Father answered the fateful – and the word is appropriate here – question as to the future policies of Britain in his Embassy Report dated 28 December 1937, to be followed five days later by his Conclusions (in German ‘Schlussfolgerungen’) to the Main Report (‘Hauptbericht’).147 Therein he arrives at the clear conclusion that the Reich must count on opposition from Britain in the new order to be established in Eastern Europe. It would be an antagonism that did not exclude war: there was a possibility Britain would not shy away from another war against Germany. It is to be surmised from this that the ‘leading elite’ is in no way decadent and weak, and is on the contrary hard and bellicose; in fact Father added the word ‘heroic’ by hand so as to remain in Hitler’s way of speaking. The report should be read most attentively, as in it he analyses Britain’s policy in regard to Germany with great clarity, at a time when all Hitler had done was to restore the defence apparatus of the Reich, in combination with repeated offers for a general disarmament restriction or a pact of friendship with Britain, but had undertaken no steps of aggression in shaping his foreign policy.
The quandary for Britain was in the choice between triggering a renewed armed conflict with the gradually strengthening Reich or the acceptance of Germany as the strongest power on the Continent, with the risks to the British Isles this implied. This choice, in this form, was not enforced by German policies. It was the outcome of the inner dispositions of the British elite. Father’s report made an exposé of this standpoint adopted by the British opponents of an understanding with Germany, found above all in the Foreign Office. The display of the expanding Bolshevik power as a counterweight to the German Reich was not properly assessed by England. British politics were firmly fixed in the narrow concept of the ‘balance of power’ of the preceding centuries and refused to take into account that the global power blocs were in the process of shifting to other continents.
The Embassy Report that my father addressed to Hitler after a year-and-ahalf ’s work as German ambassador in London basically set out what my father had observed in the train of thought of the British leadership:148
‘The principal issue for England, who of course sees in the maintenance of peace the best guarantee for the safeguarding of the Empire, remains ever whether it will after all be possible to come to an arrangement with Germany that would secure world peace and keep the European balance of power. It is conceivable that there are men in the British government (that Chamberlain and Halifax belong among them I doubt, by reason of my experience and observations) who even today believe in a friendly arrangement with Germany, to wit on the following basis:
‘Restitution of a few German colonies and leaving the matter of a solution to the Austrian question open that might lead to a peaceful affiliation, as well as improvement of the situation of the Sudeten Germans, possibly as far as their obtaining cultural autonomy, additionally as to the rest a repeat of Germany’s obligation to refrain from attacking neighbouring states and the obligation to solve any problems with them only through peaceful negotiation; moreover a clear convention as to at least a qualitative restriction of an air armed force on the model of the German-British Naval Agreement, for instance through bombing prohibition, limitation of bombers and potentially in quantitative relevance through disclosure and possible reduction of the budget.
‘In my estimate, this would be approximately the maximum of what these men, who basically believe in an amicable relationship with Germany (that is to say, therefore, those who do not at all see an insuperable obstacle to an arrangement with Germany in the continuing existence of a Germany that has a so-called expansionist National Socialist ‘Weltanschauung’ [trans., view of the world] in itself) would be able to picture in an arrangement with Germany …
‘The typical characteristic of the British leading class is today as it has always been, their materialistic selfishness, consciousness of power and, most importantly, the will to rule as well as the basic enduring heroic149 conception of life – that we have too – which is what in the final analysis created the British Empire and preserved it for centuries. Slogans such as “nation of shopkeepers” were basically never apt, in my opinion, as to the character of the English ruling class. Today just as previously the English ruling class will adopt a course favouring their important material interests as well as their position of power in the world, as long as there is any chance of their being victorious, in the final analysis to go to extremes, i.e. war.150 England will never dare to make such a wager thoughtlessly. She will always carefully weigh up the relations of power and if need be, delay any decision. When the best chances favour the side of England, she will go to war …
‘To sum up on the subject of further developments in German-English relations, we ought not to allow ourselves to harbour illusions, for as demonstrated by the Report, there still remain significant difficulties of a basic nature in the way of a lasting understanding between the two nations as matters stand. The special amity and warmth with which my colleagues and I have always been treated so far by the British should to my mind not hide the fact that for the time being there is no indication of a turn-about of real significance in English politics in the direction of an understanding – as we see it – to be ascertained. Should England then attempt in the future to block Germany, there can be no doubt that the two nations will in the end be driven apart. Notwithstanding, it appears to me to be right to keep our future policy regarding England on the path of reaching a compromise. The Embassy will therefore also strive with constancy in the direction of a German-English understanding. Such a task must however not lead our other friendships to suffer. In this sense, with their approval, this year also the Embassy has ever handled the Berlin-Rome axis as well as our anti-Comintern relations with Japan as constant factors of our foreign policy, while we continue to work on England.’
This was a clear warning. The British elite is described here as being tough, power-conscious, coolly calculating and ready for a fight. It is particularly that cliché, current in Germany at the time of the First World War about the English ‘nation of shopkeepers’ competing with the ‘heroism’ of the Germans, that Father refuted. In those days, a number of German observers had drawn a comparison to the wars between Rome and Carthage, in which the role of Rome was given to Germany. In view of his own observations, the German ambassador was now advising the greatest prudence, indeed in virtually prophetic terms:
‘It will not be impossible for the English government, both toward the British people and the Dominions, to present the progression to war in such a manner as though the British vital interests were at stake. Some length of time is naturally necessary before such propaganda can be effective. A special role is played therein by the spectre of a potential bombing of the British Isles from the air.’
Five days after the drafting of this report, ‘Deutsche Botschaft, London A 5522’ (‘German Embassy, London A 5522’), Ribbentrop wrote the appertaining Conclusions under the date of 2 January 1938, and, from his country house in Sonnenburg near Bad Freienwalde sent the whole memorandum to Hitler in Berlin. In contrast to the previously mentioned unpublished ambassadorial reports from Ribbentrop and the Main Report – concealed until 1968 – these Conclusions, which will presently be referred to, were produced as ‘evidence’ against him at the Nuremberg tribunal. Nevertheless, only point five from page nine of the ten-page report was read to Ribbentrop as an alleged ‘surprise’ document. The complete document, the ‘Conclusions to A 5522’, was published in 1949 in the documentation of the International Court of Justice and in 1950 in the Acts of German Foreign Policy I.
In these Conclusions, destined for Hitler’s eyes alone and not – as was the ambassadorial report A 5522 just mentioned and the other ambassadorial reports from London – dispatched to Foreign Minister Neurath at the same time, Ribbentrop underlines with even greater stress the British will to encircle Germany. He here expounds in detail the reasons that induced Chamberlain to send his Foreign Minister, Halifax, to Germany in November 1937. In contrast to Report A 5522, the Conclusions are not found in the original or original carbon copies, but only in the transcript of the Berlin Auswärtiges Amt’s Political Archive. They proceed on the assumption that a settlement with England should continue to be sought:151
‘As to England, our policy ought in my opinion to continue to be aimed at compromise while fully safeguarding the interests of our friends. We must also continue to foster England’s belief that a settlement and an understanding between Germany and England are still possible eventually. Such a prospect might, for example, have a restraining effect on any possible intention to intervene on the part of the British Government, should Germany become involved in a local conflict in Central Europe which does not vitally concern England … I believe that the question whether a German-British settlement can then still be achieved at all, may be answered as follows:
‘If England with her alliances is stronger than Germany and her friends, she will in my opinion fight sooner or later.152 Should Germany, however, be so successful in her alliance policy that a German coalition would be stronger than its British counterpart, or perhaps as strong, it is quite possible that England would prefer to try for a settlement after all …
‘An unequivocal British concession regarding the Austrian-Czech question in accordance with our views could clear the political atmosphere in Europe. Judging from my previous experience, however, I consider such a turn unlikely and believe that at best only the force of circumstances could compel England some day to tolerate such a solution. My opinion that this problem cannot be solved by official negotiations with England is strengthened by the fact that Chamberlain is enmeshed in a system of domestic as well as foreign policy (together with France) that makes important decisions exceedingly difficult.
‘Once the fronts have become rigid, only distinctly abnormal changes in the balance of power or events in Europe or the world (France going Bolshevist, collapse of Russia, serious changes affecting our friends) could force political developments to take a different turn. However, a policy cannot be based on such possibilities. Therefore, in my opinion it is proper to continue the course we have taken in our foreign policy.
‘In conclusion I should like to sum up my views in the following sentences:
1.England is behind in her armaments153 – therefore, what she is playing for is to gain time.
2.England believes that in a race with Germany time is on England’s side – exploitation of her greater economic resources for armament – time for extending her alliances (e.g., the United States).
3.The visit of Halifax, therefore, is to be considered as a manoeuvre to obtain information and as a camouflage – even Germanophiles in England frequently play only a role that has been assigned to them.
4.England and her Prime Minister, after the Halifax visit, in my opinion see no possible basis for an agreement with Germany (they consider National Socialist Germany capable of anything, just as we consider the British capable of anything); therefore, they fear that some day they might be forced by a strong Germany to accept solutions that are not agreeable to them. In order to meet this contingency England is at all events preparing by military and political measures for a conflict with Germany.
5.Therefore, we must draw the following conclusions:
a.Outwardly, continued understanding with England while simultaneously protecting the interests of our friends.
b.Quiet but determined establishment of154 alliances against England, i.e., in practice, strengthening our friendship with Italy and Japan and in addition winning over all countries whose interests conform directly or indirectly with ours. For this purpose the diplomats of the three great powers are to cooperate closely and intimately.
Only in this manner can we meet England, whether it be for a settlement someday or in conflict. England will be a tough and keen foe in this diplomatic game.
6.The special problem as to whether France and thereby England would intervene if Germany should become involved in a conflict in Central Europe depends upon circumstances and the time when such a conflict were to break out and end and upon military considerations which cannot be evaluated here. I should like to present personally some views on that subject to the Führer.
‘This is my evaluation of the situation after having carefully weighed all the circumstances. I have worked for friendship with England for years, and nothing would make me happier than the possibility of its achievement. When I asked the Führer to send me to London155 I was sceptical about the likelihood of success, but, because of Edward VIII, it seemed that a final attempt should be made. Today I no longer have faith in any understanding. England does not desire in close proximity a paramount Germany, which would be a constant menace to the British Isles. On this she will fight … Henceforth – regardless of what tactical interludes of conciliation may be attempted with regard to us – every day that our political calculations are not actuated by the fundamental idea that England is our most dangerous enemy would be a gain for our enemies.156, 157 sgd. R.’158
It must be said once again that the above is a totally confidential report from the German ambassador in London directly to the head of state (not even under copy to the Foreign Minister), or in other words it contained the most secret thoughts about German policy. The German government’s wish to place relations with Britain on a long-term, solid and amicable base without impairing British interests is quite clearly demonstrated from the document.
At the centre of this major England-memorandum is the ascertainment that Father had stressed to Hitler already in the summer of 1936, namely that the concept of a balance of political power in Europe was now and as ever remained the fundamental principle of British politics. Any shift of the balance to the detriment of the insular nation would lead the English leading class to a diplomatic and finally military intervention. There is an interesting phenomenon to bring to attention at this point: to an impartial reader the report would make it perfectly obvious that Hitler had been put in the picture by his ambassador in London unequivocally as to British policy and had to be aware of the risks he would be running. The German ambassador in London in his report maintains unmistakably that in bringing about a new order in Eastern Europe, German policy had to assume that it would come up against a bitter opposition from Britain – and France too – who would potentially confront the Reich with the force of arms.
The German ambassador in London bases his conviction on explicit detail, beginning with the age-old principle of balance of power that had dominated in internal European clashes for at least three centuries and that purported to ensure Britain’s role as referee in Europe. It was Britain’s abidance by this that had led to the outbreak of the First World War. He showed the ‘ruling elite’ as hard as steel and power-conscious, ready to fight for their status in the world and their material vested interests. He consciously employs Hitler’s use of words so as to be clearly understood, as when characterizing the English leading class he puts in the word ‘heroic’ by hand. In the awareness that a people will behave like its leaders, the British group of leaders’ approach was a subject frequently broached between my parents and me, and they were very interested to hear of my experiences and what I lived through at Westminster School. This is why Father’s formulation in his Report that it should be counted upon that England will ‘fight’ and the leading class ‘will go to extremes, i.e. war’ bear no misunderstanding and are completely explicit.
It is astonishing and should be examined that even before the war it was said of my father that he had erroneously advised Hitler regarding British politics in the sense that he characterized the British leading class as weak, decadent and degenerate, and therefore in no position nor having the will to fight for their empire and place in the world. In the meantime, the misrepresentation is firmly entrenched in the repertory of numerous writers of memoirs and judgemental historians – in the German Federal Republic above all – with no foundation, and is reiterated and hammered into the public as established fact.
At Nuremberg Father took a stand against this in writing:
‘When I had been in London for a few months I supplied him [Hitler] with a detailed report of my impressions. My Report expressed my conviction that England was strong, the leading class heroic and that the basic direction of British foreign policy was as always the “balance of power” in Europe. All my subsequent reports addressed to Adolf Hitler during my posting bore this state of things out as fact. My Memorandum dated 2 January 1938 produced by the prosecution in Nuremberg summarises this coverage and confirms it. It is obviously the duty of an ambassador in a post as important as London to take all possibilities into account in a report required by the head of state concerning England’s future stance; to draw the conclusions therefrom was the Führer’s affair.
‘I bring this up because of the propaganda directed against me both at home and abroad, during and after the war, that I had wrongly informed the Führer as to England’s strength and stance. I am told among other things that the former Reich Finance Minister Count Schwerin von Krosigk will have drafted a memorandum stating that I had not briefed the Führer correctly with the truth and comprehensively about England. It is a case of the contrary and I am all the more surprised at the Count’s statements since I had told him too about my conviction that England would fight and that I had already reported to the Führer in this sense from London.’159
I remember Schwerin von Krosigk very well. I came to know him at a shoot in the Sudetenland. He was the sole minister Father had invited to this meet. The hunting grounds had been leased by the Auswärtiges Amt so as to be able on the occasion of a state visit to proffer a guest a shooting treat. This is why this shoot remains in my memory – it must have been in November 1939 – because the quarters of my regiment were in Pilsen in the Protectorate (of Bohemia and Moravia), near the meet. Some ‘high-placed’ good soul wanted to do my parents – probably my mother mainly – a good turn and granted me two days’ leave. I did not particularly value this sort of intervention ‘from above’ in my ordinary soldier’s life, because there was always the risk that some superior – and quite rightly too – would object to it, which could turn out to make things uncomfortable for me in my duties.
Father and Schwerin von Krosigk were evidently on good terms, or Schwerin von Krosigk would not have been invited to this purely private meet. No state shoots took place during the war, but the grounds had to be controlled if for no other reason than that agriculture suffered damage from an unchecked wildlife population. Schwerin von Krosigk, who was not at all a poor shot, had naturally accepted the invitation with pleasure. But it is true a friend in need is a friend indeed, and it is certainly not fairness that was uppermost in the minds of writers of memoirs following the last war, most particularly not in those who had been implicated in the regime and had but one thought: to exculpate themselves, by means of blaming those who could no longer defend themselves. Hitler’s Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosigk is but one of many instances of this.
Besides, in a speech to the European heads of state gathered in Berlin on 26 November 1941, Father had calmly said that:
‘whether the … English propagandists are right in saying that I, in ignorance of the essence of the British nature and misjudgement of their true character reported to the Führer that England would never come to fight, I shall be pleased to leave to the judgement of the future.’160
Upon closing his notes, a few days before his death, Father could not anticipate that the claim that he had misinformed Hitler as to the English readiness to fight a war had been supplied to the English propaganda from the German side. Aside from other considerations, let it be said only that from the part of the German conspiracy, the British were repeatedly requested to remain ‘obdurate’ in the face of the German proposals. If it came to war, the psychological climate for a coup d’état was already prepared, because the German people did not want a war. The group of conspirators in the circle of the State Secretary in the Auswärtiges Amt, Ernst von Weizsäcker, again and again assured their British interlocutors – they were of all people just such as Vansittart, Churchill and other ‘friends of Germany’ – that Ribbentrop was reporting to and influencing Hitler in the sense that England would not fight because it was decadent and weak. In order to show that the opposite was the case, England should strike an attitude of toughness. The conspirators hoped the tactic would lead to a collision course from which the outcome would be a war, which is what they saw as setting the stage for a military coup against Hitler. This traducement against the German Foreign Minister consequently had a clearly political background. It may be remarked only as an aside that most of the political discussions held between Hitler and Father – due to Hitler’s custom of not convening sessions to discuss current problems – took place in tête à têtes so that there was nobody present to witness the true exchanges of the ‘consultations’ between them. All I can produce, unfortunately, as proof is that the actual ambassadorial report leaves no doubt as to Joachim von Ribbentrop’s judgement of British politics. He is sceptical, not to say pessimistic, about Hitler’s wish for establishment of a lasting cooperation with Britain. He describes England as a mighty, tough and possibly bellicose opponent of Germany, maybe according to the intra-British decision-making process, even the opponent par excellence.
It is the preferential practice of today’s writers of memoirs and historians simply to reproduce clichés and assertions regarding the ‘man in the forefront’ without checking them – or indeed instead of knowing better. Here is a prominent example: the Reich’s former Chancellor von Papen, a well-known ‘Münchhausen of memoir literature’ as they call him,161 in his memoirs162 reproduces five lines of the around 290 pages of the Report, in such form, with the date, the address and the signature as to intimate that it is the original document, i.e. the entire report. When my mother pointed out this incorrectness to Mr von Papen, he replied imperturbably that he was not aware of the original report. When Mother was able to direct him to the entry in the English edition of his memoirs that had come out a few months before the German edition, where the exact source was given, he merely remarked:
‘It had slipped my memory that I had already quoted sentences from the Report in the English edition and I regret this lapse … It is undeniable that I had read the report, as it is printed in the “Documents of German Foreign Policy, London 1949”.’163
It cannot be said with certainty that Spitzy is purported to have made an error, since at the time of the Report’s drafting he was Father’s Aide de Camp. He insists today that at that time he already belonged to the Weizsäcker and Kordt conspiracy. Spitzy reproduces the three sentences verbatim from Papen’s book, also as ‘Memorandum for the Führer’ (furthermore with a different print image). He too postulates that to Hitler Father presented the British as decadent, weak and, for the sake of the final word, even as ‘Judaized’, coming to the conclusion that England would not fight. On the basis of the Report given here, readers can now draw their own conclusions as to how my father assessed the British and at the same time form a judgement as to Spitzy’s credibility, since he states in writing that he had known the Report.164
I explain these two examples in order to show how ruthlessly authors of memoirs have treated historical truth, especially when they themselves were actively involved in the forging of history. To find this traducement again in Spitzy is interesting only because he says he belonged to the circles that diffused the calumnies165 with a clear political objective in mind.
To come back to the assessment of the world political situation as it is condensed in the Report, until far into the war Hitler did not cease his wishful thinking of reaching an agreement with Britain:
‘F (Führer): All are alliances of convenience. For instance, the people know that the alliance with Italy is only an alliance between Mussolini and me. We Germans only have sympathies for Finland, could have them for Sweden and, naturally, for England. A German-English alliance would be one of a people with a people. All the British need to do is get their hands off the Continent. They can keep their Empire and the world!’166
In 1937 his ambassador in London saw the situation more soberly. To his mind, one could not force one’s partner or opponent to their good fortune. If the British government did not share Hitler’s opinion, one would have to make the best of it. Father drew the conclusion from it that nothing further could be done but to pursue the policy of alliance, which had been initiated under the label of an Anti-Comintern Pact, meaning to look for partners in alliance. This he recommended explicitly.
Hitler’s pro-West – in other words anti-Soviet – policy had determined the Reich on a course that was to come to an arrangement with the Western powers, England and France. This could signify falling between all the stools in the end, but a see-saw policy between West and East would have been an even greater risk, as the outbreak of the First World War demonstrated.
Up to this moment, Hitler’s ‘Western connection’ had not so far been achievable. Hitler had aligned his policy in that direction and had not followed in the Russian policies of Bismarck, since in contrast to the Bismarck era he saw Russia as the greatest threat. ‘With caution’, one could say, on the German side they began to look around. From the point of view of underlining the anti-Bolshevik component, initially only loose ties to Italy and Japan could be established. Naturally, there was a highly political component in the Anti-Comintern Pact. It could be expanded, in case the two Western powers should abstain in the long run. In any case, it was in the state of affairs in 1936 better than nothing. For, viewed objectively, 1936 had still been a case of mere survival, so to speak. The ambassadorial reports expressed it unequivocally. Britain would move against Germany, in order, as Churchill put it, once more to smash a Germany that was too powerful for the European balance. Hitler had to take this into account. Time was beginning to run out for him. Hitler’s subsequent moves have to be seen in this light.
Let it be said at this point that Father’s Report from London does not mention the Soviet Union. For him, questions of ideology had no role to play in foreign policy. He had gone along with the early and one-sided commitment of German policy opposing the Soviet Union, because the Reich’s pro-Western option was thereby clearly accentuated. However, the more reservations with which one was obliged to assess British policies, the more pressing was the reflection that Germany’s position vis à vis Russia had to be rethought. Although it was too soon, Father may have had one or the other thought in the back of his mind. It is noticeable that in the main Report from London, which is really a drafted conception of German foreign policy, Soviet Russia is not mentioned, seeing that opposition to the Soviet Union was the starting point for the Hitlerian foreign policy. In the collection of papers Father left, there is a Note of his:167
‘The anti-Comintern Pact naturally also harboured a political factor … Even while bearing England in mind, we had no choice but to follow through with the anti-Comintern policy. It was only if we were as strong as possible a partner that we could help those circles in England to exert a decisive influence that saw the future of their country best secured by a common course with Germany. A formulation as loose as possible for the anti-Comintern Pact was chosen, and its aspect of the world outlook placed in the foreground, in order to keep a free hand in diplomatic negotiations for a possible alliance with Britain.’
When it came to a rapprochement with the Soviet Union in 1939, both contracting sides were clear that the Comintern would also in the future not be permitted any sort of activity in the countries that had joined the pact. In the negotiations, from the Soviet side no such corresponding stipulation was raised. In fact my father was able to jest, in Moscow, that the USSR itself could join the pact.
Hitler saw himself once again on the horns of a dilemma. From 1933 to 1936 he was confronted with the necessity to rearm so as to fill the power vacuum in Central Europe, not only in view of the ‘Little Entente’ but above all because of the powerful Soviet Union. However, in the eyes of the British this rearmament tipped the scales of the balance of power. Hitler now faced the problem of having placed himself one-sidedly in the position of favouring the West – that is to say in an anti-Soviet one – only to find that Britain rejected him (to say nothing of the French government’s stance of hostility towards Germany and amity to Soviet Russia). He had fallen between two stools, with Italy his sole support in Europe.
At the turn of the year 1937 to 1938 it is possible that through the purges in the Party and the army Hitler may have seen Russia’s threat as temporarily somewhat moderated. But time, as has already been said, began running out. British (as well as American) military build-up was in full spate, and Russia would recover from the blood-letting of high-ranking officers. All that remained to be done was to make the position of Germany as strong as possible. This meant rearmament of Germany on the one hand, and on the other a consolidation of the situation on the eastern German border, in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, therefore in the Soviets’ ‘front yard’. It will be seen to what extent Hitler took this situation into account.
I should like to refer here to a minor personal incident. I remember the days of Christmas 1937, during which the ambassadorial reports were drafted.168 We were celebrating the holy days in Sonnenburg near Bad Freienwalde, a farmhouse of my parents’ amid the beautiful natural surroundings of the Oderbruch. Our Ribbentrop grandparents were with us from Naumburg for the Christmas holiday, as they always were. I had come from Ilfeld, a German boarding school to which I had meanwhile transferred, a day before the holiday. After the austerity of boarding school life I was eagerly looking forward to being spoiled by my mother and the usual joyful atmosphere that always made Christmas at home so enjoyable.
Father was, however, preoccupied during those days, deep in thought and talking to Grandfather for hours at a time; he was certainly not as relaxed as he had been the previous year, when once more we had all foregathered in Sonnenburg. The responsibility of drawing up his reports must have weighed heavily on him, and even we children felt it. On Christmas Eve Father would usually play Silent Night on the violin, accompanied on the piano by Grandmother, and we would sing it. This year there was no violin – it had stayed in London. Something very significant happened to me in those Christmas days, that was also quite unexpected. I must say first of all that I had grown up with Mother’s motto that ‘as long as I am alive you will not get a motorbike!’. She considered motorbike riding too dangerous – and she was not entirely wrong. Now there I was, stuck in Ilfeld, a tiny spot in the Südharz, with only a bicycle with which to get around. As the slopes in these lovely central uplands are fairly steep, one can hardly ride around very far. Ilfeld permitted possession of a motorbike, so I began feeling Mother out as to her thoughts about it, while of course stressing the harmlessness of the BMW 200cc machine I had my eye on. To my surprise Mother did not react with the severity of a flat refusal to give permission and the usual formula of ‘as long as I am alive … ’ etc.; all she said was ‘is it really necessary?’ and ‘but it’s so dangerous’, finally referring me to Father. Understandably, she did not want to have sole responsibility. I started on Father, trying to convince him, but naturally he too was basically reluctant. What parents are delighted when their son wants to have a motorbike? In the end, Father retreated to the position of saying I would have to chip in on the purchase price from my savings account, since after all it was a pretty expensive present.
In 1925 my savings account had been opened with a deposit of five Reichsmarks. Since I was particularly thrifty as a boy, my credit was now a few hundred Reichsmarks. I could therefore be very correct and contribute half the purchase price to my father, who accepted it without demur. Mother’s grounds for tolerating the motorbike – ‘You never know what might happen’ – as she told me at some later date, had to do with the uncertainty of Father’s political future after he had clearly and unequivocally informed Hitler that as things stood he was unable to fulfil the latter’s wish for a British alliance nor, consequently, to carry out his mission to London. The reaction of a dictator is in the final analysis always unpredictable, to say nothing of the entourage eternally plotting intrigues. Nonetheless, Hitler was now fully briefed as to British policies and had been warned.
That brief conversation must have taken place between 28 December 1937 and 2 January 1938, the date on which Father had transmitted his major Report together with the Conclusions to Hitler. After the fact, it turned out to be the final report from Father’s posting as ambassador to London (not that he knew this at the time).
As I have said, I had meanwhile transferred back to a German school. I have described how the year I spent at Westminster School had broadened my mind. I was now a pupil at a National Political Educational Institution, popularly known as a ‘Napola’, this one being at Ilfeld in the Harz region. The academy had grown out of an Evangelical monastic school; the high level of education demanded was upheld. The curriculum corresponded to a German humanist high school. I was at this boarding school from September 1937 to March 1939, and I owe to it my well-grounded schooling in the two upper forms. National Political Educational Institutions were elite establishments. Pupils were recruited from gifted primary school children, who if necessary were exempt from payment of school fees. Their motto was ‘Be more than you appear to be’.
It was during this phase of my life, that is between September 1937 and March 1939, that occurred my father’s nomination to Foreign Minister; the Anschluß (link-up) with Austria; the so-called ‘May Crisis’ – during an exchange visit of my form with an English public school in the spring of 1938; the Sudeten Crisis; and finally – after I had written my Abitur (secondary school leaving exam) essay on the subject ‘Völkisches und politisches Denken in der Politik der Gegenwart’ (National and Political Thought in the Politics of the Present), which was set in the sense of a national foreign policy – the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. (What was expected of the treatment of the subject was that it should be a repudiation of imperialist expansion politics, an irony of which I was at the time completely aware!) I shall come back to the establishment of the Protectorate.
My written correspondence and personal contact with Mother – since my parents had returned to Berlin – was now much easier and closer than when they were in London. I was once again receiving much more detailed glimpses of political developments. It culminated on that day of March 1939 when – just a little bit craving their praise – I was to announce I had obtained my Abitur, with the mention ‘Good’. However, the impact of my news was lessened when my breath was taken away by Mother’s information that Father was intensively endeavouring to persuade Hitler to conclude a pact with Russia.
Some four weeks after the end of the 1937 Christmas holidays, from which despite the cold winter weather I had gone back to school on my motorbike, one night at 11.00 pm I was called to the Duty Master, our English teacher Stolte, fetched out of the dormitory to be told what had been broadcast from the people’s receiver in his room: ‘Your father was made Foreign Affairs Minister!’
Half asleep as I was, I did not see any particular reason to be pleased. I would now attract even more attention. I could not at the time foresee that such attention was to pursue me for the rest of my life, under the most diverse auspices and the most contradictory circumstances. In one way or another I would for ever, to this day, be seen as ‘his father’s son’. I did, however, learn fairly quickly how to adapt to this, to react accordingly and find out whether my interlocutor was speaking to me or to ‘my father’s son’.
I was given two days’ leave from school to go and congratulate my father, and met my parents at the Kaiserhof Hotel, where they were living since they returned to Berlin from London, as our Dahlem house was locked up. It had not been foreseen when Father would return to Germany. I would have been wrong to think I would find Father ecstatic about his appointment. Rather, he was pensive. About his appointment, he wrote:
‘My appointment to Foreign Minister of the Reich came as a complete surprise. On 30 January 1938 I was present in Berlin at the celebration of the anniversary of the accession to power, when Hitler asked me to stay on for a few days. It was the week of the so-called Blomberg crisis. On 4 February the Führer called me to him and disclosed that he wanted to make changes in various higher government posts in the framework of a reshuffle, among which was that of the foreign minister. The Reich’s present Foreign Minister Neurath would be nominated President of the Secret Cabinet Council. I was to step into his shoes.
‘When I took over the post, Adolf Hitler briefly put me in the picture of the general political situation. He said Germany had placed herself in a new position due to the Wehrmacht build-up and the occupation of the Rhineland. We were back in the circles of the nations of equal status and it was now the moment to find solutions to certain problems – problems that could be solved only with a strong army, not that it was in any way by its deployment but by the mere fact of its existence. “A country” – he said – “that is not also militarily strong cannot have any sort of foreign policy.” We had sufficient evidence of that in the past years. It must now be our goal to come to clarified relations with our neighbours. The four problems he enumerated were Austria and the Sudetenland, Memel and Danzig with the Corridor. It would be my task to assist him in finding the diplomatic solution to these problems.’169
It was certainly not a coincidence – even if the so-called Blomberg-Fritsch crisis170 was the ostensible cause – that Father was appointed Foreign Minister four weeks after depositing his ambassadorial Report, which could in fact be called a Memorandum on the situation of the Reich in foreign affairs. The Report makes Father’s conclusions – in Hitler’s sense – of the failure of the efforts undertaken at the Court of St James’s eminently clear and soberly depicts the consequences for the future conduct of German foreign policy. Its concept, of a secure position of defence in Eastern Europe vis à vis the Soviet Union, thereby achieving the containment of Bolshevism, with the rear covered by Britain, appeared, at the time of Father’s appointment, difficult to achieve. The only thing left to be done at present was to build up the German Central European position further, in the hope that the British leadership could finally still be persuaded that their Empire’s future was indeed better secured in the long run by an alliance with the Reich than in a renewed confrontation.
Once again quoting my father:
The goal of German foreign policy was to convince Britain that between the choices of a possible grouping of alliance [on the part of Germany] directed against Britain and a German-British alliance, the latter was the most preferable option [for Britain].’171
One could, as said before, add ‘the most preferable option in Britain’s situation would have been’, and complete with ‘as has been proved by history’! It will be shown that this concept definitely had a chance of being a reality. It will further be shown which Power – and its leading statesman – was responsible for foiling it, to the calamitous detriment of the British Empire.
It was not Hitler’s wish to use the supposed, factitious armaments advance to wage war – it was mere propaganda, of which he had taken advantage, as he had of the temporary crippling of the Soviet Union from Stalin’s ‘purges’ – but, on the contrary, to effect the amendments he aspired to without resorting to arms. It was feasible, which was how he had expressed himself in November of the previous year in the instances of Austria and Czechoslovakia. The way to do it, which he now had to put on the table, resulted from the British policy which evidently rejected any German courtship.
In business administration, in order to reach a decision, there is the so-called ‘worst-case scenario’ method. It means that all potential adverse consequences must be rehearsed in advance. It is to be applied for every important decision to be taken. If the German leadership had adopted this method to assess the situation of the Reich at the beginning of 1938, they would in all probability have come to the following result:
–Britain is playing to gain time so as to complete her rearmament and, unavoidable in a democracy, by propaganda to create the prerequisites of a domestic-policy psychological climate of envisaging an eventual confrontational course with the Reich.
–The same is valid for the French government, extended by the endeavour to mobilize their alliances in the ‘Little Entente’ against the Reich.
–The French alliance with the Soviet Union (concluded as early as 1935) constituted a serious threat to the Reich, accentuated by the participation of Czechoslovakia in the pact and the innate automatic triggering of anti-German sequences to follow.
–The Soviet Union is so to speak ‘by definition’ the declared enemy of the Reich. The government of the Reich may be sure that at any suitable opportunity it can be trusted to take the side of Germany’s opponent, so as to expand its influence in Europe – eventually even by the use of force – westward.
–The United States will assume an ever-growing role in world politics. The ‘Quarantine’ speech of November 1937 leaves no leeway for doubt against whom the activities of the USA in foreign affairs will be directed.
All this being taken into consideration, Hitler should have proceeded from the danger that possibly at a given time he might be forced to solutions not agreeable to him and endangering the Reich, through a superior, overpowering coalition of those powers. This ‘worst-case scenario’ had an absolutely realistic basis – nota bene – albeit until the outset of 1938 Hitler had undertaken nothing that could have disturbed the famous balance of power in Europe.