740.00119 European War 1939/375: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Heath) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 21—7 p.m.]
2010. Embassy’s telegram No. 1993, June 21, noon.13 According to a special announcement issued by DNB14 and broadcast on the German radio at 5:50 p.m., Hitler in the presence of Goering, Brauchitsch, Raeder, Keitel, Ribbentrop and Hess received the French armistice delegation in the historic railway car in the forest of Compiegne15 and presented them with the German terms.
An account is given of the preamble to the armistice terms which was read by Keitel and which stated that an undefeated Germany had [Page 265] laid down its arms in 1918 because of misplaced confidence in assurances given by President Wilson and confirmed by the Allied Powers; that the memory of that disgraceful episode would now be eradicated because France had been defeated and has sued for terms, but that in view of the heroic French resistance “Germany does not intend to give the armistice terms or the armistice negotiations the character of ignoring so brave an adversary.” The preamble concluded
“The purpose of the German demands is:
- (1)
- To prevent a resumption of the struggle;
- (2)
- To offer Germany all safeguards for the further conduct of the war against England which is being imposed upon it; and
- (3)
- To create the prerequisites for the fashioning of a new peace the most essential content of which will be the righting of the wrong which was inflicted by force upon the German Reich itself.”
The special announcement ends by stating that after the reading of the preamble Hitler, to the strains of the German national anthem, left the scene of negotiations.