The question of foreign supplies and sanctions was very much on Hitler’s mind. For he was on the eve of a critical move. The next month, March 1936, he boldly remilitarized the Rhineland, on the border with France, in violation of treaty agreements. It was the first time that he flexed his muscles on the international front, taking what afterward he was to call his gravest risk—the forty-eight hours that were “the most nerve-racking in my life.” He waited to be challenged, but the Western powers did nothing to stop him. The gamble had paid off. The pattern was to be repeated.
