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

672 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHOne of Hitler’s first public utterances about his hopes for peace with Britainhad been given Karl von Wiegand, a Hearst correspondent, and published in theNew York Journal-American on June 14. A fortnight later Thomsen informedthe German Foreign Office that he had printed 100,000 extra copies of theinterview and thatI was able furthermore through a confidential agent to induce the isolationistRepresentative Thorkelson [Republican of Montana] to havethe Fuehrer interview inserted in the Congressional Record of June22. This assures the interview once more the widest distribution. 877The Nazi Embassy in Washington grasped at every straw. At one point duringthe summer its press attache was forwarding what he said was a suggestionof Fulton Lewis, Jr., the radio commentator, whom he described as an admirerof ”Germany and the Fuehrer and a highly respected American journalist.”The Fuehrer should address telegrams to Roosevelt . . . reading approximatelyas follows: ”You, Mr. Roosevelt, have repeatedly appealedto me and always expressed the wish that a sanguinary warbe avoided. I did not declare war on England; on the contrary Ialways stressed that I did not wish to destroy the British Empire.My repeated requests to Churchill to be reasonable and to arrive atan honorable peace treaty were stubbornly rejected by Churchill. Iam aware that England will suffer severely when I order total warto be launched against the British Isles. I ask you therefore to approachChurchill on your part and prevail upon him to abandon hissenseless obstinacy.” Lewis added that Roosevelt would, of course,make a rude and spiteful reply; that would make no difference. Suchan appeal would surely make a profound impression on the NorthAmerican people and especially in South America . . . 878Adolf Hitler did not take Mr. Lewis’ purported advice, but the Foreign Officein Berlin cabled to ask how important the radio commentator was in America.Thomsen replied that Lewis had ”enjoyed a particular success of late . . . [butthat] on the other hand, in contrast to some leading American commentators,no political importance is to be attached to L.” ∗879The payments . . . are made to the recipients through trusted go-betweens, butin the circumstances it is obvious that no receipts can be expected . . . Suchreceipts or memoranda would fall into the hands of the American Secret Serviceif the Embassy were suddenly to be seized by American authorities, and despiteall camouflage, by the fact of their existence alone, they would mean political ruinand have other grave consequences for our political friends, who are probablyknown to our enemies . . .I therefore request that the Embassy be authorized to destroy these receiptsand statements and henceforth dispense with making them, as also with keepingaccounts of such payments.This telegraphic report has been destroyed. 875∗ The doings of the German Embassy in Washington at this period, as disclosed in itsown dispatches which are published in Documents on German Foreign Policy, would furnishthe material for a revealing book. One is struck by the tendency of the German diplomatsto tell the Nazi dictator pretty much what he wanted to hear – a practice common amongrepresentatives of totalitarian lands. Two officers of OKW told me in Berlin that the High