1 have no doubt that such. and other considerations were present in early hours of the was in a position at such a moment to give me so much of his time. He had a few days before been made president of the new German Defence Council for the Reich (or War Cabinet) and he could scarcely have afforded at such a moment to spare time in conversation if it did not mean that everything down to the lust detail was now ready for action.
Incidentally the composition of that council was evidence of Herr Hitler's acumen. He had selected for it all the most respectable of the Nazi leaders, such as Herr Trick, Dr. Lammers, Dr. Funk, who might be counted upon, with Field-Marshal Góering himself the most popular of them all with the general public, to inspire the confidence of the German people. The worst extremists and the most unpopular with the people were omitted from it. To them was to be confided the less enviable task of dealing with the neutrals, of organizing the Interior and of ruthlessly repressing any internal discontent, My general impression of this talk with Field-Marshal Goering was, in fact, that it constituted a final but forlorn effort on his part to detach Britain from the Poles, Nevertheless the Field-Marshal seemed sincere when, having been called to the telephone, he returned to tell us that M. Lipski was on his way to see Herr von Ribbon: trap. He seemed to hope that, provided contact was only established, war might after all prove unnecessary. The meeting between the Polish Ambassador proved, however, quite futile, M. Lipski stated that he was acting solely in his capacity as an Ambassador without plenary powers to discuss or to negotiate, and handed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs a brief communication to the effect that the Polish Government were weighing favourably the proposal of His Majesty's Government for direct discussion and that a formal answer in this matter would be communicated to the German Government in the immediate future. He did not ask for the German proposals and Herr von Ribbentrop did not offer to give them to him. Their meeting lasted but a few minutes. actual decision had been taken to order the advance of the German Polish Plenipotentiary had arrived by midday or 1 pin. if no
before then. I believe this information to have been accurate, and I attribute the further brief respite efforts of the Italian po cee to which ensued to the twelfth-hour
had in the mí&antime obtained Herr Hitler from war.
from another source more definite, if
proposals, and these I at once com-unauthorized, details of German municated through the Counsellor of His Majesty's Embassy to the Polish Ambassador, who spent that morning jon the telephone to Warsaw. About the middle of the day I had transmitted to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs a further message from His Majesty's Government to the German Government notifying them that the Polish Government were taking steps fo establish contact with them
Berlin, and asking them to agree to ihe Polish Arties at an immediate provisional modus pivendt at Danzig, lor which purpose Mermediary. To this communication Burckhardt was suggested as ina Plenipotentiary em-wered by the Polish Government conduct and conclude negotiations not.
On no other terms was ed to postpone action. ready and Poland must lesson. She must crawl
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.