On this day the German ambassador in Washington, Hans Dieckhoff, was recalled to Berlin and never returned.
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.
These are very interesting. Continued thanks.
“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
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.)