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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
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