Eighty years ago today, on September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, former Member of Parliament from the town of my birth, and family friend of my own family, returned to Heston Aerodrome outside of London, having just signed the Munich Agreement allowing the German annexation of Sudetenland, and waving a piece of paper known to history as the Anglo-German Declaration, signed by himself and Adolph Hitler. He read from that piece of paper, both then at the aerodrome:
…and later, while standing outside Number 10 Downing Street, as follows:
We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting to-day and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.
Signed
Adolf Hitler
Neville Chamberlain
Chamberlain followed up his reading of the Declaration outside Number 10 with these words:
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.
By doing so, he was echoing the words of Benjamin Disraeli, who returned from the Congress of Berlin in 1878 with the words “I have returned from Germany with peace for our time.”
Winston Churchill’s reaction to the Anglo-German Declaration was swift, sure, and soon borne out by subsequent events:
You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.
Within a few short months, Hitler had invaded and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, and when he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, not only Britain, but all of Europe, and soon all the world, had war.
To all those who served, before, then, and since, and to their families and loved ones who served every single moment with them in spirit:
“Thank You.”
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