In accordance with Herr Hitler's usual technique everything was done by the German authorities to prove to the German public that it was the Poles who had been the aggressors instead of the aggressed. Cynical notices were communicated at 7 am. to His Majesty's Embassy notifying me that the Bay of Danzig was closed both to navigation and to flying in view of the possibility of military operations "against hostile attacks by Polish naval forces or by Polish aircraft" Field-Marshal Göring also sent me a message to say that the Poles had begun the war by blowing up the bridge across the Vistula at Dirchau, while Herr Hitler himself issued a proclamation to the German army, declaring that the Polish State had refused the settlement which he offered and had appealed to arms, that. ihe Germans in Poland were being persecuted by a bloody terror, and ihat the Poles were no longer willing to respect the frontier of the German Reich. Every German newspaper repeated the lie that it was the Poles who had begun the fighting. Finally at 1030 am. Herr Hitler met the Reichstag which had been summoned for that hour, and similarly announced to the assembled Delegates that he had been "forced to take up arms in defence of the Reich." The die had in fact been cast and never can there have been or ever be a case of more deliberate and carefully planned aggression.
Late that evening I was instructed by your Lordship to notify the German Government that the latter by their action had created conditions which called for the implementation by the Governments of the United Kingdom and France of their under-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.