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

462 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHSo Poland, probably, could be taken on alone, but she would have to bedefeated ”within a week or two,” Hitler explained, so that the world could beconvinced of her collapse and not try to save her.Hitler was not quite ready to tell his generals just how far he was going thatvery day to make a deal with Russia, though it would have immensely pleasedthem, convinced as they were that Germany could not fight a major war on twofronts. But he told them enough to whet their appetite for more.”Russia,” he said, ”is not in the least disposed to pull chestnuts out of thefire.” He explained the ”loose contacts” with Moscow which had started withthe trade negotiations. He was now considering whether ”a negotiator should goto Moscow and whether this should be a prominent figure.” The Soviet Union,he declared, felt under no obligation to the West. The Russians understood thedestruction of Poland. They were interested in a ”delimitation of spheres ofinterest.” The Fuehrer was ”inclined to meet them halfway.”In all of Haider’s voluminous shorthand notes on the meeting there is nomention that he, the Chief of the Army’s General Staff, or General von Brauchitsch,its Commander in Chief, or Goering questioned the Fuehrer’s course inleading Germany into a European conflict – for despite Hitler’s confidence it wasby no means certain that France and Britain would not fight nor that Russiawould stay out. In fact, exactly a week before, Goering had received a directwarning that the British would certainly fight if Germany attacked Poland.Early in July a Swedish friend of his, Birger Dahlerus, had tried to convincehim that British public opinion would not stand for further Nazi aggression andwhen the Luftwaffe chief expressed his doubts had arranged for him to meetprivately with a group of seven British businessmen on August 7 in Schleswig-Holstein, near the Danish border, where Dahlerus had a house. The Britishbusinessmen, both orally and in a written memorandum, did their best to persuadeGoering that Great Britain would stand by its treaty obligations withPoland should Germany attack. Whether they succeeded is doubtful, thoughDahlerus, a businessman himself, thought so, ∗ This curious Swede, who was toplay a certain role as a peacemaker between Germany and Britain in the nexthectic weeks, certainly had high connections in Berlin and London. He hadaccess to Downing Street, where on July 20 he had been received by Lord Halifax,with whom he discussed the coming meeting of British businessmen withGoering; and soon he would be called in by Hitler and Chamberlain themselves.But, though well-meaning in his quest to save the peace, he was naive and, as adiplomat, dreadfully amateurish. Years later at Nuremberg, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, in a devastating cross-examination, led the Swedish diplomatic interloperto admit sadly that he had been badly misled by Goering and Hitler. 570And why did not General Haider, who had been the ringleader in the ploteleven months before to remove Hitler, speak up on August 14 to oppose theFuehrer’s determination to go to war? Or, if he thought that useless, why didhe not renew plans to get rid of the dictator on the same grounds as just before∗ Dahlerus told the Nuremberg tribunal on March 19, 1946, when he was on the stand asa witness for Goering, that the Field Marshal had assured the British businessmen ”on hisword of honor” that he would do everything in his power to avert war. But Goering’s stateof mind at this time may have been more accurately expressed in a statement he made twodays after seeing the British visitors. In boasting about the Luftwaffe’s air defenses, he said,”The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, myname is not Hermann Goering: you can call me Meier!” – a boast he was soon to rue.