The Hitler–Hess Deception. Martin Allen
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Название: The Hitler–Hess Deception
Автор: Martin Allen
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007438211
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At this meeting Dahlerus was informed that the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax ‘could conceive of no peace offer likely to come from the German government that could even be considered … and that the British government could not … define their attitude to an offer of which they did not know the nature’.
On 12 October 1939, the report went on, Dahlerus had transmitted the final details of Germany’s very comprehensive peace offer. These included the information that Hitler was prepared to discuss the Polish situation, non-aggression pacts, disarmament, colonies, economic questions and frontiers. Indeed, Dahlerus even communicated that ‘Hitler had taxed the patience of the German people over the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and that if Göring, as the chief negotiator, secured peace, Hitler could not risk acting counter to these national undertakings.’17
This comprehensive peace initiative was kept secret in both Germany and Britain. However, even while admitting these details for ‘President Roosevelt’s Eyes Only’ in 1941, the British government was still sensitive enough about the subject to conceal certain details about what had taken place. To the uninitiated, Dahlerus’s efforts at peace in 1939 appeared a damp squib that had fizzled out. Yet there had been much more to them than the British government was prepared to admit to the American President.
During 1938, Neville Chamberlain had, with much effort, negotiated comprehensive deals with Hitler. Hitler, however, had shown a dangerous penchant for negotiating agreements and then reneging on them as soon as it suited his purposes. He wasn’t, as one diplomat later remarked, a gentleman. Chamberlain had therefore, not unnaturally, developed a marked sensitivity about being seen to negotiate again with the Nazis, whilst at the same time exhorting the British people to prepare themselves to make great sacrifices. Thus the report to Roosevelt, at a time when America was still neutral and Britain could not afford even to hint at the possibility of negotiating with the Nazis, for fear of losing American support, concealed the fact that Dahlerus had been involved in Hitler’s attempts to prevent war before the conflict had started. As consummate politician and diarist, close friend of Britain’s high and mighty, Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon commented two days before Germany’s invasion of Poland, on 28 August 1939: ‘Mr D[ahlerus] and a Mr Spencer have it appears been negotiating secretly here … I doubt the validity of the Walrus’s [Dahlerus’s] credentials, but he is taken seriously by Halifax, and a secret plane transported the two emissaries here, with special facilities at the airport.’18
Exactly one month later, on 28 September, Channon recorded that Dahlerus, having been to Berlin to consult with Hitler, was back in London for another secret meeting – a meeting that would not be mentioned in the information released to Roosevelt: ‘Very Secret. “The Walrus” is in London. He arrived today by plane and this time his visit is known to Hitler. Halifax and others are seeing him this afternoon. No-one knows of this. What nefarious message does he bring?’
The following day, Channon noted:
The fabulously mysterious ‘Walrus’ … was interviewed secretly yesterday … This morning he walked about the Foreign Office openly. Also Cadogan had a talk with him and a report of their conversation was given to Lord Halifax, who read it I believe, at the War Cabinet … The French, always realistic, say ‘we had better make peace as we can never restore Poland to its old frontiers, and how indeed should we ever dislodge the Russians from Poland even if we succeeded in ousting the Germans?’19
However, in the atmosphere of diplomatic and international distrust that had developed by October 1939, British contemplation of negotiating peace with Hitler quickly began to evaporate. Dahlerus’s initiative failed, and the war continued unabated.
This, however, did not mean that Hitler gave up on the idea, and he continued secretly trying to find a negotiated end to the simmering conflict in the west before it came to the boil, ruining his timetable for eastern conquest. In truth he had no choice. He had found himself fighting the wrong war.
This situation led, between the summers of 1939 and 1941, to the British government receiving a great many German peaceable approaches. A substantial number of these can be discounted, for they included such low-level attempts as the German Chargé d’Affaires in Washington contacting the British Ambassador to inform him that ‘if desired he could obtain from Berlin Germany’s present peace terms’.20 On another occasion the British Legation to the Holy See reported that the Vatican would be prepared to arbitrate between Britain and Germany ‘through the Apostolic Delegate on the subject of Germany’s peace offer’.21
Indeed, reports on the possibilities of peace were submitted back to London from far and wide – even from distant Angora, where Ambassador Sir Hugh Knatchbull-Hugessen reported that the ‘Netherlands Minister has sent me the following information regarding a conversation between Herr von Papen and Herr Hitler during the former’s recent visit to Berlin’. He went on to tell his seniors at the Foreign Office that ‘Herr Hitler discussed [with von Papen his] possible terms of peace’.22
Each one of these reports required the attention of an Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office and the creation of its own file, and so became counted in the plethora of peaceable attempts made to the British government by German nationals or well-meaning neutrals. There were so many of these little snippets of peaceable intent that the whole matter of peace in 1939, 1940 and 1941 becomes rather a jumble, and to a large extent the important – real – peaceable moves made at this time have become hidden amongst all these lesser ones. However, it is possible to refine the plethora of peaceable initiatives down to just a few nuggets of gold – those that were stamped with the hallmark of Hitler.
There were basically three distinct strata to the peaceable attempts. The vast majority were low-level suggestions made by neutrals, junior German diplomats or the odd German official at loose in a neutral state. The second stratum, which was of some interest to the Foreign Office, emanated from respected neutrals, such as the King of Sweden, and upper-echelon German nationals, such as former War Minister Otto Gessler and even top Nazis such as Goebbels. These pitches for peace were made with an eye to the credit that would accrue to their originators, particularly with Hitler, if they brought Germany peace.
There was however, a third stratum of peaceable attempts, and these were of a different ilk altogether. They were top-grade offers that received the personal attention of the Foreign Secretary, and frequently the Prime Minister as well. Furthermore, there were occasions when these attempts were of such importance that they required the Prime Minister to consult the dominion heads of government in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa before they could be rejected.
The most intriguing fact about these top-grade offers is not only that they clearly emanated from Adolf Hitler himself, transmitted to the British authorities through his own personal emissaries, but that there was a discernible pattern to them. As each attempt failed or began to flounder, a new one was immediately initiated through another avenue to replace it, thereby creating an almost unbroken chain of peaceable attempts from the summer of 1939.
It was a situation that caused much interest and speculation within Britain’s Foreign Office and Intelligence Services. By the summer of 1940 it was realised that these secret Hitler-initiated attempts at peace mediation revealed a psychological flaw deep within the Führer’s character that Britain could, with skill and guile, exploit to Germany’s disadvantage.
Even as it became clear to Hitler that Birger Dahlerus’s attempts at mediation in September-October 1939 would fail, moves began to open another channel to the British government. However, the German Führer was still a relative novice at the art of opening secret lines of communication to Britain’s leadership, and rather than stepping СКАЧАТЬ