The German Empire after the First World War.
In the First World War, Germany and her allies, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, were known as the ‘Central Powers’. This was an apt designation of the four countries that were surrounded on all borders by superior allied powers – of the ‘Alliance’ – which is to say they were ‘encircled’. In 1933, Germany’s situation as a European ‘Central Power’ was much more inauspicious than in 1914.
From its founding in 1871, the European central power, the German Reich, saw itself increasingly exposed to a dilemma: nobody wanted a powerful – hence a potentially ‘threatening’ – Germany. This was re-experienced once more by us Germans on the occasion of the unification of the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic (West and East Germany). One should not be blind to the fact that both the British and the French governments, by intervening with the Russian government, attempted to prevent the unification of the two German states. That an overly powerful Germany constitutes a problem for Britain and France is today still, beneath the surface, not a negligible factor in European politics.29 As a German too, one can have absolute comprehension for this anxiety: all politicians, looking ahead, have to identify possible hazards and take them into account. The French writer Mauriac is said to have commented on the reunification with wit, albeit caustically, with the bon mot: ‘I am so fond of Germany that I would rather have two of them than one!’
Every German government since Bismarck was confronted by this quandary. The latter’s scornful reaction to the highly praised advantages represented to him of the acquisition of African colonies is well known: ‘Here lies Russia and over there lies France, and we are in the middle; that is my map of Africa.’30 The result was on the one hand the realization of the need to maintain a substantial military force in order to be able to assert oneself in Central Europe (it was necessary to be able to prevent a repetition of a ‘Thirty Years’ War’ among the European Powers on German territory, so as to preserve the substance of the German people), a fact that in the 1930s acquired a specific gravity because of the Soviet display of power. On the other hand, the traditional foreign policies the British and French governments and their allies clung to, that wished to see Germany as weak as possible for fear of her hegemony, had to be taken into account. The problem had after all led to the outbreak of the First World War, spawned Versailles and from 1933 onward had to be faced by Hitler and the German policy-makers once again. The Federal Government too had to grapple with it to some extent, whereby the military reason against the economic one was happily no longer to be a given. In 1966, the French Conservative politician Maurice Couve de Murville said to the Polish Foreign Minister, Adam Rapacki: ‘Germany has once again become a problem … Were there no Germany, did we have no problem in Europe, it is our problem and also yours.’31 Henry Kissinger put this question to the point (in free translation):
‘President Clinton’s notion of partnership in leadership of the United States and Germany was not exactly wise … It is indeed a notion that drives everybody to the barricades, for two world wars have been fought precisely for a German dominating role to be prevented.32
It was a vicious circle that could be broken only through cooperation between Britain, France and the Reich. Father’s activities in the years from 1933 to 1937 were defined by his efforts to bring this about. German foreign policy had not attained its goal. Hitler, who was aware of Germany’s imperilment, deduced from this that the comprehensible sequence to follow might, as in 1914, conceivably be a renewed formation of a major coalition against Germany.
The formula for British policies in Europe had ever been to preserve the ‘Balance of Power’ among the states of Europe; or, to be more precise, Great Britain had at all times to place herself alongside the second weakest Continental Power against the strongest. This was for centuries the line taken in British politics. In this manner Britain had won freedom of action to establish the British Empire and herself as the foremost World Power. Whether British policy was directed against Spain or against Louis XIV, against Austria or against the two Napoleons and eventually against Wilhelm’s Germany, in every instance the axiom was recognizable that dictated the blocking or overmastering of the strongest Continental Power with the help of the second strongest and other allies. As early as March 1936, Churchill had declared thus to the Foreign Affairs Committee of his Conservative Party with brazen openness.33 Speaking in the House of Commons he had then said:
‘The question is not whether it is Spain, or the French Monarchy, or the French Empire, or the German Empire, or the Hitler regime. It has nothing to do with rulers or nations; it is concerned solely with whoever is the strongest or the potentially dominating tyrant … The question therefore arises which is to-day the Power in Europe which is the strongest?’34
Would it be feasible to communicate the German point of view, as assessed by Hitler and by my father in regard to the relations of power in Europe, to the decision makers in England? Both saw the European balance of power as safeguarded if the Reich were once more to rise to be the European Central Power, and were indeed of the opinion that the Reich’s military weight was necessary in order to neutralize the Russian deployment of power. The existence and the weight of the Soviet Union would prevent any unchecked hegemony of the German Reich. In 1936, Germany still hoped that these estimations of world politics would be promoted in London too.
A few weeks after his appointment as Reich Chancellor, Hitler had visited my parents in Dahlem. They gave a dinner for him with very few guests. After dinner, Hitler brought up the subject of foreign policy and said that ‘his main goal was to come to a lasting and clear relationship with England’. Harking back to this first initial talk with Hitler on foreign affairs, Father wrote:
‘On that evening, it was discovering our common inner attitude of mind in regard to England that planted the first seed of trust between Adolf Hitler and myself. I could not then foresee that from it one day a close collaboration in the field of foreign policy would come about, as it turned out in later years.’35
As ambassador to the Court of St James’s – despite some disappointments experienced in the intervening three-and-a-half years – he was still entrusted with the assignment to try to achieve this personal objective of Hitler’s, which was also his own.
To analyze and judge Hitler’s foreign policy properly, one must put oneself in the place where the German Reich found itself at the beginning of 1933, that is at the outset of his governance. In all fields, this place is determined by the Treaty of Versailles. Since the Allies refused any negotiation whatsoever as to its provisions, the Germans’ designation of this ‘Peace treaty’ as the ‘Versailler Diktat’ [a diktat is a harsh penalty or settlement imposed upon a defeated party] is hardly surprising. It is very useful and instructive to have an historical atlas to hand and open it at the page with the political map of Europe as it was upon conclusion of the treaty.
In substance, among other things the Versailles Treaty grievously slammed Germany on four counts:
1.As shown above, the complete and unilateral demilitarization as well as the dichotomy of German territory constituted – in the age of national statehood – an extraordinary imperilment for the Reich.
2.The so-called ‘Reparations’ imposed upon Germany were contrary to any economic rationality and would lead perforce to the pauperization of the population, quite irrespective of the deleterious repercussions it would unleash on the world economies.36
3.The territorial cessions encompassed about 13 per cent of the Reich’s area, with corresponding losses in population, investments and resources, etc.
4.Additionally, there was the loss of all Germany’s foreign assets, the forced surrender of countless industrial assets, such as patents, steam engines, cattle and internationalization of rivers and so on. The whole text of the treaty should really be read for the fine print in the so-called ‘Versailles Peace Treaty’.
It should be retained as especially noteworthy that at the 1946 Nürnberg so-called ‘War Criminals’ trial – and therefore also the German Foreign Minister’s trial – any mention of the Versailles Treaty by the defence was expressly prohibited.37 The indictment virtually submitted the treaty as ‘exhibit number one’, charging the accused with its violation, without permitting the defence any contrary argument. ‘[T]he Tribunal will not listen to your contending either that the Versailles Treaty was not a legal document or that it was in any way unjust,’ the presiding judge pronounced.38 Let it be mentioned here as amusing posturing in the spirit of the times [familiar in English as Zeitgeist] – in the sense of ‘political correctness’ – that the voice, ever more loudly heard, of a contemporary German historian should express the staggering assertion that the reason the terms of the Versailles Treaty were non-negotiable with the Allies was entirely attributable to the arrogant personal stance of the German Foreign Minister, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau.39
It could be foreseen, in view of what was said above, that for decades to come European policy would be determined by the painstaking endeavour of the German government to amend the treaty’s unfulfillable financial and military sanctions. To what extent these claims for amendment were justified is proved by the fact alone that already in 1932 (11 December 1932) – i.e. before Hitler’s time – military equal rights had also been pledged. A line should moreover have been drawn under the reparations.
The German Empire after the First World War.
The Versailles Treaty has long been a part of history. Besides, from an early date Anglo-Saxon politicians and scientists criticized it pragmatically and sharply. At the very time of finalization of the treaty, the renowned British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas on the politics of the economy and finance are still the object of discussion, said that:
‘There are few episodes in history which posterity will have less reason to condone, – a war ostensibly waged in defence of the sanctity of international engagements ending in a definite breach of one of the most sacred possible of such engagements on the part of the victorious champions of these ideals.’40
Keynes, who attended the Versailles Conference as a delegate of the British Treasury, knew what he was saying. And he was referring least of all to the breach of promises made to the German people for a ‘just peace’ by Woodrow Wilson in 1918 in his ‘Fourteen Points’, wherein for instance there was mention of the ‘right to self-determination of peoples’. At any rate, putting its faith in the ‘Fourteen Points’, following an abundant exchange of memoranda with US President Wilson, the German Reich had laid down its arms, thus putting the country in the hands of the Allies. Wilson had stated expressly that the acceptance of his terms would open the way to a negotiated peace. However, on the other hand simultaneously what was formulated for the first time, and that was later to turn out to be so calamitous, was that he compelled the ‘unconditional capitulation’ of Germany.The German government signed the Armistice in view of these expectations and awaited a negotiated peace. In this they were to be ‘cruelly disillusioned’, as my father wrote.
The centre of Europe, the German Reich in two parts, was disarmed over its total extent and thereby deprived of power, in the perspective of the military strength of its neighbours. The ‘Reichswehr’, the armed forces, consisted of 100,000 troops. They had no heavy artillery, no tanks, and all of what was known at the time as ‘heavy weapons’ were prohibited. Any air force was absolutely forbidden. Naval forces were not to exceed 15,000 men, with additional broad restrictions. They could have no heavy-duty ships, no submarines, no naval air arm, and so on.
According to the Versailles Treaty, the Western border of the Reich was completely demilitarized. In a zone whose boundary ran 50km east of the Rhine, no garrisons of any sort or other installations could be maintained, let alone fortifications. It should be remembered that the Ruhr had been occupied in 1923 for spurious reasons, on the pretext that a delivery of timber had failed to be made. On this occasion, the British diplomat John Bradbury, who was outvoted by his Belgian and French colleagues, said that ‘wood had never been so misused since the Trojan horse’.41 But even in East Prussia, which had been cut off from the Reich by the so-called ‘Polish Corridor’, no border fortifications were permitted, whereby this province was exposed, defenceless against any Polish aggression. In other words, there persisted in Central Europe a ‘perfected power vacuum’ that under the circumstances of those days represented a latent threat to Europe’s political stability. Renewed French military pressurization of the Reich was a possibility at any time. Even after the 1920 plebiscite, every Weimar government had to take the Polish aspirations concerning further inroads into the Reich’s territory into account.42
When the political map of Europe in 1933 is scrutinized and the military relations of power visualized as they were in the 1930s, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the Reich’s defence position was desperate. Not only were Germany’s two biggest industrial areas, the Ruhr in the West and Upper Silesia in the East, open to and unprotected against aggression from France, Poland and Czechoslovakia and unable to defend themselves, but the Reich had absolutely no possibility of fending off any military action by these countries.
Of especial gravity in this situation of – literally – ‘impotence’, was the isolation of the Reich, or rather, to express it more appropriately, that the Reich’s isolation was the inescapable result of its military ‘impotence’. Father quoted Hitler from the first conversation of political content he had with him, when Hitler had said: ‘Germany must once again become a factor of power or else she will never have any friends.’
This statement of Hitler’s conveys the dilemma traditionally portrayed that German foreign policy had to contend with. It was not invented by Hitler but is found in Germany’s geopolitical situation and pre-determined importance. A specific power potential is on the one hand the precondition in order to be ‘alliance-capable’ and able to hold one’s own in the centre of Europe, while on the other hand the concern over this very potential upsets the desired partner-allies. This is the problem that the Soviet Union presented for Europe’s stability and security as early as the 1930s – at the very least as a world power, ruled by an outright aggressive ideology – which as yet has not been resolved.
It was an eye-opener for Germany in 1931, when French politics exposed the weakness and isolation of the Reich emphatically and strikingly as France forcefully intervened in the plans forged by the German Reich’s Chancellor, Brüning, and the Austrian government to establish a customs union between them in view of the looming worldwide economic crisis. I was 10 years old when in the summer of 1931 a German diplomat stayed with us in Dahlem for a few weeks. He was a relative by marriage of my father’s sister.43 The German-Austrian negotiations were taking place at that time, and as my parents were following them with interest, this relative kept them informed of developments. When, after the plan had to be scrapped because of the interventions of the French, I asked him and my parents why it was not simply carried out despite the objection of the French, the answer was that it was for fear of eventual reprisals such as a renewed occupation of the Rhineland or the Ruhr, which could not have been prevented. In 1918 already, in the Austrian constitution the intent had been formulated to become part of the German Reich.44 For us children, the occupation of the Rhineland by the Allies – albeit dating back ten years, to the end of the war – was absolutely omnipresent. In Wiesbaden at every turn one came across a representative of the occupying forces in uniform, and our grandparents had French military personnel billeted in their home. When the Reich’s government envisaged a so-called ‘auxiliary police force’ to prevent the constant street fighting among Communists, the Reichsbanner (Social Democratic paramilitary) and the Sturmabteilung (pseudo-military branch of the NSDAP), the French government protested. At lunch one day, Father, furious, told us that the French ambassador in a press interview had given as grounds for the démarche: ‘When a child plays with fire, it has to be knocked out of its hand!’
Taking another look at the map with the political borders of 1931, the completely disarmed Reich was surrounded by strongly armed states, linked together by treaties, who, under the leadership of France, were in a position to decisively restrict the freedom of action of the Reich’s government and, if need be, to enforce decisions favourable to them by exerting military pressure. This pact, put together by France, included Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. These countries had in some cases aspirations over wider areas of the Reich, or were hostile to it for very diverse reasons, not least because of the attraction these regions exerted on the millions of German ‘minorities’ living in them.
Whilst the countries of the so-called ‘Little Entente’ – named thus to emphasize the contrast to the ‘Entente Cordiale’, the alliance between France and Great Britain – were heavily armed, Great Britain had somewhat reduced the numbers of its strike force, although in quality maintenance it was up to date. Keep this situation in regard to Germany’s foreign policy, that Hitler found when he came to power, clearly before you. The Weimar governments had already been obliged to grapple with this extremely endangered position – of itself alone – meaning it was critically weak.
Hitler, however, seeing beyond this very real menace to Germany from the ‘Little Entente’, also saw that a martial danger threatened not only the Reich but the whole of Europe in the display of power of the Soviet Union. He cannot be said to have seen spectres. The Soviet leadership had long been preoccupied with thoughts of ‘snapping the handcuffs’ on the states on its western borders.45 It was a constantly growing potentiality. At a later date, after the Second World War, the independence of Western Europe was preserved only through the participation of the United States within NATO, which is to say through the American nuclear potential, thus averting a Soviet hegemony with the well-known consequences thereof.
With an eye on the Soviet Union, the power relations in Europe presented as follows: Central Europe was a complete power vacuum; France, entrenched behind her Maginot Line, had her eyes fixed on this picture of powerlessness called the ‘German Reich’; the Eastern European countries of some weight such as Poland and Czechoslovakia bent a malevolent, if not covetous eye on this Central Europe devoid of power; the United States had firmly withdrawn into isolation from foreign affairs. Roosevelt’s election campaign propaganda in 1932 insisted on non-involvement in Europe. Admittedly already in 1933 his action, recognized by international law, of the formal recognition of the Soviet Union was a step that also had an impact on European politics. All the American governments preceding him had strictly eschewed this.
The question Hitler asked himself was: who was actually going to halt the ‘Russian steamroller’ if Stalin was one day going to have the bright idea of letting it roll on? The countries known as the ‘Buffer States’ – Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania – did not come into consideration for the purpose. The concept of the ‘Russian steamroller’ had been coined at the beginning of the 1914-18 war as a vivid image characterizing the quantitively superior military potential of the huge Russian state.46
A German head of government, whoever he was, who was conscientious about his responsibilities had to take into account that in certain circumstances Soviet Russia would not shrink from expanding her power sphere – possibly by force – in Europe. The ‘power vacuum’ in Central Europe deriving from the total demilitarization of the sole country that would be in a position to oppose the Soviet Union challenged such expansionist policies, if only to choose the right moment. One need think only of Molotov’s claims relating to the Dardanelles and the Balkans, not to mention the outlets to the Baltic Sea, that is to say the Straits of Sund and Belt, which he raised when he visited Hitler and his Foreign Minister in Berlin in November 1940, at a time when the Reich was after all at the high point of its power. It should be mentioned in this context that in both the principal European states – France and Germany – strong, militant Communist parties were established, controlled from Moscow by the ‘Comintern bureau’. Soviet Russia had incorporated the motto of ‘World Revolution’ on her flags, which underlined, in terms of Realpolitik, Moscow’s aspiration to world domination. ‘Whoever has Berlin has Europe’ was a well-known statement of Lenin’s.
From the angle of these relations of power and their risks, to tackle the armaments question was hence also a given for Hitler’s government. A general disarmament would either be achieved through the Geneva Disarmament Conference or the armament of Germany would be an imperative necessity, as to the extent of which Hitler wanted to come to an agreement with Great Britain and France.
It must be pointed out here that according to the wording of the Versailles Treaty, the disarmament of Germany was supposed to be the premise for a general disarmament. As stated in Part V of the Treaty:
‘In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the … military, naval and air clauses.’47
However, for their part the signatory powers of the Versailles Treaty had not complied with the obligation to disarm – the ‘basis of the transaction’ of the Treaty’s armament clauses. Further down there is the statement:48
‘ [The requirements] are also the first steps towards that general reduction and limitation of armaments which they seek to bring about as one of the most fruitful preventives of war, and which it will be one of the first duties of the League of Nations to promote.’
On 18 May 1926, the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference foregathered for the first time. The German delegate, Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, explained to the delegates:
‘The Allies forced an army limited to 100,000 troops on the Reich. The Peace Treaty, the League of Nations Statutes and now moreover the Locarno communiqués, however, all agree to recognize that German disarmament should pave the way to a general disarmament. This may be attained through three ways only: either you reduce your armed forces to the level conceded to Germany or you allow Germany to raise her armaments to your level, or you combine both, reducing your own armaments.’49
The Foreign Minister of a later date in Hitler’s Cabinet, Neurath, who had already served in the same post in the governments before Hitler, had formulated the situation very aptly at the time: ‘Germany continues to be the creditor in the disarmament question.’50
The Reich’s claim to equal military status can be denied neither politically nor juridically; its entitlement to it had been categorically confirmed to the Papen government already in December 1932, and furthermore arose from the League of Nations Statutes, whose Article 8 obligated every member of the Statute to maintain their armaments to only the minimum required in order to safeguard their national security.51 The modalities of either disarmament of the highly armed states, rearmament of the disarmed states or a combination of the two were to be negotiated. It was with good reason that Father’s first official post should bear the title ‘Special Commissioner for Disarmament Issues’.
A solution to the ‘Armaments Question’ – in whatever sense – was of vital importance for the Reich on two counts: it had on the one hand to restore the Reich’s government’s freedom of action, thus restituting its unification capacity, and on the other to enable the creation of a counterweight – from Hitler’s and Father’s point of view a ‘European counterweight’ – against the expansion of the Soviet Union’s power. One could speak of a European concept. It will be my task in what is to follow to present the endeavours on the part of Germany, undertaken from 1933 to 1936, with a view to reach a settlement with England and France along these lines.
In March 1933 the Reich’s Minister of Defence, Werner von Blomberg, asked for a memorandum on the Reich’s military situation to be drawn up.52 The chief of the Troop Office of the Reichswehr, Lieutenant General Wilhelm Adam, was assigned its compilation and had to grapple with the eventuality of the Reich having to defend itself against a simultaneous attack by France and Poland, possibly with the participation of Czechoslovakia.53 Adam came to the following conclusions in the memorandum:
‘France cannot be hindered from conducting a war on German territory as she pleases.
‘The defence of the Line of the [river] Oder against Poland is feasible for as long as munitions last. The currently available equipment suffices for 14 days …
‘Even so, a successful defence against Poland from the Line would be questionable were Czechoslovakia to enter the war.’
In this context, the concerns confronting German Reich Chancellor Brüning in 1931 are interesting. Poland threatened to advance on Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia.54 In 1928, the Reich’s Defence Minister of the day, Wilhelm Groener, had already spoken in the Reichstag of the danger of a Polish advance against these provinces. And as early as 1923, during the French-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr region – five years after the end of the war – the French Marshal Foch had gone to Warsaw, where his so-called ‘Foch-Plan’ was agreed with Piłsudski which envisaged a simultaneous operation of Polish forces against East Prussia, Pomerania and Upper Silesia.55
In Paris in 1933, after Hitler had undertaken the government, Piłsudski had sounded the French out as to whether they were inclined to advance against the Reich.56 Clearly, it was not the case, most probably because Great Britain was not prepared to commit herself. Lord Vansittart, the anti-German ‘hawk’ in the British Foreign Office, acknowledged in his memoirs that in the Weimar days Piłsudski had in fact asked France ‘twice a year’ to cover Poland’s rear in the event of an attack on Germany.57 Vansittart, who will be mentioned again, would probably have seized upon this suggestion. The fact of Piłsudski’s venturing a probe of this nature shows only too clearly the threat to the Reich already in domestic policy processes which could possibly allow a certain consolidation of relations in Germany to appear. At this point in the context, the intervention of the French government to stop the customs treaty with Austria should once more be brought to mind.
If in those days any hope had been entertained on the part of Germany for adherence as a member to the League of Nations, and consequently the military planning for ‘delayed resistance’ adjusted until the mechanism of the League of Nations began functioning, it would soon have been revealed as an illusion. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, the action taken by the League of Nations was limited to the appointment of a Commission (the Lytton Commission) to investigate the conflict.
The concerns of the then Chancellor Brüning can be imagined. What line could be taken by the League of Nations against a possible aggression from France, Poland and Czechoslovakia? Who would impose sanctions – if they were at all resolved – on the aggressors? It is unlikely that Britain or even Italy would instantly trigger economic or yet military sanctions against the ‘Little Entente’. The fate of Abyssinia is one more example of the ‘protection’ afforded to victim states by the League of Nations’ trumpeted so-called ‘collective security’. The United States were in any case not a member of the League of Nations, and were at this time keeping to an enlightened isolation.
And in this description of Germany’s situation a possibly envisageable aggression by the Soviet Union is not as yet even taken into consideration. The political power ‘horror vacui’ caused my father sleepless nights, as I could so frequently infer from talking to him and from the conversations between my parents and Grandfather Ribbentrop where I was allowed to be present. The phrase that as I have said my father uttered before me on various occasions, ‘We have to take an option!’, was an exclamation of sheer desperation. Whoever cannot understand – or will not – that Hitler’s politics had to be conducted a priori from a situation of extreme weakness will not know the true motivations behind his actions in foreign policy.