Hitler

threatening, and totally unyielding. He finally agreed to reply to Chamberlain within two hours.
    On return to Salzburg, Henderson was rapidly recalled to the Berghof. This time the meeting was shorter – under half an hour. Hitler was now calmer, but adamant that he would attack Poland if another German were to be maltreated there. War would be all Britain’s fault. ‘England’ (as he invariably called Britain) ‘was determined to destroy and exterminate Germany,’ he went on. He was now fifty years old. He preferred war at this point than in five or ten years’ time. Henderson countered that talk of extermination was absurd. Hitler replied that England was fighting for lesser races, whereas he was fighting only for Germany. This time the Germans would fight to the last man. It would have been different in 1914 had he been Chancellor then. His repeated offers of friendship to Britain had been contemptuously rejected. He had cometo the conclusion that England and Germany could never agree. England had now forced him into the pact with Russia. Henderson stated that war seemed inevitable if Hitler maintained his direct action against Poland. Hitler ended by declaring that only a complete change of British policy towards Germany could convince him of the desire for good relations. The written reply to Chamberlain that he handed to Henderson was couched in much the same vein. It contained the threat – clear in implication if not expression – to order general mobilization, were Britain and France to mobilize their own forces.
    Hitler’s tirades were, as so often, theatricals. They were a play-acted attempt to break the British Guarantee to Poland by a calculated demonstration of verbal brutality. As soon as Henderson had left, Hitler slapped his thigh – his usual expression of self-congratulation – and exclaimed to Weizsäcker: ‘Chamberlain won’t survive this discussion. His cabinet will fall this evening.’
    Chamberlain’s government was still there next day. Hitler’s belief in his own powers had outstripped realistic assessment. His commment revealed how out of touch he was with the mood of the British government, now fully backed by public opinion, by this time. He was puzzled, therefore, the following day by the low-key response in Britain to the Soviet Pact, and irritated by the speeches made in Parliament by Chamberlain and Halifax reasserting Britain’s resolve to uphold its obligations to Poland. Within twenty-four hours Ribbentrop had persuaded him, since wielding the big stick had produced little effect, to dangle the carrot.
    At 12.45 p.m. on 25 August, Henderson was informed that Hitler wished to see him at 1.30 p.m. in the Reich Chancellery. The meeting lasted over an hour. Ribbentrop and the interpreter Paul Schmidt were also present. Hitler was far calmer than he had been in Berchtesgaden. He criticized Chamberlain’s speech. But he was prepared to make Britain, he said, ‘a large comprehensive offer’ and pledge himself to maintain the continued existence of the British Empire once the Polish problem had been solved as a matter of urgency. Hitler was so anxious that his ‘offer’ be immediately and seriously considered that he suggested that Henderson fly to London, and put a plane at his disposal. Henderson left next morning.
    The ‘offer’ to Britain was, in fact, no more than a ruse, another – and by now increasingly desperate – attempt to detach Britain from supportfor Poland, and prevent the intended localized war from becoming a general European war. How honest Hitler’s ‘offer’ was can be judged from the fact that at the very time that Henderson was talking in the Reich Chancellery, final preparations were being made for the start of ‘Case White’ next morning, Saturday, 26 August, at 4.30 a.m.
    Already on 12 August, Hitler had set the likely date of the 26th for the invasion of Poland. Goebbels learnt on the morning of the 25th that the mobilization was due to take place that afternoon. At midday, Hitler then gave him propaganda instructions, emphasizing that Germany had been given no choice but to fight against the Poles, and preparing the people for a war, if necessary lasting ‘months and years’. Telephone communications between Berlin and London and Paris were cut off for several hours that afternoon. The Tannenberg celebrations and Party Rally were abruptly cancelled. Airports were closed from 26 August. Food rationing was introduced as from 27