852.01/149: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received November 19—3:57 p.m.]
342. The action by Italian and German Governments yesterday appears a step in the direction toward which we have for some time feared the two countries were tending. If the recognition is to give [Page 561] Franco moral support with a view to speeding up the capture of Madrid it can scarcely but involve Italian and German prestige. Having recognized Franco as conqueror when this is yet to be proved, Mussolini and Hitler must see to it that he is successful or be associated with a failure. This a dictator can ill afford to do. The recognition at this stage may mean therefore that a decision has been taken by Mussolini and Hitler to go the whole way in helping Franco and to prevent at all costs the establishment of a separate Moscow sympathetic government in Catalonia, et cetera.
We have been watching this Spanish situation for some time from Berlin with growing apprehension. While we have felt that Hitler was glad to use it in his anti-Communist campaign, we doubted that he was personally desirous for the situation to develop critically or dangerously. As indicated in our 332, November 14, noon,96 we think Hitler’s principal preoccupation is Central Europe. But we fear that Hitler may be letting himself be led by Mussolini and the Italian rapprochement into adopting a decisive attitude regarding Spain. We have been feeling for some time—and there is reason to believe that many Germans in the Foreign Office and elsewhere share the view—that the Mussolini connection might prove unfortunate as having a too stimulating effect on Hitler’s adventurous instincts and more especially act as a spur and support to those more rash influential personalities about Hitler. For example, Bohle97 who has been increasing in influence lately has just returned from a “glorious” visit to Rome. Hitler’s great weakness is his venturesome nature which he has managed ably to restrain thus far except to take reasonable chances such as the reoccupation of the Rhineland. But if Mussolini’s cynicalism and calculated daring are added to the Hitlerian pot the brew becomes pretty volatile and doubly dangerous.
There is good reason for believing that the Foreign Office wanted to limit its support of Franco to the negative actions of withdrawal of the German Chargé dAffaires until Franco took Madrid. The positive step by Germany yesterday goes much farther and as indicated gives the unhappy impression that the die is being cast for a full dress support of Franco despite the statement credited to the Foreign Office press section reported in the last paragraph of my 338, November 18, 8 p.m.98 The arrest of numerous Germans in Russia may have exerted an influence as it may have given the more radical element around Hitler just that impetus to push things over the line.
[Page 562]Parenthetically the effect on the Blum government of Salengro’s99 suicide may be another important factor in the rapidity of development of the Spanish situation as viewed from Berlin.
Cipher text mailed to London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Praha, Riga, Istanbul.
- Not printed.↩
- Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, head of the Foreign Organization of the National Socialist Party of Germany.↩
- Not printed; the statement under reference was to the effect that “this action does not change German Government’s position regarding non-interference agreement.” (852.01/144)↩
- Roger Salengro, French Minister of Interior.↩