Posted on 11/18/2008 12:53:46 PM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
On this day the German ambassador in Washington, Hans Dieckhoff, was recalled to Berlin and never returned.
You might have better luck if you search the Proquest "Historic New York Times" database available at some libraries--but I still wouldn't hold my breath.
Ironically, Ernst vom Rath, the diplomat shot and killed by Herschel Grynszpan, was the only staffer at the embassy who was under suspicion by the Gestapo for disloyalty to Hitler.
Right now the entire Times archives are searchable, and most of them can be downloaded for free (I am not sure if this period is in this group).
You can search by headline but before 1981 you must pay for the articles. I don't want to do that. A librarian at Cal State Monterey Bay told me they have the articles in the orignal format in some kind of database. She thought I could select images and then email them to my home. If that works out it could make life easier for me and enable me provide higher quality posts here.
These are very interesting. Continued thanks.
I don’t think Sir Winston would appreciate being compared to a peasant.
“Any other solution,” Beck wrote in a memorandum which Lipski read to Ribbentrop, “and in particular any attempt to incorporate the Free City into the Reich, must inevitably lead to conflict.” And he added that Marshal Pilsudski, the late dictator of Poland, had warned the Germans in 1934, during the negotiations for a nonaggression pact, that “the Danzig question was a sure criterion for estimating Germany’s intentions toward Poland.”
Such a reply was not to Ribbentrop’s taste. “He regretted the position taken by Beck” and advised the Poles that it was “worth the trouble to give serious consideration to the German proposals.”
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 455-456
More fallout from Versailles. Yes, the Americans and British wanted Poland to have access to the sea. And the only port which came under consideration was Danzig. However, Danzig was a German city, like Stettin, Kolberg, & Konigsberg. Danzig had been ethnically German for centuries. In fact, pretty much the entire southern coastline of the Baltic Sea was ethnically German, with other peoples such as Poles, Latvians & Lithuanians in the interior. (Although the German predominance dwindled the farther up the Baltic one went).
The Polish Corridor cut right through ethnically German territory. While a good idea on paper to give Poland access to the sea, it was bound to lead to friction, if not outright conflict, sooner or later.
And, the Germans had every reason to believe Wilson’s notions of “self determination” was hypocrisy. State boundaries were drawn with the intent to incorporate nationalities into specific sovereign states. With one notable exception: Germany and Germans. It made the German people susceptible to Hitler’s venom, because there was some truth to his diatribes against the Versailles Treaty.
This is not intended as an apologia for Hitler’s aggression. But it is illustrative that a harsh treaty (imposed by France & Britain) plus fuzzy-headed notions of the world (provided by Woodrow Wilson) will lead to a Hitler.
Alas poor Chamberlain. Tis a pity that you will not see the light until next March.
The Japanese Foreign Minister admitted that Japan would not support the open door in China. "Mr. Arita went on to say that there prevails a widespread feeling that the Japanese Government has now adopted a new policy–one of closing the open door in China. There had in fact, been no change in policy. His several predecessors had on several occasions given assurances to the American, British, and other representatives in Tokyo that Japan would respect the principle of the open door. As a matter of fact, those assurances were not intended to be unconditional, for the reason that the time had passed when Japan could give an unqualified undertaking to respect the open door in China. He was not implying that his predecessors had given the assurances in bad faith: on the contrary he felt certain that they were acting in the best of faith, but what they were attempting to do was to reconcile the principle of the open door with Japan's actual needs and objectives, and that could not be done. As had been previously explained, those objectives are to provide Japan with a market secure against any possible threat of economic sanctions and to acquire safe sources of necessary raw materials; but within those limits Japan was prepared to guarantee equality of opportunity. There would be given full consideration to those enterprises conducted by foreigners other than Japanese which would in no way conflict with or obstruct the carrying out of these primary objectives, and with respect to those enterprises, whether industrial, commercial, or financial, the Japanese Government was fully prepared to give unqualified guarantees. But with regard to other undertakings which overlapped the Japanese economic defence plans, it was no longer possible for Japan to extend any such guarantee." (Memorandum of conversation with Foreign Minister Arita by the Counselor of the American Embassy in Tokyo, Dooman. Japan, Vol. I, p. 801.)
I'd say all the usual criticisms of Versailles are to some degree valid, but also irrelevant.
The fact that US President Wilson started off the Versailles negotiations with some very high ideals did not mean he was unwilling to compromise those ideals in favor of more "practical" considerations. He was, after all, a US politician!
And the Versailles results were a hodgepodge, not just for Germany. In many areas of the former German, Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Turk Empires, border lines were drawn almost arbitrarily, with nationalities split-up or mixed together willy nilly.
So, the Germans had reason to complain, but so did everyone else. And indeed, as compared to those other losing Empires, the Germans had the LEAST to complain about.
Moreover, if you compare the treatment Germany RECEIVED at Versailles with the punishments Germany METED OUT at, for example, Brest-Litovsk in 1918, you have to say that Germany received BETTER than it deserved.
On top of all that, the German military did not believe they had been defeated in battle, they thought they had been victorious, except for the politicians' "stab in the back." So there were many predictions at the time that, sooner or later, Germany would have another go at it -- Round Two.
And all that was while young Adolf Hitler was still a corporal recovering from wounds in a German hospital!
Bottom line: Versailles was irrelevant. The Germans were going to have another go at it, sooner or later, regardless of what treaty they were forced to sign in 1919.
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