CHURCHILL, Winston S. Draft typescript signed ("Winston S. Churchill"), n.d. [ca. March 1931]. 8 pages, 4to, punch holes at top left (linked by green ribbon); signature smudged; a few emendations in Churchill's hand, others by a copy editor .
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Draft typescript signed ("Winston S. Churchill"), n.d. [ca. March 1931]. 8 pages, 4to, punch holes at top left (linked by green ribbon); signature smudged; a few emendations in Churchill's hand, others by a copy editor . "WILL NOT THE MASTER OF HITLERISM BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL FORCES IN GERMANY BE A REAL FACTOR IN THE IMMEDIATE PEACE OF EUROPE?" BENEATH THE AUSTRO-GERMAN CUSTOMS UNION LURKS THE 'ANSCHLUSS'...TOWERING UP GRIM AND GRISLY, LUCKILY AS YET LARGELY UNARMED." The March 1931 customs agreement between Germany and Austria filled Churchill with foreboding (we sold in these rooms on 21 June 2013, lot 108, another of Churchill's ominous reflections on this matter). He sees--eight years before the outbreak of general war and even before Hitler came to power--the means by which an "Anschluss" could provoke violence among the great powers of Europe. "We must look below the surface of a Customs Union, and rake among the smouldering embers of Armageddon. Beneath the Customs Union lurks the 'Anschluss' or union between the German mass and the remains of Austria. Germany emerged beaten and prostrate from the world war" and some six and a half million ethnic Poles "were removed from her sway" in the redrawn border with Poland. But now "Germany replaces all these six and a half million Poles with sturdy and ardent south Germans" and gains 32,000 square miles of territory. "Here we touch the foundations of European equilibrium as established by the Treaties which ended the war to end war." France now "sees the solid German block of seventy millions producing far more than twice her number of military males each year, towering up grim and grisly, luckily as yet largely unarmed." You cannot expect France to take this lightly, Churchill adds, especially when they "have been three times invaded in a hundred years by Germans...You cannot help feeling anxious about this ponderous mass of Teutonic humanity piling up beyond the frontier." Then there was Czechoslovakia and its 3.5 million ethnic Germans that will prove "an indigestible morsel" in the Czech body politic. They "will be surrounded on three sides by other Germans. They will become almost a Bohemian island in a boisterous fierce-lapping ocean of Teutonic manhood and efficiency." And Hitler loomed in the wings: "a new figure has arisen in Germany...It is but a few months since Hitler shook the German republic to its foundations" with his party's success in the September 1930 elections. "Will not the master of Hitlerism by the constitutional forces in Germany be a real factor in the immediate peace of Europe?" Anschluss. Ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia. The German border with Poland. That is exactly the sequence of crises Hitler provoked to bring on a Second World War in 1938 and 1939.
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Draft typescript signed ("Winston S. Churchill"), n.d. [ca. March 1931]. 8 pages, 4to, punch holes at top left (linked by green ribbon); signature smudged; a few emendations in Churchill's hand, others by a copy editor .
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Draft typescript signed ("Winston S. Churchill"), n.d. [ca. March 1931]. 8 pages, 4to, punch holes at top left (linked by green ribbon); signature smudged; a few emendations in Churchill's hand, others by a copy editor . "WILL NOT THE MASTER OF HITLERISM BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL FORCES IN GERMANY BE A REAL FACTOR IN THE IMMEDIATE PEACE OF EUROPE?" BENEATH THE AUSTRO-GERMAN CUSTOMS UNION LURKS THE 'ANSCHLUSS'...TOWERING UP GRIM AND GRISLY, LUCKILY AS YET LARGELY UNARMED." The March 1931 customs agreement between Germany and Austria filled Churchill with foreboding (we sold in these rooms on 21 June 2013, lot 108, another of Churchill's ominous reflections on this matter). He sees--eight years before the outbreak of general war and even before Hitler came to power--the means by which an "Anschluss" could provoke violence among the great powers of Europe. "We must look below the surface of a Customs Union, and rake among the smouldering embers of Armageddon. Beneath the Customs Union lurks the 'Anschluss' or union between the German mass and the remains of Austria. Germany emerged beaten and prostrate from the world war" and some six and a half million ethnic Poles "were removed from her sway" in the redrawn border with Poland. But now "Germany replaces all these six and a half million Poles with sturdy and ardent south Germans" and gains 32,000 square miles of territory. "Here we touch the foundations of European equilibrium as established by the Treaties which ended the war to end war." France now "sees the solid German block of seventy millions producing far more than twice her number of military males each year, towering up grim and grisly, luckily as yet largely unarmed." You cannot expect France to take this lightly, Churchill adds, especially when they "have been three times invaded in a hundred years by Germans...You cannot help feeling anxious about this ponderous mass of Teutonic humanity piling up beyond the frontier." Then there was Czechoslovakia and its 3.5 million ethnic Germans that will prove "an indigestible morsel" in the Czech body politic. They "will be surrounded on three sides by other Germans. They will become almost a Bohemian island in a boisterous fierce-lapping ocean of Teutonic manhood and efficiency." And Hitler loomed in the wings: "a new figure has arisen in Germany...It is but a few months since Hitler shook the German republic to its foundations" with his party's success in the September 1930 elections. "Will not the master of Hitlerism by the constitutional forces in Germany be a real factor in the immediate peace of Europe?" Anschluss. Ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia. The German border with Poland. That is exactly the sequence of crises Hitler provoked to bring on a Second World War in 1938 and 1939.
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
