862.00/3579: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:25 p.m.]
78. Please show to the President. Perhaps brief explanation of situation here may be of some benefit. There are two groups. One of these headed by Goering with Goebbels support in spite of former hostilities. This group has great ambitions and intense hatreds. They have been ready to support Mussolini in the hope of annexing Austria. The other group is headed by Von Neurath a representative of the old régime and supported by Schacht whose economic situation is always dangerous. These men are in accord with the older generals of the Reichswehr. They have favored negotiations about the Rhine zone, colonies and reentrance into the League. Peace is to them, even high army people, the first objective at least for 2 years.
Hitler assumes the role of an arbitrator, his attitude always supposed to be taken only after listening to the arguments of both groups. But he has many times denounced the Treaty of Versailles as the worst ever written yet proclaimed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk2 as admirable. This causes statesmen, if we have such in Europe, to doubt even the most solemn promises of the Chancellor. One sees then how Mussolini’s war upon Ethiopia offered a possibility here. The French had promised the Duce a free hand in January 1935 the English hardly aware that Mussolini’s aim was ultimately to annex [Page 250] Egypt but quite conscious of the Italian aircraft danger. When the issue became acute in September the great majority of the Germans seemed to me hopeful that the hated Italians would fail and the dictatorship there collapse many of them counting on escape here from their own dictatorship. They looked, therefore, to the United States for assistance to League sanctions with great expectations. It would be the first real setback of dictatorships—the avoidance of another European war. Hitler and Germany zealously watched events most anxiously from September to December, conversations here always anxious but hopeful of a better day.
Then came the Hoare-Laval performance and the news that the United States washed its hands for good and have nothing at all to do with Europe. The aggressive elements here began to press the Chancellor to profit from the dangers in the Mediterranean and the growing difficulties between England and France. They would denounce the Franco-Soviet pact, have their colonies restored, march again into the Rhine zone and perhaps please England by returning to the declining League. From the middle of December to the first of March the two groups contended here for a decision by the Chancellor, the strength of the Nazi party declining because of religious and economic dangers.
The situations offered Hitler a great opportunity. He would make utmost use of the Italian situation, challenge France by sending troops into the Rhine zone, denounce the Russian Peace Pact in violent speech with a probable Japanese understanding, conciliate England by talking about returning to the League and touching some Americans by talking about Woodrow Wilson. The generals yielded, Von Neurath and Schacht surrendered, and German militarism and hatreds were aroused. It was the best time to call for another national mandate in favor of the dictatorship. Nearly everybody fell into line. France and England cannot agree, Mussolini gives out pro-German statements and Poland is afraid to make a move until actual war breaks. It is dictator Europe against Western Europe, the German people offering more of a solid front than at any time since 1914. Hitler means in my judgment to give the appearance of peaceful cooperation for a year or two and then apply the medieval claims to the Danube zone all the way to the Black Sea.
If Germany supports Italy’s plan to be another Roman Empire and Italy yields to Germany’s plan to dominate the Balkan zone what can the conference in London do?
- Signed March 3, 1918; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. i, p. 442.↩