Robert Harris specialises in retelling recent and ancient history as fiction.
His first alternative history novel Fatherland (1992) was set in a world in which Hitler had won World War II, and sold more than three million copies.
In his latest novel Munich, Harris returns to that tense period.
Neville Chamberlain in Munich, 1938. Photo: Wikicommons
Harris began his life in a Nottingham council estate and from those working-class roots he went on to read English literature at Cambridge and become a prominent political journalist – he was closely acquainted with Tony Blair for a while but they later fell out.
His latest work Munich is a tense and dramatic re-examining of the 1938 Munich Agreement between Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
Although the agreement ultimately fell apart, it did delay the start of World War II and allow the British to re-arm and, in particular, build up their air force.
In Munich, Harris tried to cast Chamberlain in a more realistic, kinder light than history afforded him, he says.
“When Chamberlain came to Munich he got bigger cheers – even in the heart of Nazism – than Adolf Hitler, which drove Hitler mad actually and was one of the reasons why he detested Chamberlain.”
The image of Chamberlain as a weak appeaser wielding his piece of paper and declaring peace in our time is a caricature, says Harris.
“Chamberlain was the very opposite of the feeble old man with the umbrella, which is the popular caricature of him these days. Chamberlain was a tough old bird, he dominated the British government and the cabinet completely.
“He reminds me in some ways of Margaret Thatcher, he had the same mastery of detail and command of policy.”
The sense that the world is hurtling towards a war it doesn’t want is palpable in Munich.
“There was a general atmosphere of fear and panic and in Germany, there was a similar mood. Nobody wanted to go to war and yet it seemed as though the whole world was sliding towards it.
“What I try and convey in the novel is that most ordinary Germans at the time did not want to go to war over the Sudetenland, they did not want to start a second world war.”
Robert Harris, author of Munich. Photo: Supplied
Hitler, however, had different ideas.
But if The Fuhrer was devoted to war, Chamberlain was equally committed to its avoidance.
“Chamberlain was messianic in his pursuit of peace. The policy of appeasement is said to have failed, but there was more to it than simple failure. Chamberlain was dealing with a country that less than 20 years before had lost three-quarters of a million men in World War I.
“He felt there would be a spiritual collapse in the country, as he put it, if he wasn’t seen to be doing everything he could to preserve peace.”
Although Chamberlain sues for peace, on his return he orders a massive re-armament programme.
The period between the Munich Agreement and the start of war allowed Britain to not only build up arms, but also ready itself mentally for war, Harris argues.
“We were pitifully unready for war, the Navy was strong but the air force was terribly weak and the dominions made it clear they would not join the mother country to fight Germany over the issue of the Sudetenland.
“In the summer of 1940, in the Battle of Britain, we had ten times the number of aircraft that we had in 1938. We also had radar and there was a sense of national unity, too.”
Chamberlain gambled in Munich and understood the odds, he says.
“When Hitler did start a war, Chamberlain was made to look foolish, but I think he knew he was running that risk – he wasn’t completely naïve”
Munich is published by Penguin.
Book review - "Munich" by Robert Harris
Munich by Robert Harris, reviewed by Ralph McAllister. Audio
