Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe appears in the crisis as both a planned instrument of invasion and a source of acute anxiety about bombing. The evidence presents its intended role through a secret military directive and through British assessments of the danger to Czechoslovakia, Prague, and eventually London; it does not depict the projected air attacks taking place.

Role in the invasion plan

A directive dated May 30, 1938, titled the Directive for the Strategic Concentration “Green,” set out Adolf Hitler’s plan to attack Czechoslovakia. It assigned the Luftwaffe’s main strength to a surprise attack, with aircraft crossing the frontier at the same time as the first units of the German Army. The air offensive was therefore designed as part of a coordinated advance, not as an isolated campaign: the directive also called for rapid pressure against the frontier fortifications and a swift demonstration that Czechoslovakia’s military position was hopeless.

The document gave this projected violence a political purpose as well as a military one. Its stated aim was to create, within the first two or three days, an impression of Czech defeat strong enough to deter other states from intervening. The Luftwaffe’s opening attack would help establish that impression while the ground forces advanced. The plan thus made air power part of a broader effort to shape foreign governments’ expectations before they could act.

British assessments and the threat to Prague

In a Cabinet discussion of the crisis, Colonel Mason-MacFarlane argued that Prague was poorly defended against Luftwaffe bombing. He set that vulnerability within a changing strategic geography: after Austria’s incorporation into the Reich, Czechoslovakia’s border with Germany had extended southward by nearly two hundred miles, threatening to turn its defensive arrangements. His assessment contrasted with the more hopeful view that Czech forces and fortifications might hold out for months.

Sir Horace Wilson reported that Hermann Göring expected the German Army to overrun Czechoslovakia in days rather than weeks and had predicted that Prague would be reduced to rubble. Sir Alexander Cadogan challenged the presentation of Czechoslovakia as an easy conquest, noting that such a claim served Göring’s interests and emphasizing the strength of Czech forces and defences. The exchange leaves the Luftwaffe’s destructive capacity as a real component of the threat, while showing that British officials disputed how quickly Germany could achieve its military objectives.

The wider bombing danger

The British discussion also connected the projected attack on Czechoslovakia to the danger facing London. The Joint Intelligence Committee estimated 150,000 casualties in London during the first week of bombing and 600,000 by the end of two months. Officials expected that the Germans would initially concentrate their principal bombing force against Czechoslovakia, but could not say what would follow its defeat. That uncertainty prompted the recommendation to begin evacuating London the next day.

These figures are presented as an intelligence estimate, not as casualties that occurred. Their force in the narrative lies in the way the anticipated Luftwaffe campaign crosses from distant military planning into immediate civil preparedness: the possibility of bombing shaped discussion of air defence, evacuation, and the costs of a war that officials feared might begin within days. The organization is consequently defined here less through its internal structure than through the strategic role assigned to it and the danger British decision-makers believed its aircraft could pose.