Exclusion of the Czechoslovak delegation from the Munich talks

The exclusion of the Czechoslovak delegation from the Munich talks turned a diplomatic conference into a scene of enforced absence: Hubert Masarík and Vojtek Mastny arrived as observers but were kept in their hotel room, barred from the proceedings and told that they could leave for Prague if they wished. Hugh Legat’s encounter with them made the exclusion visible to the British party, while the negotiations continued under the pressure of Adolf Hitler’s deadline for action against Czechoslovakia.

Crisis and conference setting

By the time the delegates reached Munich, the crisis had narrowed to a stark choice. Neville Chamberlain told his colleagues that Britain and the Czechoslovak Government had hoped for an orderly transfer of the Sudeten territory to Germany, subject to a plebiscite. Adolf Hitler, he reported, had rejected even a week’s delay and announced that Germany would invade on Saturday. Chamberlain had warned that Britain would support France if France fulfilled its treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia.

The possibility of a British partial mobilisation sharpened the stakes. Chamberlain recognised that mobilising before Germany might demonstrate that Britain was prepared to fight, but also feared that it could push Hitler into war by making him lose face. The day’s urgency was briefly altered when Sir Nevile Henderson relayed that Benito Mussolini had asked Hitler to postpone mobilisation for twenty-four hours so the situation could be reconsidered. Hitler had agreed. That pause, however, did not remove the ultimatum hanging over the conference.

In his account of the talks, Sir Horace Wilson described Hitler’s demand that Britain, France and Italy guarantee that Czechoslovakia would begin evacuating the disputed territory on Saturday; otherwise, Hitler said, he would march in and take it. Wilson reported that Hitler watched his own watch as if measuring the remaining hours of the mobilisation pause. The conference was therefore not an open-ended negotiation. Its participants faced a deadline, while the people whose territory was at stake were soon found waiting elsewhere.

The delegates held at the hotel

Masarík brought the exclusion into the corridor by calling out for an Englishman. Hugh Legat had been gathering the pages of a draft agreement when he heard the raised voices through a half-open door. He left a secretary to keep the telephone line open and went to investigate. At the far end of the passage, near the back of the hotel, Masarík was gesticulating as four men in suits blocked his way.

Masarík identified himself as chef de cabinet to the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister and said that the men were Gestapo officers holding him and his colleague, the Czech Minister in Berlin, Dr Vojtek Mastny, in the room. His disordered spectacles and flushed appearance accompanied an urgent appeal, but the essential fact was not a misunderstanding about where the conference was taking place: the two delegates had come to Munich and were not being allowed to join it.

Legat established his standing by identifying himself as Chamberlain’s Private Secretary. The Gestapo officer’s manner changed immediately. He denied that the men were imprisoned, claiming instead that they had been asked to remain in their room for their own security while the conference was in progress. The distinction depended on official wording rather than freedom of movement: Masarík and Mastny were being prevented from leaving the room, and were excluded from the meeting they had travelled to observe.

Legat’s intervention

Masarík adjusted his spectacles and insisted that the Czechs were supposed to be observers. Legat asked to pass; after the Gestapo officer nodded, the other men stood aside. Legat shook hands with Masarík and followed him into the bedroom, where Mastny, still wearing his overcoat, sat on the edge of the bed holding his hat between his knees. He stood to greet Legat, but appeared dejected.

Masarík explained that they had landed from Prague less than an hour earlier and had been met at the airport. They had assumed they were being taken directly to the conference. Instead, they had been made to remain at the hotel. The officer repeated that they were not permitted to participate and were to wait for further instructions. When Masarík called this arrest, the officer answered that they were free to return to the airport and fly back to Prague. The offer of departure did not give them the participation they had come for; it presented leaving as the only stated alternative to waiting under guard.

Mastny restrained his younger colleague, telling him that shouting would serve no purpose because he was more accustomed to life in Germany. He then asked Legat to speak to Chamberlain on their behalf and see whether the situation could be resolved. Legat looked from the two Czechs to the Gestapo officer, who stood with his arms folded, and said he would see what he could do. The narrative records this promise, not a successful intervention or the delegates’ release.

Exclusion amid the negotiations

Legat carried the matter to the British party, reporting that the Czechoslovak delegation had arrived at the Regina Palast Hotel and was being prevented from leaving its room by the Gestapo. His report recast the incident as more than a private grievance: the men were the representatives of the country whose territory the conference was deciding, yet they were not allowed into the talks. The account establishes their exclusion and the British awareness of it, without showing that Chamberlain secured their admission.

Later, Legat encountered Ashton-Gwatkin in the corridor. Ashton-Gwatkin said he had been with the Czechs, understood why they thought the proceedings stank, and confirmed that the Germans still would not let them leave their room. The repetition matters: the delegates’ confinement did not end with Legat’s initial challenge, and their protest did not, on the evidence given, alter the arrangement.

The episode places the conference’s formal diplomacy beside its physical conditions. Hitler’s deadline and the draft agreement occupied the negotiating rooms; Masarík and Mastny, though present in Munich and designated observers, were held apart from them. The Gestapo’s language of security and permission softened the description of what was happening without changing its practical effect. The delegates could wait, or they could go back to Prague. Their absence thus became part of the conference’s meaning: Czechoslovakia’s future was being discussed while its representatives were denied a voice in the proceedings.