1939: the making of the Second World War (World War II)

Legislation passed in May 1967 by the British Parliament reduced the period of secrecy for State papers from fifty to thirty years. The critical documents for the eve of war in 1939, there¬ fore, were declassified and made public on January 1st, 1970. Here, among thousands of bound volumes and files of loose papers of all Government departments, is contained the vital evidence which finally reveals the making of the Second World War.
These massive archives can also be supplemented now by a virtual explosion of other official documents and collections of private papers. The published and unpublished State papers of Europe, including the ussr, and North America have been con¬ sulted in the writing of this book. In Britain, especially, the private papers of more than sixty-five participants in events have been used. They encompass the ten currently available collec¬ tions of British Cabinet Ministers, and some extracts from the letters of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.
These are the records which contain the revelations in private letters, the closely argued memoranda, the often hastily penned minutes, the suggestions for action, and the crucial decisions which influenced decisive events. This material usually eclipses the published memoirs of many who took part in the events here described. Constrained by rigid standards of discretion and sometimes handicapped by fading memories, former officials were generally their own worst apologists.
The documents now available, particularly the full archives of the Foreign Office used here for the first time, reveal that the Second World War only became inevitable on March 15 th, 1939. The seeds of potential conflict with Nazi Germany were planted in earlier events, in the clash of personalities, and in the conflict of policies. On March 15th, however, Hitler’s armed forces occupied Czechoslovakia, whose frontiers had been redrawn and whose continued independence was recognised at the Munich conference. By this single action, Hitler cast irrevocable doubt on his integrity as a responsible spokesman for German aspirations. Instead, he had exhibited potentially insatiable ambitions.