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by Hitler, but also, what was far more intolerable, in the
utter disregard by Hitler of the solemn agreements into
which he had entered. He said that no international
society in which powerful nations went back on their
pledged word was a society which could long survive, unless
one were willing to admit that physical force should be
the determining factor in modern civilization- that, the
British Government., he said, and likewise the United States
Government, he felt sure, could not concede.
He gave me a very careful account of the statements
made by the British Government to Hitler in August, 1939,
to convince me that Chamberlain had made it completely
clear to Hitler that the British were willing to favor a
negotiation between Poland and Germany of the Danzig and
German minority issues, but that if Germany invaded Poland
Great Britain would fight. Whatever Ribbentrop may have
told Hitler, Lord Halifax said, Hitler must have known
beyond the shadow of a doubt that German invasion of Poland
meant a general European War.
Lord Halifax mentioned his own journeys to Germany in
recent years, and his conferences with Hitler and with
Goerlng in the hope that personal contacts and explanations
might help to solve the problem.
In summary, his conviction was, he said, that no last-
ing peace could be made in Europe so long as the Nazi regime
dominated Germany, and controlled German policy. Peace
could not be made except on the basis of confidence, and
what confidence could be placed in the pledged word of a
Government that was pursuing a policy of open and brutal
aggression, and that had repeatedly and openly violated
its solemn contractual obligations?
I