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

512 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHNevertheless it struck the fat Field Marshal as being of the ”greatest importance.”Dahlerus had delivered it to him that evening (August 26), as hewas traveling in his special train to his Luftwaffe headquarters at Oranienburgoutside Berlin. The train was stopped at the next station, an automobile wascommandeered and the two men raced to the Chancellery, where they arrivedat midnight. The Chancellery was dark. Hitler had gone to bed. But Goeringinsisted on arousing him. Up to this moment Dahlerus, like so many others,believed that Hitler was not an unreasonable man and that he might accept apeaceful settlement, as he had the year before at Munich. The Swede was nowto confront for the first time the weird fantasies and the terrible temper of thecharismatic dictator. 641 It was a shattering experience.Hitler took no notice of the letter which Dahlerus had brought from Halifaxand which had seemed important enough to Goering to have the Fuehrer wakedup in the middle of the night. Instead, for twenty minutes he lectured the Swedeon his early struggles, his great achievements and all his attempts to come toan understanding with the British. Next, when Dahlerus had got in a wordabout his having once lived in England as a worker, the Chancellor questionedhim about the strange island and its strange people whom he had tried sovainly to understand. There followed a long and somewhat technical lecture onGermany’s military might. By this time, Dahlerus says, he thought his visit”would not prove useful.” In the end, however, the Swede seized an opportunityto tell his host something about the British as he had come to know them.Hitler listened without interrupting me . . . but then suddenly gotup, and, becoming very excited and nervous, walked up and downsaying, as though to himself, that Germany was irresistible . . . Suddenlyhe stopped in the middle of the room and stood there staring.His voice was blurred, and his behavior that of a completely abnormalperson. He spoke in staccato phrases; ”If there should bewar, then I shall build U-boats, build U-boats, U-boats, U-boats, U-boats.” His voice became more indistinct and finally one could notfollow him at all. Then he pulled himself together, raised his voiceas though addressing a large audience and shrieked: ”I shall buildairplanes, build airplanes, airplanes, airplanes, and I shall annihilatemy enemies.” He seemed more like a phantom from a storybook thana real person. I stared at him in amazement and turned to see howBritish Blue Book of documents concerning the outbreak of the war nor in Henderson’s FinalReport nor even in Henderson’s book Failure of a Mission, though in the book the Swedishintermediary is referred to as ”a source in touch with Goering.” In Henderson’s dispatchesand in those from other members of the British Embassy which have now been published,Dahlerus and his activities play a fairly prominent part, as they do in various memoranda ofthe British Foreign Office.The role of this singular Swedish businessman in trying to save the peace was a well-keptsecret and both the Wilhelmstrasse and Downing Street went to considerable lengths to keephis movements hidden from the correspondents and neutral diplomats, who, to the best ofmy knowledge, knew absolutely nothing of them until Dahlerus testified at Nuremberg onMarch 19, 1946. His book, The Last Attempt, was published in Swedish in 1945, at the endof the war, but the English edition did not come out until 1948 and there remained a furtherinterval of six years before his role was officially confirmed, so to speak, by the documentsin Vol. VII of the DBrFP series. The German Foreign Office documents for August do notmention Dahlerus, except in one routine memorandum reporting receipt of a message fromthe Lufthansa airline that ”Dahlerus, a gentleman from the ’Foreign Office,’” was arriving inBerlin August 26 on one of its planes. He does appear, however, in some later papers.