Page 143 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

130 The French Diplomats

Fritsch was that Germany might initiate a “more active phase” in foreign
policy. it even seemed likely that the reich was poised to launch “an adven-
ture.” 80
a week later, on February 23, François-Poncet assessed Hitler’s leader-
ship in some ways more critically than ever before. in the report, he evalu-
ated the Führer’s three-hour address to the reichstag of February 20 on the
recent scandals. Never had Hitler expressed himself with more resentment
and more threats; nor had he ever been as peremptory in his demands. He
also harshly denounced the foreign press for its critical comments on Ger-
man internal affairs. to defend his own conduct, he referred to crises in
other countries, drawing attention in particular to the “orgies of the guil-
lotine” at the time of the French revolution. then he unleashed a personal
attack on anthony eden, the foreign minister of Britain. Hitler’s delivery
“betrayed the profound arrogance of a man who was more and more emo-
tional and given to megalomania, and who, moreover, suffering from in-
somnia, increasingly had to resort to soporifics.” 81
Within weeks it became clear that Hitler was now bent on radical action
on the international scene. On March 12, 1938, German troops marched
into austria, and despite the “brutality, suddenness, and scope” of the in-
vasion, Hitler’s bold decision to annex the German-speaking land evoked
great admiration among the people, who at the same time felt relieved that
the danger of a european war had been “deferred, if not eliminated.” 82
in mid-June the Nazis launched a new campaign against the Jews, an-
other sign of a shift to extremism. the ambassador informed Paris of the
stepped-up drive to expropriate Jewish property and the numerous in-
discriminate arrests of Jews, many of whom were “trembling like hunted
beasts and seeking ways of running away.” François-Poncet viewed this new
wave of persecution as a typical reaction of the Nazis to “difficulties that ex-
asperate them.” they were now holding the Jews responsible for the world-
wide hostility toward them, especially in anglo-saxon countries. But the
ambassador also noted that the Nazis were looking for pretexts to deprive
the Jews of their assets. 83
in the midst of these turbulent events, François-Poncet received an un-
usual request from Paris. the Foreign Office asked him to evaluate two
articles in the distinguished British journal The Economist, which examined
conditions in Germany and surprisingly concluded that the country was
considerably weaker than imperial Germany had been in 1914 and would
therefore not risk a “general conflagration.” the editors of The Economist
were not sympathetic to Nazism; nor can they be classified as out-and-out