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PAGE 4-HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
Sir Nevile Henderson INSTALMENT
HITLER POSTPONES the WAR
With the Soviet pact in his pocket Hitler became jubilant and truculent. He was prepared to show the world what his army and air force would do if he did not get his way in the Polish dispute.
To-day Sir Nevile Henderson, Britain's Ambassador in Berlin until the outbreak of war, tells how dramatic moves to save the peace were made by Britain, and how Hitler, with preparations for an invasion of Poland apparently complete, hesitated...
on August AT the moment
22 when Herr von Ribben- trop was preparing to fly to Moscow, I received instruc - tions to convey without dolny a personal letter from the Prime Minister to Herr Hitler.
An interview was arranged for me with Hitler for the fol- lowing day at Berchtesgaden, and I left Berlin at 9.30 am. on August 23.
I reached Sulzburg about mid- day, and I had any first audience with Hitler at Berchtesgaden at 1 D.ro.
The three main polnis of the Prime Minister's letter were:-
(1) Insistence on the determina- tion of flis Majesty's Government to fulfil their obligations to Pa- land.
(2) Their readiness, if a prace atmosphere-could-be-created, tv. discuss all the problems at issue between our two countries, and
(3) Their anxiety, during a period of truce, to see tinmediate initiated be- direct discussion
tween Germany and Poland. In regard to the reciprocal treatment of min
minorities Hitler's reply, which was no less uncompromising than I had anti- elpated, was to the effeel that Great Britain's determination to support Poland could not modify his polley.
Fuehrer gives me his reply
He was prepared to accept even than sacrifice interests
a long war rather Germann national
and
of
honour, und If Great Britain per- sisted in her own measures mobilisation he would at once order the mobilisation of the whole
of the German forces.
At my first interview with him on that day, Hitler was in a mood of extreme excitability. His language as regards the Poles and the British responsibility for Polish attitude was violent, re- oriminatory and exaggerated.
He referred, for instance, to 100,- 009 German refugees from Poland, a figure which was at least five times greater than the reality..
At my second interview, when he handed me his reply, he had re- covered his calm but was not leas obdurate. Everything was Eng- land's fault.
She had encouraged the Crectis last year and she was now giving a blank cheque in Poland. No longer, he told me, did he trust Mr. Chamberlain.
Ho preferred war, ho sald, when he was nity to when he was fitly- five or sixty.
He had himself always sought and believe in the possibility of friendship with England.
He now realised, he said, that those
who had argued the contrary had been right and nothing short of a complete change in British policy towards Germany could ever con- vince him of any sincere British desire for good
reintions.
I
My last remark to him was that could only doduce from his last- guage that my mission to Ger- many had falled and that I biller-
ly regretted it.
I flew back from Berchtesgaden
to Berlin the same evening.
not
Sir Nevile Henderson'
- certainly
to putting averse I bad, in fact, little hope that
them to the test so far as Poland Minister'a letter either the Prime
was concerned.
or my own language to Hitler, how- ever direct and straightforward, would give him pause.
The Russion pact had, I felt, created in his opinion a situation
Asked
to fly
which was favourable to his de to London
signs and I believed his mind to be defnitely made up.
the
Though he spoke in a Neronic vein of his artistic tastes and of his longing to satisfy them, I derived the impression that the corporal of the last war was even more anxi- ous to prove what he could do as a conquering Generalissimo in next.
What
Germany the world might suffer was of no consequence so long ng his last to show what he, as leader of Germany, could do was satisfied.
In two months, he told me, the war in the East would be ended and he would then, he said, hurl one hundred and sixty divisions against the Western Front, i! Eng- land was so unwise as to oppose his plans.
His hesitation was due rather to one final effort to detach Britain from Poland.
Be that as it may, at about 12,45 on August 25, I received a message to the effect that Hitler wished to receive me at the Chancellery at 1.30 pan. At that meeting he made to me the verbal communi- already been cation which has published in the White Paper on the outbreak of war. post-Briefly
More than once he repeated to me that, if he had been Chancellor of
would Germany in 1914, she never hay
have lost that war in 1918. Nevertheless the visit to Berch- tesgaden may after all have post- poned the disaster for a week"
Ribbentrop few buck to Ger- many with the signed Russo-Ger- man Agreement and Hitler return- ed to Berlin on the night of August 24.
I have, as I have mentioned earlier, some reason to believe- though I cannot confirm it—that the order for the German Army to advance into Poland was ac- tualty issued for the night of August 25.
It is dimeult otherwise to And Justification for the various orders usd arcangements which came into force on August 20 and 27.
In the afternoon of August 25 Itself, all telephone communicatlen between Berlin and London and Paris was unexpectedly cut off for several hours.
Why he hesitated
The celebrations at Tannenberg were cancelled on the 28th, and the Party Rally at Nuremberg on August 27; all naval, military and air attaches at Berlin were refuged permission to leave the city with- out prior authority being obtained from the Ministry of War.
All German airports were closed from August 26, and Germany became a prohibited zone for all aircraft except the regular civil lines. All internal German nir services were also suspended.
Moreover, as from the 27th a system for the rationing of food- stus
other commoditica Into throughout Germany camo force.
and the whole of
and
That this latter and-for the publie depressing measure should have been adopted prior to the outbreak of WA scarcely be explained, except on the assumption that war should nctually have broken από on August 28.
Tho fact
may well be, as I Imagine it was, that filter had had In conséquence of the Prime Minis- ter's letter ono last hesitation and countermanded the orders to his army, whereas the other arrange- ments were allowed to proceed un- checked.
But it was not the horrors of war or the thought of dead Ger- mana which deterred him.
He had unlimited confidence in the magnificent army and air force which he had recreated, and he was
Briefly put, Hitler's proposals dealt with two groups of questions: (a) the immediate neces- sity of a settlement of the dispute between Germany and Poland, and (b) an eventual offer of friendship or alliance between Germany and Great Britain.
ok My Interview wih Hitler, which Herr von Ribbentrop and Dr. Schmidt were alge present, lasted on this occasion hour,
over
an
The Chancellor spoke with calm He de- and apparent sincerity. scribed his proposals
A
last
elfort, far conselence sake, to secure good relations with Great Britain, and he suggested that I should Ay to London myself with
them.
told his Excellency that, while I was fully prepared to consider his course, I felt it my duty to tell him quite clearly that my country could not possibly go back on its word to Fetand.
15
return to London during that week, I had been asked by some German newspaper correspondents why I had forgotten my buttonhole.
I told them that I had not for gotten, but that I considered it to bo inappropriate at a moment of Buch grave criais. The story had got around and I regarded Meissner's remark as signifleant.
Was Hiller then preoccupied as to what the answer of His Majesty's Government would be?
But it
it was probably merely Melusner's own wishful thinking or preoccupation.
I wore my carnation again the next day, but, that time, us I was. leaving after my interview, I told Meissner that I feared that I would never wear one again in Germany.
[Copyright in all countrica. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited.]
TO-MORROW:
My midnight scene with Ribbentrop Two amazing interviews-Pistol at Po- land's head-My warning to Halifax.
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limitation of armaments, Majesty's Government pointed out that, whereas a just settlement of the Polish question might open the way to world peace, failure to do so would finally ruin the hopes of a better understanding between our countries and might well plunge the whole world into wor.
I did most
of the talking
Could any reply have been more
It precise or straightforward? made it easy for Hitler to avold the calamity of war, if he had really wished to do so.
At 10.30 p.m. on August 20, I was received by Herr Hitler at the Reichschancery and handed to him tha British reply,, together with a German translation.
Hitler was once again friendly and reasonable, and appeared to be with the answer not dissatisfied which I had brought to him. He observed, however, that he must study it carefully and would give me a written reply the next day.
Our conversation lasted for well over an hour, and it was nearly midnight before I got back to the Embassy.
It was, I think, the only one of my interviews with Hitler at which It was I who did most of the talking. Possibly for this reason there is no account of 12 in the German White Paper which was published after the outbreak of the war.
I used every argument which I could think of to include him to see renson and to come down on the side of peace.
Incidentally
might mention that both on that evening and the next, when I visited Hitler ogain and was handed his reply, nothing was left undone to enhance, or to impress me with, the solemnity of the occasio
From the Embassy to the Reichs- However anxious we were for a
chancery a mere three or four better understanding with Ger-
hundred yards, but as Berlin was many, we could never reach one except on the basis of a negotiated undergoing a week of trial black- outs, the Wilhelmstrasse wns in settlement with Poland.
Whatever
complete darkness. have been underlying motive of this
et
the
Anal
on the part of the Chan- It was one which could not
be ignored, and with Lord Halifax's consent, flew to London early die following morning (August 20), on a German plane which
Was teously put at my
Two days were onl
cour-
by His Majesty's Government in giving the fullest and most coreful con- sideration to Hitler's message, ond on the afternoon of August 28 I
with flew back to Berlin
their reply.
and
His Majesty's Government pro- posed the initiation of direct dis cussions between the Polish and German Governments,
the adoption of immediate steps to re- liove
the tension in the matter of the treatment of minorities.
Furthermore, they undertook to use all their influence with a view to contributing towards a solution which might be satisfactory to
both parties, and which would,
they hoped, prepare the way for the negotiation of that wider, and more complete understanding be- tween Great Britain and Germany which both countries desired. Finally, after a reference
to
1
the
These extracts are taken from book by Sir Nevile Henderson en- titled "Failure of a Mission," pub- lished by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd.-
People were not hostile
A considerable but quile expres- slonless crowd had collected in the square, opposite the entrance to the courtyard, into which my car had to drive. Though the people were silent, they gave me no sensa- tion of hostility.
re-
that Up to the bitter end mained the attitude of the Berliners.
A guard of honour was drawn up in the courtyard to the right of the main door and I was re- ceived with a roll of drums.
Dr. Meissner and Bruckner, Hitler's faithful A.D.C. and body- guard, were awaiting me on the doorstep. The former remarked to me that he was glad to see that I was wearing a buttonhole,
I had always worn a dark red carnation in Berlin except during the three critical days of the week which preceded Munich.
"Never again
in Germany”
When I was seeing Horace Wil- son off at the Tempelhof on his
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POLITICAL CRISIS NOT EXPECTED
LONDON, May 7 (Reuter),-"Reuter's" Lobby_Correspond- ent says that the Labour Party have decided to take no action to-night regarding the Prime Minister's statement. The Execu-` tive Parliamentary Labour Party will meet in the House of Com. mons at 10.30 a.m. to-morrow to consider the situation arising out of to-day's debate, and there will be a fall meeting of the Parliamentary Party at 11.30 a.m. at which the whole matter will be thoroughly surveyed.
disappointing; others described it as The present reaction to the Prime the speech of a tired man; but in Minister's statement is that there will the absence of unexpected develop- be no immediate political crisis. The ments, a great bulk of the Govern
the Party is critical of
whole ment supporters will be found behind situation, but things don't seem to the Government in the event of a have reached the point at which a challenge being made regarding the strong body of Government sup-Government's competence to carry on porters is asking for a change.
the war. Such a challenge is one of Many Government supporters the possible outcomes of to-morrow's thought the Prime Minister's speech Lntour Opposition mecting.
AT
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A ruthless enemy who could have no codol
A beautiful spy who .could have nofheart!
U-BOAT 29
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