1.To this I do however have to say that when I was with the troops in the East I did not hear of any instance where a prisoner political Commissar had been executed by shooting.
2.Father stated in a Note: ‘The Führer became very agitated and abruptly cut me short.’
3.cf Goldhagen, Daniel J.: Hitler’s willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, London, 1996.
4.Thus formulated by Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky in his novel The Possessed.
5.Reference is made to an article by Maurice Druon, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, in Le Figaro, 30 August 1999.
6.Quoted from Haffner, Sebastian: Von Bismarck zu Hitler, Munich, 1989, p.61 (English edition: Germany’s self-destruction: Germany from Bismarck to Hitler, London, 1989); and Gall, Lothar: Bismarck, Berlin, 1995, p.517 (English edition: Bismarck: The White Revolutionary, London, 1986).
7.Froment-Meurice, Henri: Vu du Quai – Memoirs 1945–1983, Paris, 1998, p.660.
8.The attack on the French navy in Oran in 1940 should be brought to mind, after the conclusion of the campaign in the West. In allusion to such preventive action in peacetime such as the attack by the British navy against Napoleon’s in 1807, the verb-notion ‘to Copenhagen’ was coined.
9.See Ferguson, Niall: The Pity of War, London, 1998.
10.After the end of the war, ridiculous representations appeared in the memoirs written then, as to whether it was my father’s own wish to go to London or whether, on the contrary, Hitler had ‘fobbed him off as compensation’, in addition and further to the negative assumptions that were made in regard to the stories of the duration of the ambassadorship. In a personal report addressed to Hitler in 1937/38, my father states: ‘When I asked the Führer to have me sent to London …’ He would hardly have written in these terms if he had wished to become or to remain State Secretary, or if against his will Hitler appointed him to London, as Reinhard Spitzy and Paul Schmidt maintain (See the latter’s book Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne [A Bystander on the Diplomatic Stage] 1923–1945, Erlebnisse des Chefdolmetschers im Auswärtigen Amt mit den Staatsmännern Europas, Bonn, 1949; English edition: Hitler’s Interpreter, London, 1951). In his book So haben wir das Reich verspielt. Bekenntnisse eines Illegalen, Munich, 1986, p.95 (English edition: How we squandered the Reich, Wilby, 1999), Spitzy says: ‘… immediately following the Olympiad, after having organized diplomatic receptions on a large scale, he [Ribbentrop] approached Hitler in order to request the post of Secretary of State. Hitler however took Neurath’s side in his assumption. Ribbentrop had been “fobbed off ” with the post of ambassador to London.’ The appointment had however already been announced during the Olympic Games. When distorting the truth, as Spitzy does yet again on this point, it would be advisable to be more accurately informed about generally known facts, irrespective of the fact that before the announcement the Agrément (official approval) too was to be negotiated.
11.Striefler, Christian: Kampf um die Macht. Kommunisten und Nationalsozialisten am Ende der Weimarer Republik, Frankfurt/Main, 1993.
12.At this time the Red Army had already been on stand-by for years, in order to take best advantage of political developments for an advance westward. Cf Musial, Bogdan: Kampfplatz Deutschland, Berlin, 2008, p.389.
13.In the First World War, during his command post in Turkey, my father had written articles for a well-known newspaper of those days, the Vossische Zeitung.
14.The position of Foreign Secretary of State had also been newly freed to be occupied since the death of the incumbent State Secretary Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow.
15.Eden, Anthony: Memoirs – Facing the Dictators, London, 1962, p.509. In this context, also interesting is Ferguson, Niall: The Pity of War, on the subject of British policies before the First World War.
16.Reventlow, Graf Ernst zu: Deutschlands auswärtige Politik 1888–1914, Berlin, 1916 (1918), p.XVIII. In this sense, see also Ferguson, Niall: The Pity of War.
17.See Musial, Bogdan, op. cit.
18.See also Kordt, Erich: Nicht aus den Akten, Stuttgart, 1950, p.70.
19.According to an unpublished memorandum by Hermann von Raumer, Hitler’s words were ‘Ribbentrop, … have England brought in to the Anti-Comintern Pact: that would fulfil my dearest wish.’ Here cf Michalka, Wolfgang: Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik 1933–1940, Munich, 1980, p.155.
20.cf Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag of 28 April 1939: ‘This desire for Anglo-German friendship and cooperation conforms not merely to sentiments which result from the racial origins of our two peoples, but also to my realisation of the importance for the whole of mankind of the existence of the British Empire.
‘I have never left room for any doubt of my belief that the existence of this empire is an inestimable factor of value for the whole of human cultural and economic life …
‘Now there is no doubt that the Anglo-Saxon people have accomplished immeasurable colonising work in the world. For this work I have a sincere admiration. The thought of destroying this labour appeared and still appears to me, seen from a higher human point of view, as nothing but the effluence of human wanton destructiveness.’ The British War Bluebook. Extract from Speech by Herr Hitler to the Reichstag on April 28, 1939, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/blbk21.asp.
21.Cf Harrison, Ted: ‘Alter Kämpfer im Widerstand: Graf Helldorff, die NS-Bewegung und die Opposition gegen Hitler’, in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 45, 1997/3, pp.385–423.
22.On Ribbentrop’s involvement in the negotiations, cf Michalka, Wolfgang: op. cit., p.30 et seq., and Ribbentrop, Joachim von: Zwischen London und Moskau, Erinnerungen und letzte Aufzeichnungen [trans., Between London and Moscow, Memories and final Notes], Leoni, 1953, p.36 et seq.
23.Wilhelm Keppler (1882–1960) joined forces with the NSDAP in 1927, and in 1931 founded the ‘Keppler-Kreis’ (Keppler Circle), later the ‘Freundeskreis des Reichsführer SS’ (Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer SS). In 1933 he became a member of the Reichstag and Commissioner for Economic Questions in the Chancellery of the Reich. From 1938 on he was State Secretary for Special Duties in the Auswärtiges Amt.
24.Joachim Fest, in his well-known biography of Hitler, mentions only a little of the 18 January 1933 meeting – reporting the content thereof erroneously – as he describes it as having been a ‘breakthrough’ and that Oskar von Hindenburg had taken part. Cf Fest, Joachim: Hitler, London, 1974, p.360 f.
25.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.40 et seq.
26. ‘Prussians’ in this context is understood to mean the Conservatives, that is the Deutschnationale Partei (German National People’s Party).
27.Handwritten reports of this sort are kept in the Hoover Archive.
28.This declaration was delivered by the USA, France, Britain and Italy on 11 December 1932 in the framework of the Disarmament Conference there; cf Scheil, Stefan: Fünf plus Zwei, Die europäischen Nationalstaaten, die Weltmächte und die vereinte Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkriegs, Berlin, 2003, p.166.
29.See e.g. the article in Le Figaro of 30 August 1999 by Maurice Druon, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, as well as statements by the French minister Chevènement on the French TV channel France 2: ‘Basically [Germany] is still always dreaming of the Holy Roman Empire German Nation and has not yet recovered from the derailment that National Socialism has been in her history.’ Quoted in Die Welt, 23 May 2000; see also ‘Hitler-Vergleich: Mitterands Angst vor den Deutschen’ in Die Welt, 11 September 2009; and ‘Wie Thatcher die deutsche Einheit verhindern wollte’ in: Die Welt, 15 September 2009.
30.Scheil, Stefan: op. cit., p.118, footnote 26; Willms, Johannes: Nationalismus ohne Nation, p.495.
31.Froment-Meurice, H.: op. cit., p.289.
32.Welt am Sonntag, 13 November 1994. The well-known American political scientist Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, in German translation, Munich, 1996, p.208. Incidentally, the notion of ‘partnership in leadership’ stems from George Bush Senior.
33.Churchill, Winston: Memoirs of the Second World War, vol. I: The Gathering Storm, London, 1949, p.187.
34.Cf Lord Robert Vansittart on 6 September 1940 on the instructions to the British envoy in Stockholm: ‘The German Reich and the Reich idea have been a curse of the world for 75 years … The enemy is the German Reich and not merely Nazism, and those who have not learned this lesson have learned nothing whatsoever.’ Quoted from Allen, Martin: Himmler’s Secret War, London, 2005, p.85 f.
35.cf Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.45.
36.The final instalment of the Reparations would have been due in 1988.
37.IMT (Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal), vol. XVII, pp.551–55; see also Kranzbühler, Otto: Rückblick auf Nürnberg, pamphlet, Hamburg, 1949, p.21 et seq. Kranzbühler was counsel for the defence of Admiral of the Fleet Dönitz at the first Nürnberg trial.
38.Protocol of the main trial of 5 July 1946, Afternoon session, IMT, vol. XVII, p.552.
39.Thus in the lecture by Professor Hans Mommsen, given in the Düsseldorf Rotary Club on 28 January 1988. This is all the more puzzling because the Saint Germain and Trianon Treaties made largely similar stipulations.
40.Keynes, John M.: The economic consequences of the peace, New York, 1920, p.145.
41.Quoted from Vansittart, Robert: The Mist Procession. The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart, London, 1958, p.300; see also Paxton, Robert: Europe in the twentieth Century, San Diego. 1985, p.45; and Weber, Eugen: Action Française – Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France, Stanford University, 1962, p.121.
42.See statements by Supreme Army Command Chief Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, of 27 February 1932, quoted from Meinck, Gerhard: Hitler und die deutsche Aufrüstung 1933–1937, Wiesbaden, 1959, p.195, Note 88.
43.He was Hans Heinrich Dieckhoff, later (1937–38) German ambassador to the United States.
44.On 12 November 1918 the German-Austrian National Assembly declared Austria as part of the German Republic. There followed on 12 March 1919 a renewed announcement of union. Article 88 of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye Treaty stipulated the prohibition of the union without the approval of the Council of the League of Nations. Source: http://aeiou.iicm.tugraz.at/aeiou.encyclop.a/a586894.htm.
45.Cf Bogdan Musial’s description of corresponding Politbüro sessions at the beginning of the 1930s, op. cit.
46.Büchmann, Georg: Geflügelte Worte, Munich, 2001, p.416, mentions The Times’s military correspondent Colonel Charles Repington as originator (The Times, 13 August 1914).
47.Quoted from Uhle-Wettler, Franz: Das Versailler Diktat, Kiel, 1999, p.155.
48.Reply of the allied and associated powers to the observations of the German delegation on the conditions of peace, London, 1919, Part V, p. 22.
49.Quoted from Benoist-Méchin, Jacques: Jahre der Zwietracht 1919–1925, Geschichte der deutschen Militärmacht 1918–1946, Oldenburg, 1965, p.354.
50.Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.36, 199, Note 70; Schwendemann, Karl: Abrüstung und Sicherheit, vol. II, p.454.
51.Cf Uhle-Wettler, Franz: op. cit., p.66.
52.Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.19, 196, Note 6, Krupp-Prozeß, Vert.-Dok.-Buch-Krupp 2b, p.25 et seq., in Krupp-105.
53.Quoted from Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.19, 196, Note 7, Krupp-Prozeß, Vert.Dok.-Buch-Krupp 2b, p.10 et seq., in Krupp-104.
54.Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.15, 195, Note 88. Chancellor Brüning confirmed the Polish plans for an attack; cf Brüning, Heinrich: ‘Ein Brief ’, in Deutsche Rundschau 70, July 1947, pp.1–22.
55.Cf Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.13; resp. p.194, Note 78; Polish General Staff archive, p.112 et seq.
56.DGFP (Documents on German Foreign Policy), Series C, vol. I, Doc. Nos 83, 120, 180; Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.18 et seq. and p.196, Note 5; Roos, Hans: ‘Die “Präventivkriegspläne” Piłsudskis von 1933’, in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 3/1955, p.344 et seq.; Rönnefarth, Helmuth/Euler Heinrich (publ.): Vertrags-Ploetz. Konferenzen und Verträge (Pt II, vol. 4: Neueste Zeit 1914–1959), Würzburg 1959, p.125. Cf also Scheil, Stefan: Logik der Mächte, Berlin, 1999, pp.100–04.
57.Cf Vansittart, Robert: op. cit., p.412.
58.Cf also Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.19.
59.Vertrags-Ploetz: Part II, vol. 4, p.119; ‘Der große Ploetz’, 1991, p.863.
60.Vertrags-Ploetz: Part II, vol. 4, p.119.
61.In the Bad Aibling detention camp the plank bed underneath mine was occupied by a Chief Prosecutor named Hattingen. In Paris he belonged to Ernst Jünger’s circle – who spoke of Hattingen as his ‘dear friend’ in a letter addressed to me – and told of a then written text by Jünger, entitled ‘Der Friede’ (The Peace). A few years ago I asked Jünger to be so kind as to let me have the text, with which request he promptly complied, writing among other things: ‘Your father had at that time invited some writers to Fuschl, with myself among them as well as Sieburg, because he had in mind to set up a sort of brain-trust. Each of us was among other things to have privileged access to contact the Auswärtiges Amt by telephone so as to be able to choose a post as correspondent abroad – of which I did not avail myself.’ Father wished to make use of Jünger’s affinity with the French cultural milieu, in the sense of activating German-French understanding. It was alas in vain. An interesting example of the stance of outright denial held by a portion of the intellectuals.
62.Schwerin von Krosigk, Lutz Count: Es geschah in Deutschland, Stuttgart, 1951, pp.121-22.
63.Churchill, W.: op. cit., p.88.
64.Cf Plehwe, Friedrich-Karl von: Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher, Esslingen, 1983, p.300.
65.Cf the Hitler Interviews in Le Matin (Paris), 22 November 1933; Daily Mail (London), 5 August 1934.
66.10 to 14-year-old youths were enrolled in the ‘Deutsches Jungvolk’ of the Hitler Youth organization.
67.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.51.
68.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.51.
69.Cf the book ‘The Revolver Republic’ by The Times journalist George E.R. Gedye, London, 1930.
70.Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf, New York, 1941, p.944: ‘The demand for the reestablishment of the frontiers of the year 1914 is political nonsense of such a degree and consequences as to look like a crime.’
71.Cf Vansittart, R.: op. cit., p.412.
72.Ambassador Dr Paul Karl Schmidt (retd) (Press): Ribbentrops Reise nach Warschau Ende Januar 1939, Hamburg, 1963, p.6; drafted for the Auswärtiges Amt (Bonn), MS in the possession of this author.
73.See also Colvin, Ian: Master Spy, New York, 1952 (First edition London, 1951, under the title Chief of Intelligence).
74.Cf Charmley, John: Churchill, the End of Glory, Suffolk, 1993, p.444.
75.Reinhard Spitzy was my father’s secretary until 1938. He planned to marry a young English society lady and therefore, according to the rules of those days, had to leave the diplomatic corps. It was surmised at the time that on the part of the lady the relationship had come about for reasons to do with the British Intelligence Service, because she broke it off when Spitzy left the Corps.
76.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.52 et seq.
77.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.56 et seq.
78.Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.70, 208, Note 238; Loosli-Usteri, Carl: Geschichte der Konferenz für die Herabsetzung und die Begrenzung der Rüstungen 1932-1934, Ein politischer Weltspiegel, Zürich, 1949, p.643.
79.Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.60 et seq.
80.Meinck, G.: op. cit., pp.69, 208, Note 235; Loosli-Usteri, Carl: Geschichte der Konferenz für die Herabsetzung und die Begrenzung der Rüstungen 1932-1934, p.679.
81.Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.71 et seq.; Berichte des Auswärtigen Amtes über den Besuch Edens, in DGFP, Series C, vol. II, Docs Nos 270 and 271, dated 20 February 1934.
82.Wheeler-Bennett, John W.: Documents on International Affairs 1934, London, 1935, p.384.
83.François-Poncet, André: Als Botschafter in Berlin 1931–1938, Mainz, 1949, p.178.
84.RGBl 1934 Part II dated 26 March 1934; DGFP, Series C, vol. II, Doc. No. 378.
85.See DGFP, Series C, vol. II, Doc. No. 402, Aufzeichnung des Außenministers (written account by Foreign Minister) v. Neurath, dated 16 April 1934.
86.The German air force was supposed to be allowed to reach 30 per cent of the forces of all her neighbours but no more than 50 per cent of the French air force. DGFP, Series C, vol. II, Doc. No. 399; see also Meinck, G. op. cit., pp.81, 211, Note 283; Wheeler-Bennett, John: Documents on International Affairs, Oxford, 1929, p.384.
87.On 18 May 1925, Stresemann declared in the Reichstag: ‘There is nobody in Germany who could admit that the borders drawn in the East in flagrant contradiction to the peoples’ right to self-determination is an everlastingly unalterable fact.’
88.François-Poncet: op. cit., p.178.
89.On how correct this observation was, cf Duppler, Jörg/Groß, Gerhard P. (publ.): Kriegsende 1918, Ereignis, Wirkung, Nachwirkung, Munich, 1999, p.57.
90.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.60.
91.Meinck, G.: op. cit., p.76 et seq., plus p.210, N. 267; Herriot, Édouard: Jadis, vol. 2, D’une guerre à l’autre 1914–1936, Paris, 1952, p.399.
92.Memo for the Führer of 3 April 1935. Louis Lochner Papers, Hoover Library, accession # XXo31 – 9.12. Box # 1
93.This was Leni Riefenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will.
94.Herbert Hoover Archives, Louis Lochner Papers, Hoover Library, accession # XX031 – 9.12. Box # 1 (the words set in italics are handwritten insertions of my father).
95.The rapid eradication of unemployment was not achieved through rearmament but through a taxation policy that offered attractions and, above all, the reawakening of confidence in the general state of affairs, which triggered investments in the economy. Among other references, cf here Reinhardt, Fritz (publ.: Ralf Wittrich): Die Beseitigung der Arbeitslosigkeit im Dritten Reich. Das Sofortprogramm 1933/34, Straelen, 2006.
96.As to what extent Germany’s armament was in effect overestimated, insofar as the exaggeration did not serve the purpose of propaganda, see Klein, Burton: Germany’s Economic Preparations for War, Harvard, 1959.
97.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.61.
98.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.62.
99.Fest, Joachim: op. cit., p.492.
100.A purely marginal remark: in his biography of Hitler, among other things Fest often mentions Hermann Rauschning. Rauschning (1887–1982), intermittently a politician of the NSDAP; after the NSDAP’s electoral victory in Danzig in 1933, among his other posts was President of the Danzig Senate. His purported Gespräche mit Hitler (trans., Discussions with Hitler) (Zürich, 1940. First edition, London, 1939, under the title Hitler Speaks. A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims) were convincingly unmasked as forgeries by the Swiss teacher and historian Wolfgang Hänel in 1983/84. In Issue 30 of 19 July 1985 of the weekly Die Zeit, it is written that ‘In Joachim Fest’s biography of Hitler alone, Rauschning’s spurious discussions and statements are quoted more than fifty times.’
101.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p 64.
102.Expression used in the famous ‘Blood and Iron’ speech to the Prussian Landtag during the constitutional conflict regarding the aggrandisement of the army.
103.Cf the text of the Crowe Memorandum in HMSO, British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. III The Testing of the Entente 1904-6, pp.397 et seq, 421.
104.Erhard Milch (1892–1972), State Secretary of the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) from 1933–45; at the same time Inspector General of the Luftwaffe; after the suicide of Ernst Udet in November 1941, he was his successor as Luftzeugmeister (LZM) in charge of logistics until July 1944.
105.Irving, David: Churchill, Munich, 1990, p.71, Notes 2 und 3 (English edition: Churchill’s War, Indianapolis, 1987).
106.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.67 et seq.
107.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.70 et seq.
108.Cf. Scheil, Stefan: Fünf plus Zwei, p.172.
109.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.79.
110.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.77 et seq.
111.Klein, Burton, op. cit., p.17: ‘Up to the time of the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in the Spring of 1936, rearmament was largely a myth.’
112.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.78.
113.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.83.
114.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.85 et seq.
115.Hoover-Archives, Louis Lochner Papers, Hoover Library, accession # XX031 – 9.12. Box #1.
116.The ostensible cause of the conflict between Prussia and France in 1870 that led to the German-French War of 1870/71 was the intention of the Spanish Cortes to offer the Spanish throne to a member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
117.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.88.
118.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.89.
119.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.89 et seq.
120.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.90 et seq.
121.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.91–93.
122.Michalka, W.: op. cit., p.154 et seq; Ribbentrop, Annelies von: Die Kriegsschuld des Widerstandes, Leoni am Starnberger, see 1974, p.16 et seq.
123.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.94 et seq.
124.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.96 et seq.
125.Vansittart, Robert: The Mist Procession, p.525 et seq.
126.In the film Un Taxi Mauve (1977) with Fred Astaire, Charlotte Rampling and Philippe Noiret.
127.Father once recounted that Hitler had expressed a very negative opinion of a beautiful blonde lady of the diplomatic world of Berlin. When Father asked him why he had this opinion, Hitler had answered that she had conceived her children in a tipsy haze of champagne. Father was perfectly aware what other Berlin society ‘beautiful blonde lady’ had unleashed this little intrigue.
128.This is a reference to a quotation attributed to Mark Twain: ‘Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.’
129.Abbreviated as MP.
130.See the books by Monsignor Karl Morgenschweis, the prison chaplain in the American war criminals prison in Landsberg, where the executions were carried out; Morgenschweis, Karl: Strafgefangener Nr. 9469 Pater Rupert Mayer S. J., Munich, 1968.
131.In the then famous literary magazine The Strand, Vol. XCII., in March 1937 (No. 555, pp.511/519) an unusually long article about my father appeared, headed ‘Hitler’s Man of Strength, A Character Study of Herr von Ribbentrop, The New German Ambassador to Britain’, wherein is also stated that ‘He is unmistakably one of the most attractive spokesmen of a regime … handsomely endowed both mentally and physically … He represents modern Germany to the world in its most attractive light.’
132.One more particularly wicked blow from Spitzy, R., op. cit., p.99, for he was from personal experience perfectly aware of my parents’ position in London society. The high esteem in which what is called ‘success in high society’ is held by such, as in this instance, as Spitzy, reveals the mentality of the slanderers! Just as an example, here is a letter from the American writer Jason Lindsay to Mme Marianne Steltzer in Bonn dated 15 May 1991, in which he says: ‘Before the second War, I was in London and was fortunate enough to be on Herr Ribbentrop’s invitation list when he was Ambassador here. An invitation to the German Embassy during his tenure was the most sought after and most highly prized in London. My good friend Prince George (later Duke of Kent) never turned down an invitation from Ribbentrop and it had been through Prince George that I had been introduced to Ribbentrop. I thought he had great charisma and he was certainly a superb host.’
133.Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) was an influential British politician in the nineteenth century and the father of the later British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain.
134.Quoted from New York Times, 11 February 1902.
135.It is the case here of an orally delivered objection within inter-state relations.
136.For instance the shelling of a German battleship which caused lives to be lost.
137.From US General Albert Wedemeyer: Wedemeyer Reports!, New York, 1958, quoted in Nevins, Allan: Henry White, Thirty Years of American Diplomacy, New York, 1930.
138. ‘Report on the Coronation and then present situation’, dated 21 May 1937; drawn up on the occasion of the coronation of George VI. Printed in: DGFP, Series C, vol. VI, Doc. No. 380.
139.IMT, vol. VIII, p.205.
140.Approximately the view of Friedman, George: ‘Russian Economic Failure invites a New Stalinism’, in: International Herald Tribune, 11 September 1998.
141.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.112.
142.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.113.
143.The hotel was the Kaiserin Elisabeth in Feldafing, which was highy rated before the war.
144.The historian Andreas Hillgruber, for instance, represented the theory of Hitler’s ‘stage-by-stage plan’ as steps to attain world hegemony. (Hitlers Strategie, Politik und Kriegsführung 1940–1941, 1965, dissertation).
145.The ‘mother-ship’ term derives from the French Minister for Air, Pierre Cot.
146.Quotation from Schiller’s Wallenstein.
147.Main Report (A 5522); mentioned in DGFP, Series D, vol. I, Doc. No. 93 as ‘Not found’. To trace it, see Thompson, Laurence: The Greatest Treason – The untold Story of Munich, New York, 1968, in: Ribbentrop, A. v.: op. cit., p.59 et seq.
148. Federal Archives PA/AA, R 28 895a (BRAM); reproduced in: Ribbentrop, A. v.: op. cit., pp.61–74; quoted from the original carbon copy from the Foreign Office (in free translation): ‘The document was produced at the Nuremberg Trials and for a long time later said to be lost [see data under DGFP, Series D, vol. I, Doc. No. 93] and was allegedly … traced only in the Acts of the British Foreign Office. It is consequently not quoted in the archives of the DGFP. The document is in the possession of the Auswärtiges Amt’s Political Archive only since 1994.]
149.The word ‘heroic’ was added subsequently.
150.Emphasis in bold by the author.
151.IMT, vol. XXXIX, Doc. No. 075-TC, pp.91–98 (pp.94–98), and DGFP, Series D, vol. I, Doc. No. 93.
152.Emphasis in bold by the author.
153.Underlinings in this list were marked as ‘underlined by hand’ in the IMT-Source.
154.Papen and Spitzy have constructed out of the phrases in italics a ‘Memorandum for the Führer’: Papen in his book Der Wahrheit eine Gasse (Munich, 1952), p.423 (English edition: Memoirs, London, 1952, p.375), Spitzy reproducing it in his book So haben wir das Reich verspielt on page 222 (English edition: How we squandered the Reich). At the places mentioned it is couched as follows:
German Embassy London, 2.1.1938
Note for the Führer
Outwardly, continued understanding with England. Quiet but determined establishment of alliances a g a i n s t England. Only in this manner can we meet England, whether it be for a settlement someday or in conflict.
Ribbentrop
Spitzy evidently simply copied Papen’s falsification without checking: typical of him! Furthermore, he presents the layout of the Note differently from Papen.
155.Compare the interpreter Schmidt’s assertion as to Ribbentrop’s alleged disappointment at being posted to London whereas he wished to be Foreign Minister. Schmidt, Paul: Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, Bonn, 1949, p.331 et seq. In his book Memoirs, p.375, Papen too asserts: ‘Ribbentrop was resisting the idea of going to London.’ How revealing these examples are of the ‘love of the truth’ of Messrs Papen, Schmidt (interpreter) and Spitzy!
156.Marked as ‘underlined by hand’ in the IMT-Source.
157.There is a copy of the transcript of the document in the Auswärtiges Amt’s Political Archive. It is of interest that it can clearly be seen that the last word of the document has been tampered with, whether on the original of the transcript or the copy itself. The expression ‘enemies’ is without any doubt not part of Father’s vocabulary, in fact neither in its formulation nor from the sense of the context.
158.IMT, vol. XXXIX, Doc. No. 075-TC; DGFP, Series D, vol. I, Doc. No. 93.
159.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.113 et seq.
160.Documents of the German Institute for Foreign Policy Research, Berlin 1942: Ribbentrop, J. v., Der Freiheitskampf Europas, p.9 et seq.
161.In Höhne, Heinz: Die Machtergreifung. Deutschlands Weg in die Hitler-Diktatur, Hamburg, 1983, p.247.
162.Papen, Franz von, op. cit., p.423 (German edition).
163.Letter from Papen to my mother, 17 June 1953.
164.Spitzy, R.: op. cit., pp.133, 146, 190, 228.
165.Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach coined the clever aphorism (trans. from the German): ‘To defend oneself against calumny is either unnecessary or pointless!’ Here however, as has been seen, it is a case of hard political facts of long, great and momentous effect that have to be taken into consideration. To enter into other personal small-minded calumnies of my father I consider to be beneath my dignity.
166.Quoted from Walter Hewel: Tagebuch (trans., Diary), 8 September 1941 (in the author’s possession).
167.Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, Erinnerungen und letzte Aufzeichnungen, p.113.
168.Report from the German Embassy, London, dated 28 December 1937, and the accompanying Conclusions, dated 2 January 1938.
169.Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, p.124 et seq.
170.On the Blomberg-Fritsch-crisis cf Janßen, K.-H./Tobias, F.: Der Sturz der Generäle, Munich, 1994, passim.
171.Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, p.113.
172.Beham, Mira: Kriegstrommeln, Medien, Krieg und Politik, Munich, 1996, p.28 et seq.
173.Henderson, Nevile: Failure of a Mission. Berlin 1937–1939, London, 1940, p.140.
174.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. I, Doc. No. 232.
175.cf IMT, Vol. XI, p.436 et seq.
176.Author’s italics.
177.Letter from the lecturer Gabriele Blod to the author, dated 18 February 1993.
178.Notification from the envoy Dr Paul Karl Schmidt, Head of the Auswärtiges Amt’s Press and Information department, to the author.
179.DGFP, Series D, vol. II, Doc. No. 221, 30 May 1938. The formulation is an intensification of the one proposed by Keitel: see DGFP, Series D, vol. II, Doc. No. 175 (Encl.), 20 May 1938: ‘It is not [author’s italics] my intention … Czechoslovakia … in the immediate future without provocation.’ Hitler expressly reserved for himself the initiative for when there would be a politically favourable point in time.
180.Not to be mistaken for the interpreter of the same name.
181.Orally communicated to the author by Dr Paul Schmidt.
182.cf Ribbentrop, A. von: op. cit., passim.
183.Colvin, Ian: Vansittart in Office, London, 1965, p.210 et seq. A detailed account of Kleist-Schmenzin’s activities is to be found in Ribbentrop, A. v.: op. cit., pp.126–39.
184.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. II, p.687 et seq.
185.Count Stauffenberg, a severely disabled officer, took this road. He is owed our esteem. In my opinion it is not due to the conspirators of 1938–40.
186.Colvin, Ian: Master Spy, p.72.
187.Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte, Vol. 4., p.447; cf also Ribbentrop, A. v.: Deutsch-Englische Geheim-Verbindungen, Tübingen, 1967, pp.126–28.
188.Kordt, Erich: Wahn und Wirklichkeit, Stuttgart, 1948, p.131, Footnote 1.
189.Rothfels, Hans: The German opposition to Hitler. An Assessment, London, 1961, p.61.
190.Adamthwaite, Anthony: The Lost Peace–International Relations in Europe 1918–1939, Basingstoke, 1981.
191.Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, pp.154–59; cf 100 Documents on the Origin of the War, Docs Nos 15 (197) and 16 (198).
192. 100 Documents on the Origin of the War, Berlin, 1939, Docs Nos 17 (200) and 18 (201); on this cf also Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, p.158 et seq.
193.Author’s italics.
194.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. V, Doc. No. 364, Letter from Sir Nevile Henderson (Berlin) to Viscount Halifax (C 6799/54/18).
195.Beck, Joseph: Dernier Rapport, Politique Polonaise 1926–1939, Paris, 1951, p.188.
196.Schnurre, Karl: Aus einem bewegten Leben-Heiteres und Ernstes, Bad Godesberg, 1987 (in the possession of the author).
197.Quoted from Schmidt, P. (Press): Ribbentrops Reise nach Warschau Ende Januar 1939, p.2.
198.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.7.
199.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. III, Doc. No. 285.
200.Ribbentrop, J. v.: Zwischen London und Moskau, p.88.
201.cf DGFP, Series D, vol. IV, Doc. No. 356.
202.cf DGFP, Series D, vol. IV, Doc. No. 370 (see here also Footnote 1 of the document on p.471) and Doc. No. 383; Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., pp.15-16; Schmidt, P. (Interpreter): Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, pp.423-24.
203.Letter from Phipps to Sargent dated 12 December 1938.
204.Noël, Léon: L’agression Allemande contre la Pologne (The German Aggression against Poland), Paris, 1946 (German edition: Der deutsche Angriff auf Polen, Berlin, 1948, p.246).
205.Quoted from Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.51 et seq.
206.Łukasiewicz, Juliusz: Diplomat in Paris 1936–1939, New York-London, 1970, p.152; Report addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, No. 1/F-58., Political Report No. XL/3., Paris, December 17, 1938, Secret.
207.Łukasiewicz, Juliusz: op. cit., p.156.
208.Łukasiewicz, J., op. cit., p.159.
209.See Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.52.
210.cf Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.7.
211.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.160.
212.Quoted from Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.26.
213.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.64 et seq.
214.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.67.
215.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., p.69 et seq.
216.Quoted from Noël, L.: op. cit., p.265. In the same sense Noël also quotes Robert Coulondre, the French ambassador in Berlin; ibid, p.266.
217.Quoted from the Auswärtiges Amt (ed.): The German White Paper – Full Text of the Polish documents, New York, 1940, Doc. No. 4.
218.He was in Warsaw on 25 January.
219.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.166.
220.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., pp.80 et seq. and 93 et seq.; see also Auswärtiges Amt (ed.): The German White Paper – Full Text of the Polish documents, New York, 1940, Docs No. 4 and 9.
221.Tansill, Charles: Back Door to War. The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941, Chicago, 1952, p.555. Bullitt as well as Kennedy later did not want to remember any such directive from Roosevelt in messages to Tansill (cf ibid.); Millis, Walter: The Forrestal Diaries, London, 1952, maintains the contrary.
222.The German White Paper – Full text of the Polish documents, Auswärtiges Amt (ed.), New York, 1940, Ninth Document, Report from Łukasiewicz of February 1939.
223.Millis, Walter: op. cit., p.129.
224.The German White Paper – Full text of the Polish documents, Auswärtiges Amt (ed.), New York, 1940, Doc. No. 6.
225.I remember a minor episode in connection with Count Potocki and his wife, with admittedly no diplomatic consequences, rather the contrary. The couple came to a luncheon at our house in Dahlem, it must have been January 1935; I remember them as cheerful, elegant people. After lunch the gentlemen smoked cigars that with a little ‘bang’ turned into a sort of broom, while the Countess, with a little cry spat a chocolate into an ashtray. For the entertainment of the family New Year’s festivities a few days earlier, my sister Bettina equipped Father’s cigars with tiny percussion caps and enriched Mother’s confectionary with a few pepper chocolates. As always, when the mood is anyway cheerful – and it was that at the Potockis’ visit – such little incidents enhance it even more.
226.According to the entry in Henry L. Stimson’s diary for 25 November 1941, the question is posed ‘how we [the USA] should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves’. Printed in: Hearings before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Congress, 2nd Session, P.11, p.5,433. The question whether in the case of the United States entering the war Roosevelt approvingly accepted an attack on Pearl Harbor, or had indeed provoked it, is to this day the object of intensive discussion among historians. Particularly critical of Roosevelt is: Morgenstern, George, Pearl Harbor – The story of the secret war, 1947; Toland, John, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath, 1986; Bavendamm, Dirk, Roosevelts Krieg 1937-45 und das Rätsel von Pearl Harbor, 1993; and finally Stinnett, Robert B., Day of Deceit. The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbour, 2000.
227.Ribbentrop, op. cit., p.169, statement of Undersecretary Richard Austen Butler in the House of Commons on 19 October 1939.
228.cf Scheil, Stefan: Fünf plus Zwei, p.57 et seq.; Rydz-Smigly: ‘Believe me, that the Polish mobilization was not merely a demonstration. We were ready for war.’
229.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.160; see also Tansill, Charles: op. cit.; Fish, Hamilton: FDR. The Other Side of the Coin, New York, 1976.
230.Schmidt, P. (Press): op. cit., pp.78-80.
231.Among professionals the military concept of the ‘deployment area’ contains an offensive component. Schmidt was not a military man. The concept is here meant in the sense of an Eastern European military zone against the Soviet Union.
232.Nadolny, Rudolf: Mein Beitrag, Wiesbaden, 1955, p.167.
233.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.148; see also DGFP, Series D, vol. IV, Doc. No. 168.
234.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.149-51.
235.See Goebbels’ diary entry dated 13 March 1939 in: Der Spiegel, No. 29/1992, p.122; Irving, David: Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, London, 1996.
236.Thus in Schwerin von Krosigk: op. cit., p.237, as well as Weizsäcker, Ernst von: Erinnerungen, Munich, 1950, Spitzy and others.
237.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. V, Doc. No. 365.
238.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.151 et seq.; see also Auswärtiges Amt (ed.): Documents on the events preceding the outbreak of the war, New York, 1940, Doc. No. 259.
239.Fish, Hamilton: op. cit. (German edition: Der zerbrochene Mythos, Tübingen, 1982, p.69 et seq.); Wirsing, Giselher: Der maßlose Kontinent, Jena, 1942, p.238 et seq.
240.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. IV, Doc. Nos 247 and 232, see also No. 230.
241.Schnurre, K.: op cit..
242.Schnurre, K.: op. cit.
243.cf Schwendemann, Heinrich: Stalins Fehlkalkül, Die deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen 1939–1941, in Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte XXIV/1995, p.10.
244.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.171 et seq.
245.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VI, Doc. No. 583.
246.Schnurre, K.: op. cit.
247.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VI, Doc. No. 729 dated 27 July 1939.
248.Schnurre, K.: op. cit., and DGFP, Series D, Vol. VI, Doc. No. 729 dated 27 July 1939.
249.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VI, Doc. No. 760.
250.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.47.
251.cf Auswärtiges Amt (ed.): Documents on the events preceding the outbreak of the war, Doc. No. 446. The Polish government threatened: ‘the Polish Government will consider as an aggressive act any possible intervention of the Government of the Reich which may endanger these rights and interests [in Danzig].’
252.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, Doc. No. 56.
253.Telegram from Hitler to Stalin dated 20 August 1939. DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, Doc. No. 142.
254.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, Doc. No. 159.
255.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.177.
256.The ‘Fuschlturm’ (tower) was subordinated to administration by the Finance Ministry of the Reich, destined as the seat of the current Reich Foreign Minister when Hitler was residing on the Obersalzberg. The owner had been arrested following the Anschluß. Contrary to what is every so often erroneously asserted, there was never any personal interest from our father in the ownership of the property. The proprietor had moreover not been dispossessed. He had, however, found himself in dire financial difficulties at the time of the Anschluss. The source of these slanders appears to be Vansittart (cf his pamphlet ‘Black Record’, 1941). Furthermore, Father had given instructions to the Legation Councillor Gottfriedsen, competent for the strict separation of the official sphere from the private, that upon termination of Father’s political activity his fortune should not exceed what it was at the outset, with the exception of both endowments – ‘Grundsätzliche Anordnung des Reichsaußenministers’ (Basic Order of the Reich Foreign Minister), ‘Westfalen’ (Westphalia), 23 October 1941. [‘Westfalen’: code name for the RAM billet.]
257.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.178 et seq.
258.On 3 and 7 August 1939, Schulenburg was still sceptical about an agreement between the Reich and the USSR; cf DGFP, Series D, vol. VI, Docs No. 766 and 779.
259.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.184 et seq.
260. 100 Documents on the Origins of the War (publ. Auswärtiges Amt, 1939), Doc. No. 15 (197) – 16 (198).
261.Below, Nicolaus von: Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937 – 45, Mainz, 1980, pp.187–88 (English edition: At Hitler’s side. The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant 1937-1945, Barnsley, 2001).
262.cf Scheil, Stefan: op. cit., p.70 et seq.
263.Dahlerus, Birger: Der letzte Versuch, München, 1948, p.110 (English edition: The Last Attempt, London, 1945).
264.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. VII, Doc. No. 546.
265.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. VII, Note 4 to Doc. No. 546.
266.Kordt, Erich: Nicht aus den Akten, p.278.
267.In his endeavours to present his significance as a resistance fighter, Spitzy confirms these cogitations expressly when he writes on p.300, op cit., ‘A second solution would have been … to allow a revolt of the German army to break out, preparation for which London … had already got wind of.’
268.The German White Paper – Full Text of the Polish documents, New York, 1940, Doc. No. 11 of 29 March 1939.
269.Colvin, Ian: op. cit., p.72.
270.DBFP, Third Series, Vol. IV, Doc. No. 118, pp.120–22, Report from Henderson to Halifax, 18 February 1939.
271.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.160.
272.Bonnet, Georges: Les fils de la mémoire (Edition in German: Vor der Katastrophe. Erinnerungen des französischen Außenministers 1938–1939, Cologne, 1951, pp.307-09.)
273.Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. XII ‘The Ministries Case’, p.347.
274.Best, Sigismund Payne: The Venlo Incident, London, 1950, p.7; Roth, Heinz: Widerstand im Dritten Reich, Odenhausen, 1976, p.240.
275.Cf FAZ, 5 April 1952.
276.Morand, Paul: Journal inutile, mémoires, vol. 2, p.403.
277.Feiling, Keith: The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, 1946, p.418.
278.This notion has passed into general usage with the meaning of an ‘ideal solution’ to a problem.
279.FAZ dated 15 April 1970, p.2.
280.Documents on the events preceding the outbreak of the war, Doc. No. 208: Record of the discussion between the German Foreign Minister and the Polish ambassador Joseph Lipski, 26 March 1939.
281.The German White Paper – Full Text of the Polish documents, New York, 1940, Doc. No. 11: Report of the Polish ambassador in Paris, Łukasiewicz, addressed to the Polish Foreign Minister Beck dated 29 March 1939 concerning a conversation with the US ambassador in Paris, Bullitt.
282.Cf for the rest Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.186–204, here pp.186-87.
283.Below, Nicolaus von: op. cit., p.187 et seq.
284.In her book on Albert Speer, Gitta Sereny’s judgement on Below’s memoirs is: ‘I consider Below’s book to be a unique document, for here a man, an uncomplicated one actually, but absolutely honest, makes a serious attempt to work things out.’; cf Sereny, Gitta: Das Ringen mit der Wahrheit, Munich, 1995, p.139 (English edition: Albert Speer: His battle with Truth, London, 1996).
285.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.188–90.
286.British War Blue Book, Doc. No. 74.
287.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.191.
288.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.191–93; see also British War Blue Book, Doc. No. 78.
289.Ambassador Sir Howard Kennard to Foreign Secretary Halifax, Warsaw, 30 August 1939; as in the official British original documentation HMSO, Miscellaneous No. 9 (1939), Documents concerning German-Polish Relations and the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3, 1939, Doc. No. 84: ‘I am, of course, expressing no views to the Polish Government, nor am I communicating to them Herr Hitler’s reply till I receive instructions which I trust will be without delay.’
290.Even the conspirator Dr Paul Schmidt (not to be confused with the chief of the Auswärtiges Amt’s Press Department of the same name) says in his book Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne on p.459: ‘Ribbentrop read the proposals out loud to Henderson in German [Henderson spoke German fluently], without however, as has often been maintained since, being in any particular hurry. On the contrary he elucidated certain points.’
291.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.195-97; Chamberlain noted in his diary under the date of 10 September 1939: ‘I believe he [Hitler] did seriously contemplate an agreement with us, and that he worked seriously at proposals (subsequently broadcast).’; from Feiling, K.: op. cit., p.416 et seq.
292.Ribbentrop/Hitler proposals (through Dahlerus) to Henderson in: Documents on the events preceding the outbreak of the war, Doc. No. 466.
293.IMT, vol. XVII, Proceedings, 28 June 1946, Morning session; p.193 et seq. Stated in the Nuremberg trials by the head of the ministry department at the time Hans Fritzsche.
294.HMSO, Miscellaneous No. 9. (1939), Documents concerning German-Polish Relations and the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3, 1939, Doc. No. 96.
295.Cf Documents on the events preceding the outbreak of the war, Doc. No. 469.
296.Cf Statement by Birger Dahlerus in the Nuremberg trials from: IMT, Vol. IX, Proceedings, Morning session of 19 March 1946, p.470.
297.Feiling, Keith: op. cit., p.416 et seq.
298.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., pp.197-203.
299.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.203.
300.Cf Musial, Bogdan: op. cit.
301.See primarily Schustereit, Hartmut: Vabanque. Hitlers Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union), Herford, 1988; as also Klein, Burton: op. cit.
302.Kunert, Dirk: Ein Weltkrieg wird programmiert (A World War is programmed), Kiel, 1984, pp.31, 309, footnote 9; Wilson quoted by Dulles, Foster Rhea: America’s Rise to World Power, 1898–1954, New York, 1955 (1963), p.115.
303.Tansill, Ch.: op. cit., p.35 et seq. and footnote 42; Wheeler-Bennett, John: Documents on International Affairs – 1933, London, 1934, p.209.
304.Quoted from: Peace and War, United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941, Index No. 14, President Roosevelt to the Secretary of State, May 6, 1933, Washington, 1943.
305.Had Eisenhower not employed the term ‘Crusade in Europe’ for his Memoirs? Cf Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Crusade in Europe, New York 1948.
306.Cf amongst others Morgenstern, George: Pearl Harbor – The story of the secret war, New York, 1947.
307.Memorandum of a conversation between Secretary Hull and the French Ambassador (Georges Bonnet), March 18, 1937. 500. A 19/70, MS, Department of State quoted from Tansill, Charles: Back Door to War, p.327 et seq. and p.328, footnote 2.
308.Tansill, Ch.: op. cit, p.328 and ib. footnote 4, Norman H. Davis to Secretary Hull, London, April 10, 1937. 740.00/143, Confidential file, MS, Department of State.
309.German White Paper – Full text of the Polish documents, New York, 1940, Doc. No. 9.
310.100 Documents on the Origin of the War, Berlin, 1939, p.109.
311.English: ‘It is hard not to write satire.’ (Juvenal)
312.See the President’s Memorandum to the Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Washington, 16 July 1943, in which he determines the treatment of the written legacy he would leave and where he specifies his wish to ‘select those which are never to be made public’.
313.‘Novus ordo seclorum’ alludes to Verse 5 of the 4th Eclogue of the Latin poet Virgil: Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo (The great order of the ages is born afresh). Charles Thomson, the designer of the Great Seal of the United States (published for the first time in 1782), wrote that these words were to herald the onset of a new American Age.
314.Eden, Anthony: Memoirs – Facing the Dictators (Book Two: Responsibility), p.509.
315.Tansill, Ch.: op. cit., p.514 and ib. footnote 17, Ambassador Kennedy to Secretary Hull, London, April 4, 1939. 740.00/736, Confidential file, MS, Department of State.
316.Charmley, John: Churchill, The End of Glory, Suffolk, 1993, pp.438, 685, footnote 55; Reynolds, D.: The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937-41, p.156.
317.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.437, 685, footnote 47, PRO Prem. 3/486/1, fos 299-35, for the various drafts; Cadogan Diary, 11 November 1940, p.335; Reynolds, ibid., pp.150-51.
318.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.437, 685, footnote 49; Cadogan Diary, p.335.
319.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.443, 686, footnote 16; Ponting, C.: 1940 – Myth and Reality, p.212.
320.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.443, 686, footnote 18; Reynolds, D.: The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937-41, pp.164-65; Dobson, A.P.: US Wartime Aid to Britain 1940-46, p.29.
321.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.438, 685, footnote 59; Taylor: Beaverbrook – Beaverbrook to Churchill, 26 December 1940, p.439.
322.Cf FAZ, 31 July 2006, p.3; see also Stars and Stripes, 12 January 2007: ‘U.K. makes final payment to U.S. for post-WWII reconstruction’.
323.Charmley, J.: op. cit., p.444.
324.Charmley, J.: op. cit., pp.438, 685, footnote 53; Reynolds, D.: The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, p.154, also footnote 58; Kimball, W.F. (ed.): Churchill & Roosevelt – The Complete Correspondence, vol. I, p.120.
325.Cf Morgenstern, G.: op. cit. (German edition: Pearl Harbor 1941 – Eine amerikanische Katastrophe, Munich, 1998, p.131).
326.Cf Morgenstern, G.: op. cit.; Tansill, Ch.: op. cit.
327.Tansill, Ch.: op. cit., p.651 et seq.
328.Cf Scheil, Stefan: Fünf plus Zwei, p.486 et seq. and footnote 180; Nicolson, Harold: Harold Nicolson’s Diaries and Letters, 2 vols, p.104. Scheil convincingly points out that Lothian knew the German conditions, considered them reasonable and transmitted them to London.
329.On 21 November 1942, the American writer Henry Miller wrote to the British writer Lawrence Durrell that ‘Churchill announces that he is not giving the Empire away (sic). That didn’t meet with such a warm reception over here. We want the English to give their bloody Empire away, doesn’t he know that, the old pfoof?’ Quoted from: The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80, New York, 1988, p.157.
330.The Times, 2 January 1993.
331.A unification of the European countries under German leadership had long been planned in case there would be no agreement with England. My father insisted on this also during later stages of the war, as for instance in the record ‘Regarding European Confederation of States’ dated 21 March 1943. Werner Best on Ribbentrop; in Matlok, Siegfried (publ.), Dänemark in Hitlers Hand, Husum, 1988, p.202.
332.Cassell (publ.): The Testament of Adolf Hitler, London, 1961, p.63.
333.As said to me by my father in August 1944.
334.Cf Andreas Hillgruber, Stufentheorie‘ zur Weltherrschaft (Stage theory (Harmony)) in Hitlers Strategie, Politik und Kriegsführung 1940-1941, p.22 et seq. and p.207 et seq.
335.Schustereit, Hartmut: op. cit., pp.13-20.
336.Mueller-Hillebrand, Burkhart: Das Heer 1933-1945 (The Army), Vol. II. Die Blitzfeldzüge 1939–1941, Frankfurt/M., 1956, p.63 et seq.
337.Schustereit, H.: op. cit., p.21 et seq.
338.Wagner, Gerhard (publ.): Lagevorträge des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler 1939–1945 (Situation Conferences of the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy to Hitler), Munich, 1972, p.104.
339.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit., p.106
340.Schustereit, H.: op. cit.
341.Wagner, Gerhard (publ.): op. cit.; Situation Conference of 6 September 1940, op cit., p.136; cf also Rahn, Werner: Kriegstagebuch der Seekriegsleitung [KTB SKL] 1939–1945 (War Diaries of the Maritime Warfare Command), 68 vols, reprint 1988; here: KTB SKL, A, vol. 13, p.69.
342.See also Schustereit, H.: op. cit.
343.Quoted from KTB SKL, A, Vol. 13, p.197. Attacks on London’s city precincts were thus prohibited to the Luftwaffe. A telegram with the following content is delivered by Göring: ‘It is to be announced without delay which crews have bombed the area of London exempt from bombing. The Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief reserves the right to punish those in question himself.’ From Zentner, Christian: Der zweite Weltkrieg, p.64.
344.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit., p.148.
345.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit., p.149.
346.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit., p.166.
347.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit., p.172.
348.Quoted from Scheil, Stefan: 1940/41 Die Eskalation des Zweiten Weltkriegs, Munich. 2005, pp.67, 463, footnote 42; Halder, Franz: Kriegstagebuch, II.
349.DGFP, 1962, Series D, Vol. IX, Doc. 129.
350.Detwiler, Donald S.: Hitler, Franco und Gibraltar, Wiesbaden, 1962, pp.25, 148, Note 18; from Peers, E. Allison: Spain in Eclipse, and Hoare, Sir Samuel: Complacent Dictator.
351.Josef Müller (1898–1979) was a delegate of the Bavarian People’s Party (Bayerische Volkspartei) in the Weimar Republic, and at the time of National Socialism a member of the Catholic Resistance against Hitler. After 1945 he was the first chairman of the CSU (Christian Social Union).
352.Colvin, Ian: op. cit., p.149.
353.Serrano Súñer, Ramón: Zwischen Hendaye und Gibraltar (Between Hendaye and Gibraltar), Zürich, 1948, pp.168, 240.
354.Maser, Werner (publ.): Keitel, Wilhelm – Mein Leben, Berlin, 1998, p.313.
355.Serrano Súñer, R.: op. cit., p.192.
356.Churchill, W.: The Second World War (Vol. II: Their Finest Hour), London, 1949–54, pp.460, 469.
357.Alfred Seidl was the attorney for the defence of Rudolf Hess at the Nuremberg trials, and among other posts was Bavarian State Justice Minister.
358.Walter Hewel’s Diary, (1941).
359.Wagner, G. (publ.) op. cit., p.143 et seq.
360.Keitel, W.: op. cit., p.313.
361.Study by General Erich Marcks, Chief of Staff of the 19th Army that guarded in the East in case of a military confrontation with the Soviet Union.
362.Uhle-Wettler, Franz: Alfred von Tirpitz in seiner Zeit (Alfred von Tirpitz in his day), Hamburg, 1998, p.147.
363.Cf, among other works, Bereshkov, Valentin M.: Ich war Stalins Dolmetscher (I was Stalin’s interpreter), Munich, 1991, p.290.
364.As per Roland von zur Mühlen, also present; cf Scheil, Stefan: Eskalation, p.520, N.77.
365.For the rest cf Walter Hewel’s diary for 29 and 30 May as well as 8, 13 and 20 June 1941.
366.Cf Keitel, W.: op. cit., p.290.
367.Cf on this: Schnurre, K.: op. cit.
368.This is stressed above all by Stefan Scheil; cf Eskalation, p.170 et seq.
369.Schnurre, K.: op. cit.
370.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.237.
371.Schnurre, K.: op. cit.
372.Speaking in private, Schnurre mentioned General Walter Warlimont as another person taking part in the conversation.
373.This was the French general and statesman Marquis Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza (1773–1827). He advised Napoleon against a war with Russia.
374.Hewel, W.: Tagebuch (Diary) for 28 April 1941.
375.Seidl, Alfred: Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und der Sowjetunion (The relations between Germany and the Soviet Union) 1939–1941, 251 Dokumente, Schulenburgs Niederlegung über den Verlauf des Gespräches mit Hitler (Schulenburg’s account of the course of the discussion with Hitler), Doc. No. 231, p.379.
376.Cf Reschin, Leonid: Feldmarschall im Kreuzverhör (Field Marshal in cross-questioning), Berlin, 1996, p.233 et seq.
377.Communicated by former delegate Dr Paul Schmidt-Carell to the author.
378.Ribbentrop, J. v., op. cit., S. 248.
379.Hewel, W.: Tagebuch (Diary) 1941, entry dated 20 June: Risk: ‘a locked door’.
380.Cf Allen, Martin: The Hitler/Hess deception: British Intelligence’s Best-Kept Secret of the Second World War, London, 2003, (German edition: Churchills Friedensfalle (Churchill’s Peace Trap), Stegen, 2003).
381.DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, Doc. No. 663, p.871.
382.At the Navy Commander in Chief ’s Situation Conference with Hitler on 27 December 1940, Hitler said to Raeder: ‘In general, however, in view of the present political developments (Russia’s refusal to be involved in Balkan affairs) the last Continental opponent has to be eradicated.’ From Wagner, G.: op. cit., p.174; Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.239 et seq.
383.Cf Schustereit, Hartmut: op. cit., p.100 et seq.
384.Suvorov, Viktor: Stalins verhinderter Erstschlag, Selent, 2000.
385.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.206 et seq.
386.Communication from Delegate K. Schnurre to the author.
387.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.208.
388.DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, Doc. No. 176, p.296 et seq.; publ. in Seidl, Alfred: op. cit., p.236, Doc. No. 171, as in Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.230 et seq.
389.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.231.
390.Wagner, G. (publ.): op. cit.; Conference dated 26 September 1940.
391.Cf Scheil, Stefan: Eskalation, p.131.
392.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit, p.235 et seq.
393.Hewel, W.: Tagebuch (Diary) (1941).
394.Beard, Charles A.: President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: Appearances and Realities, New Haven, 1948, p.105.
395.Cf Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.249 et seq.
396.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.262 et seq.
397.Ribbentrop, J. v.: op. cit., p.264 et seq.
398.At Cannae in southern Italy Hannibal defeated a numerically greatly superior Roman army – whose forces against him had been deeply massed in the centre – by weakening his army in the centre and attacking the Roman flank in a pincer movement, finally enveloping and annihilating them.
399.Particularly unpleasant is Schmückle, a lieutenant colonel in his day, and press aide to Defence Minister Strauss, and also Philipp von Boeselager and others.
400.In post-war literature General Hubert Lanz is represented as a brave man who opposed senseless orders to hold a position. At that time the Panzer Corps under his orders was unaware of such an attitude. As late as 14 February 1943, radio message No. 624 was sent to the SS-Panzer Corps General Command which read ‘Panzer Corps according to Führer’s order holding present position on the Kharkov eastern front to the last man. sgd Lanz.’ Thereon see also Romedio G. Count Thun-Hohenstein in Poeppel, Hans/W.-K. Prinz von Preußen/Hase, K.-G. von (eds): Die Soldaten der Wehrmacht (The Wehrmacht Soldiers), Munich, 1998, p.107.