760F.62/542
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this morning to make a “tour of the horizon” as usual, but in this case a prolonged one, since he is sailing tomorrow for France for a vacation.
The Ambassador read to me a good many communications which his Government had sent him informing him of the reports and opinions of French diplomatic representatives in Europe. None of them contained anything of importance beyond what our own missions had reported to the Department, with the exception of a very long and extremely interesting report sent to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs by Monsieur François-Poncet, French Ambassador in Berlin, under date of July 19.
In this report Monsieur François-Poncet stated that Hitler had instructed the General Staff to take steps to place the German Army in a state of preparation such as to make immediate mobilization possible. At the meeting of the Council at which these orders were given, General Goering and Ribbentrop had supported Hitler’s view as to the desirability of these orders, but the Generals of the General Staff and Dr. Goebbels97 had been opposed on the ground that the western fortifications were not yet completed and that there were certain deficiencies in munitions which rendered any immediate action on the part of the German Army inadvisable. Hitler, nevertheless, insisted that the orders must be carried out.
François-Poncet went on to say that Hitler was passing through a very disquieting mental and moral condition. He said that Hitler was filled with venom on account of the loss of prestige which he and his Government had suffered on May 21st, and that he was determined that a “miserable little country”—as Hitler is alleged to term Czechoslovakia—should not be able to put Germany in such a position. François-Poncet then went on into an analysis of Hitler, and made the significant comment that while Hitler at times was frightened by the idea of a general European war, at other times he was allured by such a prospect when visioning Germany as triumphant and as dominating the whole of Europe. François-Poncet said that Hitler was completely unreliable and thoroughly double-faced, as he had been proved as a result of the Austrian occupation when at the same time that he was making professions of good faith to the Austrian [Page 62] Government, he was completing every military arrangement for the military occupation. François-Poncet insists that Hitler is pursuing the same line now; that at the very moment that he is sending an emissary98 to London to urge better relations between Germany and England, he is completing in every detail his military arrangements for the occupation of Czechoslovakia and is merely endeavoring to persuade England and British public opinion that he wants peace in order to make it more difficult for Great Britain to move with rapidity when he makes his attack upon Czechoslovakia.
Monsieur François-Poncet then continued with an analysis of the German situation. He said that there was noticeable an increasing apathy on the part of the German public towards the Nazi party and growing discontent on the part of the German people in general. He called attention to the ever-increasing unfavorable German trade balance, to the increasingly unsatisfactory state of the mark and of exchange, and to the fact that so many Germans were occupied in munitions factories, in public works, and in “artificial industries” as to have resulted in an actual shortage of farm labor this year, so that the German crops would be decidedly less than what they otherwise might have been. He concluded his estimate of the situation by stating that in the military sense Germany would not be prepared for war for another year, and as a postscript to his report added that upon the insistence of the German General Staff the order for near mobilization upon which Hitler had insisted had been revoked by Hitler twenty-four hours after the original order had been given. François-Poncet had insisted, however, that Hitler had revoked this order with the understanding that the order would be once more issued before the end of August, and François-Poncet stated that he was convinced that Germany would move against Czechoslovakia before the date of the Nuremberg Conference.
I asked the French Ambassador if he had any word which would show that Monsieur François-Poncet had revised his estimate as a result of the visit of the British King and Queen to Paris and as a result of Lord Runciman’s trip to Prague. He replied that François-Poncet was now on vacation at Gastein and that subsequent reports had come from the French Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin, all of which had indicated a more optimistic point of view.
The Ambassador discussed the Spanish and the Far Eastern situation, but had no information with regard to either of them. He spoke at some length about the Italian situation and informed me that not only Suvich, the Italian Ambassador here, but also all the members of his staff, as well as Count Fumasoni Biondi, the representative in Washington of the Stefani press service, had expressed themselves [Page 63] in no guarded terms to him and to the Counselor of his Embassy as being absolutely opposed to Mussolini’s newly announced policy of persecuting the Jews and of antagonizing the Vatican. He said he took this as an indication that Italian public opinion in general was becoming more and more unfavorable to the recent policies which Mussolini and Count Ciano had adopted.
The Ambassador spoke of the pending negotiations between France and the United States regarding the treaty with Morocco,99 of which the Ambassador had spoken with Mr. Murray, and regarding the trans-Atlantic aviation service. He said he hoped that upon his return to Washington on October 15 these two matters might be taken up.
- Josef Goebbels, German Minister for National Enlightenment and Propaganda.↩
- Capt. Fr. Wiedemann, retired, personal aide-de-camp to Adolf Hitler.↩
- See vol. ii, pp. 846 ff.↩