760C.62/802: Telegram
The Ambassador in Poland (Biddle) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 12—2:15 a.m.]
167. In conversation with President Moscicki, Marshal Smigly-Rydz, his associates in high command, and Beck regarding the current turn of events I find they share opinion that each week henceforth might be expected to see cumulative tension. Moreover Beck anticipates that present wave of tension may be seriously augmented within next 6 days.
Pursuant his recent information from all sources he does not exclude the possibility that Hitler’s machinations might bring about a political crisis at an early date. Accordingly all Polish chiefs of mission are at their posts and Beck himself feels the delicate treatment of details in whatever may ensue necessitates his foregoing even his previously planned weekend absence. Beck then stated that in his opinion the danger lay less in Hitler’s extremist associates to possible influence on his forward looking policy than in what Beck had reason to suspect was their practice of withholding full information from Hitler. Accordingly Hitler might conceivably find himself in an acute political crisis through the error of lack of full comprehension of the mood and capacity of neighboring states to resist his doctrine of force. It was due mainly to this possible danger [Page 212] that Beck had given his sharp response to Hitler’s note (see my cable 163, August 10 midnight) on the same day of receipt thereof; a delay or any sign of retreat in Beck’s response might have run the danger of being interpreted by Hitler as a sign of weakness.
Speculating upon the result of Burckhardt’s visit to Berchtesgaden, Beck said that pending receipt of report thereon he was inclined to feel results would be characterized either by further menaces or a search for a face-saving retreat (in this connection Beck is inclined to feel that even if Hitler sought a retreat on general lines Hitler, due to the question of prestige, might still demand Danzig).
Moreover Beck as spokesman for aforementioned officials emphatically reiterated opinion that concessions to Hitler in Eastern or Central Europe would not spell durable peace.