‘We Germans should also learn to put up with the truth, even if it is favourable to us!’ (Heinrich von Brentano)
It was in the treaty with Russia that the German government saw the chance of finally reaching an arrangement with Poland. The Soviet Union’s demand to maintain the right of marching through Poland and Romania in the case of an alliance formed against Germany should have made the real goals of the Soviet Union clear to the Polish leadership. The sudden interest of the British following the conclusion of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact in restricting their hitherto sweeping wholesale guarantee of Poland now only to the case of a war with Germany should also have given Beck and his colleagues particular food for thought. In the situation reigning in 1939 the Reich alone could protect both countries from Soviet aggression. No power in the world could have induced the Russian leadership to withdraw their troops from both countries again. An irony of world history is that just a few years later this was proved to be the case! A sensible Polish policy would even have given Poland, as a potential ally for Germany against the Soviet Union, a relatively strong position also vis à vis the Reich.
At this point two pressing issues impose upon an unbiased historian:
1)What were the motivations of the Polish government and what were their goals when they rejected or did not act on the renewed negotiations proposed by Germany after conclusion of the German-Russian treaty?
2)What was the objective of the British government by the ratification of the Polish-British treaty that came about in the clear acknowledgement that there was no possibility at all of coming to Poland’s assistance militarily? Through this treaty Poland was induced into taking a stance, suicidal and totally intransigent, vis à vis the Reich.
Curiously, these decisive issues have so far not been raised by official historical research. To begin with the first question: was the already cited remark by the Polish Foreign Minister Beck to the French Minister Laval no longer valid, i.e. that the greatest catastrophe for the Polish nation always occurred when ‘Germany and Russia jointly’ acted? Should this totally evident truth, historically confirmed, after the passing of four years in which Germany had once more become a power factor, all of a sudden be obsolete? Even if one attributed to Beck a tendency to overestimate the Polish position that allowed him to dream of a Polish domain of power and influence extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, it can after all not be assumed that he believed it could prevail between the Reich and the Soviet Union. In any case there existed a Polish-Soviet pact of non-aggression.262
The American endeavours have been depicted whose objective was to extract the Poles from German influence, thus forcing them on a course of confrontation with the Reich. The assumed certainty of the backing of the Western powers, including the USA, and the supposed unbridgeable opposition between Germany and Russia may have initially prompted the Polish Foreign Minister to reject the German propositions. The negotiations conducted with Britain and France on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other, concerning a military alliance may have reinforced his opinion that his back was covered should he let it come to a confrontation with Germany over Danzig.
Even with all this being assumed, Poland’s policy after conclusion of the German-Russian treaty from now on remains incomprehensible. Does another key exist that could solve the riddle for us of the train of thought of the Polish government? They were thoughts that finally, transposed to reality, once again brought about the self-immolating end of Poland’s national independence, and therewith its national catastrophe.
Ever since 1938, hidden opposition groups in Germany – albeit holding the highest posts – through the most diverse channels had time and again incited the British government to keep to a ‘hard’ stand and threaten Hitler so as to thwart his policies. Those who initiated these incitements are already known, as was depicted on the occasion of the Sudeten crisis. They were State Secretary von Weizsäcker, General Staff Chief Beck, Chief of Counterintelligence Admiral Canaris as well as, among others, Schacht and Goerdeler, Kleist-Schmenzin, Count Schwerin von Krosigk and Koerber. The tenor of their activities was always the same: The situation in Germany was depicted as miserable, so a military putsch was seen as having good prospects of success. The precondition would, however, be either the diplomatic defeat of Hitler, or war. In my opinion this is where the decisive explanation lies for Beck’s incomprehensible policy which then became Poland’s catastrophe. Beck, and probably also the British General Staff, hoped that an emergency, in view of the British declaration of guarantee to Poland, would not even arise. It must in any case have been clear to both that military assistance for Poland would not be possible. This was particularly so for the British General Staff, which had not even theoretically envisaged such assistance.
The British ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, had at the last moment seen to it that the Polish ambassador, Lipski, was urgently requested at least to take delivery of the German proposals, and on the morning of 31 August had them read to him by Dahlerus and British diplomat George Ogilvie-Forbes, receiving the answer from Lipski (as Dahlerus writes):
‘that he had no cause in any way to be interested in Notes or offers from the German side. He knew the situation in German well after his five-and-a-half-year posting as ambassador … ; he [Lipski] declared himself convinced that in case of war unrest would break out in that country and the Polish troops would successfully march against Berlin.’263
The events leading up to this were as follows: on the morning of 30 August Kleist-Schmenzin, whose activities in 1938 have already been mentioned, called in at the British Embassy. Kleist, who ‘was in close touch with [the] War Ministry’, gave the British military attaché a detailed report on military plans and the situation in Germany as he saw it. Henderson passed on this report to British Foreign Secretary Halifax in a cable by telephone. Kleist-Schmenzin gave the British military attaché the following information, including detailed strategic plans, which were contained in the telegram. Brauchitsch is said to have stated that war on two fronts was out of the question, since it could not bring about a quick decision.264 The West Wall was strong only in places, but weak at Freiburg, Saarbrücken and Aachen, where the German General Staff feared a breakthrough. Hitler was having a nervous breakdown. The General Staff wished to make use of Hitler’s nervous condition in order to enable a military coup (putsch), but he had to be certain that England would not give way. If the General Staff was persuaded that Ribbentrop’s reports on England were wrong, this would be favourable for the dissident elements. It also contains the phrase: ‘Repeated to Warsaw’.
In a marginal note on the report, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick says:
‘I cannot identify this officer from the description, but I think he is a retired officer in touch with the reactionary elements of the General Staff. He gave us a lot of fairly correct information last September, when his line was to urge us to stand up to Hitler. This note was read to the Prime Minister on the morning of August 31.’265
It may clearly be seen from this information too that the conspiracy wished to suggest to the British that Hitler was on the brink of a breakdown. Through a ‘coup’, as Kleist-Schmenzin expressed it, the whole regime was to collapse. Not the least noteworthy about the report is that Chamberlain promptly passed it on to Warsaw and as appears from Lipski’s words, once there, determined the completely unapproachable attitude of the Polish government – even after the German-Russian Pact. In this instance as well, to introduce a personal remark, once more the allegation being used as an incitement for the British is that Joachim von Ribbentrop was giving false reports, in the sense that England would not fight. What the conspiracy thus maintained is proof that their intention was to employ every means to lure the British government to a military confrontation with Germany, thereby triggering the outbreak of war. Once more the ulterior motives behind the systematic slander of Father and his reports to Hitler are clearly seen.
However, returning to the motivations of the Polish and in the end of British policy, these two countries were also on the horns of a weighty dilemma. The Polish dilemma was defined by Poland’s geopolitical situation between two superpowers, the German Reich and the Soviet Union. Piłsudski had seen it correctly, that it was up to Poland to reach a modus vivendi with both neighbours and sustain it. Poland ought as far as possible avoid to have to take one side or another. Thus it was first of all understandable when Poland was hesitating to allow herself to be hitched to the anti-Soviet, Central European bloc.
One has to put oneself in Beck’s place. He was naturally aware of the plans of the German conspiracy. We have seen that Kleist-Schmenzin’s report, with the projected German deployment, military tips and the promise of a military putsch, had immediately been passed on to Warsaw by Chamberlain. Most probably, therefore, Beck had already been put in the picture of the plans of the German conspiracy earlier. It was this view that will have constituted a fundament of his policy, for even Beck – who entitled himself ‘colonel’ – for all the overestimating there may have been of Polish potential, could not count on effective assistance from Britain and France if it should come to a military confrontation with the Reich.
Not only did Beck have knowledge of the plans of the German conspiracy, he was also under the massive pressure exerted on him by the USA and Britain not to come to an agreement with the Reich. Since he did not wish to set his stakes on the German card and because, due to the support from the United States, he considered the position of the Western powers as the stronger in the long run, he remained adamant towards the German propositions, although he must have thought to himself that an extremely perilous situation could arise out of it for Poland. It was here that the prospect of a putsch in Germany was the lifeline Poland needed. At the same time, Beck could probably not know that Kleist-Schmenzin – somebody therefore who purported to represent a voice of the German conspiracy – had himself demanded the Corridor from the British; a claim that went incomparably farther than Hitler’s.
A highly interesting detail is to be noted here: in 1939, Legation Secretary Hans Herwarth von Bittenfeld belonged to the German Embassy in Moscow. Although not entirely Aryan – as the expression was at the time – he had no sort of difficulties nor even persecution to endure, and occupied instead a secure position as a German diplomat of the ‘higher service’ in Father’s Auswärtiges Amt. Herwarth had kept the American diplomat Charles Bohlen currently informed as to the state of the German-Russian discussions and had finally given him access to all the details of the treaty (copies of the telegrams to Berlin that he had to encode), including the secret supplementary agreement. Bohlen had naturally immediately put the State Department in the picture.
It emerged from this secret supplementary agreement that if it came to a conflict, Poland should once more be ‘partitioned’, in any case into spheres of interest, whatever one wished to conclude from that. These intentions of the Soviet Union and the Reich were therefore known to Roosevelt and the British government. Neither Roosevelt nor Chamberlain considered it expedient to communicate them to the Polish government, the country directly concerned. It is possible that this lethal danger arising for Poland out of the German-Russian accord might yet after all have led the Polish government to negotiations and perhaps to giving in. But the information, provided by an unknown conspirator promising a military putsch, was however promptly forwarded by the British government to Warsaw. It is also surprising that Herwarth did not also let the Poles know of the information he had about the German-Russian treaty. It would probably have been – and one would expect a diplomat to be aware of this – the surest way to avoid a war; this was how Herwarth justified his action.
There was consequently evidently no interest on the part of the British or Americans to appease the Polish crisis peacefully. This crisis had not arisen because Hitler wanted to ‘pick a quarrel’ so as to have a war but because stringent national and – as far as the German population of Poland was concerned – equally humanitarian issues were at stake. The situation was that in fact the conspiracy did not want to avoid war, but wanted on the contrary to cause one so as to be able to realize their goals. Had Kordt not labelled the peaceful Munich solution to the Sudeten problem as the ‘second best solution’, meaning thereby that the ‘best’ solution was the outbreak of war?266
The question therefore remains open, why England did not force an understanding between Poland and Germany? What could the British world-empire gain from a fresh passage at arms with Germany? The First World War had brought Britain to its position as the greatest power in the world. In the late 1930s, however, the United States, as well as Japan and Russia, due to their size, geopolitical situation and, other than Japan, their vast raw material base, were the rising powers. It must always be borne in mind that in this circle Germany was the weakest power, determined by her geographical position and lack of resources. But it was against precisely such a power that the British Empire thought it should turn, despite the experience of the First World War and above all under complete disregard for the German offers of lasting cooperation that the German leadership had addressed to London ever since 1933.
At the time British policy had decided against a worldly-wise solution, giving precedence to the centuries-old policy of a tight ‘European balance’, as the Foreign Office, Sir Eyre Crowe and his spiritual pupil Vansittart conceived it. For the British leadership therefore, the dilemma lay in the major probability of once again having to engage in a life-or-death armed encounter with the Reich. Once again the British Empire was gambling with its worldwide position. The strength of Germany was still remembered from the First World War: it determined England’s wariness of the strongest Continental power.
The balancing weight of the Soviet Union could not be seen – or did not wish to be seen – as widely putting German power in perspective, and could possibly have yet still left Britain’s choice open to opt for one or the other side, together with her ‘mainland rapier’ France. The British dilemma was therefore self-made, but for the British government absolutely presented itself as a real one. History has confirmed this dilemma, as the British leadership saw it, insofar as precisely what the British leadership feared did occur. The English statesmen of the first half of the twentieth century ‘succeeded’ in what their clever predecessors for over three centuries were successfully able to avoid, which was to make England politically on a world scale a small island situated off the coast of the Continent, more or less dependent on Europe, after the USA moved in to occupy the position the Empire once held as the most important power on earth.
From 1938 onward, a ‘patent remedy’ was apparently now offered to the British that would liberate them from the dilemma depicted. This remedy was the offer from the German conspiracy to overthrow Hitler through a military putsch. It needs little imagination to conceive that a putsch by the military after the outbreak of war would have decisively weakened the Reich. It would no longer, in the foreseeable future, be in a position to take major action in foreign policy.
However, Hitler’s moderate demands on Poland harboured the risk that Poland would in the end finally come to an arrangement with Hitler. Here lies the key to the incomprehensible policy of Poland and the British government. Britain and France declared war on Germany at a moment when, through the accord with Russia, German foreign policy had succeeded in setting up the strongest imaginable grouping after the Western powers had rejected an understanding with the Reich.
The British government ran the risk of a war in the hope that the German conspiracy would in the end remove the risk and overthrow Hitler, which would thereby again decisively weaken the strengthened Reich. Through this, Britain would have restored her narrow European balance – in defiance of the global shifts of the seats of power. In 1938 the risk for England was still too great and she had not yet progressed sufficiently in her armament to be able to run it.267 The Polish ambassador in Paris, Łukasiewicz, wrote in a report addressed to the Polish Foreign Minister on 29 March 1939:
‘that the ultimate aim in the pursuit of its [England’s] actions is not peace but to bring about the downfall of Germany.’268
Henderson, however, did not believe in the ‘patent remedy’ of the putsch as the solution to the British dilemma, and he was right. It is apparent from British documents how intensively the British government had clearly counted a putsch into their calculations. Already following Kleist-Schmenzin’s secret visit to Vansittart in 1938, in a conference with Chamberlain, Halifax, Simon, Vansittart and Wilson, Henderson issued a warning that there was no use in hoping for any opposition to Hitler.269 As the British ambassador reported to Halifax in February 1939:
‘My definite impression since my return here is that Herr Hitler does not contemplate any adventures at the moment and that all stories and rumours to the contrary are completely without real foundation … I regard and always have regarded it as a bad mistake to attribute excessive importance to stories spread generally with intention … by those who regard war as the only weapon with which [the] Nazi regime can be overthrown.’270
Henderson’s estimate of the situation is correct if at this point he does not believe in an ‘adventure’ of Hitler’s, for on 21 March, once again Father was to renew Hitler’s offer of November 1938 (in which a guarantee of Polish territory including the Corridor was foreseen) to the Polish ambassador, and invite Beck to Berlin.271 Only when Beck abruptly (threatening war) rejected the offer and instead went to London did a fresh state of affairs arise for Hitler to which he had to adjust.
The role of the inner-German conspiracy is nowadays taboo, contrary to the early years after the war; nothing is heard any more about their fateful activities. This is why at this at this point a few quotations will be inserted, from statesmen who had then played a decisive role, who must after all have known upon what premises they conducted the policy that led to the declaration of war on Germany.
French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet writes in his memoirs (translated from German):272
‘An easy and swift victory was reckoned with … in the hope of an imminent assassination attempt that had already been prepared and was to topple National Socialism. As in 1938, we had been told about it constantly already in the last week before the war. Were it all summed up, the words were: “Hold out, and the German generals will overthrow Hitler!”’
At another point in his memoirs, Bonnet underscores that following the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France on 3 September 1939:
‘the way was consequently open for the “military coup d’état” that had so generally binding been announced to us.’
He later continues:
‘ [In the Nuremberg trials] they [the German generals] depicted with an unheard-of wealth of detail the preparations they had made to topple the Führer yet they never – and one must ask oneself why – carried these into effect …
‘ … planned military conspiracies against Hitler had been announced to us in similar detail in 1939 and 1940, before and after our defeat, yet Hitler still lived until 1945.’
Somebody who is not familiar with the history of the last world war may take the depiction given here as a fabricated political thriller or espionage fiction. Unfortunately it is not so, as is proved by the following quotations, which must for that reason be given at this point.
In what was called the Wilhelmstrasse Trial at Nuremberg, which saw the indictment of high-ranking officials, among them the State Secretary of the Auswärtiges Amt, von Weizsäcker, a letter from the then Embassy Counsellor – and brother of Erich Kordt of Father’s ministerial bureau – Theo Kordt (the same Kordt who had brought Weizsäcker’s memorandum to Halifax at night by the back entrance) was produced and expressly corroborated by a sworn statement by the British Foreign Minister of the time, Lord Halifax, which states:
‘In 1938 and 1939 I was in close (sometimes daily) contact with the Chief Diplomatic Adviser to H. M. Government, Sir Robert Vansittart. My brother [the Erich Kordt of Father’s ministerial bureau] came several times personally to London, notwithstanding the obvious risks for his safety, in order to inform Sir Robert personally of the impending danger on the international horizon. Sir Robert assured me that he would pass this information to you [Lord Halifax] at once, for example, of Hitler’s plans to come to an agreement with the Soviet Union, the negotiations between Hitler and Mussolini for an alliance, and the advice from the German opposition to put pressure on Mussolini.’
This letter of Kordt’s to Lord Halifax, dated 29 July 1947,273 was confirmed as genuine in a sworn statement. The statement by the chief at that time of the Central European sector of British Intelligence, Sigismund Payne Best, may also be placed on record about the information that was communicated to the British Cabinet in those days:
‘At the outbreak of war our Intelligence Service had reliable information that Hitler was faced with the opposition of many men holding the highest appointments in his armed forces and civil service … According to our information this opposition movement had assumed such proportions that it might even have led to revolt and the downfall of the Nazis.’274
The South African Minister of Defence, Oswald Pirow, reports on the ‘warmongering [British] chauvinists in London, emboldened by German traitors’ and that ‘if war were to break out between England and Germany, a rising against Hitler should be reckoned with’.275 The French writer Paul Morand says in his memoirs (translated from German):
‘The French historians of France Libre may tell the French what they will. I was in London before they were, since July 1939, and was able to follow the efforts of a small warmongering minority who, with Churchill, attained their objective step by step.’276
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, finally, confided the following to his diary on 10 September 1939, a few days after war broke out:
‘what I hope for is not a military victory – I very much doubt the feasibility of that – but a collapse of the German home front.’277
The true motivations for the British declaration of war could not be expressed more clearly. Chamberlain was the statesman who was in the end responsible for the war with Germany, so he is thereby the most important witness.
The German conspiracy did not only contribute to embroil Germany in a fateful war, but then did not actually draw the consequences from it and strike a coup. The conspiracy also tricked Germany’s opponent Poland with the promised putsch; she suffered one of the gravest catastrophes of her history. Finally, England lost her world empire and prestige status in the world because of having relied on the promise of a putsch by the German conspirators, and later did not want to alter her own course.
It was the hope of a ‘patent remedy’278 that led Britain to declare war on Germany, a solution spelling ‘collapse of the home front’, by which the military coup is to be understood, which, as French Foreign Minister Bonnet writes, they ‘had repeatedly been assured was to happen’. But no putsch ensued, and the ‘patent remedy’ remained unobtainable for Poland and Britain. The conspiracy had enticed Poland and Britain into war with their promises, but at the decisive moment stayed inactive.
Why then was Hitler not in fact eliminated when war did break out? Did the foxy old diplomat Vansittart have afterthoughts when at the Nuremberg trials he closed an affidavit requested by Father’s defence with the words:
‘I have never agreed to treaties with the Germans, because Germans rarely kept to them.’
Had Vansittart been thinking of the accords with the German conspiracy who had not kept their word to the British government, and thereby also to Poland? Perhaps in this basically anti-German resentment that was here expressed, the embittered ‘betrayed betrayer’ played its role and recognized the consequences of his error in having relied on small-time conspirators at a decisive, vital time for the British Empire. Vansittart will have realized already in the course of the war that the era of British world rule was coming to an end, and that he had played a part in the swift decline at a decisive point. His bitterness is understandable.
As I heard after the war, he also adopted this negative attitude toward the Kordt brothers when they are said to have turned to him to have their above-mentioned role confirmed. They will have then finally addressed Halifax on the subject of the requested statement. Old man Adenauer knew why he refused the reinstatement of this very Erich Kordt in the Auswärtiges Amt:
‘That man betrayed Ribbentrop and thwarted his policy. What is to give me the assurance that he will not treat me the same way?’279
The European powers participating in the outbreak of the Second World War – Britain, France, Poland and the German Reich – all hoped without any doubt to be able to avert the war, which, however, finally did break out. The British, French and Polish governments hoped for the collapse of the home front in Germany. The German government, in turn, could not believe that under the given circumstances Poland would allow matters to reach a military confrontation.
How does the current cliché that Hitler wanted to have ‘his war’ with Poland square with his proposals, which he repeatedly offered Poland for almost half a year? Against this, the Polish ambassador had declared already on 26 March 1939 in his discussion with Father that pursuit of the German desire to reunite Danzig with Germany would ‘mean war with Poland’.280 It should be held in mind that Danzig had a freely chosen (under the supervision of the League of Nations) German government. Hitler reacted calmly and instructed Father simply to let the Polish ambassador know ‘that naturally a solution could not be found if there is talk of war here’. It was the end of March 1939. He evidently still hoped for an arrangement with Poland.
The same is valid for Britain. Even if Chamberlain’s entry in his diary that he hoped for ‘a collapse of the home front in Germany’ were not known, this conclusion would arise from the policy actually pursued by Britain. When has Britain ever entrusted her fate – in this instance the decision between war and peace – to a second-rate power? The ratification of Britain’s ‘blank cheque’ to Poland through the House of Commons after the conclusion of the German-Russian pact shows clearly that in Britain it was believed that real war could be avoided by formally unleashing it. The goal was obvious: thereby to attain the desired weakening of the Reich without surrendering completely to dependence on the United States. Poland was the ‘sacrificial lamb’, and willingly undertook this role in order to bring about the outbreak of a war – for Britain – who hoped for a ‘collapse of the home front’ to ensue from it. The Polish ambassador in Paris had comprehended this, for the following stands in his report, already mentioned, to Polish Foreign Minister Beck:
‘It is childishly ingenious, and at the same time disloyal, to propose to a state that finds itself in Poland’s situation that it should jeopardize its relations with a strong neighbor like Germany and hurl a catastrophe on the world, such as a war.’281
To sum up: Britain, France and Poland undertook the military confrontation with Germany in the hope of a putsch, that is the collapse of the home front in Germany.
After the concluding of his case in Nuremberg, Father drew up a paper in which the course of events that led to the actual outbreak of the war is stated. These statements were consequently not for the purpose of his defence; it mattered to him to record his view of things for history, for he reckoned with being ‘eliminated’, as we called the expected death sentence in our last conversations. He said:282
‘The situation I found before me upon my return was considerably more tense than before my flight out … On the day after my arrival in Berlin the crisis reached its first peak. Only then did I learn that during my absence Adolf Hitler had had on Mt Obersalzberg a very serious discussion with the British ambassador Henderson who handed over a letter from the British Prime Minister. It stood therein that a warlike conflict between Germany and Poland would bring Britain into the arena. In his talk with Henderson and in a letter to Chamberlain that followed on 23 August, Adolf Hitler stated that he was determined to solve the Danzig-Corridor question and would tolerate no further Polish provocations. He was obliged to see in military measures taken by England an act of threat against the Reich and would in that cases [sic] order the immediate mobilization of the German armed forces. The situation was at a total stalemate, the Führer had come to Berlin.
‘In the morning after my return from Moscow, that is before noon on the dramatic day of August 25th, I discussed the letter to Chamberlain with Hitler and proposed that I should once again make an attempt with England. I learned shortly after this talk that on our part military measures had already commenced being taken. At this point, Hitler will not have counted on it that England would intervene and start a war because of Poland. Early in the afternoon, through an employee of the Auswärtiges Amt, I received the news of the ratification of the British-Polish treaty that had been only informally concluded on 6 April. I immediately hastened to the Reich Chancellery with the announcement so as to urge the Führer as to his cancellation of the military measures taken – with the words that the ratification of the English-Polish treaty of guarantee signified “the war with England” if he made a move against Poland, and that therefore the “marching order must be rescinded immediately”.’283
Hitler accepted Father’s communication without argument and at once put his proposal to cease the military movements in motion through Keitel. Only then did Father hear from Hitler that ‘Italy did not consider the mutual defence clause valid in the case of a military conflict with Poland’. It is once more indicative of Hitler’s working method that for example my father, as foreign minister, was not immediately informed about Hitler’s discussion with Henderson on 23 August, the introduction of military measures on 25 August or the communication from the Italian ambassador on the same day. Hitler’s personal Luftwaffe Adjutant, Nicolaus von Below,284 had noted that Father had never taken part in military conferences. Even in the situation of acute crisis of the last days of August there were no discussions in common under Hitler’s chairmanship. The Foreign Minister was brought in, as he writes, only on 28 August, after Henderson had flown to London in the Führer’s airplane to discuss the situation with the British government:
‘Henderson flew back to Berlin at 5pm of the afternoon of 28 August, bringing with him the Memorandum that had been elaborated by the British Government. Therewith the decisive phase of the crisis began. Three hours before Henderson’s departure for Berlin on 28 August at 2 pm, the British government had telegraphed Warsaw to ask whether the Polish government authorized them to communicate to the German government that Poland was prepared to enter at once into direct discussion with Germany.
‘The Memorandum from the British government handed to Hitler contains the corresponding ascertainment: “They [His Majesty’s Government] have already received a definite assurance from the Polish Government that they are prepared to enter into discussions on this basis.” The basis mentioned immediately preceding was to be that Poland’s essential interests should be safeguarded and a still to be finalized German-Polish agreement internationally guaranteed.
‘In the “Blue Book” made public by the British government after war broke out, this reassurance as mentioned of the Polish government is noticeably missing. Since the enquiry was made at 2 pm, and Henderson had departed from London at 5 pm, it must have reached London within this span of time. The wording of the reply from the Polish government, kept secret to this day, is of the most decisive importance for judging the further development of subsequent events.
‘On 1 September the British Prime Minister Chamberlain trumpeted that “all the relevant documents had been made public” – whereas this particular important document is missing … My defence in the Nuremberg trial made an application requesting the submission of Poland’s reply of 28th August to the British government. The court did not comply with this request!’285
At 10.30 pm on 28 August, Henderson handed the British Memorandum to Hitler.286 Father gives the content of the Memorandum as meaning that the British government agreed with Hitler as to the dangers at the present moment being in the reports of the treatment of the German minorities by the Poles. In their view, direct negotiations between Germany and Poland ought to be initiated, in which it should be clear from the outset that an agreement achieved would be guaranteed by other powers. Father continues:
‘In the afternoon of the next day (29.8) Henderson was summoned to the Reich Chancellery at 6:45 pm. In the course of this discussion the British ambassador became very fierce and even permitted himself to pound the table with his fist, a behaviour that would have caused the Führer, as he later told Hess, to break off the meeting had I not managed to calm tempers by a deflecting intervention, thus preventing the foundering of the negotiation.’287
One may be reminded in this context of the advice given by the German conspiracy to the British in 1938 that a general should be sent to Hitler to bash the table with his riding crop, this being language Hitler understood. Had Henderson thought of this idea from the German side? Whatever the case, Adolf Hitler finally gave Henderson his answer in writing. Father says it arose from it that the German government of the Reich:288
1.though sceptical as to the prospects of a successful outcome of such direct discussions with the Polish Government, they are prepared to accept the English proposal;
2.accept the British Government’s offer of their good offices in securing the despatch to Berlin of a Polish Emissary with powers, and count on the arrival of this Emissary on Wednesday, the 30th August;
3.in making these proposals had never had any intention of touching Poland’s vital interests or questioning the existence of an independent Polish State;
4.would immediately draw up proposals for an acceptable solution and would, if possible, place these at the disposal of the British Government before the arrival of the Polish negotiator.
‘By this statement Adolf Hitler had unequivocally accepted the British proposal for immediate, direct and equitable negotiations with Poland. To judge subsequent developments the fateful question arises: when and in what form did the British government fulfil the duty they had themselves undertaken to transmit this proposal to the Polish government?
‘Ambassador Henderson duly passed the German reply on to his government by telegram in the evening of 29 August. As the British Blue Book shows, Henderson’s report reached London at 0:15 a.m. The first immediate reaction from the British government was to cable Berlin saying it was “unreasonable” to expect a Polish representative to undertake negotiations within 24 hours. Thereupon Henderson reported to Lord Halifax by telegram on 30 August as to the transmission of this communication he had received. In it he quotes a remark of Adolf Hitler’s that one could fly from Warsaw to Berlin in one and a half hours. Henderson added his own comment in his telegram, he would recommend “that the Polish Government should swallow this eleventh- hour effort to establish direct contact with Hitler, even if it be only to convince the world that they were prepared to make their own sacrifice for preservation of peace … ”
‘The British government did not follow through with this suggestion from their ambassador in Berlin at least not to reject Adolf Hitler’s proposal outright. They did not at once transmit Germany’s Note in reply to the Polish government, thereby consciously delaying the transfer of the German invitation to negotiations. Although they did straight away inform the British ambassador in Warsaw Sir Kennard they gave him instructions not to communicate Hitler’s answer to the Polish government before he received further instructions from London.289
‘The instruction given by the British government to their ambassador in Warsaw does not appear in the English Blue Book and is not known of until this day. In this case too, the attempt by my defence counsel in Nuremberg to acquire the missing document from the British government had no success.
‘It is of the highest historical interest to find out what connection there is between the instructions of the British government to their ambassador in Warsaw and the fact that in the course of the same 30th of August the order was given for Polish general mobilization, albeit not yet made known. The timing of this mobilization – of which we were confidentially informed the same day – is of the greatest significance for an overall judgement of the crisis. It stands in blatant contradiction to the alleged assurance of Poland that they were ready to negotiate directly with Germany.’
It was but in the afternoon of 30 August that the British ambassador in Warsaw was authorized by his government to inform the Polish government of the text of the German Note in which the readiness of the German government to negotiate direct with Poland is declared. At the same time the Polish government was given the advice ‘to be prepared’, under certain conditions, ‘without delay’ for direct discussions. This advice was, however, not given for instance for the purpose of the early clearing up of the crisis but instead rather, as is revealingly stated, ‘from the point of view of the Internal situation in Germany and of world opinion’. The mention of the ‘Internal situation in Germany’ may be expressing the intention to portray Hitler as usual as the warmonger – as a precondition of mass psychology for the planned and promised military putsch.
Interestingly, it was not until midnight on 30 August that Henderson handed in a further Memorandum from the British government, therefore after expiration of the deadline set by the German side for the arrival of a Polish negotiator. Although on the 28th the British government had demanded immediate direct discussions as the ‘logical next step’, they now proposed a German-Polish discussion on the ‘method of contact and the arrangements for discussions’.
Father describes these dramatic hours as follows:
‘On handing over the British Note, Ambassador Henderson informed me according to his instructions that the British Government was not in a position to advise the Polish Government to accept this procedure proposed by the German Government. They recommend to adopt the normal diplomatic way i.e. by handing their proposals to the Polish Ambassador in order to set matters going …
‘In case the German Government would also communicate these proposals to the British Government and the latter would come to the opinion that the proposals constituted a reasonable basis for a settlement of the problems to be discussed, they would use their influence in Warsaw to achieve a settlement.
‘I for my part pointed out to Henderson that as per confidential information which reached us, during the day the Polish general mobilization had already been ordered. Furthermore I had to draw his attention to the fact that on the German side a Polish negotiator had been awaited in vain, therefore the question of a possible proposal could no longer exist. However, in order yet to make one more attempt at a solution, I read out to the ambassador the prepared German proposals that Adolf Hitler had dictated quite alone and had handed to me with precise instructions, and I elucidated them in detail.
‘In his speech of 1 September 1939 in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Chamberlain maintained that this reading out had ensued “at top speed”. The contrary is correct.290 Chamberlain’s statement is all the more curious as Henderson’s report on this discussion later published in the British Blue Book places on record that Henderson had absolutely correctly grasped all the essential points of the German proposals and transmitted them to his government. On this, Henderson reports in his book of memoirs Failure of a Mission (page 273) that following upon his discussion with me, at 2 a.m. he himself had mentioned the cession of Danzig to the Reich and the plebiscite in the Corridor as the main points in the German proposals to the Polish ambassador Lipski. Henderson remarks thereto that he had stated them as not too unreasonable and had suggested to Lipski that his Government should propose at once a meeting between Field-Marshals Smigly-Rydz and Göring …
‘Upon my return to the Reich Chancellery at the end of the discussion I reported to the Führer that Henderson had been very serious and that my conviction that the English guarantee for Poland would be implemented had been reinforced anew. I recommended that the German proposals that I had set out to him should be communicated to Ambassador Henderson also in writing. Hitler rejected this suggestion, although in the course of the morning of 31 August he did after all send the text to the British ambassador through Göring–Dahlerus. On that day Adolf Hitler had again awaited an intervention by England and/or the appearance of a Polish plenipotentiary, and finally, in the evening of 31 August had the German proposals made public also on radio. The immediate response from Warsaw radio was a clear provocation.’291
The content of the German proposals was in essence:
–Return of Danzig to the German Reich.
–Plebiscite in the Corridor on the basis of the Baltic Sea and a line running from Marienwerder-Graudenz-Kulm-Bromberg-Schönlanke. Entitled to vote are all Poles and Germans living in this area on 1 January 1918. (If the line given on the map is traced it will be noted that only a relatively minor part of the northern ‘Corridor’ would underlie the referendum.)
–Gdingen stays exempt and remains with Poland.
–The rest of the proposals regard free lines of communication for Germany and for Poland, minority rights for the respective minorities, demilitarization of Danzig and Gdingen, international controls, etc.292
Father’s notes from Nuremberg continue:
‘The English Blue Book records that the British Government was in possession of the Henderson Report in the morning of 31 August at 9:30 a.m. Since Henderson had informed Ambassador Lipski already at two in the morning it is not to be assumed that he briefed his own government as to the content and outcome of the discussion conducted with me only at such a late hour. It is also proven that on the morning of 31 August the Daily Telegraph contained a mention of a night-time session of the English Cabinets at which the German proposals had been debated. Remarkably, this issue of the major London newspaper was taken out of circulation and another issue was substituted wherein that item was not contained.293
‘The fact is in any case that the German proposals were known both in London and in Warsaw in the morning of 31 August, and it is also a fact that in the course of this decisive day the English Government made no further serious attempts to overcome the crisis. It could yet have been remedied even on the 31st of August without further ado by an intervention from England. All that was needed was for Warsaw to authorize Ambassador Lipski to receive the German proposals, but not even that was done …
‘The Polish ambassador Lipski called on me at 6:30 pm on 31 August. He explained that the Polish Government “was in favour of the British Government’s proposal”; a formal reply to it would “soon” reach the German Government. As Lipski expressly stressed to me, he had no authorization to receive German proposals nor indeed for any effective negotiation or even mere discussion. On the same day the Polish Foreign Minister had orally assured the British ambassador Kennard the Polish ambassador in Berlin would not be authorised to accept German proposals … 294
‘By making their proposals public, the German government had once more opened the door for Poland to agree to the promised negotiations. What transpired could have yet been corrected if the Polish government had picked up the ball now publicly thrown to them and over their radio network declared a positive attitude. The Warsaw broadcast had in fact given a reply already on 31 August at 11 pm. But this reply – missing in the British Blue Book – spoke only of an “impudent proposal” and indignantly rebuffed negotiations. Germany, it was cynically underlined, had waited in vain for a Polish delegate. The Warsaw government’s answer exists in military orders.295
‘The Polish stance is comprehensible only if one takes two facts into account, that were partly made public only at the Nuremberg trials:
1.Not only had the British Government not done anything decisive in Warsaw to solve the German-Polish problem, but had instead said a possible visit of the Polish Foreign Minister Beck to Berlin was “undesirable”. Evidently, it was feared that in discussion with Adolf Hitler Beck would yet decide to settle peacefully.
2.Ambassador Lipski, obviously informed about the plans of the German opposition circles, was of the opinion that “were war to begin, a military putsch would break out in Germany”, “Hitler removed” and that “the Polish army be in Berlin in 6 weeks at the latest” … 296
‘On 2 September Mussolini again attempted a solution to the crisis. He proposed an international conference to convene on 5 September with the objective of “reviewing clauses of the Treaty of Versailles which are cause of the present disturbance in life in Europe.” The Duce let it be known that he could bring about such a conference “if the armies were to be at a halt”.
‘We accepted this proposition and, as France also gave a positive reply, for a few hours on 2 September it appeared that peace might still be rescued. Only the British Government, through Lord Halifax, in the House of Lords in the afternoon of 2 September rejected this last proposal for peace.’
For 10 September Chamberlain enters in his diary:
‘the final-long-drawn-out agonies that preceded the actual declaration of war were as nearly unendurable as could be. We were anxious to bring things to a head, but there were three complications, – the secret communications that were going on with Goering and Hitler through a neutral intermediary, the conference proposal of Mussolini, and the French anxiety to postpone the actual declaration as long as possible, until they could evacuate their women and children, and mobilise their armies. There was very little of this that we could say in public.’
He follows up on this entry on the same date with:
‘I believe he [Hitler] did seriously contemplate an agreement with us, and that he worked seriously at proposals (subsequently broadcast) which to his … mind seemed … generous.’297
Father wrote:
‘There is today no longer any doubt at all that in the last two days of August England would have had the possibility to avert the crisis and therewith the risk of war with a signal to Warsaw. That the British Government consciously did not do it signifies that they had decided to go to war.
… It goes without saying that in these days of crisis … I maintained toward my Office and the diplomatic corps an unequivocal stance, for therein lay the only chance to bring the opponent to a compromise. With an uncertain or ambiguous stance of the Foreign Minister a readiness for peace on the opponent’s part could in this situation in no way be targeted.’298
In those days of September 1939 he could indeed not have had the knowledge that he put to paper in 1946 in his Nuremberg prison cell shortly before his execution:
‘We of course did not know in those days that in London they were counting on the conspiratorial group already mentioned of most authoritative German military personnel and political figures, whereby they had arrived at hoping for an easy victory over Germany. These circles of conspirators consequently played a decisive part in the outbreak of war. In the last days of August they thwarted all our efforts to reach an amicable solution and probably tipped the balance in the English decision for war.’299
There is no doubt that Hitler did not want a war with Poland. I shall not forget Father’s very thoughtful mood as I said goodbye to him so as to join the Deutschland Regiment as a recruit in Munich-Freimann. It did not derive from his alleged wrong advice to Hitler about Britain’s willingness for war, quite the contrary: he regretted having been right in his estimate of England since the beginning of 1938.
Hitler wanted to attain the consolidated position of the Reich in Central Europe without a war. This thesis is absolutely plausible if the facts are objectively evaluated. The question must again be posed: ‘Cui bono?’ Of what real use would the war be to him? For Germany, desperate in her central location and deficient in resources, war always signified an exceptionally grave risk. In order to achieve a partly secure position in this sense, German policies had to run risks, but do everything possible to avert a military conflict. This was, however, not in the hands of the Reich Government alone.
After a front against the Reich had been put up, the Polish problem had become so acute that it had now to be solved when Germany had the strongest possible alliance grouping at its disposal. To hedge any longer in case Poland remained unapproachable would have spawned much greater political risks, irrespective of the fact that time was henceforth running against the Reich, in view of the American support given to Britain’s and France’s striving for armaments.
However, the most important aspect for judging German policy was, as repeatedly mentioned before, the possible threat from the Soviet Union.300 As a far-seeing politician, Hitler had to organize Eastern Europe under German leadership to prevent a possible expansion of Soviet Russia. He could not simply stand by and see how matters would evolve. One need only take as an example that the Soviet Union would have managed to seize the Romanian oil wells by exertion of massive pressure, whatever form it may have taken. The Reich would have been cut off from its natural hinterland in the Balkans, thereby also from the sole oil wells that were accessible to it by land. Czechoslovakia was tied by alliance to the Soviet Union, by tradition maintaining good relations also with Yugoslavia. It will be seen that Moscow’s demands, as presented to Hitler and Ribbentrop in Berlin in 1940 by Molotov, are couched in clear language in view of the objectives that Moscow had in mind. The grouping of alliance with the Soviet Union brought to fruition in the summer of 1939 had to be utilized to solve the Polish problem so as to be able to occupy a halfway tenable position in the centre of Europe.
If I firmly state, with the knowledge of the information – that at the time I received from my parents – that on the part of Germany there was no desire to wage war, it was nevertheless necessary to reckon with the possibility that one would be forced to it. It may serve as further proof that Hitler did not want a war if it is ascertained that Germany was in no way in the optimum state of readiness for a military conflict. This, however, in view of the Reich’s situation signifies a reproach to Hitler that cannot be put more sharply,301 for he should have reckoned with being embroiled in a military dispute. His Foreign Minister had repeatedly put the danger before his eyes since the beginning of 1938. To this I shall revert later.
The sensational military successes in Poland and the West were due to the novel strategies of motorized major military units that took the opponent totally by surprise, and not to the quality of the German weapons, to say nothing of the planning and organization of the German armament. German arms production reached its peak only in the latter course of 1944 – despite the Allied bombing: proof of how unprepared the Reich was for warfare and what the Reich’s leadership had neglected.
A personal memory at this point: in the winter of 1939/40, when she visited me in Würzburg where my regiment was quartered, Mother asked me how many German U-boats I thought were permanently operating in British waters. I knew that at the conclusion of the 1935 naval agreement Father had negotiated an agreed relative strength between the British and the German fleets of 35 per cent. The agreement concerned the total tonnage and could therefore be varied in the diverse sort of vessel. It was in other words, for example, permitted to build more U-boats at the expense of heavy shipping, according to the agreement up to 100 per cent of the English tonnage. I therefore estimated some thirty submarines, to be told by mother there were two! Numbers may have varied but it could evidently be seen that there had been failure to place the focus of the marine armament on the weapon that promised the greatest chances of success against Britain. These omissions once more contradict the claim that Hitler had wanted ‘his war’, planned and consciously unleashed long before. The war was nevertheless now a reality and had to be waged – I was soon to be involved in it.
In summary, we can say the following: because of the hostile policy of the West (Britain, France and the USA), with which Poland had entirely sided, the consolidation of the German position in Eastern Europe had to be effected as long as the rear was safe, through the treaty with the Soviet Union. On the German side it was perfectly clear that a limitless, unconditionally friendly policy toward Germany on the part of the Soviet Union could not be reckoned with.