Читать книгу Failure of a Mission, Berlin 1937-1939 - Nevile Meyrick Henderson - Страница 9

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I arrived at Berlin on April 30th, 1937. May 1st is celebrated as the great labor holiday in Germany and largely devoted to speech making. It furnished me with my first opportunity to see Hitler and hear him speak in person. Since I had not yet presented my letters of credence, I went on that day quite unofficially first to the German Opera House and afterward to the Lustgarten. I was accompanied by the First Secretary of His Majesty’s Embassy, Mr. Kirkpatrick. What I would have done without Ivone Kirkpatrick during my first eighteen months, after which he was transferred to the F.O., does not bear thinking about. He had then been some six years at Berlin and knew everybody and everything. Extremely able and intelligent, he had in addition a kind of puckish Irish humor which made his counsel and experience as diverting as they were, I hope, profitable to me. Nor was I less fortunate in this respect during my last eight months with his successor, Adrian Holman. The latter had not, of course, Kirkpatrick’s experience of Germany; but he served me well and truly. He came and lived in the Embassy at the end, and during the last ten days or so before the outbreak of war he cannot have had many hours’ sleep. Altogether I was very lucky as regards my staff, from the top to the bottom of it. They were, moreover, a happy family among themselves. I never heard a grumble and never had cause to grumble myself. I always had that very satisfactory feeling that my staff was always trying to do its best and to save me personally from all minor worries.

At the Opera House, where I was given a place apart from the other heads of missions, though Hitler was present, it was Dr. Goebbels who spoke. The subject was art and literature, and I must admit that I was charmed both by the natural fluency of his manner of speaking and his extremely agreeable voice. As politics did not enter into his subject, it was free from the venom, casuistry, and lies which were the normal feature of his usual propagandist outpourings. At the Lustgarten, after an introductory speech by Dr. Ley, it was Hitler himself who addressed the packed crowd drawn up in organized formation before him. His speech contained a scathing reference or so to the effete democracies, particularly Britain, against whom there was as usual a press campaign raging at the time; but in the main it was directed against Jewish influences in Russia. In speaking about Germany he used one phrase which stuck in my mind. It was that “no people could escape its own destiny,” and referred to the necessity for the German people to put up with hardship in order to make itself independent of other nations and to fight, if need be, in eastern Europe in order to secure more Lebensraum, or space for development. Germany’s sorrows, though she greatly exaggerates them, are not altogether of her own making. Her geographical position has had a good deal to do with their creation; and one of the most obvious but often least appreciated truths in the world is that foreign policy is to a greater extent governed by geography than anything else.

I was at the time, however, more interested in the individual and in the psychology of the crowd than in the actual words spoken. I found, as I had in listening to his speeches on the radio when I was British Minister at Belgrade, his voice harsh and unsympathetic. But he had the gift of oratorical exhortation, and the people seemed to appreciate what he said. Yet it was a lovely day; and I could but feel that the crowd would have preferred to be amusing itself elsewhere rather than standing, packed like disciplined sardines, listening to the kind of speech that they must have heard often enough, and shouting their “Heils” or their “Pfuis” whenever Hitler raised his voice rather higher than usual or paused to mark his point in his flow of oratory. It was impossible, indeed, not to wonder on that first occasion and up to the last wherein the greatness of Hitler lay, by what means he had succeeded in imposing himself as the undisputed leader of a great people, and what was the—to me—hidden source of his influence over his followers and of their complete subservience to him. To convince oneself of his greatness, one had to remember his actual deeds and judge by facts. Of the facts themselves there was no doubt. He had restored to Germany her self-respect and re-created orderliness out of the chaos and distress which had followed her defeat in 1918. It is true that the price that the Germans had had to pay was a heavy one; namely, complete loss of personal liberty, of independent thought, and of free speech. All were obliged to think, speak, and act as they were told to do or suffer exile or persecution. The rails of National Socialism were laid in a straight line, and any deviation from them met with instant punishment. Yet some sort of an operation had been necessary. In 1933, 10 per cent, over 6,000,000 men, of the population of Germany were out of work. Within 4 years the number of unemployed had been reduced to an infinitesimal figure, and by 1939 there was a labor shortage estimated at 2,000,000. That in itself, however much one may attribute it to war production, was no mean achievement. To the wheels of Hitler’s chariot were, in fact, harnessed the amazing power of organization, thoroughness, and discipline of the German nation. Nor can it be denied that the rebirth of that nation was due to Hitler’s own personal inspiration. For the fact remains that he is the living example of one of those almost incomprehensible leaders who appear from time to time on earth “to fashion the destiny of a race, for its weal or its woe, or to crucify the world by a sudden revelation of violence and power.” He was abnormal, but so after 1918 was the whole German nation.

National Socialism is a revolution; and, if, apart from his demagogic faculties, Hitler had one quality which placed him in an unassailable position above the rest of his fellow revolutionaries, it was his faith. Faith in Germany, faith in his mission for Germany, and, alas, increasingly arrogant faith in himself and in his own greatness. Faith and will power. I once watched Hitler review his black- and brownshirted army. The march past lasted for four hours, and practically throughout he remained with his right arm stretched out at the Nazi salute. I asked him afterward how he managed to do it. His reply was “will power”—and I wondered how much of it was artificially cultivated. He was no such administrator as is Signor Mussolini—I doubt if he either cared or knew very much about the details of the machine which functioned in his name. But he set its course, put it in motion, or stopped it according to his own plan. During my first year in Germany I constantly asked those in closest touch with Hitler of what his chief quality consisted. I was told almost unanimously, in his fingerspitzgefühl (tip of the finger feeling), that is to say, his sense of opportunity, allied with clearness of mind and decision of purpose. The typical example which was quoted of this was his decision to reoccupy the Rhineland in 1936, which was taken contrary to the warning of his general staff and of all his closest advisers. Germany was at that time not militarily strong enough to disregard a French veto; and his followers shrank from an act which would, they believed, be forcibly opposed by the Western Powers. Hitler’s instinct told him that the latter would accept an accomplished fact, and he disregarded all warnings to the contrary. The event proved him right and greatly reinforced his prestige, not only among his own immediate supporters but throughout Germany as a whole. Incidentally, it was probably the last opportunity when it would still have been possible for Britain and France to have said “no” to the Dictator without being obliged to go to war to enforce that “no.”

Be that as it may, Hitler, whatever the external impression which he may give and whatever may be one’s judgment of him based, as mine was, on a superficial personal acquaintance, is, or at least began by being, a visionary of genius and a man who was able to tell the German people what it was that they wanted. So long as he procured it for them without war, his word was absolute and their confidence in him unshaken. The first shock to their belief in his infallibility came in September, 1938, when he led them to the abyss of war over the Sudeten German question. Many Germans must then have asked themselves whether Hitler by that time was still thinking of Germany or only of himself, his party, and his personal ambitions. They may be thinking it still more today. But by this time the shackles of the Nazi organization and regime are so riveted on the whole country that what the German people themselves may feel or want is a matter of indifference to a system which must go forward or end, to individuals who must remain in power or become nobodies again, and to a leader whose ambitions have now become a form of hysterical megalomania. Sic volo sic jubeo is now Hitler’s only creed. And he has behind him the entire might of the German Army, which has taken the oath of loyalty to him, as well as the complete organization of the party, which owes its very existence to him, and the wholehearted enthusiasm of the entire credulous youth of the country, which has been taught to worship force and Hitler. The German people collectively are but grist for the mill, and as one of them whom I met by chance after war had been declared said to me, “Wir sind zu klein, wir können nichts machen” (We are too small, we can do nothing).

It will always be a matter of regret to me that I was never able to study Hitler in private life, which might have given me the chance to see him under normal conditions and to talk to him as man to man. Except for a few brief words at chance meetings I never met him except upon official and invariably disagreeable business. He never attended informal parties at which diplomatists might be present; and, when friends of mine did try to arrange it, he always got out of meeting me in such a manner on the ground of precedent. Up to a period in his career he was accessible to foreigners, to whom he readily accorded interviews; but he gradually became less so; and he had apparently a rooted aversion to private contacts with diplomatists, whom, as a category, he distrusted. The greater one becomes the more one is obliged to live on a pedestal lest, if one descends from it, one loses, through commerce with ordinary people, the godlike attributions of greatness. No man is a hero to his valet, and Hitler may have taken that saying to heart. He was a true demagogue, and crowds stimulated him, but social life of any sort bored him. He liked the company of his intimate friends, whom he could harangue to his heart’s delight; but he always looked self-conscious when he had to entertain the diplomatic corps, which happened normally three times a year: at his New Year’s reception, at his annual dinner to the heads of missions, and at the tea party which he gave for them in September during the party rally at Nuremberg.

I was once asked by a German acquaintance who must, in view of his former official position, have had many talks with him whether I ever managed during my interviews with Hitler to get a word in edgeways. It was a curious observation, suggesting as it did that he himself never had. That was, however, not my experience. He may not have heeded what I said; and he may, like Ribbentrop, only have been thinking what he himself was going to say next; but he always seemed ready to listen, nor did he speechify to any unendurable extent. I myself once made him a little speech which lasted for five or ten minutes. His reply lasted three times as long; and thereafter, for obvious reasons, I avoided making speeches myself. If I thought his own were getting too long and that he was becoming carried away by his own oratory, I interrupted him; nor did he ever seem to be offended thereby.

My impression was that his emotional outbursts were not spontaneous but that he deliberately worked himself up into a state of excitement. But it may have become second nature with him after all the impassioned orations which he had had to make during the years of his struggle for power. Or he may have thought that, since demagogical eloquence swayed the masses, it must have a similar effect on the individual. Anyway, with his own people he seems to have claimed the monopoly of the talking, though he probably was attentive enough if he had anything which he wished to learn from them. But contradiction was insupportable to him; and, if anyone attempted it, as General von Fritsch did in January, 1938, he was dismissed. I never heard of his ever doing a generous action. On the other hand one of his most marked characteristics was sheer vindictiveness, and his resentments were enduring and intensely disagreeable for anyone on whom it was in his power to exercise them. I am not surprised that his followers were afraid of him. They had plenty of examples of his capacity for revenge to intimidate them.

His defect in this respect was his tragedy, as it is necessarily that of any dictator. No man of independent mind can long tolerate the lack of all freedom of utterance. Unable to express views which may be contrary to those of their master, the best men leave him one by one. His entourage steadily and inexorably deteriorates, until at the end he is surrounded by mere yes-men, whose flattery and acquiescence are alone endurable to him. That, too, was Hitler’s fate during the last year which I spent in Berlin.

He was always urging his fellow countrymen to forget their inferiority complex, but he was subject to it himself. Both on this account and because of his demagogue’s nature he always had to have applause. If it was not the crowd’s, it had to be that of the coterie of his intimate friends, particularly of his old street fighters of the Brown House at Munich. At the same time his tastes were excessively simple. He drank no wine, he did not smoke, and he ate no meat. He was a bad sleeper, especially at Berlin, which was one reason why he spent as little time as possible in the capital. He got up late and disliked working till after luncheon, but he would also go to bed late and would sit up talking till all hours of the night. He liked to relax after dinner in the company of pretty and ornamental young women.

Beautiful scenery appealed to him in the same way, and his real home was the Berghof at Berchtesgaden on the top of a mountain with a magnificent view looking over to Salzburg and the lovely scenery of his native Austria. He kept no particular state there, and on the two occasions on which I visited him there, there was little evidence of any excessive precautions for his safety. Yet he was very strictly guarded; and the necessity for his protection was one of the holds which Himmler, as head of his secret police, had over him. The path to him was, however, made easy for an ambassador, who might be counted upon not to have a revolver or a bomb concealed upon his person. For others, if there was any doubt whatsoever, it would probably have been made much more searching and difficult. It was part of the show to give the impression of a beloved ruler, unafraid and reliant on the devotion of his people. But in the forest which surrounded the villa (Berghof) stood the barracks of his special bodyguard of blackshirts; and its trees and bushes probably concealed numbers of highly alert and expert gunmen. He had, withal, another bolthole in the form of an eyrie on the summit of a yet higher mountain peak. It could only be reached by a road built for some miles out of the solid rock, through bronze doors let into the mountain side, and by an elevator tunneled in the mountain itself. It was said to be guarded on all sides by machine guns, but I never saw it myself and can only write from hearsay.

Hitler always wore a simple brown tunic without any decorations except the Iron Cross of the second class, which he had won in the great war. He was very unlike Goering in this respect; yet, in a sense, both extremes appealed to the Germans. They might make fun of but they liked Goering’s unabashed display of show and medals. At the same time Hitler’s simplicity was one of the sheet anchors of his hold on the people. His followers built themselves villas and gardens and acquired estates and other private belongings by means which were suspected of being of doubtful honesty; and, except in Goering’s case, the people were indignant and resentful. The comparison between the other Nazi leaders and Hitler in this respect was all the more flattering to the latter and was appreciated by the mass of the nation accordingly. The others may have provided for themselves nest eggs abroad, but Hitler would certainly not have done so unless it were in the form of the legitimate royalties which he must have drawn from the sale of Mein Kampf in the United States or elsewhere.

Before an ambassador or a minister has presented his letters of credence to the head of the state to which he is accredited, his position is an unofficial one, not only as regards the functionaries of that state, but also as regards his diplomatic colleagues, with whom he is not supposed to have any relations until after the presentation of his credentials. The coronation of King George VI was to take place on May 12th, and preparations had been made for a service in the English Church for that occasion. My South African colleague, with whom I was on terms of the closest and friendliest co-operation throughout the whole of my residence at Berlin and whose balanced and sound judgment I always highly valued, had announced his intention of attending it.

Contrary to precedent I had called on my United States colleague shortly after my arrival; and, when I also asked him whether he would care to come, he telephoned to say that he would be glad to do so.

Incidentally, I would mention here that Mr. Dodd went on leave in the summer and never returned to his post, having disagreed with the policy of his government in authorizing the American representative to attend the Nuremberg rally in September. He was succeeded as American Ambassador by Mr. Hugh Wilson. The latter was, unlike Mr. Dodd, a diplomatist by career. He had been for some years American observer at Geneva. He must have served his government well in that capacity, for I have seldom met his equal for keen observation and sound judgment. I always kept in the closest touch with him, and his appreciations of the situation were always extremely useful to me. He was withdrawn from Berlin after the Jewish persecutions of November, 1938. He was on the point of coming back to his post when the occupation of Prague in March, 1939, finally put an end to all idea of his return. I missed him greatly during that and the succeeding crisis.

I also made an exception as regards official calls in the case of Field Marshal Blomberg, who had been selected by Hitler to represent Germany at the Coronation in London, together with Admiral Schultze and General Stumpff. I called on him at the Ministry for War and invited him and his fellow delegates to lunch with me before their departure, which they did. I was particularly impressed by the Field Marshal. A man of fifty-eight, tall and soldierly and good looking, he was typical of the old German Army; and no better selection could have been made for the task of representing Germany at the Coronation. He was a fervent admirer of Hitler, whose praises he was never tired of singing. He once said to me that if Hitler ordered him and his army to march the next day to the North Pole they would do it without a moment’s hesitation. It was related that Hitler had a similar affection for the Field Marshal, and had more than once stated that if Blomberg deserted him he would throw himself from the window. In the end Blomberg, if not deserting him, did act contrary to his wishes. Whereupon it was not Hitler who threw himself from the window, but Blomberg who was thrown onto the rubbish heap. But that was to come some ten months later, and at the time Blomberg was perhaps Hitler’s closest friend and adviser.

Poor Blomberg! He was the first German whom I entertained at His Majesty’s Embassy, and he was one of the first to invite me to his house. It was a man’s party, and with the exception of Neurath and myself all the others were soldiers or airmen. The regime might be Nazi; but the senior commanders of the Navy, Army, and Air Force were officers of the last war; and I often wondered what they felt about their political leaders. Some, of course, saw in enthusiastic adherence to the party doctrines the steppingstone to promotion, and all must have recognized the greatness of Hitler’s achievement in restoring the German Army to its former great position. But there must have been a good deal of heartburning and irritation over some of the Nazi peculiarities and interference in military matters. Goering was also at that dinner; and I recall that, when he, Blomberg, and Neurath were talking to me after it, one of them asked me what I did when anyone gave the Nazi salute or said “Heil Hitler” to me. For once I happened to be quick on the uptake. “I bring,” I replied, “my right hand, with fingers closed and palm to the front, to a position one inch above the right eyebrow, click my heels, and say ‘Rule Britannia.’ ” They all laughed; but, as a matter of fact, nobody except an occasional cloakroom attendant and Miss Unity Mitford ever did greet me with “Heil Hitler.” And when Miss Mitford did it, in the middle of a big crowd at Nuremberg, I was so surprised and dumbfounded that I forgot “Rule Britannia” and said nothing at all.

On the day before the Coronation I was received by Hitler and presented my letters of credence. As it happened the disaster to the airship Hindenburg had occurred just before my audience; there were rumors of foul play; and Hitler was in an excited mental state on the subject. It was always my fate to see him when he was under the stress of some emotion or other. We read to each other friendly little set speeches, but he showed little interest until I expressed my condolence at the loss of his airship and of a number of German lives. He then invited me into another room to sit down, and told me that there had been a number of warning letters before the departure of the Hindenburg, and that the whole airship had been searched from stem to stern before she left on her last journey. His attitude toward me was quite friendly, but I was left again wondering wherein lay the secret of his hold over Germany.

Many Germans, women in particular, used to descant to me upon the radiance of his expression and his remarkable eyes. When I looked into the latter, they were generally hot and angry. That was possibly my misfortune, since I only saw him on official occasions; but I must confess that, in spite of his achievements, which no one could belittle, he never on that first occasion or later gave me any impression of greatness. He was a spellbinder for his own people. That is self-evident, nor was there any doubt about his capacity to charm, if he set himself out to do so. It was part of his stock in trade, and I was more than once the spectator of its efficiency. But he never exerted it in my case, and I consequently never experienced it. In his reasonable moods I was often disconcerted by the sanity and logic of his arguments; but, when he became excitable, which was the mood which most influenced his countrymen, I had but one inclination, which was to beg him to calm down. He had considerable natural dignity and was invariably courteous; but to the last I continued to ask myself how he had risen to what he was and how he maintained his ascendance over the German people. The answer to the second question lies, in my opinion, in the fact that, firstly, the Germans like to be governed by an autocratic ruler and that, secondly, the party, having got its leader, cannot afford now to change him. To avoid its own destruction it is obliged to keep him there. No one realizes this more than Himmler.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron von Neurath, and the Minister for Justice were present at my audience, together with Hitler’s celebrated interpreter, Dr. Schmidt. The latter was invariably in attendance when Hitler received foreign diplomats or statesmen; and, if he is ever able to publish his memoirs, they might throw an interesting light on many problems. So far as I personally was concerned, I always spoke in German direct to Hitler; and Dr. Schmidt’s services as an interpreter were never required. He always, however, took copious notes, which I can imagine were exceedingly useful as records to his master. On one occasion he was allowed to furnish me with an expurgated copy of them, and, when Lord Halifax saw Hitler that autumn, he, also, was given Schmidt’s written account of their conversation. But that was in Baron von Neurath’s time as Minister for Foreign Affairs. When Herr von Ribbentrop succeeded him in that post, this courtesy was no longer tolerated.

Baron von Neurath was an astute and experienced Swabian who had been Ambassador in Rome and in London before becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs. Among the Germans, the Swabians enjoy a reputation for economy and dourness, similar to that of the Scots among the English. He and his wife had been extremely popular in England, and I liked them both immensely. His charming daughter was the wife of the son of the veteran Field Marshal von Mackensen. The son worked under his father-in-law as Secretary of State, which is the equivalent of our Permanent Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs. The political director of the Ministry was Baron von Weizsäcker, who had served as a naval officer in the war. There is no finer type than the hard-headed, intensely German but, at the same time, absolutely honest and honorable German official. Of such was Weizsäcker, and he succeeded Mackensen about a year later as Secretary of State under Ribbentrop. With all of these my relations were excellent, and the Ministry itself a happy and united department. It was to change later when it came under the direction of Herr von Ribbentrop, but at that time my diplomatic colleagues and I were exceedingly fortunate. Baron von Neurath himself was a survivor of the Hindenburg regime and not yet a member of the Nazi party. He became one later, but at that time his position was somewhat anomalous, and one could not always be certain that he was fully cognizant of the views of Hitler and the inner council of the party. There had even been at one time three kinds of ministries for foreign affairs in existence at the same time in Berlin: Herr Rosenberg’s, Herr von Ribbentrop’s, and the official Ministry in the Wilhelmstrasse. The former’s activities had ceased before my arrival, but that of Herr von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Ambassador at Large, still functioned to some extent and must have constituted a considerable handicap to the official department.

After I had presented my letters of credence, there was still another ceremony to be performed before I could be regarded as definitely installed. Berlin is one of those capitals in which the head of a foreign mission has, on first arrival, to undergo what is known in diplomatic language as a ricevimento, or, in plain English, an official reception. Though not a universal custom—it is not, for instance, followed in London or Paris—it is a practical and useful one. When he first arrives an ambassador is technically regarded as knowing nobody. In order to overcome this initial handicap, the head of the protocol or master of ceremonies at the ministry for foreign affairs issues, on the ambassador’s behalf and, naturally, at the latter’s expense, invitations to the diplomatic corps and all the higher government officials to attend a party at the embassy on a day and at a time agreed upon with the ambassador. In this manner the newcomer gets to know at once everybody with whom he may later come into contact.

After my audience with the Reichschancellor I was accordingly asked to fix a date for my ricevimento. Being mostly Scot by origin, I selected June 10th. Abroad the King’s birthday is celebrated on June 9th. It is an occasion for patriotic and loyal demonstrations, and I had decided to invite on that day all the British residents in Berlin to tea at the Embassy. There would, it seemed to me, be a certain economy in flowers and in other respects if the official reception were to take place the day after. It was consequently so arranged, but what I had not foreseen was that in 1937 June 9th and 10th were to be the two hottest days of the year in Berlin. Consequently what I gained in flowers—and even so a good many of them wilted and had after all to be replaced—I, so to speak, lost in drinks, which were in unusual request on both occasions.

The British Embassy in Berlin is a dignified house with a large frontage in the Wilhelmstrasse, or Downing Street on a larger scale of Berlin. Except for the Embassy it consists almost entirely of Government offices, including the Reichschancery, or Chancellor’s official residence, as well as the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, etc. (When I left Berlin Bismarck’s old palace there was being completely renovated in order to house Ribbentrop.)

The Embassy itself had been built in the early seventies by a German, who had made a large fortune out of railway construction. He went bankrupt shortly after, whereupon the house was acquired by the British Government. In those early days it had a large garden at the back, running up to the street which forms one side of the Tiergarten. For some reason or another, which may either have been cupidity on the part of those de facto rulers of Britain, the officials of His Majesty’s Treasury, or the difficulty of refusing a direct appeal made to the Ambassador of the moment, Sir Frank Lascelles, by the reigning Emperor, the garden was eventually sold in order to provide a site for the Adlon Hotel, which Wilhelm II wished to make into the superhotel of Berlin. Possibly it was a combination of both these considerations; but, whatever the reason, the result was a catastrophe from the point of view of the amenity of the Embassy itself. Shut off on the south from the sunlight by the great edifice of the Adlon and sullied by the smoke from the hotel’s vast kitchen chimney, the house was always dark and always dirty.

In addition the railway magnate’s idea as to internal comfort in the eighteen seventies were somewhat rudimentary. His main object seemed to have been to waste space instead of to use it. Large though the house was, the total number of bedrooms was only about half a dozen; and my predecessor, who was a married man with a family, can barely have had more than one guest room available for visitors. It is true that there had originally been more rooms; but a number of them had, in course of time, been expropriated and allotted to the Chancery, the offices for which were also situated in the Embassy building. Even with these additions the Chancery accommodation was inadequate and unhygienic.

Those who imagine that the diplomatic secretaries and the personnel of His Majesty’s Embassies abroad work in the utmost luxury and comfort are under a grave misconception. Since the war the work of His Majesty’s Missions abroad has increased out of all comparison with prewar days; and, though the increase in the size of the staffs has been correspondingly great, it has not always been possible to find the extra space required. This was particularly the case in Berlin, in many respects the postwar Cinderella of our missions abroad. The fact was recognized at home, and I had been authorized to put forward suggestions with a view to the acquisition of a new Embassy building. From a sentimental point of view it would have been sad to leave the historic building in the Wilhelmstrasse, but from the point of view of work it was essential. As it was, the Embassy only provided offices for the diplomatic staff and the Financial Adviser. The Commercial Secretariat, the offices of the Naval, Military, and Air Attachés, the Passport Offices, and the Consulate General were all situated in a building about a kilometer away, an arrangement which was highly inconvenient and prejudicial to the competency of the work of the Embassy.

In these days economics in particular cannot be separated from politics; and the closest co-operation is necessary if the work is to be carried out rapidly and efficiently, more especially when, as in Berlin, the telephone can only be used as contact in respect of matters of an entirely nonconfidential character. My idea, therefore, was to exchange the Embassy, which the German Government would have been glad to use for government offices, for some large site on a corner of one of Hitler’s new thoroughfares. Thereon we might have built an embassy suitable for all modern requirements, both to hold offices for the whole staff without exception and to serve as a private residence for the Ambassador. I spoke both to Goering and Ribbentrop of this plan and asked them to let Hitler know that I contemplated it. I suggested that they might inform him that I meant one day to talk to him about it and hoped it would form part of a general understanding with Germany. In the event, however, conditions were never peaceful or hopeful enough for me to raise the question, as I should have liked to do, with Hitler himself.

Inconvenient though the Embassy was from the point of view of personal accommodation and public efficiency, the reception rooms on the ground floor were, on the other hand, well suited for large entertainments. About a thousand British subjects, out of about fifteen hundred established altogether in Berlin, attended my tea party on the King’s birthday; and one might hardly have noticed that they were there. This was partially due to the fact that they were all crowded into two rooms, the dining room, where the refreshments were, and the ballroom, where there was a cinema of the Coronation in colors, which had very kindly been lent to me by Fox Films. The ballroom held over three hundred people, and the film lasted for about forty minutes. I gave it three times that hot afternoon, and thus everybody was able to see it. Those who were not in the ballroom spent their time in the dining room. My very competent German butler said to me afterward that he always knew that Germans ate a lot, but he had never seen people eat so much as those loyal subjects of His Britannic Majesty. The British colony in Berlin was an extremely poor one, and I do not think that any party which I ever gave provided me with greater pleasure than that one.

About seven hundred Nazi functionaries and diplomats attended the official reception the following day. The amount of food eaten was much less on that occasion, but the cinema, of which I again gave two performances, was almost equally appreciated. I was very grateful to Fox Films. The captions, being American, were excellent propaganda and better than they would have been if the film had been British. I was hopeful that what they saw and heard about the British Monarchy and Empire might be instructive and salutary for the Nazi officials, few of whom had ever been in London. It may have been; but, if so, they soon forgot it. It is, however, only just to say that the German controlled press, in reporting on the Coronation, abandoned for once its anti-British attitude and described the various ceremonies and proceedings during the Coronation week with absolute fairness and no little sympathy.