Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 1930s

by Igor Lukes

Overview

The Munich crisis of 1938, in which Great Britain and France decided to appease Hitler's demands to annex the Sudentenland, has provoked a vast amount of historical writing. But historians have had, until now, only a vague understanding of the roles played by the Soviet Union and by Czechoslovakia, the country whose very existence was at the center of the crisis.

In Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, Igor Lukes explores this turbulent and tragic era from the new perspective of the Prague government itself. At the center of this study is Edvard Benes, a Czechoslovak foreign policy strategist and a major player in the political machinations of the era. The work analyzes the Prague Government's attempts to secure the existence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the treacherous space between the millstones of the East and West. It studies Benes's relationship with Joseph Stalin, outlines the role assigned to Czechoslovak communists by the VIIth Congress of the Communist International in 1935, and dissects Prague's secret negotiations with Berlin and Benes's role in the famous Tukhachevsky affair. Using secret archives in both Prague and Russia, this work is an accurate and original rendition of the events that sparked the Second World War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195102666
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/23/1996
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.12(d)
Lexile:	1450L (what's this?)

About the Author

Boston University

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	xiii
1	Czechoslovak-Soviet Contacts from the End of World War I to Adolf Hitler's Machtergreifung, 1918-1933	3
	The Hillerson Red Cross Mission in Prague	7
	Prague's Attitude toward the Bolsheviks	11
	From Diplomacy to Confrontation	18
2	Dangerous Relations: Benes and Stalin in Hitler's Shadow, 1933-1935	33
	At Last: De Jure Recognition and Its Consequences	36
	Benes's Ostpolitik	40
	The Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of 1935 and Its Mysterious Stipulation	44
	Prague's Pact with Moscow	50
	The Aftermath of Czechoslovakia's Agreement with the Soviet Union	51
	Stalin's Wooing of Edvard Benes: The 1935 Trip to Moscow	52
	Stalin Was "Gracious, Thoughtful, Accommodating,"	55
3	Between the Agile East and the Apathetic West: Central Europe, 1935-1937	67
	The CPC and the 7th Congress of the Comintern	68
	Czechoslovakia and the Frigid West	79
	"Lord Halalifax,"	81
4	Benes and the Tukhachevsky Affair: New Evidence from the Archives in Prague and Moscow	91
	Znamia Rossii and Other Tremors before the Earthquake	92
	Tukhachevsky and the Secret Negotiations between Prague and Berlin	96
	President Edvard Benes and the Tukhachevsky Affair	99
5	The Fateful Spring of 1938: Austrian Anschlu[beta] and the May Crisis	113
	From the Death of Thomas G. Masaryk to New Year's Day 1938	116
	The Anschlu[beta] of Austria	119
	Czechoslovakia after the Anschlu[beta]	126
	Moscow's Reaction to the Anschlu[beta]	130
	Konrad Henlein's Eight Points: Demand the Impossible	139
	May Day 1938: Gottwald in Moscow, Henlein in the Sudetenland	141
	The Partial Mobilization of May 1938	143
	The May Mobilization and Analysts of the Second Bureau	148
6	Lord Runciman and Comrade Zhdanov: Western and Soviet Policies Toward Czechoslovakia from June to Early September 1938	173
	France: Firm Statements of Support on Shaky Foundations	174
	Great Britain Takes Charge	177
	The British Intervention: Lord Runciman in Prague	179
	The Three-Pronged Soviet Strategy from June to Early September 1938	190
7	September 1938	209
	Hitler at Nuremberg and a State of Emergency in the Sudetenland	209
	Berchtesgaden: A Step to Munich	214
	The Franco-British Proposal	218
	Prague's Response to the Proposal and the Soviet Union	223
	The Franco-British Ultimatum and Its Consequences	225
	Godesberg: The Last Missed Opportunity	233
	Folding the Flag: From the Sportpalast to Munich	242
	The Yawning Affair at Munich	249
	Agony in Prague	253
	The Man Who Won at Munich: Stalin and the Four Power Act	256
	The Victims of the Munich Agreement	260
	Sources and Bibliography	277
	Index	311

Editorial Reviews

"Professor Lukes' book is one of the most important and interesting studies of the events which led to W.W. II. His study of the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938 is bolstered by the hither-to secret documents released recently by Moscow and Prague. It throws an intriguing light on the Soviet Union's role in the crisis as well as a number of other important questions that could not be resolved by historians until now."—Adam B. Ulam, Gurney Professor of History and Political Science, Harvard University

"Mr. Lukes's treatise about the unfortunate country caught in the tongs handled by the two bloodiest dictators of Europe, brings to the story the fresh approach of an author unburdened with political affiliations or sympathies which often limit researchers of older generations."—Josef Skvorecyy', University of Toronto (emeritus)

"This important study, based on hitherto inaccessible archival materials, seeks to reappraise Czechoslovak diplomacy in the late 1930s particularly toward the Soviet Union and Germany. It also offers a revisionist interpretation of soviet policies. In a fascinating presentation of crucial international events the author demolishes old clichés and exposes biased accounts; the book is not only a valuable contribution to history but is written in a way which retains the undivided attention of the reader."—Piotr S. Wandycz, Yale University

"This by far the best treatment of the topic and it is also one of the best monographs dealing with the diplomacy of any one of the small European states that were in the thirties sandwiched between Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Third Reich....[G]roundbreaking and exemplary."—Dr. Antonin Klimek, Military Historical Institute and Charles University, Prague

"A marvellous piece of work. Mercifully free of jargon and systems-speak, the book explores the foreign policy of the First Czechoslovak Republic from its creation in 1918 to its demise in 1938. The narrative focuses on the role of Foreign Minister Benes, but the book is really about the ways in which Czechoslovakia tried to survive in a terrible neighborhood, one that included not only the tyrants Hitler and Stalin, but avaricious smaller neighbors, like Poland and Hungary....The

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