740.0011 European War 1939/8656: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 26—1:30 (8:30?) p.m.]
379. Minister95 told me this afternoon that reports have reached his Government allegedly from high German military authorities to the effect that if the contemplated German submarine campaign in March and April should not achieve the desired results in weakening British resistance, a press campaign against the Soviet Union would be initiated by Germany as a prelude to a military offensive against the Soviet Union. The German military authorities alluded to appear to believe that a war between Germany and the Soviet Union would be so popular in all capitalist countries, including Great Britain, that [Page 703] a satisfactory peace between Germany and Great Britain could be brought about.
I am of course unable to gauge the value to be attached to this information but feel it to be worth reporting to the Department.
- It is most likely that the Minister intended was Per Vilhelm Gustaf Assarsson, the Swedish Minister in the Soviet Union, with whom Ambassador Steinhardt mentioned having a conversation in his immediately preceding telegram; see p. 12. There is no indication in Department files that Ambassador Steinhardt had interviewed another Minister on this day.↩