760C.62/827
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State23
The Polish Ambassador called to see me this afternoon upon his return to the United States after a month’s stay in Poland.
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With regard to the prospects during the next few weeks, the Ambassador said that Colonel Beck was inclined to believe that war would not break out. He said it was Beck’s impression that Hitler was becoming gradually convinced that the risks of a general war were too great for Germany to force the issue and that, while Ribbentrop was still continually telling Hitler that England and France would not fight over Danzig, the Polish Government knew that the German generals had informed Hitler two weeks ago that, while if the war could be limited to a war between Poland and Germany, Germany would win easily, if the war involved England and France the German generals could give no assurances of any kind to Hitler as to the outcome. He said that Hitler was beginning to get information from sources other than Ribbentrop which was leading him to feel that England and France would fight with Poland should Poland fight on the Danzig issue.
Beck believed that Germany would probably not risk war over Danzig but would continue for an indefinite period its present policy of constant provocation of Poland without going to the extreme limit. Beck believed it was far more likely that Hitler before the middle of September would bring about the downfall of the Hungarian Government, [Page 207] replacing it with a government completely subservient to Germany, and then spend the next six months in amalgamating the position so obtained in order to make it easier for Germany to attack Poland when the time came through Hungary and Slovakia and in the same manner obtain a more preponderant position in southeastern Europe.
I asked the Ambassador what solution his Government saw to the present situation since it would clearly seem incredible that mobilization and military preparations could continue at the existing rate and that the entire world be kept at its present state of extreme uncertainty and of anxiety for any protracted period. To this the Ambassador made the singularly unconvincing reply that he thought that if no war broke out this autumn, the internal situation in Germany would become so serious by midwinter that Hitler would be overthrown by the spring and some more reasonable regime would come into power in Germany before next summer. I asked him if he had any reason to think that public opinion in Germany showed any signs of extreme dissatisfaction with the present regime, and he stated that he had no specific information to that effect but that he knew the internal economy of Germany was so precarious that the utmost measure of dissatisfaction was inevitable before many months had passed.
The Ambassador stated that on his return to the United States he had stopped off for a few hours in Berlin to talk with his colleague the Polish Ambassador, Lipski. He said that Lipski had told him that the refusal of the American Congress to revise the neutrality legislation had had an eminently encouraging effect upon the German authorities, both civil and military, but that fortunately this had been counteracted completely by the announcement made by the Government of the United States of its termination of the commercial treaty with Japan.24 Ambassador Lipski had said that no one could exaggerate the consternation which this step by the United States had created in Berlin.
I asked the Ambassador if he had any information, or what the opinion of his Government might be, with regard to the success of the negotiations now in progress in Moscow between the British and French and the Soviets for a political and military agreement. The Ambassador replied that Colonel Beck believed that a political agreement was improbable, but that he thought a military agreement would be concluded. In reply to a further inquiry from me, the Ambassador said that the Polish Government was informed that the Italian Government was continually counseling moderation on the German Government, [Page 208] but that no representations of any kind had been made to Poland by Italy with regard to the Polish-German situation.
The Ambassador told me explicitly that there had been no conversations and no negotiations of any character whatever between Germany and Poland with regard to the Danzig issue. He said that the Polish Government had deliberately refrained from making any approach at all to Germany because of its conviction that if any such approach were made, Germany would construe it as a sign of fear and of weakness and would adopt a far more vigorous attitude.
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- Copies were transmitted on August 10 to the Secretary of State at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and to President Roosevelt.↩
- See Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, pp. 189 ff.↩