while he tried to exploit the post-Munich turmoil in southeast-
ern Europe. Göring’s diary shows him in furtive conferences
with Czech, Slovak, Romanian, and other politicians. His own
strategy was directed at establishing a German empire in the east
with Poland’s help after Germany had first subverted the rest of
the now-hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, Romania, and the
Ukraine by economic warfare and covert means. Göring was the
inspiration behind this “Grand Solution,” as Ribbentrop re-
vealed to the Swiss Professor Burckhardt (on December ); if
Poland would agree to this imperialist design, she would be
promised new territories in the east to compensate for returning
the former German territories around Posnan and Thorn to the
Reich. “The Führer,” Ribbentrop explained confidentially, “is
inclined to favor this solution, but he hasn’t finally made up his
mind.” The subversive operations that Göring was envisaging in
the east are alluded to in a diary entry of October , after a dis-
cussion with Arthur Rosenberg, the party’s chief intellectual.
“Confidential office in Berlin for refugees from all parts of Rus-
sia,” this stated, in part. “All German government departments
agree, but Rosenberg is against it. The suggestion comes from
the high command (OKW).”
Four days later the same diary showed the field marshal in
secret cabal with separatist politicians from Slovakia. “One of
them looked like a Gypsy,” he recalled in , trying to play
down the significance of the meeting. The Nazis intended to use
Slovak separatism rather as a road builder uses a stick of dyna-
mite to crumble a rock barring his path. “A Tschechei without
Slovakia is even more at our tender mercies,” he wrote in an offi-
cial note on this meeting. And, with his Grand Solution at the
forefront of his thoughts, he added, “Very important to get air
bases in Slovakia for our air force to operate against the east.”
The internal politics of Slovakia were hopelessly entangled, as his