On September 30, 1938, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany signed the “Munich Agreement,” which annexed to Germany the Sudetenland, territory belonging to then-Czechoslovakia. From the perspective of the non-German powers, the treaty aimed to quell Hitler’s ambitions of continental hegemony. So long as the Nazi’s received this small parcel of land and the governance of its peoples – ostensibly more German than Czech – Hitler would respect the treaty’s terms requiring restraint and Europe would avoid catastrophic war. The annals of that epoch tell a different story, of course. In the Czech language, the treaty is known as the “Munich Betrayal.” Churchill lamented the decision as an “unmitigated disaster.” Unsurprisingly, Hitler ignored the treaty’s stipulations and began his Lebensraum campaign, turning much of Europe into his personal “living space.”
International law has long purported as inviolable the axiom, pacta sunt servanda, or agreements are to be observed. In order to work, diplomacy requires good faith. But diplomacy also requires common sense. Dictators rarely govern in the truth—something any diplomat worth his salt should know. Responsibility for the treaty which divested the Czech people of their patrimony certainly lies with Hitler, who acted in bad-faith; but history also chronicles the treaty’s other parties as naïve, even delusional. Failing to recognize the ambitions of a megalomaniac kingpin, when the truth speaks loudly and clearly, amounts to a betrayal all its own.
The current moment in geopolitics has no shortage of ambitious leaders who act in bad faith. Negotiations aimed at ending or at least lessening the assaults of war, terror, or persistent persecution of religious minorities – whether at the Ukrainian border, on the Gaza strip, or within the meetings of the Chinese Communist Party – remain laudable. But deals which envisage peace are only as genuine as the players who sign them. The greatest diplomat of the twentieth century, Pope Saint John Paul II, provides an antidote to the politics of appeasement. As George Weigel and others have consistently pointed out, John Paul II gave the world the hermeneutic to defeating totalitarianism: not a treaty, but a voice. The Church speaks “truth to power,” to borrow a favorite moniker of our times, with the moral authority proper to her as the Bride of Christ and Sacrament of Salvation. John Paul II refused to capitulate to the communist cronies in Poland. He knew them more intimately than his Roman colleagues and thus sensed their incapacity for truth. Instead of appeasing communists and agreeing to state-sanctioned episcopal appointments, John Paul II initiated the strongest of affronts to the advances of an evil regime: he preached the truth with love. He reminded the Polish people of their heritage; and he admonished them to eschew fear with the fortitude that comes from God alone. More than any other treaty or compromise in the twentieth century, the pope’s refusal to appease the enemies of God ushered in the fall of Communism and the renewal of a people—his people. The diplomats of the current moment would do well to follow the example of John Paul II’s diplomacy. Don’t believe dictators. Trust the truth—and common sense—instead.
