July 17, 1935 - Berlin
The government today has pushed through a bill authorizing an increase in the Heer to a total of 600,000 men. This is widely seen as a reaction to the speech by Russian President Chernov announcing plans to increase the size of the Russian army.
July 23, 1935 - Berlin
In response to questions after the speech by the British Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister Stressemann answered several questions about Czechoslovakia:
"Yes, we have had discussions with the government of Czechoslovakia, no agreement has been reached or is imminent. In fact, at this time any such agreement would probably be premature, as we don't know the true feelings of the people of the Sudetenland. We have received a large number of complaints, but we are not in a position to verify them ourselves. Those complaints will be forwarded to the League of Nations for investigation under the treaty signed in 1919. If the complaints prove to have merit, I expect there may be more discussions with my counterpart in Prague. It may prove, however, that the complaints are not merited, in which case we will have fewer concerns for our brethren just across our borders."
"No, no, absolutely not. Germany has no desire or wish to incorporate more of Czechoslovakia than the Sudetenland into the Reich. There is no intention in the government to attempt to reclaim all the lands of Imperial Germany, let alone the Austro-Hungarian empire. Those days are past, and will not come again."
"That is a purely hypothetical question, but it could be answered thusly: I would expect that, should a preliminary agreement be reached, a plebiscite similar to the one held in Austria before that country joined the Reich would be held in the Sudetenland. If that plebiscite should show a preference for joining the German Reich, then the governments of Germany and Czechoslovakia would need to work out details, such as how much compensation would need to be paid to the Czech government to cover the cost of dismantling and moving their border defences, what sort of contracts would be needed to ensure that the Czechs would still have electricity supplies that might come from the Sudetenland, whether any demilitarized zones are needed, whether any foreign guarantees of Czechoslovakian independence are needed and can be arranged, etc, etc. Quite a lot of work, much more so than in fact than Austria joining the Reich entailed since then we did not need to leave a completely functioning and stable state behind. As I siad, though, at this point that is completely hypothetical, no agreement even approaching that has been worked out."
"No, sir, I do not expect any resolution of this issue in the near future. As they say, Rome was not built in a day, and these things take time. If, as I hope, the League is given the information we have by the end of August, we cannot expect the League to complete it's investigation before the end of the year. And that is merely the investigation, any discussion of situations and remedies will take more time, The best hope, if the complaints we have turn out to be false or overstated, is that this situation will blow over by the end of the year. Otherwise, I expect it will continue for into the new year and the future beyond that."