal­lenged into the nearly deserted French capital of Paris under skies heavy with soot from the oil reserves the retreating French govern­ment had ordered burned. In a radio broad­cast to the French nation two days later, 86‑year-old Marshal Philippe Pétain, the new head of state, con­fided to his country­men that the night before (June 16), “I sent word to the adver­sary, as between sol­diers, after the battle and in honor, to enquire whether he was willing to explore means to end hos­til­i­ties.” Now on this date, July 19, 1940, the forces of the vic­to­rious Third Reich marched through Berlin’s Branden­burg Gate for the first time since Kaiser Wil­helm I’s victory over Germany’s ancient enemy in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. German head of state Adolf Hitler handed out ranks and decora­tions to the grossly corpu­lent Air Marshal Her­mann Goering, now pro­moted to the rank of Reichs­marshall, and ele­vated twelve generals who had served in the battles of France and the Low Coun­tries (May 14 to June 20) to the rank of field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall). Among the generals who received their ornately deco­rated field marshal baton was Gerd von Rund­stedt (1875–1953), whom Hitler appointed Com­man­der in Chief in the West (Ober­befehls­haber West). With head­quarters near Paris, von Rund­stedt’s prin­ci­pal respon­si­bil­ity was to main­tain German military hegemony in occupied France.

Addressing Reichstag members the evening of June 19 in Berlin, Hitler had held out an olive branch to Great Britain, which, like defeated France, had declared war on Ger­many on Septem­ber 3 the year before. In his speech the incor­ri­gible aggres­sor told the new British Prime Minis­ter, Winston Chur­chill, that he did not wish to con­tinue the mili­tary struggle against the lone hold­out against Nazi domi­na­tion in Europe. “My con­science dictates that I should send a new appeal to rea­son to Eng­land,” he stated. “I think I can do this because I am not a defeated enemy who is begging but a victor who has nothing to ask. I do not wish for any reason to continue this struggle.”

Three days later the BBC broadcast the official British response to Hitler’s peace initi­ative: Germany could only have peace if it evacu­ated all the terri­tories it had occu­pied since the out­break of war, restored the free­doms it had trampled on, and gave guaran­tees for a peace­ful future. This last require­ment seemed an odd one indeed, for Chur­chill’s pred­e­ces­sor, Neville Cham­ber­lain (in office from May 1937 to May 1940), bran­dished aloft a memo­ran­dum that he and Hitler had signed, waving it to a cheering crowd upon his return from Munich at the end of Septem­ber 1938. “To assure the peace of Europe,” the two world leaders “resolved that the method of consul­ta­tion shall be the method adopted to deal with . . . ques­tions that may con­cern our two coun­tries.” The Munich Agree­ment, the signa­ture achieve­ment of his adminis­tration, had pro­duced “peace with honor,” “peace for our time” Chamber­lain assured an anxious world. Back in Germany, a dis­appointed Hitler, sensing a change of attitude in Britain’s feisty new prime minister, retired to the Berg­hof, his Bava­rian moun­tain retreat on the Ober­salz­berg near Berchtes­gaden, wondering why his peace overture to Churchill had fallen on stone cold ears.

Sudetenland Crisis and Munich, 1938: Apogee of European Appeasement

Left: British Prime Minister Neville Chamber­lain, French Prime Minis­ter Édouard Dala­dier, German Chan­cellor Adolf Hitler, Ital­ian Prime Minis­ter Benito Mus­so­lini, and Ital­ian Foreign Minis­ter Gale­azzo Ciano pic­tured (left to right) before signing the Munich Agree­ment shortly after 1 a.m., Septem­ber 30, 1938. The “Czecho­slo­va­kian prob­lem,” as Cham­ber­lain framed the dis­pute between Ger­many and its south­ern neighbor, was resolved by detaching Czecho­slo­va­kia’s mostly German-speaking Sude­ten­land and handing it over to Ger­many. The Czecho­slovak govern­ment in Prague objected to the agree­ment reached by Europe’s Big Four, but agreed to its terms when informed (essen­tially black­mailed) that should a war break out in Europe Czecho­slo­va­kia would be held respon­sible. The Munich Agree­ment would culminate six months later in Hitler’s takeover of what was left of Czechoslovakia.

Right: On his triumphal return from Munich on Septem­ber 30, 1938, Cham­ber­lain holds aloft the certi­fied pro­mise he and Hitler had made to each other a few hours earlier; namely, a solemn com­mit­ment to resolve dif­fer­ences between their two coun­tries peace­fully. The prime minister assured British sub­jects twice that day, those cheering him at the air­port upon his arrival and those mobbing him at his resi­dence at 10 Downing St. in the evening, that the fruits of his trip had pro­duced “peace for our time.” After the second assur­ance, Cham­ber­lain told the crowd to “go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.”

Chamberlain and Hitler’s 1938 Resolution to Work for the Peace of Europe