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

THE LAST DAYS OF PEACE 527Lipski ”to establish in this way at least the minimum contact necessary forthe avoidance of a final breach.” The German Foreign Minister promised to”transmit” the Duce’s wishes to the Fuehrer. 675This was not the first call the Italian ambassador had made in the Wilhelmstrasseon this last day of August in order to try to save the peace. At9 that morning Attolico had advised Rome that the situation was ”desperate”and that unless ”something new comes up there will be war in a few hours.”In Rome Mussolini and Ciano put their heads together to find something new.The first result was that Ciano telephoned Halifax to say that Mussolini couldnot intervene unless he were able to produce for Hitler a ”fat prize: Danzig.”The British Foreign Secretary did not rise to the bait. He told Ciano the firstthing to be done was to establish direct contact between the Germans and thePoles through Lipski.Thus at 11:30 A.M. Attolico saw Weizsaecker at the German Foreign Officeand apprised him that Mussolini was in contact with London and had suggestedthe return of Danzig as a first step toward a German-Polish settlement, and thatthe Duce needed a certain ”margin of time” to perfect his plan for peace. Inthe meantime, couldn’t the German government receive Lipski?Lipski was received by Ribbentrop at 6:15 P.M., more than five hours afterhe had requested the interview. It did not last long. The ambassador, despitehis fatigue and his worn nerves, behaved with dignity. He read to the NaziForeign Minister a written communication.Last night the Polish Government were informed by the British Governmentof an exchange of views with the Reich Government as toa possibility of direct negotiations between the Polish and GermanGovernments.The Polish Government are favorably considering the British Government’ssuggestion, and will make them a formal reply on thesubject during the next few hours.”I added,” said Lipski later, ”that I had been trying to present this declarationsince 1 P.M.” When Ribbentrop asked him whether he had come as anemissary empowered to negotiate, the ambassador replied that, ”for the timebeing,” he had only been instructed to remit the communication which he hadjust read, whereupon he handed it to the Foreign Minister. He had expected,Ribbentrop said, that Lipski would come as a ”fully empowered delegate,” andwhen the ambassador again declared that he had no such role he was dismissed.Ribbentrop said he would inform the Fuehrer.” 676”On my return to the embassy,” Lipski later related, ”I found myself unableto communicate with Warsaw, as the Germans had cut my telephone.”The questions of Weizsaecker and Ribbentrop as to the ambassador’s statusas a negotiator were purely formal, with an eye, no doubt, for the record, forever since noon, when Lipski’s communication had been received by telegramfrom Warsaw, the Germans had known that he was not coming, as they haddemanded, as a plenipotentiary. They had decoded the telegram immediately.A copy had been sent to Goering, who showed it to Dahlerus and instructedhim to take it posthaste to Henderson so that the British government, as theField Marshal later explained on the stand at Nuremberg, ”should find out asquickly as possible how intransigent the Polish attitude was.” Goering read to