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

622 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHassurance from the British government that it would make peace with an anti-Nazi German regime, and, being what they were, they were insistent that inany settlement the new Reich government be allowed to keep most of Hitler’sterritorial gains: Austria, the Sudetenland and the 1914 frontier in Poland,though this last had only been obtained in the past by the wiping out of thePolish nation.It was with such a proposal that Hassell, with considerable personal courage,journeyed to Arosa, Switzerland, on February 21,1940, to confer with a Britishcontact whom he calls ”Mr. X” in his diary and who was a certain J. LonsdaleBryans. They conferred in the greatest secrecy at four meetings on February 22and 23. Bryans, who had cut a certain figure in the diplomatic society of Rome,was another of those self-appointed and somewhat amateurish negotiators forpeace who have turned up in this narrative. He had contacts in Downing Street,and Hassell, once they had met, was personally impressed by him. After thefiasco of the attempt of Major Stevens and Captain Best in Holland to get intouch with the German conspirators, the British were somewhat skeptical of thewhole business, and when Bryans pressed Hassell for some reliable informationas to whom he was speaking for the German envoy became cagey.”I am not in a position to name the men who are backing me,” Hassellretorted. ”I can only assure you that a statement from Halifax would get to theright people.” 828Hassell then outlined the views of the German ”opposition”: it was realizedthat Hitler had to be overthrown ”before major military operations are undertaken”;that this must be ”an exclusively German affair”; that there must be”some authoritative English statement” about how a new anti-Nazi regime inBerlin would be treated and that ”the principal obstacle to any change in regimeis the story of 1918, that is, German anxiety lest things develop as they did then,after the Kaiser was sacrificed.” Hassell and his friends wanted guarantees thatif they got rid of HitlerGermany would be treated more generously than it was after the Germanshad got rid of Wilhelm II.He thereupon handed over to Bryans a memorandum which he himself haddrawn up in English. It is a wooly document, though full of noble sentimentsabout a future world based ”on the principles of Christian ethics, justice andlaw, social welfare and liberty of thought and conscience.” The greatest dangerof continuing ”this mad war,” Hassell wrote, was ”a bolshevization of Europe”– he considered that worse than the continuance of Nazism. And his maincondition for peace was that the new Germany be left with almost all of Hitler’sconquests, which he enumerated. The German acquisition of Austria and theSudetenland could not even be discussed in any proposed peace; and Germanywould have to have the 1914 frontier with Poland, which, of course, though hedid not say so, was actually the 1914 frontier with Russia, since Poland had notbeen allowed to exist in 1914.Bryans agreed that speedy action was necessary in view of the imminence ofthe German offensive in the West and promised to deliver Hassell’s memorandumto Lord Halifax. Hassell returned to Berlin to acquaint his fellow plotters withhis latest move. Although they hoped for the best from Hassell’s ”Mr. X” theywere more concerned at the moment with the so-called ”X Report” which Hansvon Dohnanyi, one of the members of the group in the Abwehr, had drawn up on