Page 58 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The British Diplomats 45

take firm measures against Germany, a subject discussed at some length
below. However, what can be said with certainty is that the British govern-
ment was fully aware of the threat posed by massive German rearmament.
it is now also clear that in 1936 Hitler could have been dealt a severe
blow without risking massive bloodshed. the German “forward troops”
were under orders to withdraw if a confrontation with French forces
seemed likely. Hitler himself is reported to have said to several associates,
“Had the French then marched into the rhineland, we would have had to
withdraw again with our tails between our legs (mit schimpf und schade).
the military force at our disposal would not have sufficed even for limited
resistance.” He also acknowledged that had the withdrawal taken place, “it
would have become the greatest political defeat for me.” 74
Phipps did not report very extensively on the remilitarization of the
rhineland, although he did find it dangerous. immediately after learning
that troops would be dispatched into the region, he told Neurath that he
considered it the “gravest event that had occurred since i took up my ap-
pointment here.” On March 13, he sent a ciphered message on informa-
75
tion he had received from a “private” source to the effect that there was
“the greatest uneasiness in high military and business circles” about what
he called “this coup.” even if Germany avoided war over the rhineland,
“she risks intensifying the suspicions and hatred of all european countries.”
army officers believed that the country took an “unnecessary risk merely
to enhance the prestige of the Nazi party and provide a favourable election
program.” Phipps ended his report with a warning that the disgruntlement
in Germany should not be interpreted to mean that the army would refuse
to “fight to the bitter end if hostilities break out.” 76
eager to avoid war, the ambassador supported the British government’s
decision not to confront Germany militarily in the rhineland. But two and
a half years later, at the time of the crisis over German demands on Czecho-
slovakia, he acknowledged that in the spring of 1936 the West had missed
its last opportunity to take effective preventive action to restrain Hitler. 77
in 1936, however, he did not think that the Nazis could be stopped so
easily. He disputed the argument, voiced in Parliament and in the British
press, that if the league of Nations had succeeded in halting Mussolini’s ad-
vance into abyssinia, Germany would not have moved into the rhineland.
the ambassador did not believe that “heavily armed and successful treaty-
breakers” such as Germany, Japan, and italy could be so easily discouraged
from their aggressive actions. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he
wrote in a dispatch to eden on May 12, 1936. “it must not be imagined that