Rohde - Negotiations with a Madman: Trying to Stop a War in 1939

Negotiations with a Madman:

Trying to Stop a War in 1939

Edited by Aleksandra Miesak Rohde

Source text originally printed in Great Britain, 1939

Reprinted in the United States, 2014 by

Silver Spring, Maryland

Copyright 201 4 Aleksandra M. Rohde

All rights reserved.

Could anyone have reasoned with Hitler and prevented the wide scale carnage of World War II? Could diplomacy proceed when the person on the other side of the table was emotionally unstable, his demands as changing as his emotional mood swings? Could there have been a rational argument for someone undeterred by the threat of death or risk of annihilation of his people? And when all else fails, how could one explain to a war-weary people the necessity to go to war again?

Negotiations with a Madman : Trying to Stop a War in 1939 answers these questions and more, as it takes the reader on a breathless journey of the tumultuous politics of 1939, through the eyes of the people at the center of the increasingly desperate and ultimately unsuccessful negotiations. Despite the heroic actions of sane and capable men with the best intentions; in the end, Hitler walked away from the negotiating table just as his troops marched into Poland on 1 September. Still, captured in this book are the high hopes and dogged pursuit of peace that might cause the reader to shake his head and sadly ponder, what if

Based on a Report to Parliament by the British Foreign Office in 1939, this book contains the Report in its entirety, including a treasure trove of verbatim documentstranscriptions of riveting speeches, confidential communiqus, and sensitive diplomatic cables of Chamberlain, Hitler, von Ribbentrop that catalogue the deterioration of once cordial meetings into testy ultimatums, temper tantrums, and finally, desperate pleas. Each document is introduced by a summary statement that connects its relevance to the larger story of attempted conciliations, cynical alliances, deceitful manipulations, and lost opportunities.

Also included is the Government s list of principal persons mentioned in the documents, for easy reference.

U nderstanding of this chaotic and critical time is further enhanced by the addition of a poignant introduction from the Polish point of view.

We at National Defense Studies publish new, rare and out of print books of European and military history related to the first half of the 20th century, a transformational age for technology, politics and the military art. We dust off lost corners of history, where old books filled with eye-witness accounts, expert analysis and a world view tempered by experience, had been stacked and forgotten. It is the very people who lived it and wrote about it that we want to introduce to our readers for consideration, added knowledge and understanding. Therefore, consistent with our mission, we proudly present Negotiations with a Madman: Trying to Stop a War in 1939.

A LEKSANDRA MIESAK ROHDE

January, 2014

The hottest months in Poland are June, July, and August. They are also the rainiest, with more than an even chance of grey skies, heavy rains and thunderstorms. But August 1939 was unusually sunny and dry. It was a rural country, much of it covered by lakes, marshes, rivers or dense forests. Even the lowlands proved difficult for travel due to the scarcity of good roads, bridges and railways.

The usual late summer rains would have swelled the rivers, making crossings even more difficult. They would have transformed dirt roads into bogs of slippery mud, more suited to horse and foot travel than to tanks and heavy artillery.

But this was an unusually warm and dry August. The rivers were shallower and easier to cross. The roads were dry, without a trace of the legendary Polish mud. The sky was blue and the visibility clear to the horizon, a pilot s dream.

Some Poles noticed an item in the paper about the Germans and Soviets signing a Nonaggression Pact. Every Polish school child knew their history by heart, especially the part about the Germans and Russians. Some feared this was a bad omen.

Some thought the possibility of another war was highly unlikely, especially since Germany had been beaten so soundly in the Great War and made to pay for it dearly at the Treaty of Versailles, with the loss of valuable territories, exorbitant reparations and significant downsizing of its military forces. Surely they wouldnt be foolhardy enough to try it again. The Treaty of Versailles also confirmed Polands independence after 120 years of partitions and occupations, when it did not officially exist, not even on maps.

Every senior Polish officer in 1939 had been trained and served not in a Polish Army, which did not exist during the partitions, but instead the Armies of the occupying powers. If one was a Pole living in western Poland he saluted smartly and followed orders in the Prussian Army. In eastern Poland he followed Russian Army orders. In the south, it was Austro-Hungarian orders.

But after the Treaty of Versailles and the Battle of Warsaw, where Marshal Jzef Pisudski stopped the advancing Russians at the edge of the city, Poland had regained almost all the land it had lost in the partitions. But an uneasy relationship remained between Poland and its neighbors to the east and west.

There were rumors of spies and Fifth Columnists working with the Germans and Russians to undermine Poland from within. Some worried, despite the Treaty of Versailles and the assurances of allies like the British and the French. After all, the treaty was just a piece of paper and that would not stop a madman.

Many Poles dismissed the political intrigue as only a chess game. But Polish government officials and military leaders were growing more wary with every Nazi aggressionthe militarization of the Rhineland in 1936, the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 and the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

A blind man could see where the Nazis were headed next. Britain and France repeatedly assured their nervous Polish ally that if Poland were attacked, they would rise to her defense. France assured Poland it would come to Poland s defense within two weeks of any attack. But in return, they cautioned, Poland must not do anything that would be considered provocative.

Most especially, Poland was to restrain from mobilizing its young men to increase the size of its military. So the Poles watched and waited, in hopes that the Germans would not do what Poles were certain they would.

Meanwhile, Polands regular military force was making do with what little they had. A few divisions and a cavalry brigade had been put at full strength after the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in March. Reservists were called in for exercises to boost personnel along the western borders. The third week of August a few more divisions and a cavalry brigade were put at full strength.

The Polish Navy evacuated most of its surface ships to the United Kingdom, just in case. Polish Air Force flew their planes to secret airstrips, to protect them from surprise attack. Concerned military officers were making arrangements for their families, to move them away from the vulnerable borders to small towns deeper inside Polish territories, where they hoped it would be safer.

The fourth week, Polish military intelligence estimated there were over a million German troops massed at the borders, with their modern tanks, planes, trucks and artillery glistening at the ready. Alarmed Polish commanders began to transport the bulk of their regular infantry and cavalry divisions by train and truck to the west. But they were clearly outnumbered, so on August 29 the military declared a full mobilization of all eligible Polish men only to abruptly cancel it on the same day. The Polish government and the French and British Ambassadors had objected it could only provoke the Germans further.