Egerteich incident (Fall Grün)
From Alternative History
The Egerteich incident was a staged attack in the night between September 30 and October 1, 1938 against the border post near the German village of Egerteich on the eve of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia.
This provocation was one of several actions in Operation Himmler, a Nazi Germany SS project to create the appearance of Czech aggression against the Sudeten German minority living in Czechoslovakia and Germany.
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[edit] Background
The news of the Czech refusal to abide by the Munich Agreement, signed by Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini on September 30, came as a shock to the other European countries and the United States, and Germany in particular. Hitler was furious with the Czech decision, and as a result he ordered that Fall Grün was to be initiated the following morning. In Britain, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain informed the Czech government "that they had purposely refused to abide by an agreement signed by the major powers in Europe, and thus they were now alone." While the German armed forces received their final march orders, Hitler ordered the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, along with Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Müller, the chief of the Gestapo, to carry out a false flag operation, which could be used as a casus belli for the justification of a German invasion of Czechoslovakia.
[edit] Events at Egerteich
The Egerteich incident is surrounded by mystery. According to the official story released by the German government, German border guards at a border crossing close to the village of Egerteich, located some 6 km south of Cheb, heard German and Czech shouting on the Czech side of the border followed by a series of shots at 11 o'clock in the evening. The commanding NCO at the scene informed his superior officer, who in turn instructed him to investigate the matter. Upon returning to the scene, he spotted several men running in the direction of German territory. They were followed by a squad of Czech soldiers, who actually were members of the Freikorps also dressed in Czech uniforms. The NCO called for him to halt. Instead, the Czech continued firing in the direction of the Sudeten Germans as well af firing on the German soldiers. The German soldiers returned the fire with 10 rifle rounds. After the Czech soldiers had retreated, 5 bodies were detected; 3 of them were Sudeten Germans on the German side of the border, while the remaining two were German soldiers.
Several other convicts from the Dachau concentration camp were kept available for the operation. They were dressed to look like German soldiers and members of the SdP; then killed by gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed by Czech soldiers. Their corpses was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.
[edit] Context
The Egerteich incident was only a part of a larger operation, carried out by Abwehr and SS forces, as well as by members of the Sudetendeutsche Freikorps. At the same time as the Egerteich attack there were other incidents orchestrated by Sudeten Germans. In the evening of September 30, 1938 a small group of Sudeten German operatives, dressed in Czech military uniforms, entered the main office of the SdP at Hotel Viktoria in the town of Cheb (Eger) and began firing their rifles and pistols. Shortly after the firefight they broadcasted a short anti-German message in Czech (sources vary on the content on the message). The Germans' goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German Czech soldiers by orders of the Czech government. While doing this, Sudeten Germans dressed in Czech uniforms fired their weapons in several Sudeten villages (including Cheb), and in order to make the attack scene more convincing, the Sudeten Germans placed a number of bodies dressed in civilian clothes. The corpses was subsequently presented as proof of the attack on Sudeten German civilians by the Czech government to the police and press.
[edit] Aftermath
Half an hour later, Hitler was informed about the attrocities carried out by the Czech government, and was quick to openly condemn the killing of Sudeten Germans in the Sudetenland and the incident. At midnight Ernst Eisenlohr, the German Minister in Prague, after receiving the news from sources in Berlin, telephoned President Beneš and Prime Minister Syrový, in which he expressed alarm about the attrocities in Sudetenland and the incident itself and urged them to abide by the Munich Agreement.
Around an hour later, Syrový received reports from Krejčí and the chief of military intelligence, General František Moravec, that there was no Czech soldiers in the area opposing Egerteich, and that the allegded attrocities of Sudeten Germans were false accusations made by the German government to give them an excuse for retaliation against Czechoslovakia. They also reported that they had withdrawn all soldiers from areas with a 90-100% German population to avoid incidents exactly like these. Syrový passed this information on to Eisenlohr and the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom and France, Lord Halifax and Bonnet. Eisenlohr passed the information on to the German government, but Hitler stated that this was "state propaganda manufactured by the liar Beneš and his government."
At the border, all Czech soldiers were given orders to take their positions at the border, and all German units were given start orders at 8 o'clock next morning.
