PACE 4 HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
Sir Nevile Henderson
INSTALMENT TWO
How Hitler planned to win over British opposition to his European plans until he was ready to attack the British Empire is explained to-day.
Sir Nevile was. British Ambassador in Germany from May. 1997, until September, 1030, and in this dramatic story, "My Two Years with Hitler," he is telling, EXCLUSIVELY in the "Hongkong Telegraph," the historic sequence of events that led up to the war.
Yesterday he described his first meetings with Hitler, with the comment, "It was always my fate to find him in a temper."· Of Ribbentrop, whose influence on Hitler he described as sinister, he wrote, "History will attribute a large share of the blame for September, 1939, to him.”
THE FIRST of my purely personal efforts to improve relations with the Nazi rulers of Germany had been a speech of friendship which I had made at a dinner given to me in May, 1937.
The second was my attendancę at the Nuremberg Party rally in September.
No British, French or United States Ambassador had hitherto gone to Nuremberg, on the ground that as a Party Day it would not be regarded as a purely official meeting.
For the first time, my French colleague, M. Francois-Poncet, Mr. Gilbert, the United States Charge d'Affaires, and myself, were authorised in 1937 by our respective Governments to attend the Rally.
Nobody who has not witnessed the various displays given at Nuremberg during the week's Itally, or been subjected to the atmosphere thereat, can be aid to be fully acquainted with the Nazi movement in Germany.
1 attended a review of the Party leaders, 140,000 In number and representing at that time over two million memburu of the Party..
I was present at a rally of the Hitler Youth, 48,000 strong, with 5,000 girla, and at a aup- per party to Herr Himmler's S.S. camp of 25,000 blackshirts. I had talks with Hitler himself, Neurath, Goering and Gochbols, as well an number of other less important personages.
The displays themselves were most impressive. That of the party leaders (or heads of the party organisations in the towne and villages throughout the country) took place in the even- ing at eight p.m. in the stadium. or Zeppelinfold.
Dressed in their brown shirts, these 140,000 mon were drawn up in six great columns with passages between them.
Hitler himself prrived at the far entrance of the stadium, aome four hundred yards from the platform; and, accompanied by several hundred of his fol- lowers, marched on foot up the contral-pasange to his appointed, place.
My Impression of Nuremberg
His arrival was theatrically notified by the sudden turning into the air of the 300 or more searchlights with which the sta- dium was surrounded.
The blue - Uinged light from these met thousands of feet up in the air at the top to make a kind of square roof, to which a chance cloud gave added realism.
The effect, which was both solemn and beautiful, was like being inside a cathedral of ice.
At the word of command the standard bearers then advanced
..Rudolph Hesa was the
Fuchror's deputy.
In a sense, he seemed to me. to be a sort of adopted son to Hitler, and on the outbreak of war he was named as second
fter Goering, in the order of succession to, the leadership of the German nation.
In less troubloux times he might well have been named first, but his authority with the Army Awould scarcely have been great enough in war time to hold the balance between the soldiers and the Nazi Party,
Tall and dark, with beetling eyebrows, a famous smile, and Ingratiating manners, Hess was perhaps the most attractive looking of the leading Nazis.
lle
was not inclined to bo talkative, and in conversation did not convey the impression of great ability.
I would have summed him ap as aloof and inscrutable, with a strong fanatical atrenk.
At the Youth Rally it was Von Shirach's speech which, in spite of its painfully adulatory references to the Fuehrer, im- pressed me most.
One part-of-it-surprised-nie--- when, addressing the boys, he said, "I do not know If you are Protestanta or Catholicn: but that you believe in God--that I do know,"
I had been under the impres→ sion that all reference to re- ligion was discouraged among the Hitler Youth,
Theoretically, however, in spite of the revolt against the sacred books of the Jewa re- ligion was free to the Hitler Youth: but, where and when. over it was possible to do so, it was in practice discouraged by - various effective methods.
from out of sight at the far end. Sinister and
up the main line and over the further tiers and up the four aide Innes.
A certain proportion of these standards had electric lights on their shafts, and the spectacle of these fivo rivers of red and gold rippling forward.under the dome of blue light, In complete silence through tho massed formations of brown shirts, was indescribably picturesque.
I had spent six years in St. Fotorburg bofore the war in the best days of the old Russian ballet, but in grandiose beauty I have never noen n ballet to compare with it.
The German, who has a highly developed hord Instinct, is per- foetly liappy when he is wearing a uniform, marching in stop and singing in chorus, and the Nazi rovolution has certainly known how to appeal to these instincts.
Hess the Inscrutable
As a display of aggrogato strength it was ominous; as a triumph of mass, organisation combined with bonity it was suport.
The review of the Hitler Youth was no legs un object Jesson from an observer's point of view. Standards, musle and singing again played a big part In the performanco, and the fervour of youth, win much in ovidence. The apoochos on thint occasion were made by Hitlor. Ho and Baldur von Shirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth.
GOERING
threatens the BRITISH
EMPIRE
His own National-Socialist religion, n he conceived it with its German God was free, and that was all he cared for.
Furthermore, he could always make himself believe whatever he said.
It was this kind of attitude which made ordinary conver sntion and argument with
him, and his imitator Ribben. trop, se difficult and unantis- factory.
The supper in a great tent in Herr Himmler's S.S. Police Camp at Nuremberg was equally
Menacing Scene instructive in another sense.
The God of the Hohenzollerns had not saved Germany from de- font in 1918, and though God might still be worshipped, it must be a purely Gorman one, to whom Hitler was so closely allied as to be barely distin- quishable from the Delty Him- solf.
Hitlor himself in his speeches constantly roferred to the Almighty. He Was not An atheist, but merely pro-Hitler and anti-Christian.
In the course of one of my interviews with him wo touched upon the subject of the religion. He was at the moment incensed against certain English blahopa for supporting the case of Pastor Niemoeller.
He would not, he shouted, brook any further interference by English Churchmen in the religious affairs of Germany.
It was their meddling, he said, which had caused him to give orders for Niemoller to. be put in a concentration camp after he had been sot at borty by the tribunal which hind trici him for sedition.
If, he continued, any English bishops tried to come to Ger many they would be turned back at the frontler; und he concluded with the astounding statement that "Nowhere was religion freer than in Germany."
It was the sort of remark to which I never was able to find An anewer, nor would it hava served any purpose if I had.
During supper a number of songs were sung by a chorus of Black-shirts, and after it thore was a tattoo for the lowering of the Swastika camp flag.
the
The music, na well as bearing and drill of the apocial colour party, was exceptionally good. The S.S. played u big part in ruling Germany for Hitler, and they were picked men of powerful physique.
"But," as I wrote at the time, "the camp in the darkness, dim- ly lit by flares, with the black uniforms in tho silent back- ground wind the skull and cross- bones on the drums and trumpets lent to the aceno a sinialer and menacing Impression. I felt, In- deed, as if I were back in the days of Wallenstein and the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century.
Herr Hitler was more friendly to me personally on that occasion than
of the others on on any which I saw him. He was un- doubtedly pleased at the otton- of the dance for the first time British, French, and American representatives, and be indicated that ho attributed this Innovation to my initiative.
As it happened. I had had a long talk with Dr. Goebbels at lunch that day on the subject of our rospective Presses, and I told Itler no. There was nothing very now in that talk, and up to the Inst the Press problem re- mained insoluble, but Goebbels. had been friendly and sensiblo. The "little doctor" was probably the moat intelligent, from a pure-
1
ly brain point of view, of all the Nazi leaders. He never specchi- fled; he always saw and stuck to the point; he -WAS an able debater and, in private converan- tion, astonishingly fair minded und reasonable. Personally, whenever I had the chance,
Ir found pleasure talking him.
In appearance and in charne- ter he was a typical little Irish ngilator, and was, in fact, pro- He bably of Celtic origin. came from the Rhineland and had heen educated in a Jesult school.
He was a slip of a man, but, in spile of his slight deformity, he had given proof of great courage when he fought the Communists in Berlin and won the capital for Hitler and Nazism.
When, however, he was on a public platform or had a pen in his hand no gall was too bitter and no. lie too blatant for him. Baron von Neurath, whom
I
Goering "I found more honest than Hitler
our, falks were. always on friendly terms.”
Anschluss
in Austria.
It was so far true that Austrin was, in fact, Hitler's immediate objective.
Of that there was no shadow of doubt, and in commenting on the greater calmness of the 1987 Party Rally, I had reported, "Gor- many to-day feels that she can not only afford to wait, but by waiting will be yet stronger and more sure of her goal. And the. big goal is German unity. Of that let there bo no mistake either; and if we intend definité- ly to oppose it, we should lose no time in asking ourselves the first and capital question 'How'
It was already quite evident that it would be futile to say "no" to the dictator without be- ing prepared to go to war to enforce it..
The question of the Austrian Anschluss was also mentioned in a long conversation which I had with Goering at this time.
scen
He insisted that it was In- evitable, and told me that he Ind a few days before Herr Guido Schmidt, the Aus- for Foreign trian Minister Affairs, and had bluntly told him that the sooner the Aus- trian Government accepted it. as such, and without creating bad blood, the better it would be for all concerned.
Destroy the British Empire
As usual, Goering was very outspoken, and at times bell- Icose. Yet our many talks, in spite of complete frankness on both sides, were ducted on any but mutually - friendly lines,
never con-
He auffered comparatively little from the personal resent- ments which so often inspired Hitler and Ribbentrop, and up to the last I was inclined to believe in the sincerity of his -personal-desire--for-peace-nnit---
good.relations with England.
saw the following day, was more forthcoming than Hitler. He told me that he found his Fuhrer less resentful and more anxious for an understanding with Britain than he had been for a long time past. Ha did not, however, en- courage, me to think that Hitler would reopen the question of his visit to London.
I remember that I asked him." in the course of conversation, what were 'Germany's ultimate aims.
His reply was, "Austria is the first and last of our nima; the Sudelen, German problem is a matter for compromise and can be settled amicably, pro- vide the Czechs leave the Rus- sian orbit and give trus equality to their German sub- Jecta."
Such a statement was, as I was to discover, & characteristic exam- ple both of the half-truths in-- dulged in whenever it was neces- sary to define German policy, and of the doceptive nature of German Assurances in · general. —- 1.0, obylous readiness to admit an objectivo, coupled with a positive declaration that nothing more thereafter was almed at,
He Inid stress on this ot Nuremberg, though at the same time he added that if the British Empire refused to collaborate with Gerninny, there would be nothing for the latter to do but to devote herself to the destruction of that Empire Instead of to its maintenance.
In this connection he men- tioned to me and was the first. German to do so the pon- sibility of the Reich being compelled to revise the Anglo- German Naval Agreement.
I told him then, and again some months Inter, that Ruch a step would inevitably lead In the end once more to war with Britain.
He regretfully admitted that this might be so, and added that it was against his advice that Hitler had insisted, when ho did, on the conclusion of that Agreement.
Baron von Neurath once told me the same thing, the argu- mant of both of them being that Hitler should have kept the naval agreement as a trump cord up his sleeve for eventual use in a final bargain.
They were bath more honest In this respect than Hitler since, from Goering's remark, I fancy that the contingency of repudiat- Ing that treaty was already in Hitler's mind, and, judging by subsequent experience, I сап only conclude that he never intended to observe its terms longer than it suited him.
even
It was difficult. or materially' Impossible, for him to rebuild a navy`at the same time that he was re-creating his
immensely formidable military and air machine, and the sole obiect. In Hitler's mind, of the Naval Agreement was to disarm British onpoal- tion to his schemes in Central Europe unill such time na they come to fruition and 'were renliard.
Thereafter it would be the turn of the British. Empire. It is impossible fa-dny to draw
any other conclusion.
* TO-MORROW you will read of Goering's threat to bomb Britain.
Tuesday, APRIL 23, 1940.
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