rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

414 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHLipski will return from Warsaw on Sunday, March 26 [Brauchitschnoted]. He was commissioned to ask whether Poland would be preparedto come to some terms with regard to Danzig. The Fuehrerleft during the night of March 25: he does not wish to be here whenLipski returns. Ribbentrop shall negotiate at first. The Fuehrer doesnot wish, though, to solve the Danzig problem by force. He wouldnot like to drive Poland into the arms of Great Britain by doing so.A military occupation of Danzig would have to be taken into considerationonly if Lipski gives a hint that the Polish Government couldnot take the responsibility toward their own people to cede Danzigvoluntarily and the solution would be made easier for them by a faitaccompli.This is an interesting insight into Hitler’s mind and character at this moment.Three months before, he had personally assured Beck that there would be noGerman fait accompli in Danzig. Yet he remembered that the Polish ForeignMinister had stressed that the Polish people would never stand for turning overDanzig to Germany. If the Germans merely seized it, would not this fait accomplimake it easier for the Polish government to accept it? Hitherto Hitler had been agenius at sizing up the weaknesses of his foreign opponents and taking advantageof them, but here, for almost the first time, his judgment has begun to falter.The ”colonels” who governed Poland were a mediocre and muddling lot, butthe last thing they wanted, or would accept, was a fait accompli in Danzig.The Free City was uppermost in Hitler’s mind, but he was also thinkingbeyond it, just as he had done in regard to Czechoslovakia after Munich hadgiven him the Sudetenland.For the time being [Brauchitsch noted], the Fuehrer does not intendto solve the Polish question. However, it should be worked on. Asolution in the near future would have to be based on especiallyfavorable political conditions. In that case Poland shall be knockeddown so completely that it need not be taken into account as apolitical factor for the next few decades. The Fuehrer has in mindas such a solution a borderline advanced from the eastern border ofEast Prussia to the eastern tip of Upper Silesia.Brauchitsch well knew what that border signified. It was Germany’s prewareastern frontier, which Versailles had destroyed, and which had prevailed as longas there was no Poland.If Hitler had any doubts as to what the Polish reply would be they weredissipated when Ambassador Lipski returned to Berlin on Sunday, March 26,and presented his country’s answer in the form of a written memorandum. 478Ribbentrop read it at once, rejected it, stormed about Polish mobilization measuresand warned the envoy ”of possible consequences.”He also declared that any violation of Danzig territory by Polish troopswould be regarded as aggression against the Reich.Poland’s written response, while couched in conciliatory language, was a firmrejection of the German demands. It expressed willingness to discuss furthermeans of facilitating German rail and road traffic across the Corridor but refusedto consider making such communications extraterritorial. As for Danzig,