862.00/2870
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
I told the German Ambassador that Mr. Sackett is sailing today for Germany,42 since he felt there were likely to be rather important political changes shortly and that he ought to be there. The Ambassador said he was very glad he was going directly back, although he did not think there were going to be any violent setbacks. I told him Mr. Sackett felt the same way, but that he felt it would be necessary to let out Von Papen and that he wanted to be on hand whatever happened. The Ambassador said he agreed that Papen would have to leave because there was no possibility of getting him and Hitler together, whereas Hitler might be willing to cooperate with some other Nationalist leader. He said that there should be at the present time a strong Nationalist Government and that such a Government would be much better off with a majority in the Reichstag, a majority very easy to form if the Nazis would cooperate with the Nationalists and the Centralists. I said that I thought it would be hard for Hugenberg to cooperate with anybody and he said this was true, but that a large group of the Nationalist Party was so eager [Page 318] to cooperate in the Government that he thought it would be possible for the present simply to say that this cooperation must come about and that Hugenberg, therefore, would have to step down and out. Evidently the Ambassador feels that the present Government, or rather a Government exactly similar to the present but without Papen, will carry on with the Reichstag back of it. Mr. Sackett told me yesterday—needless to say I did not repeat his remark to the German Ambassador—that he felt the Government would carry on without the Reichstag and that the number of communists had so greatly increased that it was obviously important at the moment to have a strongly centralized more or less military Government.
- Ambassador Sackett was in the United States on leave from October 4 to November 12.↩