Suffice to say, this effort quickly ran aground. Poland refused to countenance the cession of Danzig to Germany, with Beck primarily citing domestic political concerns and warning Ribbentrop that ‘If the Danzig question were opened, German-Polish relations would be profoundly and seriously endangered.’ 156 Germany persisted in the attempt to enrol Poland for a further five months following this offer, but with no more success than it had had previously. Indeed, after Germany’s annexation of the rump of Czechoslovakia, a move that outflanked Polish border defences, Poland still refused to budge. 157 So it was that Hitler definitively switched from a policy of conciliation to one of outright aggression, issuing the following directive on 3 April 1939: ‘For “Operation White” the Führer has issued the following additional directives: 1. Preparations must be made in such a way that the operation [against Poland] can be carried out at any time as from September 1939. 158 This was the first major setback to the Reich’s efforts to establish a unified Axis bloc with which to confront the Allies. While the invasion of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 seemed at first to have been a wild success, securing the Reich’s flank while simultaneously netting much needed foreign currency and rich 156 Memorandum by the Foreign Minister, Berlin, November 19, 1938, in Bernadotte E. Schmitt et al, (1953), p. 128. 157 Tooze, p. 306. 158 Directive by the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Berlin, April 3, 1939, in Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945 , Series D, Volume VI, ed. by Paul R. Sweet et al, (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1956), pp. 186-187.
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