Reincarnated: Vive La France

The Reich Chancellery's grand hall was filled before dawn functionaries, generals, press, and foreign diplomats in reserved, nervous rows.

Within the hall.

Radio men prepared transmission to Munich, Vienna, Stuttgart, Hamburg.

In the wings, Joseph Goebbels reviewed a final list of foreign correspondents present Times, Daily Telegraph, Paris Soir, New York Times, and even Prague's own Lidové noviny.

Just before six, the doors opened.

Hitler entered, flanked by aides, the SS, and Ribbentrop.

He wore a dark uniform, its medals carefully chosen, the Iron Cross shining at his breast.

He took the dais with no hesitation.

For a moment, he stood still studying the faces before him.

The hush was total.

Then, his voice rang out soft at first, but growing with every sentence.

"German men and women! Friends of the Reich, of Europe, and of peace today, I stand before you, before the eyes of the world, with a heart that is heavy, but with a will that is unbreakable."

He let the words settle, gaze shifting to the cameras.

"There are hours in the life of a nation when the mask of patience is torn away by the hand of necessity. There are moments when justice long ridiculed, long trampled demands its due."

He raised a hand.

"I have not come to this threshold lightly. For years, I have endured the lies and slanders of those who sit in Paris and London men who drew the map of Europe with foreign pens, who divided living nations with dead lines, who promised self-determination only for their own convenience."

The audience silent.

He leaned forward, every muscle tense.

"Twice in this century, the German people have been called oppressors villains, invaders, brutes. But I ask you what nation has endured greater humiliation, what people have suffered longer exile, than the Germans of the Sudetenland?"

A murmur in the hall. He drove on.

"For twenty years, our kin in Bohemia and Moravia have been denied their language, their culture, their rights as men and women. For twenty years, their churches have been shuttered, their children forced to sing in foreign tongues, their banners torn from their hands. For twenty years, they have been ruled not with law, but with contempt!"

He hammered the podium with his fist.

"And when they protested, they were called traitors! When they asked for schools, for judges, for the dignity every people deserves, they were met with batons, bullets, and prisons!"

His voice rose, trembling with rage part performance, part conviction.

"I have pleaded, I have negotiated, I have written letters not in ink, but in hope! Hope that reason would prevail, that justice would awaken. But in Prague, the answer has always been the same no, and again, no!"

He paused, letting his fury die into solemnity.

"Some sayblet them wait. Wait for new agreements. New promises. But what is the worth of Prague's promises? The ink is still wet on their last lie, and already they plan the next!"

He turned, addressing the foreign correspondents directly.

"I say to the world We are not aggressors. We are not warmongers. We are not what our enemies would have you believe. We are the voice of a people whose patience has been murdered, whose pleas have been drowned in hypocrisy and cowardice!"

He gripped the podium, knuckles white.

"Yesterday, Sudeten Germans bled in their own streets shot not for what they did, but for who they are. Women wept over sons lost not in war, but in the peace that was supposed to save them. Is this the Europe the victors of Versailles promised us? Is this the civilization of the West?"

He turned back to the Germans in the room.

"You all know what it is to lose, to hunger, to bow before foreign boots. You know the taste of defeat, the humiliation of foreign rule. But I say to you never again! Never again shall Germans live as beggars on their own soil, as strangers in their own homes!"

His voice soared relentless, hypnotic.

"For months, I have given the government in Prague every chance. I have urged them, recognize the rights of the Sudeten Germans! Grant them their language, their law, their lives! And every time, they have spat in our face answering justice with guns, dignity with mockery!"

A series of agreement moved through the room, orchestrated and real.

"I say now enough. Enough betrayal, enough humiliation, enough waiting. The world may not care for the fate of the Sudeten Germans but Germany does! I do! And the hour for talk is ended!"

He drew himself taller, eyes burning.

"Tonight, the German Reich fulfills its duty to history and to blood. Tonight, we extend our hand not as conquerors, but as liberators! We come not to enslave, but to embrace! Not to erase, but to restore!"

He let his voice soften, almost gentle.

"To the Germans of Czechoslovakia, I say, the long night is over. The day has come when you are no longer pawns in a foreign game, no longer orphans in the house of your fathers. The Reich comes to you as family, as kin, as destiny fulfilled!"

He lifted his hand in salute.

"To the world, I say watch well. Judge us by our deeds, not by your own fears. We seek no quarrel with those who respect justice. But let no one think Germany will stand by while her sons are slaughtered. Those days are gone forever."

His tone shifted, hardening like ice.

"And to those in Prague, I give this final word you had your chance. You squandered it. You were offered peace, and you chose tyranny. The responsibility for what comes rests with you, not with us. The world will see the truth, whether you confess it or not."

He turned, briefly, to Goebbels who nodded almost imperceptibly.

Hitler faced the crowd once more.

"There are those who will call this an act of aggression. They will scream, they will write their lies, they will gnash their teeth in their comfortable salons. Let them! For while they talk, Germany acts. While they hesitate, Germany decides. While they whisper, Germany shouts!"

The echo bounced from the marble walls.

He brought his fist down on the podium, a single, chilling blow.

"Germany does not ask for permission. Germany does not wait for approval. Germany does what history demands, what blood requires, what destiny commands!"

His face was flushed, eyes fever-bright.

"I have no more patience for the counsel of cowards, for the signatures of traitors, for the whimpering of diplomats! I have patience only for justice for my people, for our future, for the order of Europe that will not be built on lies and shame, but on the truth of nations and the honor of men!"

He drew a breath, letting silence pool.

"History will remember this day. Not as the hour Germany broke the peace, but as the hour Germany broke her chains. Let the world tremble if it must Germany stands, unbowed, unbroken, united!"

The final words fell like hammers.

"The Reich moves not for conquest, but for completion. For kin, for homeland, for destiny. So it has been decided. So it will be."

He saluted, arm rigid, eyes unblinking.

"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"

A roar rose from the hall, some forced, some real, boots and applause echoing off stone.

The broadcast was already out over the airwaves, carried on shortwave to Paris, London, Prague, and the world.

Reporters scribbled, cameras flashed, functionaries strained to see.

Goebbels stepped up, thanking the assembled press, promising order, calm, and the end of injustice.

He handed off communiqués to diplomats, their contents vague but final.

In the corridors, aides hurried out instructions, first to the army, then the foreign offices, then to the Sudeten commanders waiting at the border.

Outside, Berlin seemed to hold its breath.

Far away in Prague, a group of ministers listened by radio, faces pale, jaws clenched.

The words washed over them a verdict, a curse, an unshakable summons.

Beneš sat in his office, motionless.

Marta entered, face white.

"He's done it, hasn't he?" she whispered.

Beneš nodded. "Yes. It's begun if not in tanks, then in the mind of every man who holds a rifle."

Marta placed her hand over his.

"What now?"

He stared at the wall, at the maps and photographs, the notes and names.

He thought of Masaryk, of the silent villages in the north, of every boy with a paper uniform, every mother waiting for news.

"We wait," he said at last. "We hold, even now. And when the end comes, we meet it as we must."

He stood, walking to the window.

Outside, the lamps of Prague flickered in the early light, the city bracing for history's arrival.

In Berlin, Hitler stepped from the stage, applause still ringing, his heart racing with the triumph of the moment already thinking of the next border, the next speech, the next night.

And across the continent, the world listened, powerless and afraid, as the curtain rose on a war that had, in truth, already begun.