The army asked for the cessation of war preparation
The Chief of Staff of the Army, Ludwig Beck, Demands the Cessation of Preparation for War, 16 July 1938. Memorandum to Commander in Chief of the Army, v. Brauchitsch.
Source: W. Michalka (Hg.), Deutsche Geschichte 1933-45 , (Frankfurt 1993), pp.156-157.
... The possibility to shatter Czechoslovakia by military force in the near future without mobilising France and England right away does not exist...
There is no chance to create a situation in the first two or three days which will lead adversary states eager to intervene to believe that military action will be hopeless. It has to be stressed once again that the Czech situation will be the cause for the war for France and England, but once these two powers enter the war, it will not be an intervention on behalf of the Czech, but a war for life and death with Germany...
...Being fully aware of the possible consequences of such a step, but out of my responsibility which grew with the task I have been charged with of the preparation and execution of a war, I feel it is my duty to request that the Commanding Chief of the Army issue the command to stop the preparations for war he had ordered and to restrict the intention for a military solution of the Czech question until the military conditions are fundamentally changed. For the time being the odds seem to me to be impossible. This view is shared by all the officers under my command who were charged with the execution of this war against Czechoslovakia...
...The last decisions over the existence of the German nation are at stake here. History will burden the leaders with a guilt of blood, should they not act in accordance with their professional and state-political knowledge and conscience. Their soldierly obedience should have limits where their knowledge, their conscience and their responsibility prevents them from obeying an order.
Should their advice and warnings in such a situation not be heeded, they have the right and the duty in front of the people and history to step down. If they will all act together, the implementation of a military operation will be impossible. They would thus protect their fatherland from the worst, from disaster.
It is a lack of greatness and of awareness of responsibility when a soldier of high rank at such times will regard his duty only within the limitations of his military tasks, without taking upon himself the higher responsibility for the entire nation. Extraordinary times require extraordinary deeds....
