Page 79 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

66 The British Diplomats

or because new evidence about him had come to light but, rather, because
they did not wish to confront him.
to the surprise of many in the Foreign Office, once Henderson took
up residence in Berlin he turned out to hold views he apparently had kept
to himself. His major sponsor for the Berlin post was none other than the
passionate anti-German Vansittart, who favored Henderson because in his
previous position as ambassador to Yugoslavia he had demonstrated excep-
tional gifts in handling an authoritarian ruler, King alexander. Henderson
would go on hunting trips with the king and on these outings persuaded
his host to adopt policies favored by the British government. Vansittart
believed that Henderson might be similarly successful with Hitler. in his
autobiography, written twenty years later, Vansittart could not resist ridi-
culing the selection process: “Nevile Henderson . . . made such a hit with
the dictator by his skill in shooting that he was ultimately picked for Berlin.
all know the consequences.” 119 eden, the foreign minister, approved Hen-
derson’s appointment without having met him or studied his credentials
in depth, much to his later regret. Henderson subsequently maintained
120
that he had told eden that “he would probably incur the appellation of
pro-German,” but no known evidence supports this claim. Chamberlain
knew Henderson, and apparently during a meeting in april 1937—before
Chamberlain became prime minister—the two men agreed on Britain’s fu-
ture policy toward Germany. 121
aside from the achievements in Yugoslavia, there seemed to be no com-
pelling reason for Henderson’s appointment to what was considered in the
1930s to be the most important diplomatic post. He had entered the For-
eign service in 1905 at the age of twenty-three and before his assignment
to Belgrade had held various positions in Constantinople, egypt, France,
and argentina and distinguished himself in none of them. He was not very
pleasant, and one of his biographers, who was generally well disposed to-
ward him, characterized him as a “stormy petrel” who tended to be “argu-
mentative, indiscreet and on occasions self-righteous.” He was also a man
with many prejudices. He disliked slavs and Jews and referred to Jews and
Communists as warmongers. On one occasion he suggested to the German
ambassador in london that the treatment of Jews in Germany should “be
regularized in orderly and systematic manner.” and he shocked many of his
colleagues when he claimed that at a meeting in april 1937, Chamberlain,
then still chancellor of the exchequer, had given him license “to commit
calculated indiscretions.” 122 No evidence has been found to substantiate this
claim. Henderson had convinced himself that he was destined to make his