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

THE TURN OF POLAND 421American propaganda as a question on which he wished to consulthis cabinet. If M. Munters did not answer ”no” to our question rightaway, we should have to add Latvia to those countries which madethemselves into willing accomplices of Mr. Roosevelt. I said thatI assumed that a word on these lines by Herr von Kotze [the Germanminister] would be enough to obtain the obvious answer fromhim, 488It was.HITLER’S REPLY TO ROOSEVELTThe replies were potent ammunition for Hitler, and he made masterly useof them as he swung into his speech to the Reichstag on the pleasant springday of April 28, 1939. It was, I believe, the longest major public speech he evermade, taking more than two hours to deliver. In many ways, especially in thepower of its appeal to Germans and to the friends of Nazi Germany abroad,it was probably the most brilliant oration he ever gave, certainly the greatestthis writer ever heard from him. For sheer eloquence, craftiness, irony, sarcasmand hypocrisy, it reached a new level that he was never to approach again. Andthough prepared for German ears, it was broadcast not only on all German radiostations but on hundreds of others throughout the world; in the United Statesit was carried by the major networks. Never before or afterward was there sucha world-wide audience as he had that day. ∗The speech began, after the usual introductory dissertation on the iniquitiesof Versailles and the many injustices and long suffering heaped upon the Germanpeople by it, with an answer first to Great Britain and Poland which shook anuneasy Europe.After declaring his feeling of admiration and friendship for England andthen attacking it for its distrust of him and its new ”policy of encirclement” ofGermany, he denounced the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935. ”The basisfor it,” he said, ”has been removed.”Likewise with Poland. He made known his proposal to Poland concerningDanzig and the Corridor (which had been kept secret), called it ”the greatestimaginable concession in the interests of European peace” and informed theReichstag that the Polish government had rejected this ”one and only offer.”I have regretted this incomprehensible attitude of the Polish Government. . . The worst is that now Poland, like Czechoslovakia ayear ago, believes, under pressure of a lying international campaign,that it must call up troops, although Germany has not called up asingle man and had not thought of proceeding in any way againstPoland. This is in itself very regrettable, and posterity will one daydecide whether it was really right to refuse this suggestion, madethis once by me . . . a truly unique compromise . . .∗ On the day of the speech Weizsaecker wired Hans Thomsen, German charge in Washington,instructing him to give the Fuehrer’s address the widest possible publicity in the UnitedStates and assuring him that extra funds would be provided for the purpose. On May 1 Thomsenreplied, ”Interest in speech surpasses anything so far known. I have therefore directedthat the English text printed here is to be sent . . . to tens of thousands of addressees of allclasses and callings, in accordance with the agreed plan. Claim for costs to follow.” 489