Page 126 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The French Diplomats 113

problems and were not putting into effect preconceived notions about how
German society ought to be organized or about the relations between Ger-
many and other countries. François-Poncet did grant that an overarching
goal of the Nazis was to achieve autarky (autarcie), but even this pursuit
was not a matter of “dogma” for them. 35
senior officials in the French government were not persuaded by the
ambassador’s rearmament proposal, and their reasoning was even more
dubious than François-Poncet’s. andré tardieu, the former prime minis-
ter and now minister of state, thought that an agreement with Hitler on
disarmament was unnecessary because he “won’t last much longer, his fate
is sealed!” Moreover, he contended that any treaty with Hitler would only
“consolidate his power,” and if he went to war, “not a month would elapse
before he would be deposed and replaced by the Crown Prince.” the flip-
pant comments by tardieu on Nazi durability displayed the widespread
lack of understanding of conditions in Germany among the French politi-
cal class. Le Temps, one of the most important newspapers, had all along
dismissed the Führer as a “demagogue” and “house painter,” whose tenure
in office was bound to be short. the prime minister, Gaston doumergue,
also found the ambassador’s proposal unrealistic. Only the foreign minister,
louis Barthou, thought it had merit. it is now clear that the French gov-
36
ernment was right not to support the ambassador, but not for the reasons
it gave. an agreement for partial disarmament would not have deterred
Hitler from pursuing his goal of reestablishing Germany as a major military
power.

the night of the long knives

Not long after François-Poncet made his assessment of Nazism as an
opportunistic movement, he sent the Foreign Office his sharpest, and most
incisive, condemnation—on moral and ideological grounds—of Hitler and
his party. the ambassador’s latest change of mind was a reaction to what
was until that date the single most brutal action by the Nazi leadership.
For some time in 1934, Hitler and his closest collaborators had come to
doubt the political reliability of ernst röhm, the head of the sa. an ambi-
tious adventurer, röhm was a close friend of Hitler in the 1920s and had
participated in the failed putsch of 1923, for which he was sentenced to
prison for three and a half years. in the early 1930s, he played a significant
role in building the sa into a potent force, and after the Nazis’ ascent to