[Homer_J_Simpson]

If you would like to be added to or deleted from the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list, send me a freepmail. You can also search for these articles by the keyword realtime, going back to the first one on January 27, 2008. These articles are posted on the 70th anniversary of their original publication date. See my profile for additional information.

[dfwgator]

Gee, I wonder how well those talks worked out?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Nothing fun like U-Boats today. But this is important, too.

. . . there is good reason to believe such missions will come and that their conversations, paralleling those of the diplomats, may hasten the final decision as to the pact.

Wrong-o. The final decision has already been made.

[GeronL]

bump

[Mike Darancette]

Tick, Tick, Tick,.........Tick

[Mike Darancette]

Tick, Tick, Tick,.........Tick

[BroJoeK]

"Berlin:... The report by a special committee of the British Government appointed to investigate food-supply conditions evoked Foreign Office criticism here.

"The report is held to demonstrate that the uncounted millions in the British Emprie lead "a wretched, joyless existence," according to the Diplomatisch-Politische Korrespondans, because of "lack of training and scarcity of all kinds of necessities.

"Colonial work that leads to such result certainly cannot be cited as exemplary," it continues, "whereas the German colonial policy in a relatively short time achieved many great successes in the field of hygiene -- for example, in sleeping sickness -- whose beneficent after-effects are still perceivable in the Dark Continent.

"...The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung suggests that "the British would have more than enough to do were they to care for the people in their own world empire, instead of interfering in Germany's living space in Central Europe."

Well, well... isn't it touching, the Nazis deep concerns for hygiene amongst colonial populations. Possibly these concerns will find future expression as the Nazis expand their "living space in Central Europe." Didn't I hear they are building factories to produce a potent new delousing chemical -- Zyklon B, right? No doubt it will do wonders "improving hygiene" in Central Europe... < /sarc >

[Homer_J_Simpson]

On July 23, France and Britain had finally agreed to Russia’s proposal that military-staff talks be held at once to draw up a military convention which would spell out specifically how Hitler’s armies were to be met by the three nations. Although Chamberlain did not announce this agreement until July 31, when he made it to the House of Commons, the Germans got wind of it earlier. On July 28 Ambassador von Welczeck in Paris wired Berlin that the had learned from “an unusually well-informed source” that France and Britain were dispatching military missions to Moscow and that the French group would be headed by General Doumenc, whom he described as being “a particularly capable officer” and a former Deputy Chief of Staff under General Maxime Weygand. It was the German ambassador’s impression, as he stated in a supplementary dispatch two days later, that Paris and London had agreed to military-staff talks as a last means of preventing the adjournment of the Moscow negotiations.

It was a well-founded impression. As the confidential British Foreign Office papers make clear, the political talks in Moscow had reached an impasse by the last week in July largely over the impossibility of reaching a definition of “indirect aggression.” To the British and French the Russian interpretation of that term was so broad that it might be used to justify Soviet intervention in Finland and the Baltic States even if there were no serious Nazi threat, and to this London at least – the French were prepared to be more accommodating – would not agree.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

[fredhead]

Please remove me from the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list.

I view these at work, and photobucket is blocked.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

(Continued from July 26)

Thus in the late-evening hours of July 26 in a small Berlin restaurant over good food and wine partaken by second-string diplomats was Germany’s first serious bid for a deal with Soviet Russia made. The new line which Schnurre took had been given him by Ribbentrop himself. Astakhov was pleased to hear it. He promised Schnurre that he would report it at once to Moscow.

In the Wilhelmstrasse the Germans waited impatiently to see what the reaction in the Soviet capital would be. Three days later, on July 29, Weizsaecker sent a secret dispatch by courier to Schulenburg in Moscow.

It would be important for us to know whether the remarks made to Astakhov and Babarin have met with any response in Moscow. If you see an opportunity of arranging a further conversation with Molotov, please sound him out on the same lines. If this results in Molotov abandoning the reserve he has so far maintained you could go a step further . . . This applies in particular to the Polish problem. We would be prepared, however the Polish problem may develop . . . to safeguard all Soviet interests and to come to an understanding with the Government in Moscow. In the Baltic question, too, if the talks took a positive course, the idea could be advanced of so adjusting our attitude to the Baltic States as to respect vital Soviet interests in the Baltic Sea.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

[Homer_J_Simpson]

7/29/39 Update at reply #20.