Ebook: On borrowed time : how World War II began

A detailed narrative of the diplomatic, political and military maneuvers that occurred between the Munich Agreement in September 1938, and the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Just after dawn on the morning of September 13, 1938, two Czech policemen on bicycles rode slowly down the main street of the an¬ cient Sudetenland city of Eger and stopped outside the Victoria Hotel. Propping their cycles against a pillar at the entrance, they mounted the steps to the hotel’s main door; and while one pulled a button which presently set a bell clanging inside the building, the other took a piece of paper from his leather pouch. It was a search warrant signed by Dr. Anton Dryak, military judge for the district of Cheb (as the Czechs called Eger), which instructed the two policemen to make a thorough search of the Victoria Hotel on the grounds that it was being used as headquarters by the Sudeten German National Socialist party and because a store of small arms was believed to have been smuggled into it during the previous twenty-four hours.