Posted on 01/05/2009 7:34:24 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
[When] the Fuehrer received the Polish Foreign Minister at Berchtesgaden shortly after New Years's - on January 5, 1939 - he was not yet prepared to give him the treatment which he had meted out to Schuschnigg and was shortly to apply to President Hacha. The rest of Czechoslovakia would have to be liquidated first. Hitler, as the secret Polish and German minutes of the meeting make clear, was in one of his more conciliatory moods. He was "quite ready," he bagan, "to be at Beck's service." Was there anything "special," he asked, on the Polish Foerign Minister's mind? Beck replied that Danzig was on his mind. It became obvious that it had also been on Hitler's.
"Danzig is German," the Fuehrer reminded his guest, "will always remain German, and will sooner or later become part of Germany." He could give the assurance, however, that "no fait accompli would be engineerered in Danzig."
He wanted Danzig and he wanted a German highway and railroad across the Corridor. If he and Beck would "depart from old patterns and seek solutions along entirely new lines," he was sure they could reach an agreement which would do justice to both countries.
Beck was not so sure. Though, as he confided to Ribentrop the next day, he did not want to be too blunt with the Fuhree, he had replied that "the Danzig problem was a very difficult one." He did not see in the Chancllor's suggestion any "equivalent" for Poland. Hitler thereupon pointed out the "great advantage" to Poland "of having her frontier with Germany, including the corridor, secured by treaty." This apparently did not impress Beck, but in thh end he agreed to think the problem over further.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall fo the Third Reich , p. 457.
thanks
Looks like New Zealand is cutting imports drastically. Though the article title singles out Japan, it looks like they are hitting everyone.
Czech plan for 10,000 refugees - Jan 5, 1939
Ten thousand refugees from Germany, Austria and the Sudeten areas are to leave Czechoslovakia in the near future. The emigration will be largely financed out of the British £10,000,000 loan to Czechoslovakia.
More here - Telegraph - UK
If I remember, FDR first told everyone he would not run in 1940, but then it transpired as the convention grew close that his party "demanded" he stand for reelection, and so, well, what else could he do? ;-)
From the tone of these articles, the US sounds so locked in the grip of liberalism, it makes you dizzy & gasping for breath. Or maybe that's just the NY Times, then as now?
These stories are more proof that nothing ever changes, really.
I see someone complaining about votes not being counted!
It was the wars in Europe ans China that won the 1940 election for FDR. He simply had more experience than Wendell Wilkie did.
After mulling it over that night, the Polish Foriegn Minister had a talk with Ribbentrop the next day [January 6, 1939] in Munich. He requested him to inform the Fuehrer that whereas all his previous talks with the Germans had filled him with optimism, he was today, after his meeting with Hitler, "for the first time in a pessimistic mood." Particularly in regard to Danzig, as it had been raised by the Chancellor, he "saw no possibility whatever of agreement."
It had taken Colonel Beck, like so many others who have figured in these pages, some time to awaken and to arrive at such a pessimistic view. Like most Poles, he was violently anti-Russian. Moreover, he disliked the French, for whom he had nursed a grudge since 1923, when, as Polish military attache in Paris, he had been expelled for allegedly selling documents relating to the French Army. Perhaps it had been natural for this man, who had become Polish Foreign Minister in November 1932, to turn to Germany. For the Nazi dictatorship he had felt a warm sympathy from the beginning, and over the past six years he had striven to bring his country closer to the Third Reich and to weaken its traditional ties with France.
Willaim L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Thrid Reich, p. 457
On the surface there is every reason for Beck to throw in his lot with Hitler. But in the end it appears he still could see that it would be to his country’s detrement to do so and turned away. Of course that still did not work out for Poland other than finally getting the western powers to wake up and stand up against Hitler (after Poland’s destruction unfortunately).
Reading the long article on NY Gov. Lehman’s programs was a hoot. Especially Lehman’s plan to convene a “special commission” to study the growth of “bureaucracy.” Hahahahahaha! Like that worked out real well!
Shirer and the people around him did have their own agenda, though. If I remember correctly, he was far more inclined to put his trust in the Left than the Right, assuming that the military regimes were all more or less fascistic.
This comes out in his treatment of the Dolfuss-Schussnig regime in Austria. Shirer went pretty close to the party line in his condemnation of that anti-Hitler government. The regime may have been as bad as he said, but other writers saw things differently.
Good points but having read Shirer’s works I would say that the extreme that he went with the Dolfuss regiem was not the norm for him. Now don’t get me wrong, when reading his work you do detect a slight left scew to his presentation, but it is still mostly just straight forward “as I saw it” writing. What he didn’t experience first hand he research extensively from the loads of Nazi documentation that was captured after the war.
Like I said though, I cant say he was completely non-bias (who could be honestly) but he was definitely no Howard Zinn either.
I so wish FR and the net existed back then.
Some posit by being anti-war Wilkie could have won.
I'll say again, until near the 1940 Democratic convention, Roosevelt was not expected to run for a third term. After all, it had never been done before. He had even told James Farley that Farley could run, becuase FDR would not.
Had Willkie faced some lesser name in Democrat politics, like John Nance Garner or James Farley, Willkie could well have won.
Remember, the Republican convention was in late June 1940, while the Democrats held theirs in mid-July. So the Republicans didn't know for certain who Willkie would be running against.
Willkie, an internationalist (read: supported FDR's policies), was the Dark Horse candidate. Two of his rivals -- Taft and Vandenberg were strong isolationists.
But by June 1940 Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium & France had fallen to Nazi blitzkrieg, and Britain was widely thought to be the next victim. So isolationism was beginning to lose some of its appeal.
Willkie favored sending all aid to the British, "short of declaring war." In 1940, that is exactly what the majority of Americans wanted.
Garner was to the right of Wilkie I would say so Wilkie beating him wouldn’t have been a good thing.
And there was that crazy story about him and Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.