-2- 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 |