Office of Strategic Services Henderson, Failure of a mission-
pg. 38/9
listening to speech at Lustgarten at arrival in Berlin.
"...I found, as I had done in listening to his speeches
on the radio when I was British Minister at Belgrade,
his voice harsh and unsympathetic. But he had the gift
of oratorical exhortation, and ."
Henderson, Failure of a mission- pg. 4O
" I once watched Hitler review his black- and brown-shirted
army. The march past lasted for four hours, and practically
throughout he remained with his right arm stretched out
at the Nazi salute. I asked him afterwards how he managed
to do it. His reply was, "Will-pwoer" - and I wondered how
much of it was artifically cultivated. ..."
Henderson Failure of a mission - pg 40
"During my first year in Germany, I consistently asked those in
closest touch with Hitler in what his chief quality consisted. I was
told almost unanimously, in his "FINGERSPITZGEFUEHL"
(tip-of-the-finger feeling), that is to say, his sense of opportunity,
allied with clearness of mind and decision of purpose. The typical
example which was quoted of this was his decision to reoccupty
the Rhineland in 1936, which was taken contrary to the warning
of his General Staff and of all his closest advisers.
Henderson, Failureof [sic] a mission pg. 42
"It will always be a matter of regret to me that I was never able
to study Hitler in private life, as this might have given me the
chance to see him under normal conditions and to talk to him
as man to man. Except for a few brief words at chance meetings,
I never met him except upon official, and invariably, disagreeable,
business. He never attended informal parties at which diplomatists
might be present, and when friends of mine did try to arrange it,
he always got out of meeting me in such a manner on the ground
of precedent. Up to a period in his career he was accessible to
foreigners, to whome he readily accorded interviews, but he
gradually became less so, and he had apparently a rooted aversion
to private contacts with diplomatists, whom, as a category, he
distrusted....
...He ws a true denmgogue, and crowds stimulated him, but social
life of any sort bored him. He likedthe [sic] company of his intimate
friends, whom he could harangue to his heart's delight; but he
always looked self-conscious when he had to entertain the diplomatic
corps, which happened normally three times a year....
"I was once asked by a German acquaintance who must, in
view of his former official position, have had many talks
with him, whether I ever managed during my interviews
whith [sic] Hitler, to get a word in edge-ways. It was a curious
observation, suggesting, as it did, that he himself never had.
That was however, not my experience. He may not have heeded
what I siad, and he may, like Ribbentrop, only have been thinking
what he himself was going to say next, but he always seemed ready
to listen, nor did he speechify to any unendurable extent. I once
myself made him a little speech which lasted for five or ten minutes.
Hisreply [sic] lasted three times as long, and thereafter, for obvious
reasons, I avoided making speeches myself. If I thought his own
were getting too long and that he was becoming carried by by his
own oratory, I interrupted him nor did he ever seem to be offended
by my so doing. My impression us that his emotional outbursts
were not spontaneous, but that he deliberately worked himself up
into a state of excitement..."
pg. [unreadable]
"I never heard of him ever doing a generous action. On the other
hand, one of his most maked [sic] characteristics was sheer vindictiveness,
and his resentments were enduring and intensely disagreeable for
anyone on whom it was in his power to exercise them. I am not
surprised that his followers were afirad of him. They had plenty of
examples of his capacity for revenge to intimidate them. His defect
in this respect was his tragedy, as it is necessarily that of any dictator....
Unable to express views which may be contrary to those of their
master, the best men leave him one by one. His entourage steadily
and inexorably deteriorates, until at the end he is surrounded by
mere yes-men whose flattery and acquiescence are alone endurable
to him. That too, was Hitler's fate during the last year I spent in Berlin.
"On the day before the Coronation I was received by Hitler and
presented my letters of credence. As it happened, the disaster to
the airship Hindenburg had occurred just before my audience;
there were rumours of foul play, and Hitler was in an excited
mental state on the subject. It was always my fate to see him when
he was under the stress of some emotion or other. We read to each
other friendly set speeches, but he showed little interest until I
expressed my condolence at the loss of his airship and of a number
of German lives. He then invited my [sic] into another room to sit
down, and told me that there had been several warning letters
before the departure of the HINDERBURG, and that the whole
airship had been searched from stem to stern before she left on
her last journey. His attiturde towards me was quite friendly, but
I was left again wondering wherein lay the secret of his hold over
Germany."
pg. 48/48 Henderson FAILURE OF A MISSION.
....He was a spell-binder for his own people. that is self-evident; nor
was there any doubt about his capacity to charm, if he set himself out
to do so. It was part of his stock-in-trade, and I was more than once
the spectator of its efficiency. But he never exerted it in my case, and
I consequently never experienced it. In his reasonable moods I was
often disconcerted by the sanity and logic of his arguments, but when
he became excited, which was the mood which most influenced his
countrymen, I had but one inclination, which was to beg him to calm
down. He had considerable natural dignity and was invariably courteous,
but to the last I continued to ask myself how he had risen and to what
he was and how he maintained his ascendancy over the German people. ...
pg. 49 HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
"Many Germans have, in conversation with he, attributed Hitler's
dynamic impatience to his alleged conviction, to which he himself
frequently alluded, that his life was not destined to be a long one. He
was so full of tricksthat [sic] I often wondered whether that assertion
was not one of them....
"In the midst of one of his tirades against the Poles in August 1939,
I interrupoted Hitler to observe that he seemed to forget how useful
the agreement with Pilsudski had been to him in 1934. Hitler's answer
was that it had never been ofany use whatsoever, and that it had merely
made him unpopular with his own people. He had a phenomenal
capacity for self-deception, and was able to forget everything which
he had ever said or done in the past, if it no longer suited his present
or future purpose to remember it. ..."
pg. 62, HENDERSON, failure of a mission.
"Hitler had just come back from Wilhelmshaven, whither the
Deutschland had returned to bury the thirty-odd sailors who had
been killed in the bomb attack at Iviza. He was as in the case of my
first meeting with him after the Hinderburg disaster, in the emotional
state into which he worked himself at the sight or report of any dead
Germans. He refused to listen to any of my very logical arguments,
and persisted in the standpoint that he could not at such moment
permit his Foreign Minister to leave Germany. His attitude was so
utterly unreasonable that I was at a loss to explain it even to myself.....
about Nuremberg 1937-
"Her [sic] Hitler was more friendly to me personally on that occasion
than on any of the other on which I saw him. He was undoubtedly
please at the attendance for the first time of the British, French, and
American representatives, and he indicated that he attributed this
innovation to my initiative. I took the opportunity to tell him that
the invitation to Baron von Neurath to visit London remained open
if he cared to avail himself of it. In this respect, however, he was at
once and typically less forthcoming....
"It has been necessary to lay great stress on the incident of the
Blomberg marriage. Both morally and materially its consequences
were of the utmost importance. Not only did it- as mentioned
above- cause Hitlers first brainstorm of the year, but there is good
reason to believe that it radically altered his entire outlook on life.
Thenceforward he became less human, and his fits of rage, real
or simulated, more frequent. His faith in the fidelity of his followers
was gravely shaken, and his inaccessibility became greatly accentuated....
"I was received in the old Reichschancery, and was asked to sit
down on a big sofa against the wall facing the window. On my left,
on a small stool, was Dr. Schmidt taking notes. On his left again,
in a semi-circle, Hitler himself in an armchair, and next to him
and facing me, Herr von Ribbentrop. I began with a statement of
my object in asking to see the Chancellor....
It was perhaps the longest continuous statement which I ever made
to Hitler, and must have lasted for the best part of ten minutes.
During all that time he remained crouching in his armchair with
the most ferocious scowl on his face, which my firm, but at the same
time conciliatory, remarks scarcely warranted. He listened,
nevertheless, till I had finished and then let himself go. Nothing,
he said, could be done until the Press campaign against him in
England ceased (He never failed to harp on this subject in every
conversation which I had with him.) Nor was he going to tolerate
the interference of third parties in Central Europe..... The problem
was, he continued, rendered particularly difficult "by the fact that
one could place as much confidence in the faith in treaties of a
barbarous creature like the Soviet Union as in the comprehension
of mathematical formulae by a savage. Any agreement with the
U.S.S.R. was quite worthless, and Russia should never have been
allowed into Europe." It was impossible, he added, to have, for
instance, any faith in any Soviet undertaking not to use poison
gas. The sentences in inverted commas are Hitler's actual words
as recorded in the written and carefully edited notes made and
given to me at the time by Dr. Schmidt.
When our long conversation, which must have lasted nearly
two hours, was over, I produced from my pocket on leaving an
extremely good drawing of the Chancellor which a lady from
New Zealand had sent me, with the request that I might get it
autographed. I asked Hitler to sign it, which he very readily
did ( insuch respects he was always complaisant.) Whereunon
I observed that whereas I, and presumably he, had got no other
satisfacticn out of our interview, he would at least have given
pleasure to one young woman. That also produced quite a genial
smile. I cannot remember having ever got another from him."
.." It was this, above all, this jubilation (of democ. powers) which
gave Hitler the excuse for his third and worst brainstorm of the
year,... His fit of sulks and fury lasted from May 23rd to May 28th,...
Berchtesgaden - Chamberlain.
There Hitler, surrounded by General Keitel and a few other
members of his immediate entourage, received the Prime
Minister on the top of the small flight of stairs which lead up
to the entrance of his unpretentious mountain fastness.
The first item on the programme was tea, which was served
in a semi-circle before the fireplace situated opposite the great
window of the reception-room looking across the mountains
to Salzburg. After twenty minutes of desultory conversation,
the Chancellor suggested to the Prime Minister that they might
begin their talk, and they disappeared, together with the
reliable interpreter, Dr. Schmidt, into Hitler's study.
Godesberg.
"When the Prime Minister had finished, Hitler asked whether
he was to understand that the British, French and Czechoslovak
Governments had in effect agreed to the transfer of the Sudenten
territory from CZechoslovakia to Germany. The Prime Minister
replied: "Yes" There was a slight pause, a silence in which Hitler
appeared for a moment to be making up his mind. He then said
decisively: "Es tut mir fuerchbar leid, eber das geht nicht mehr"
("I am exceedingly sorry, but that is no longer of any use"). The
Prime Minister expressed his surprise and indignation;
p. 154/155, HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
"..At 10.30 that night the conversations were resumed.
Although Hitler was 'in a much' less truculent mood, and
even made an affort to appear conciliatory, his memorandum
showed that he had not moderated his demands, which were
presented in a most peremptory form and described by Hitler
as his last word....
... It is characteristic of Hitler's methods of argument that
when the Prime Minister pointed out that this was a sheer
Dictate imposed on a country voluntarily surrendering a
part of its territory without having been defeated in war,
the Chancellor replied: "It is not a Dictate; look, the
Document is headed by the word 'Memorandum' ."
In the course of the long discussion which followed, Hitler
agreed to modify his time-table slightly, and he also made in
his owm handwriting a number of minor alterations
designed to attenuate the asperity of the
p. 157, Henderson
cont:
of the memorandum, "You are the only man," he said somewhat
bitterly to Mr. Chamberlain, "to whom I have ever made a
concession." ....
p. 157, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
"Sir. M. Wilson, accompanied by Kirkpatrick and myself,
saw the Chancellor at 5 p.m. that afternoon. This interview
also was stormy and unsatisfactory. Herr Hitlet could only
with difficulty be persuaded to listen the Prime Minister's
letter. At one point he shouted: "Es hat keinen Sinn weiter
zu verhandoln" ("It is no use talking any more"), and he
moved to the door as if to leave the room. Eventually he
returned, and the conversation was resumed, but it was
impossible to reach any satisfactory conclusion....
p. 199, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
Sir H. Wilson with Hitler-
"In the course of this conversation Hitler shouted savagely on
two or three occasions: Ich werde die Tschechen zerschlagen"
which Herr Schmidt, the interpreter faithfully translated as:
"I will smash-sh-sh the Czechs!"
...but Hitler declined to be convinced. "If France and England
stricke [sic]", he shouted, "let them do so. It is a matter of
complete indifference to me. I am prepared for every eventuality.
I can only take note of the position. It is Tuesday to-day, and
by next Monday we shall all be at war." On this depressing
note the interview ended.
p. 160, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
...The Italian intervention proved the final and decisive
factor for peace. It enabled Hitler to climb down without
losing face. His first remark to me when I saw him at 12.15,
immediately after Poncet, was: "At the request of my great
friend and ally, Signor Mussolini, I have postponed mobilising
my troops for twentyfour hours."....
I gave Hitler the Prime Minister's message, and his reply
was that he must consult again with SignorMusso!ini before
giving me a definite answer. We dicussed fairly amicably the
latest proposals of the French and Briti.sh Governments, and
the Chancellor, though a little distrait, was not unreasonable.
My interyiew with him, which lasted over an hour, was also
interrupted by a second visit from the Italian Ambassador,
this time to say that Signor Mussolini himself was prepared
to accept ....... When Hitler rejoined us I failed to notice any
particular change in his attitude. Yet neither before nor after
was he other than comparatively amicab!e, though he shouted
once or twice when he described the orders which he would
give to Goering's air fleet if compelled to do so. I was, however,
told afterwards that those who listened anxiously within earshot
on the other side of the door had feared from the noise, that
things were going badly. I had, however, become used by this
time to Hitler' s neurotic outbursts, and had been not unfavourably
impressed.
p. 164/165, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
"..When I first met him, his logic and sense of realities had
impressed me, but as time went on he appeared to me to become
more and more unreasonable, and more and more convinced
of his own infallibility and greatness." ...
p. 177 HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
Before occupation of Prague-
Czech atrocities*
"It is difficult to believe that these machinations were not
an intrinsic part of Hitler's own schemes, yet it seems but
fair to relate that I heard some months later a story, which
seemed to indicate that they were not. On his arrival at
Prague on March 15th, one of the first things which Hitl.
expressed a wish to do was to visit the hospitals. His entourage-
probably soldiers, and consequently less well informed than
Himmler's black-shirts- asked him for what purpose. "To
visit the German wounded victims of Czech ill-treatment"
was hitler's answer. As there were none, his followers had
some difficulty in persuading him that such a visit would be
useless. Possibly they induced him to believe that they existed
everywhere except in Prague itself, but if the story is true-
and my source was both a Czech and a good one-it would
seem to indicate that some of the Party were even more
impatient that Hitler himself.....
p. 206/207, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
"Whatever virtues Hitler may possess, generosity is certainly
not one of them; personally, I was struck on several occasions,
when generosity might have profited him, by the complete
absence of that quality in his make up. Dr, Hacha was an old
and weak man, and his daughter travelled with him in
order to look after him. He was received with the honours
due to the head of a State- or a condemned prisoner before
execution- and his daughter was given a bouquet of
flowers by Rfbbentrop at the station. On their arrival at the
Adlon Hotel who was presented with a box of chocolates
from Hitler! But that was the limit to which his generosity went.
August 23, 1939
"I reached Salzburg about midday, and I had my first audience
with Hitler at Berchtesgaden at 1 p.m., in the presence of Baron
von Weizsacker and Herr Hewel. ...At my first interview with
him on that day, Hitler was in a mood of extreme exitability [sic].
His language as regards the Poles and British responsibility for
the Polish attitude was violent, to 1OO,00 German refugees from
Poland- a figure whichwas [sic] at least five times greater than
the reality. Again, I cannot say whether he was persuaded, or
persuaded himself, of the reality of these figures. At my second
interview, when he handed me his reply, he had recovered his
calm, but was not less obdurate. Everything was Englands fault.
She had encouraged the Czechs last year, and she was now giving
a blank cheque to Poland. No longer, he told me, did he trust Mr.
Chamberlain. He preferred war, he said, when he was fifty to
when he was fifty-five or sixty. He had himself always sought,
and believed in the possibility of friendship with England. He
now realised, he said, that those who had argued the contrary
had been right, and nothing short of a complete change in British
policy towards Germany could ever convince him of any sincere
British desire for good relations. My last remark to him was that
I could only deduce from his language that my mission to Germany
had failed, and that I bitterly regretted it.
August 25th.
My interview with Hitler, at which Herr von Ribbentrop and
Dr. Schmidt were also present, lasted on this occasion over an
hour. The Chancellor spoke with calm and apparent sincerity.
He described his proposels as a last effort, for conscience's sake,
to secure good relations with Great Britain, ........
August 28th, 1939
..and at 10.30 that evening I :as received by Herr Hitler at the
Reichschancery, and handed to him the British reply, together
with a German translation. Hitler was once again friendly and
reasonable, and appeared to be not dissatisfied with the answer
which I had brought to him. He observed, however, that he
must study it carefully and would give me a written reply the
next day. Our conversation lasted for well over hour, and it
was nearly midnight before I got back to the Embassy. It was
I think, the only one of my interviews with Hitler at which
it was I who did most of the talking.
Other remarks in Blue Book- White Paper-
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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Hitler Source Book
Failure of a Mission
Sir Neville Henderson
Henderson Failure of a mission, pg 43.
Pg. 59, HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
pg. 68, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission
pg. 75, HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
pg. 110, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
pg. 116, HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
p. 11(?), HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
pg. 140, HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
p. [unreadable] HENDERSON, Failure of a mission.
"..My first indication of immenent trouble was at the annual
banquet which Hitler gave to the diplomatic corps, somewhat
later than usual, on March 1st. After dinner Hitler used to remain
standing in the drawing-room, and would speak for some five
or ten minutes in turn to each of the Heads of Missions in the
order of their precedence. The apparent friendliness which he
had shown at the motor exhibition was notably absent at this
dinner. At the exhibition he had shaken me by the hand not
once, but three times. On this occasion he carefully avoided
looking me in the face when he was speaking to me; he kept
his eyes fixed over my right shoulder and confined his remarks
to general subjects, while stressing the point that it was not
Britain's business to interfere with Germany in Central Europe.
I had heard it all before, but, though he said nothing new or
startling, his attitude left me with a feeling of vague uneasiness.
In the light of wisdom after the event, I have no doubt that he was
already weighing the various contingencies in regrad to Prague, and
making his plans for March 15th. He was contemplating his breach
of faith with Mr. Chamberlain, and I was reminded of my meeting
with him on March 3rd of the year before, when he was similarly
preoccupied about Vienna.
p. 200/201, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
p. 207 , HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
p. 257, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission.
pg. 259, HENDERSON, Failure of a Mission
p 262 "