berg rally arena to the peace and quiet of Castle Veldenstein, and
here he again raised the possibility of a Czech “incident” for
example, the assassination of the Sudeten German leader
Konrad Henlein. He followed this with the intriguing sugges-
tion: “Chamberlain and Hitler ought to meet.”
Chamberlain had in fact been planning to meet the Führer.
Early on the fourteenth, Henderson phoned Göring who had
withdrawn from Nuremberg to Carinhall suffering from blood
poisoning and asked for his help in bypassing Ribbentrop to
secure an invitation from Hitler to the elderly British prime
minister. “Of course!” exclaimed Göring, and phoned Hitler,
down at Berchtesgaden, at once. Chamberlain met Hitler the
next day. They made some headway and agreed to meet again a
week later. Bodenschatz brought a record of the Berghof meet-
ing up to Carinhall on the sixteenth.
On the morning of the seventeenth, Sir Nevile Henderson
came out to Carinhall and found Göring, still unwell, studying
the record of the meeting. In an hour-long talk the ambassador
gave voice to his fears that Ribbentrop, closeted alone with Hit-
ler on their mountaintop, might rush the Führer into some pre-
cipitate military action before Chamberlain came for the second
meeting. Göring put his mind at rest on this score but contin-
ued with some of his toughest language yet. “If,” he told
Henderson, “Britain means to make war on Germany, one thing
is certain. Before the war is over, there will be very few Czechs
alive, and little of London left standing either.” He hastened,
however, to add, “There is no cause for anxiety unless some-
thing catastrophic happens,” and he repeated the suspect word
several times during the hour.
As Henderson left, Colonel Ulrich Kessler came in. He had
been in London, deputizing for the absent air attaché during
the recent crisis. Göring had plans to appoint him chief of staff