Abstract
Of all the dilemmas that plagued the British Foreign Office during the interwar years none was more onerous or enduring than that which has passed into the history books as the ‘German problem’, The term itself was an unfortunate echo of failure, a nagging reminder that the primary objective that the British had pursued at such appalling sacrifice during the war of 1914-18 had not been realised. To be sure, the defeat of the Kaiserreich had eliminated a dangerous naval competitor and commercial rival, but the peace treaties had signally failed to deliver that continental equilibrium which was considered vital to the safety of the homeland and the promotion of British interests across the globe. Indeed, the manifest shortcomings of the peace settlement, the continental dominance of France, the disputes which continued to rage between the newly emerged states of Eastern and Central Europe and, most importantly, the severe weakening of Germany had created a situation which was in some senses even more challenging than that which had confronted the British before 1914. Well might they have wished to ‘heal the wounds of war, to oppose far-reaching alterations in the law of Europe, to return to normal’,1 not least in view of their pressing domestic concerns and new imperial burdens, but the authorities in London were quick to appreciate that a German revival, a contingency not entirely undesirable in itself, if only from an economic point of view, was merely a question of time.
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Notes
F.S. Northedge, The Troubled Giant. Britain Among the GreatPowers, 1916–1939 (London: LSE and Bell, 1966) p. 122.
See for example, The National Archives, London [hereafter UKNA], minute by Vansittart, 7 July 1933, FO 371/16726/C5963; E.L. Woodward, M.E. Lambert, W.N. Medlicott, et al. (eds), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 (London: HMSO, 1947–1984) [hereafter DBFP, 2], Ser. 2,vol. 5, no. 229.
Robert G. Vansittart, The Mist Procession. The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart (London: Hutchinson, 1958) p. 486.
On the deliberations of the DRC see W.K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy. British Intelligence and Nazi Germany 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) pp. 23ff.
In this connexion see especially Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag of 21 May 1935 in M. Domarus, Hitler. Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945. The Chronicle of a Dictatorship, vol. II. The Years 1935 to 1938. Translated from the German by Chris Wilcox and Mary Fran Gilbert (Wauconda, IL: BolchazyCarducci Inc, 1992) pp. 667ff.
Josef Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül 1935–39 [England in Hitler’s Political Calculation 1935–39] (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1973) p. 33, n. 70.
The Earl of Avon, The Eden Memoirs. Facing the Dictators (London: Cassell, 1962) pp. 142–3.
G. Martel, ed., The Times and Appeasement. The Journals o fA. L. Kennedy, 1932— 1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p. 171.
R.S. Churchill, The Rise and Fall of Sir Anthony Eden (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1959) p. 110.
R. Self, ed., The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters. Vol. 4. The Downing Street Years, 1934–40 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) p. 166.
On Vansittart’s attitude at the turn of 1935–6 see M.L. Roi, ‘From the Stresa Front to the Triple Entente. Sir Robert Vansittart, the Abyssinian Crisis and the Containment of Germany’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6, 1 (1995), pp. 61–90 and
M.L. Roi, Alternative to Appeasement. Sir Robert Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy, 1934–1937 (Westport: Praeger, 1997) pp. 104ff.
On German views of the British Foreign Office see, for example, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz [hereafter BAK], Wassner to AA, 1 May 1935, ZSg 133/38; P.R. Sweet, M. Lambert, et al. (eds), Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series C, ed. (6 vols., London, HMSO, 1957–1983) [hereafter DGFP, C], vol. 3, no. 333;
J von Ribbentrop, The Ribbentrop Memoirs. Introduction by Alan Bullock (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954) p. 47.
Elke Fröhlich (ed.). Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatlichen Archivdienstes Russlands Teil I, Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941 [The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels. On behalf of the Institute of Contemporary History and with the Support of the National Archives Service of Russia. Part I, records 1923–1941] (9 vols., Munich: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1998–2005) [hereafter TJG, I], vol. 3/i, 24 December 1935.
See J.T. Emmerson, The Rhineland Crisis, 7 March 1936. A Study in Multilateral Diplomacy (London: Temple Smith, 1977) pp. 39ff.
DBFP, Ser. 2, vol. 15, no 509. On 13 February 1936 Eden told Harold Nicolson that the goal of his policy was ‘to avert another German war’, To that end he was prepared to make ‘great concessions’ provided that Hitler agreed to a measure of disarmament and to bring Germany back to Geneva. See N. Nicolson, ed., Harold Nicolson. Diaries and Letters 1930–1939 (London: Collins, 1966) p. 243.
UKNA, St Clair Gainer to Phipps, 31 March 1936, enclosed in Phipps to Eden, 6 April 1936, FO 408/66, lxxiv, no. 26. For an indication of Ribbentrop’s brief for his conversations in London see J.L. Heineman, Hitler’s First Foreign Minister. Constantin Freiherr von Neurath, Diplomat and Statesman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979) p. 140.
On this episode see T. Jones, A Diary with Letters, 1931–1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1954) pp. 194ff.
See E.L. Ellis, T. J. A Life of Dr Thomas Jones CH (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992) pp. 403–4; Ribbentrop, Memoirs, pp. 44–5.
D. Dutton, Anthony Eden. A Life and Reputation (London: Edward Arnold, 1997) pp. 70–1.
D. Carlton, Anthony Eden. A Biography (London: Allen Lane, 1981) p. 115.
See G.T. Waddington, ‘“Hassgegner”: German Views of Great Britain in the Later 1930s’, History, 81, 261 (1996), pp. 22–39.
See CCAC, Vansittart to Phipps, 18 December 1936, Phipps Papers, PHPP I, 2/18; UKNA, Clerk to the FO, 8 February 1937, FO 371/20719/C1080; BAK, Dertinger Informationsbericht 55, 17 December 1936, ZSg 101/29; K. Hildebrand, Vom Reich zum Weltreich. Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage, 1919–1945 [From Empire to World Empire. Hitler, the Nazi Party and the Colonial Question, 1919–1945] (Munich, Fink, 1969) p. 501.
On Schacht’s activities see A.J. Crozier, Appeasement and Germany’s Last Bid for Colonies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988) pp. 173ff.
Office of the Historian, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers 1937. Volume I. General (Washington, 1954) pp. 84–5.
R.J. Sontag, J.W. Wheeler-Bennett, et al. (eds), Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D (13 vols, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949–1964) [hereafter DGFP, D], vol. 1, no. 225.
DBFP, Ser. 2, vol. 18, no. 623. On the proposed Neurath visit see G.L Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany. Starting World War Two, 1937–39 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp. 99ff.
K. Middlemas, Diplomacy of Illusion. The British Government and Germany, 1937–39 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972) p. 128.
See respectively J. Harvey, ed., The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1937–1940 (London: Collins, 1970) p. 59; Avon, Facing the Dictators, pp. 509–10.
A. Roberts, ‘The Holy Fox’. A Biography of Lord Halifax (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) p. 72.
See, for example, A.R. Peters, Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office 1931–1938 (Aldershot: Gower, 1986) p. 378.
D.N. Dilks (ed. and contributor), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan O.M. 1938–1945 (London: Cassell, 1971) p. 37.
See, for example, D.R. Thorpe, Eden. The Life and Times of Anthony Eden. First Earl of Avon, 1897–1977 (London: Chatto, 2003) pp. 189ff;
R. Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986) pp. 172ff.
UKNA, Phipps to FO, 20 and 21 February 1938, FO 371/21590/C1192, C 1193 and C1300. The Italians, for whom Eden had long been a bête noire, were beside themselves with joy. On 20 February Ciano described the crisis over the resignation as ‘perhaps one of the most important which has ever taken place’. See G. Ciano, Ciano’s Diary 1937–1938. Translation and notes by Andreas Mayor. With an introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge (London: Methuen, 1952) p. 78.
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Waddington, G.T.P. (2014). Eden, the Foreign Office and the ‘German Problem’, 1935–38. In: Murfett, M.H. (eds) Shaping British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137431493_7
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