Ciano's diaries are indeed a forgery.
There are too obvious anachronisms in Count Galeazzo Ciano’s extensively quoted ‘diaries’: for example Marshal Rodolfo Graziani’s ‘complaints about Rommel’ on December 12, 1940 – two full months before Rommel was appointed to Italy’s North Africa theatre! In fact Ciano spent the months after his dismissal in February 1943 rewriting and ‘improving’ the diaries himself, which makes them readable but useless for the purposes of history. Ribbentrop warned about the forgery in his prison memoirs – he claimed to have seen Ciano’s real diaries in September 1943 – and the Nazi interpreter Eugen Dollmann described in his memoirs how the fraud was actually admitted to him by a British officer at a prison camp. The OSS files on this are in the Allen W. Dulles papers (unfortunately still closed) at the Mudd Library, Princeton University; but even the most superficial examination of the handwritten original volumes reveals the extent to which Ciano (or others) doctored them and interpolated material – yet historians of the highest repute have quoted them without question as they have Ciano’s so called ‘Lisbon Papers,’ although the latter too bear all the hallmarks of subsequent editing. (They have all been retyped on the same typewriter although ostensibly originating over the six years 1936–42.)
David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, 2019 edition), p. xvii.
Ribbentrop had himself at Nuremberg already exposed the diaries as fraudulent, but of course he was a National Socialist, so he wasn't taken seriously:
Further evidence of my participation in a conspiracy to prepare aggressive war was provided by the diary of the
former Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano; it was listed as document PS 2989.
Repeated applications by my counsel at Nuremberg did not lead to the discovery of the original of this diary. I know for certain that there are at least two diaries by Ciano, one of which I saw the Führer with as early as 1943. That diary certainly did not contain an entry according to which I was supposed to have told Ciano in Berchtesgaden on 12th August, 1939: ‘We want war.’ On the other hand, that diary attributed to me most derogatory remarks about Japan. At that time an investigation for treason against Mussolini was already proceeding, and Ciano used his diary to blackmail others. He sent a message to the Führer stating that a copy of the diary was in the custody of his friend, the Spanish Ambassador in Rome, and would be published if anything happened to him.
One of Ciano’s diaries is certainly a forgery. It was not possible to find out from which manuscript the photocopies were taken which were submitted in Nuremberg. It is not even certain whether the book from which the photo-copies were taken was in fact written by Count Ciano, since only the accuracy of the translation, not the genuineness of the diary, was vouched for. If the photo-copies really reproduced Ciano’s notes they would show that he did not keep a continuous diary, but that he made entries at a later date, in other words, he himself was partially guilty of forgery. For instance, entries dated 3rd and 4th December, 1941, refer to events of 8th December, 1941, and so on. At Nuremberg this diary was to prove that I intended and desired to start the war against Poland.
Presumably the whole diary was re-written several times by Count Ciano in order to create a cast-iron ‘peace alibi’ for himself and to bring out as a contrast my own and the Fuhrer’s ‘lust for war’. These passages were not, of course, contained in the first version, because he was then anxious to secure his position, which was threatened as a result of the politically obscure part he had played for years. Without a doubt Ciano maintained permanent contact with the enemy.
Ciano was not only jealous and vain, but also deceitful and unreliable. He did not set great store by truthfulness, which made personal and official intercourse with him difficult. The manner in which he betrayed Mussolini, his own father-in-law, in the Fascist Council in July, 1943, clearly showed his reprehensible character. The Duce told me later that no one had ever told him so many lies as Ciano—and this for years—and he was probably also to blame for the corruption and consequent splitting of the Fascist Party.
In the version of the so-called ‘diary’ that was accepted as evidence at Nuremberg the record of our conference in Berchtesgaden on 12th and 13th August, 1939, is certainly completely wrong. After the conflict which arose from the so-called ‘Danzig customs officers’ dispute’, the Führer had instructed me to warn Ciano that the Polish situation was serious. I was to tell the Italian Foreign Minister that the Führer would not tolerate Polish provocations much longer and that Poland would at last have to make her position clear.
On that 12th August, 1939, there was already a possibility that we would arrive at a settlement with Russia. Having Italy, herself strong because Mussolini was at the helm, as her staunch ally, Japan as her friend, and a settlement with Russia, Germany had created conditions which made it by no means fanciful to imagine that Poland would after all sit down at a table and agree to a negotiated solution. Now it was decisive that Britain should recognize the Fuhrer’s resolve to establish clearly defined relations between himself and Poland.
The well-known indiscretions of Italian court and Government circles made it imperative for us that Count Ciano should be convinced of the Fuhrer’s resolve and should report this to Mussolini. Any impression that the Fuhrer was undecided over the Polish question would immediately have been reported via Rome to London, and thence to Warsaw, and this would have made any diplomatic solution impossible from the outset. This was the reason for the very precise instruction to me not to allow any doubt to arise in Ciano’s mind concerning Hitler’s resolve. But I never said to Ciano: ‘We want war.’ It is significant that these words only appear in the introduction to the version of Ciano’s diary which was used as evidence at Nuremberg. There can thus be no doubt that they were interpolated later, perhaps not even by Ciano himself.
I still remember clearly what I really said to Count Ciano on that occasion. What I said was that the Fuhrer had had enough of Polish provocations. Poland would have to give a clear answer, and Danzig must return to the Reich. The Fuhrer’s demands were moderate, but the situation was being aggravated by the Poles, who apparently wanted to create an accomplished fact in Danzig. The Fuhrer was therefore resolved to settle the Danzig question one way or the other. My task was to make it clear to Ciano before he saw the Fuhrer that the situation was serious. The Fuhrer himself said what remained to be said. I then asked Ciano on behalf of the Fuhrer not to insist on a communique, adding expressly that I still hoped for a diplomatic settlement precisely because the Fuhrer was so firmly resolved.
Ciano was certainly not delighted with what the Fuhrer told him, but he made no objections, except to point out that Italy was militarily not ready to fight in the event of an armed conflict. I did not like having to ask Ciano for a further proof of Italy’s friendship, for twice before—in connection with Austria and the Sudetenland settlement—Mussolini had stood by us. Now I had to ask Italy to do this a third time.
Ciano alleges that I had a ‘bad conscience’ because I had so often ‘lied’ about German intentions in Poland, and that I was embarrassed because I had to state what ‘action I was now preparing’. I had no bad conscience, for I had never ‘lied’ about Poland. I had always said, and was convinced, that Germany wanted a peaceful settlement with Poland. Moreover, Count Ciano concealed the fact that he was fully aware of the increased tension between Germany and Poland since March, 1939. Nor was it unknown to him that both sides had declared that a fait accompli in Danzig would be regarded as a casus belli.
The Ribbentrop Memoirs, Introduction by Alan Bullock (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1954), pp. 188-191
Ribbentrop was a dead man, he had no reason to lie, he had nothing to gain at the end. If he were lying then he surely would've known it was a futile one. But as we know now, he wasn't lying.
This is what Eugen Dollmann had to say regarding his experiance with the forged diary:
On one occasion Bridge called me to his office.
“You probably find life rather boring here, Herr Dollmann,” he said. “I’ve a little job you may find interesting.”
He indicated a file of papers on the desk in front of him.
“I’d like you to look through this material and tell me what you think of it.”
“Why, of course,” I replied. For one thing I quite liked Bridge and I was therefore willing to do him a favour, and secondly life was a bit boring and anything of interest was welcome.
“It isn’t an order, you understand. You would just be obliging me.”
“What is it then?”
Bridge looked out of the window.
“It’s the diary of Count Ciano,” he said.
I took the file and went back to my cell. Every evening one or other of the British officers would come to my cell for a chat, but Ciano’s diary was never mentioned. One evening Bridge himself arrived with a bottle of whisky, but he also made no reference to the matter in hand and it was only about ten days later when I returned the material to him in his office that it was mentioned again. He was standing at the window.
“Ah, yes! Well, what do you think of it?”
I sat down and took the cigarette he offered me.
“I think you’ve done it very well indeed,” I said.
Bridge grinned and seemed a little embarrassed.
“What do you mean exactly?” he asked.
For a moment I was afraid that I had been too frank. After all, if I became awkward they could always send me back to the Americans, and that prospect was not inviting. But Bridge was smiling quite amiably from where he stood by the window so I decided not to withdraw.
“For an innocent it would all sound very convincing no doubt, but for anyone who happened to know Ciano at all well it would be absurd.”
He laughed.
“All right, Herr Dollmann. But tell me: what about the general style? Doesn’t that strike you as authentic?”
“Yes,” I said. “It does.”
And it really did. Whoever had “edited” this diary of Ciano must have had some of Ciano’s material at his disposal, but it was quite certain that half the stuff I had just read hadn’t come from Ciano at all. In secret I was rather impressed: I wouldn’t have credited the British with so much guile. But perhaps in the circumstances it was a little risky for me to talk so openly. Major Bridge seemed to have the same feeling, for he came towards the desk and changed the subject abruptly:
“Thank you for letting me know your opinion."
Eugen Dollmann, Call me Coward: The Adventures of a Sophisticated German on the Run (William Kimber & Co. Ltd., 1956), pp. 32-33.
Dollmann, was apparently an OSS informer:
I am not impressed by a book that Hitler's Italian interpreter Eugen Dollmann is said to have published in Italy after the war, allegedly containing the police file. I interviewed Dollmann, a Munich hotel owner, extensively in the early 1970s, and he never made any such allegation to me. The CIA file on Dollmann has now been released by the National Archives, and it reveals that -- like the infamous Wilhelm Höttl -- Dollmann was a paid OSS informer and agent after the war; he revealed to me that the Ciano Diary widely quoted by conformist historians now was largely faked by the OSS (there are voluminous files on the diaries in the still closed papers of Allen Dulles at Princeton University archives).
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In another response, Irving writes:
Count Galeazzo Ciano, who married Mussolini's daughter Edda and was his foreign minister (executed in 1944), certainly did write a diary in handwriting. His daughter Edda took it to Switzerland for safety and using it, tried to blackmail the Nazis into pressuring Italy to spare her husband, on which see the Goebbels Diaries and other sources. After the war the diary fell into American (OSS) hands, probably in Switzerland. There are several files on the diaries in the secret papers of the first CIA chief Allen Dulles in the Seeley Mudd Library, at Princeton University.
The well known interpreter Eugen Dollmann told me many years ago that in British captivity after the war he was approached by an MI6 officer who showed him the diaries, or what purported to be the diaries, and asked if they were authentic. Dollmann confirmed that they were, but the officer then smirked and said that they had meanwhile been "worked over." And how! Vicious criticism of top Nazis had been inserted, including especially Ribbentrop. This is why conformist historians love quoting the Ciano Diaries.
The diary also heaped criticism on Rommel in December 1940, blaming him for "his" failures in North Africa. Fakery clue: Rommel did not even arrive in Africa until February 1941, and there was not even any talk of his going there in December 1940. I shall be researching in the Princeton library in June, as so often before, for my Himmler biography: what precisely did Dulles report to Washington about his contacts with the Stauffenberg plotters, because the Nazis were reading his code messages?
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Even if the entries you posted weren't automatically suspect Gl0spana, none of them prove anything in the way of German war guilt. All it shows is that Hitler expected and desired an isolated conflict, and no war with the West.
The meeting on August 12th was a discussion regarding the pact of steel, which even historians like Ian Kershaw recognize as an attempt to ward off intervention from the West:
Throughout the spring and summer frenzied diplomatic efforts were made to try to isolate Poland and deter the western powers from becoming involved in what was intended as a localized conflict. On the day before Hitler's address to his military leaders, Italy and Germany had signed the so-called 'Pact of Steel', meant to warn Britain and France off backing Poland
Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, 2000), p. 193.
This meeting discussed various military logistics concerning neutral states and possible conflicts that might arise, and what Italy and Germany should do. It was the discussion of contingencies, which makes perfect sense considering an alliance had just been signed.
Everything in the Ciano diary that you think is of note Gl0spana, is merely the opinion of Ciano, which he expressed in less dramatic terms at the meeting with Hitler, for example, regarding a general conflict:
Count Ciano then described, with the aid of a map, the position of Italy on the outbreak of a general conflict. Italy, he explained, believed that a conflict with Poland would not remain limited to that country but would develop into a general European war.
In reply, the Führer observed that this was the point on which opinions differed. He personally was absolutely convinced that the Western democracies would, in the last resort, recoil from unleashing a general war.
DGFP, D, vol. VII, doc. 43, p. 43-44.
None of the ridiculous language Ciano uses is found in this record of the meeting, which shows how unreliable his diary actually is.
Hitler explained to Ciano why Germany was so eager to solve the Danzig problem, none of it was surreptitious, in fact he was quite open and frank about the situation:
The Fuhrer replied that no time should be lost in solving the Polish problem. The further autumn advanced, the more difficult military
operations in Eastern Europe would become. Because of the weather conditions, very little use could be made of the Luftwaffe in these territories from the middle of September, while it would also be impossible to employ motorized forces owing to the state of the roads, which rapidly became a morass after the rains which start in the autumn. From September to May, Poland was one vast swamp and completely unsuitable for any military operations. Thus Poland could simply occupy Danzig in October—and she probably intended to do so—without Germany being able to do anything at all to prevent it; for there was naturally no question of bombing and destroying Danzig.
Count Ciano asked by what date the Fuhrer thought the Danzig question would have to be settled. The Fuhrer replied that this settlement would have to be made one way or the other by the end of August. In reply to Ciano’s question as to what solution the Fuhrer envisaged, the latter said that Poland must give up Danzig politically, but that at the same time her economic interests would naturally be safeguarded, and that, furthermore, she must also by her general attitude contribute towards removing the tension. He doubted whether Poland would be prepared to do this, for hitherto she had rejected Germany’s proposals. The Fuhrer had personally made these proposals to Beck on the occasion of the latter’s visit to Obersalzberg. They had been extremely favourable to Poland. In exchange for the political return of Danzig to Germany, with full
preservation of Polish economic interests, and the establishment of a link between East Prussia and the Reich, Germany had promised a frontier guarantee, a twenty-five-year pact of friendship, and that Poland should have a share in influence on Slovakia. At the time Beck had taken cognizance of the proposal with the remark that he would study it. The brusque rejection of this had come only as a consequence of English intervention. What Poland’s other objectives were could be seen quite clearly from the press. The whole of East Prussia was to be taken, it was intended to advance as far as Berlin, etc. It was unbearable for a Great Power to have to tolerate perpetually such a hostile neighbour only 150 kilometres from her capital. The Fuhrer was therefore determined to utilize the opportunity provided by the next act of political provocation—be it in the form of an ultimatum, brutal maltreatment of Germans in Poland, an attempt to starve Danzig out, an entry of Polish troops into Danzig territory, or anything of that kind—to attack Poland within forty-eight hours and solve the problem in that way.
Ibid., p. 47-48.
Hitler's fears of the Poles occupying Danzig weren't unfounded, it was based on the experience of the customs dispute in Danzig which had seen the Poles illegally march troops into Danzig and essentially try to provoke a war with Germany which Hitler was hesitant to engage in:
Polish military convoys pass through the Danzig territory, without first having reported, as was agreed, to the German Danzig Senate. The Polish military garrison in the munitions depot on the Westerplatte next to the port of Danzig is increased to 240 soldiers, although the League of Nations has permitted only 88. The Polish customs officers, originally six officials, have meanwhile become nearly 110. When German-Danzig authorities complain about the military transports and the reinforcements to the Polish Commissioner -General at the Danzig Senate, Mr. Chodacki, he dismisses the complaints.
[...]
In addition, the Polish customs officers arrogate to themselves commanding positions over their German colleagues, to which they have no right. And, to the annoyance of the German side, the number of Polish officials increases significantly. The German police maintain that a part of the additional customs officers belong to the Polish intelligence service, and that they have been smuggled into Danzig in this way. The German officials thereafter no longer work well together with the Polish. These in turn delay the export of Danzig agricultural and fishery products, which in the hot 1939 summer spoil very easily. In this tense situation, the President of the Danzig Senate writes to the Polish Commissioner-General, complains about the incidents described, and announces that the German customs officers in the future will no longer accept orders from the Polish ones. The Commissioner-General Chodacki by return post sends as a response to President Greiser an ultimatum that he take back this directive by 1800 hours of the same day, or else:
"The Polish government without delay will take retaliatory measures against the Free City."
Chodacki moreover announces that the Polish customs from now on will be armed. The dispute is also fuelled by the fact that a subordinate official from the Senate administration arbitrarily and without orders writes to Chdoacki:
"the Danzig officials will resist by force any attempt by the Polish customs inspectors to perform their service... with weapons."
Hitler, asked by the President of the Senate for advice, urges him to arrange for an easy of tensions and "not to envenom the matter still more." President Greiser succeeds in persuading the Commissioner-General Chodacki to set aside the ultimatum.
Although this incident may seem trivial, it shows how close the world stands to the edge of war. State Secretary in the Office of Foreign Affairs von Weizsacker forwards to the Polish Carge d'Affaires in Berlin the Reich government's disapproval of the Customs Inspectors Dispute, of the ultimatum, and of the threat toward the population of Danzig. He consults with his ministry in Warsaw and officially informs von Weizsacker the next day that Poland will consider any interference by the Reich government in the Polish-Danzig relations at the expense of Poland to be an "act of aggression".
The Polish Foreign Office thereby implies that every talking-of-sides by the Reich government to the advantage of Danzig and to the disadvantage of Polish will mean war. In view of the insignificant customs dispute in Danzig, that is a very massive threat since England and France have pledged to support Poland in any war triggered by Germany.Hitler appears outraged over the Polish ultimatum at this already very tense time, and he says that "the limit of his tolerance has been reached." Poland's press now pours more oil on the fire by writing that Hitler in the Customs Dispute has "backed down" and that a single note, a bit harsh, had been enough to "force him to his knees."
Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, 1939 - The War that Had Many Fathers (Munich: Olzog Verlag, 2011), pp. 555-558.
With a bit more context, Hitler's motives couldn't be any more clear. He expected to fight a war with Poland in late August because the Poles were obstinate and there wouldn't be a favourable opportunity to solve the problem once summer was over. The Poles had yet again displayed their true colours, attempting to bully Germany into doing nothing over Danzig because she held the threat of war above her head, and at that time, Poland really held all the cards unless Hitler was willing to do something. And he was, which isn't unexpected or surprising, and it certainly doesn't make him the bad guy. Hitler clearly couldn't allow Germany and her brethren in Danzig to be treated in such a way, so going to war with Poland was a no brainer. As Hitler said to Ciano, Germany couldn't tolerate a neighbour like Poland on Germany's border. If Hitler, as he did, go to war with Poland, there was realistically nothing the West could've done.
With the context of the customs dispute, Hitler's motives have been elucidated and justified. Poland wasn't simply an unwitting and innocent country who was trying her best for the efforts of peace. She was a hostile state who thought too much of herself and her alliances, and effectively brought war upon herself through every act she took regarding Germany from March 1939 until August 31st. At no point did the Poles ever pretend that a peaceful solution could've been found. And the British by the end of August, as Rhonhof and numerous other historians have shown, didn't attempt to make good on her insistence for immediate talks between Germany and Poland. In fact, on August 30-31, when Hitler offered a Polish plenipotentiary to Berlin, Britain made no effort whatsoever to encourage a Pole to appear, even though she was fully aware of Hitler's mediation proposals, the 16 points by the morning of August 31st.
Of course, the Poles didn't care, they had mobilised their armed forces on August 30th and had no intention of sending anyone to Berlin.
The quote from Goebbels you have provided Gl0spana, and have done in the other thread you made, is of no consequence because it presumes the Germans were playing unfair, while the Poles and the British were being deceived. This is a lie, as I've shown repeatedly. You know full well that the Poles had no intention of sending anyone to Berlin, and Hitler and Goebbels knew it as well. Which is why this quote supports my case and not yours:
"The Führer wants a plebiscite in the Corridor under international control. That way, he still hopes to pry London loose from Warsaw and find an excuse for striking. London’s attitude is not as rigid as previously.”
Goebbels wasn't saying that Hitler wanted a plebiscite and then once that was done, to launch a war with Poland. You need to read the sentence more carefully and in line with what we already know. His reference to Hitler's desire for a plebiscite in the corridor is a reference to his offers to Poland which had been made throughout 1939. "That way", as Goebbels says, Hitler will "pry London loose from Warsaw", in other words, the
proposal of a plebiscite will drive a wedge between Britain and Poland because hopefully the British would find it reasonable and Poland wouldn't, then this would allow Germany to attack Poland without worrying about Western intervention. This is exactly the method Hitler used in that last week before the war. This is all substantiated by Halder's diary which I've quoted extensively before. It's not a secret, it was Hitler's strategy at this point in the game.
Goebbels was worried about optimism because it was unlikely that a Pole, even if he did come, would actually accept the German proposals. This would give the population false hope, and potentially weaken them in the resoluteness it would take to go to war. Of course, the full entry is needed, but it doesn't change the fact that no Pole, let alone Beck was going to come to Berlin.
It's your mistake Gl0spana to presume that a peaceful settlement was possible, and that if it was, it was somehow Germany's fault such a settlement couldn't be reached. To support this contention you have to ignore all the evidence which shows, emphatically and conclusively, that the Poles had no intention of such a settlement, and that the British had no intention to support it either if it meant Germany taking back Danzig and the Corridor
(Rhonhof, op cit., p. 596-597, 601-602.).
Josef Beck, on August 30th, 1939 at 5 p.m. had informed Anthony Biddle, the American Ambassador in Poland that he would never accept any German offers:
Beck and his associates labelled Hitler's demands (transmitted to London) attempted gangster extortion to which they would say 40 times "no," for to accept them would hasten the ultimate destruction of Poland.
Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 1939, Volume 1 (United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1956), p. 388.
Remember, August 30th was the date in which Hitler had generously offered a Pole to come to Berlin and discuss a solution on the basis of his 16 point proposal. Evidently a Pole wasn't going to show up and Hitler was right to choose to go to war with Poland because he knew that no Pole would respond to his offer. The same day Polish mobilisation had been ordered, there was nothing more to be said or offered. Hitler had done all he could to come to a peaceful settlement, which he didn't expect to come about for good reason. Nonetheless he called Poland's bluff and was proven to be correct. He would have to suffer the onus of starting the war with Poland by being the first to March, but that doesn't by any means make Hitler responsible for the war. If Hitler had waited any longer, it would've been utterly pointless and needlessly have given his enemies an advantage they didn't deserve.
The irony is that Beck clearly though choosing war would not cause the destruction of Poland, a view that was shown to be utterly ridiculous.
The Poles, according to the American Ambassador to France William Bullitt, who we know from the
Polish White Book that is never taken into account regarding the outbreak of the war, but which is important in discerning the war guilt of the Allies, had on August 31st claimed the the Poles at 1 p.m. agreed to negotiations "in principle", but said that the Poles wouldn't accept any kind of conference that was favourable to Germany:
Everyone at the French Foreign Office is expecting in the immediate future some sort of a proposal by Mussolini designed to produce a general conference to deal with the question of Danzig and a vast number of other questions. Needless to say the Poles will not accept the decision of a general conference in respect of Hitler's demands against Poland, and the French at the present moment are also opposed to a general conference.
Ibid., p. 396-397.
One isn't inclined to view the attitude of the Poles as being particularly favourable to a settlement. If Germany and Poland were at a deadlock, and no negotiations could be conducted because neither side wanted to give way, then the most responsible thing to do would've been to let them fight it out. The Poles would lose of course.
Ciano was worried because, as he said to Hitler on August 12, Italy wasn't prepared for any sort of conflict. This is shown again on August 25th, when the Italians told the Germans that they'd be unable to fight. All of Ciano's comments here can be seen from this general backdrop of Italian inadequacy. Clearly it wouldn't be in Italy's best interest to get caught up in a war she had no ability to fight, especially if it was Ciano's opinion that the West would intervene.
In a twist of irony, it was Ciano who had probably made the West think that the Italian-German alliance wasn't as concrete as it appeared, and so going to war was a good idea, this means it was Ciano who had effectively engineered the war he claimed not to desire:
Loraine joyfully reported later on August 18th that a new discussion with Ciano permitted him to draw the opposite conclusion about Italian policy. Ciano had claimed that Italy “has not agreed” to support Germany in the event of war, and he intimated to Loraine that she had no intention of doing so. Ciano also confided that he was in serious disagreement with Ribbentrop about the Polish crisis. Loraine reported irresponsible rumors that Hungarian Foreign Minister Istvan Csacy was in Rome on a pro-Polish and anti-German mission. Loraine hoped that this was true, because it would magnify the great differences which separated the Axis allies. The rumor about the Csacy visit originated from a Russian source, and it apparently did not occur to Loraine that the Russians were encouraging the British to persist in their disastrous policy of challenging Germany.
Ciano’s indiscretion produced an electric effect in London, and it greatly weakened the impact Hitler desired to produce with his surprise Russian agreement. The influence on France was still more decisive. Indeed, it is reasonably certain that France, and consequently Great Britain, would not have attacked Germany had it not been for the disloyal indiscretion of Ciano to Loraine on August 18, 1939. The French military leaders asserted later that they would never have advised the French Government to gamble on a Franco-German war had it not been for the advance pledge of Italian neutrality in such a conflict. It would have been a simple matter for Bonnet to continue his peace policy had the French military men declared that a war with Germany was not feasible. A firm Italian stand in support of Germany, as advised by Hitler, and accepted by Ciano on August 13, 1939, would have done much more for European peace and for the interests of Italy than the prostration of Italy on August 18, 1939, before the British military threat.
David L. Hoggan, The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed (Institute for Historical Review, 1989), p. 459. also see: Annelies von Ribbentrop, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden (Druffel Verlag, Zweite erweiterte Auflage 1963) pp. 443ff.
The
perception of a united German-Italian front was insisted upon by Hitler on August 25th even though the Italians couldn't fight, because he knew, unlike Ciano, that without Italian support the West would intervene, and sought to prevent their intervention by getting Italy to simply agree to pretend that she could fight. This was the smart choice, evidently Ciano was either too stupid or malicious to see it.
gl0spana wrote:So Hitler, being one of the most astute and capable statesmen in history also probably recognized the great possibility of Allied intervention, but wanted to better justify his bold, perhaps reckless, action to his subordinates.
Of course Hitler recognized the
possibility that the West might intervene, but it wasn't considered by him to be all that likely. There is no evidence that he thought they would get involved; as late as September 1st Goebbels was writing in his diary about how Hitler didn't think they'd intervene:
English:Coulondre and Henderson try to get Lipski to go to the Führer on his own. But he's untraceable by the hour. So it looks like Poland is going to drag this thing out. At noon the Führer gives the order to attack at night around 5am. It seems that the die is finally cast. Goering is still skeptical. The Führer does not yet believe that England will intervene.
German:Coulondre und Henderson suchen Lipski zu bewegen, auf eigene Faust zum Führer zu gehen. Aber er ist stundenweise unauffindbar. Polen will also offenbar die Sache hinzie hen. Mittags gibt der Führer Befehl zum Angriff in der Nacht gegen 5th. Es scheint, daß damit die Würfel endgültig gefallen sind. Göring ist noch skeptisch. Der Führer glaubt noch nicht daran, daß England eingreifen wird.
Goebbels Diary, September 1, 1939. See: Joseph Goebbels Tagebücher 1924-1945: Band 3 1935-1939, Herausgegeben von Ralf Georg Reuth (Piper Verlag, München, Auflage März 2003), pp. 1322-1323.
The real problem with what you've said though, is that you think it was Hitler who was being reckless. That's utter nonsense. Hitler had no reason to expect the British to fight, other than their word that they would do so, which was nothing more than a threat. Hitler knew better that even if they said as much there was nothing that they could actually do, and indeed when the time came they did nothing:
Secret though its territorial clauses were, there was little doubt in the West about Hitler’s reasons for agreeing to the Moscow or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. By lifting the threat from the East, the pact enabled Hitler to contemplate an invasion of Poland with relative equanimity. Of course, there was still a grave risk that Britain and France would declare war on Nazi Germany in response. In the short run, however, this was a much lesser danger to the German Wehrmacht than hostile Soviet armed intervention would have been. As neither Britain nor France shared a border with Poland, they would be hard pressed to assist it, short of a French invasion of Germany’s western frontier or a British blockade of the Baltic—neither of which would much slow down a German war machine able, owing to Poland’s unfavorable geography, to invade from multiple directions simultaneously. France’s chief of staff, General Maurice Gamelin, had promised the Polish government that he would hurl “the bulk of the French army” across the Maginot Line within fifteen days if Hitler invaded Poland, but there were good reasons to doubt this would happen. There was little sign of war readiness, much less enthusiasm, in Paris, where the political temperature was best captured in the famous question posed on the cover of L’oeuvre on May 4, 1939: Were Frenchmen truly ready to “die for Danzig”?
Nor was it clear that Britain would go to war on Poland’s behalf. Although Chamberlain’s government responded to news of the Moscow Pact by signing a mutual assistance treaty with Poland on August 25, 1939, valid for five years, its clauses regarding military cooperation were slippery, as the Poles would soon discover. Britain did not promise to make war, but rather “at once [to] give the Contracting Party engaged in hostilities [i.e., Poland] all the support and assistance in its power.” In practice, this might mean anything from a full-scale invasion of the country attacking Poland to the dispatch of military aid or the disbursement of war loans. Even those less helpful options were not ironclad, in view of Britain’s poor track record on Polish arms requests since Chamberlain’s supposed guarantee of March 31.i Nor did the mutual assistance treaty specify which country Britain expected to invade Poland. As worded, the treaty could apply to the USSR as much as to Nazi Germany.
Sean McMeekin, Stalin's War (Allen Lane, 2021), pp. 89-90.
So who was reckless? Surely not Hitler. For it wasn't Hitler who gave a guarantee he couldn't fulfil. Hitler equally warned Britain on August 25th that Germany wouldn't back down, and would go to war if necessary to fight for German interests, at that moment it wasn't Hitler who was reckless, but the British, for it was them who should've known better to continue to peruse a line of foreign policy that would inevitably end up in war because there was nothing they could do.
Hitler held the cards, and Britain held on, bringing war upon the European continent and doing nothing to
discourage Polish obstinacy or
encourage the immediate negotiations that they claimed to have wanted. It proved to be nothing more than a façade to hide their own guilt.
If, as people say, the British pledge to Poland was intended as a deterrent to "German aggression" in an effort to maintain peace, then it was a failure as a deterrent because it ensured war by having to way of actually enforcing itself. If the British were honest about the guarantee they gave to Poland being a safety net to prevent war by putting pressure on Germany, then she would've had a way of
exerting that pressure by way of support from a country like the Soviet Union to discourage any German action. This they couldn't do, because Stalin had his own plans for war in mind.
So one has to ask, why should Hitler have backed down if he held all the cards morally and geographically? How could it possibly be him who was reckless?
Even if we accept that the British were going to fight and that Hitler knew it. So what? That doesn't mean Hitler should've thrown in the towel because the British were threatening war. Hitler could do the same, so who's to say which side has the right to threaten war if the other side doesn't back down? The British conviction to go to war is quite clearly no different to Hitler's, both sides thought they could force the other to step back from the brink. The difference is that Hitler had
much less of a reason to step back than the British, due to the fact that Hitler's position on the continent and his pact with the Soviets effectively nullified the British moral impetus for going to war over Poland, for she would have to also go to war with the Russians if she were consistent in her defence of Poland as a country. That she didn't do this is evidence that Poland was nothing more than a pretext for Britain's war party.
The truth is that Poland was a country Britain couldn't hope to defend, and therefore the blame lies with her for pushing the world over the edge, and into the waters of war because of a guarantee she couldn't fulfil. Hitler logically recognised that the British had been robbed of their
casus belli, and continued to rectify Germany's grievances by going to war with Poland, he cannot be blamed for the actions of the British who were too obstinate to recognise that their method of deterrence couldn't be fulfilled without a commitment to all out war. That in-fact their very commitment to Poland to supposedly
prevent a war is exactly the reason a war broke out in the first place.
Even after all this, some fool would say that the British were simply "sticking to their word", and that Hitler had "been warned", yet this forces the person who accepts this argument into accepting the false dichotomy that whatever the British say is law that Germany should follow, for some arbitrary reason that only lends itself to the predetermined moral conclusion that Hitler was wrong. The person who believes this is completely oblivious to the fact that the "word" of the British was irresponsible from the start, considering the path their word would force them to go down if they were to stick to it. Their word should've been to the commitment of maintaining peace, not to going to war over Poland. If they had given their word in that regard, then they would've tried to make the Poles see reason and accept the German 16 points, yet instead the British urged no such mediation, but instead they told the Poles they shouldn't budge, that they should only demand negotiations, not over Danzig, but just negotiations
in general and that these negotiations shouldn't amount to accepting any such generous German proposals! Even after the war broke out, and the Germans had continued to try and make peace, the British snubbed them, they even did so after 1940 when France fell.
Hitler cannot be held responsible for the irresponsible actions of another nation who should've recognized the futility of their commitment and what the consequences would be had she remained committed. If the British couldn't resolve the German-Polish problem they wanted to solve by peaceful means, and didn't have the foresight to recognise as Hitler did that their policy of commitment would instead lead to a war they supposedly didn't want to fight, is not Hitler's fault. Nor does the blame become Hitler's because the British stayed the course of war they set for themselves without ever actually having the means to avoid that course in the first place. One can only say for certain that either due to recklessness or malice the British decided on war the moment they gave the Poles a blank check, because they had no way, despite their claims, of averting a war by simply puffing out their chest and giving Germany an ultimatum she had no reason to take seriously.
What the British did amounted to little more than uttering threats from the other side of a chasm, in their threats they said that they would reach the other side if Germany did what wasn't in the interests of the British government, yet it was plain for all to see that they had no way to cross, and so their words shouldn't be taken very seriously.
It's like if you were to end up facing an enemy on the edge of a cliff, you can turn around and leave, while he would fall to his death if he were to take one more step. Would you honestly think it was reasonable for the man one step away from disaster to start barking demands at you? That, say, if you don't switch places he'll throw himself off and you'll be responsible for his suicide? You would laugh in his face and tell him that he was the one with the choice, not you. Yet, how angry would you feel if that man said "okay I warned you" and jumps to his death, and you get the blame because "he did warn you to take his place, that poor man would still be alive if you did what he said!". I don't imagine you'd be very happy, or think it was right that you got saddled with the blame for an action someone else took on your behalf, when they should've recognized they were in no position to make any such demand.
If you can imagine this scenario, you now know how ridiculous it is to blame Germany for the Second World War. It was, after all, not Hitler who declared war on Britain and France, but the other way around.
