Description
After discovering that her grandmother had pro-German sympathies, Ann Shukman resolved to investigate her grandfather Walter Runciman's 1938 Mission to Prague. This government-sponsored British delegation sought to broker peace between the Czechoslovak republic and its Sudeten German minoritya dispute that Hitler was aggravating with virulent anti-Czech propaganda and threats of invasion.
Drawing fresh evidence from personal diaries, private papers and Czech publications,44 Days in Pragueexposes the misunderstandings and official ignorance that provoked a calamitous series of betrayals. It reveals that, while Walter Runciman always supported Czechoslovakia's integrity, his wife Hildawhose role became crucialpublicly favoured the German cause.
This is a moving portrayal of Walter's declining influence as tensions mounted, from the couple's efforts to court a divided old aristocracy at glittering social occasions, to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's fatal unde
