“Now that we are all here, we must decide soon,” Hitler said, and smacked one fist into the palm of the other hand.

But things moved more slowly than he wanted them to. The heads of the two leading democracies had to get their views on record. The Fuhrer supposed that was for domestic consumption. It wouldn’t change anything here.

His temper began to fray. “You know nothing of the dreadful tyranny the Czechs exert over the Sudeten Germans,” he said loudly. “Nothing, I tell you! They torture them, showing no mercy. They expel them by the thousands, in panic-stricken herds. They have even forced the Sudeten Germans’ leader, Konrad Henlein, to flee from his native land.”

“One jump ahead of the gendarmes, I shouldn’t wonder,” Daladier said dryly.

“Joke if you care to, but I-” Hitler stopped in surprise at a loud knock on the door.

“What’s going on?” Neville Chamberlain asked.

“I don’t know,” Hitler answered after Dr. Schmidt translated the question. “I left clear orders that we were not to be disturbed.” When he gave orders like that, he expected them to be obeyed, too.

But, even for the Fuhrer, expectations didn’t always match reality. The knock came again, louder and more insistent than before. Hitler sprang to his feet and hurried toward the door. Somebody out there in the hallway was going to regret being born.

“Whatever he’s selling, tell him we don’t want any,” Mussolini said in his inimitable German. Daladier and Chamberlain both smiled once the interpreters made them understand the crack. Hitler didn’t. He’d never had much of a sense of humor, and the interruption pushed him towards one of his volcanic eruptions of fury.

He flung the door open. There stood Colonel Friedrich Hossbach, his adjutant. “Well?” Hitler growled ominously. “What is the meaning of this-this interruption?”