France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (13 page)

While doing research in the archives of the Wilhelmstrasse and the Zentralarchiv at Potsdam, Jacques Bariéty and Charles Bloch discovered an attempt at a Franco-German rapprochement in 1932 and 1933, which, even though it hadn’t originated with the moribund CFAID, would still not have been possible had the Committee not done the groundwork.

It was “the private initiative of bankers and industrialists who feared the consequences of the crisis and of the confrontation between the two countries,…both governments were informed of the meetings to which they simply sent unofficial observers.”
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The first meeting took place in Luxemburg on April 29–30, 1932; the second was in Paris on January 29 and 30, 1933. On the French side, the participants were René Duchemin, president of the Kuhlmann company and head of the
Confédération nationale de la production française
; Louis Marlio, former councilor at the
Conseil d’État
, administrator of the
Chemins de fer de l’est
and other companies; Jean Parmentier, a senior treasury official and former director of the
Mouvement général des fonds
, and Vladimir d’Ormesson, an editorial writer who was very close to the diplomats and had written a widely discussed and sensational book that had been translated into several languages,
Confiance en l’Allemagne?
(1928).
*
As we have mentioned, he was also active in Catholic circles. On the German side, there were also some large industrialists, such as Professor Carl Bosch, director of
Badische Anilin
, who collaborated with Kuhlmann; Dr. Bücher, who had worked at the foreign ministry and headed the famous
Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesellschaft
(AEG); and Clemens Lammers, a deputy of the Catholic Center, close to Chancellor Brüning. Also present at the meetings were Aloys Meyer, who had succeeded Mayrisch at ARBED, the Belgian banker Barbanson and Camille Gutt, who was later to become Belgian minister of finance and director of the International Monetary Fund.

The talks in Luxemburg were very open. The French agreed to a moratorium on reparations, while the Germans accepted that payments would resume after the crisis through a system based on issuing German government bonds. The Germans asked for French loans—in 1932 France had more funds available than the other great powers—in order to replace the faltering American credit. The French wanted these loans to be guaranteed by both governments. Disarmament was also discussed, but less successfully. The Germans proposed talks between the high commands of both armies, the idea again having been put forward by von Papen in July 1932 at the Lausanne conference. In fact, von Papen had been a member of the CFAID.

Finally, they discussed the Polish Corridor. Couldn’t it be returned to Germany? Poland, in exchange, would annex Lithuania. The French then stated as a condition that Germany guarantee its eastern borders, the so-called “Eastern Locarno.”

The meetings resumed in Paris on January 29 and 30, 1933, with the same partners (except Marlio and Lammers). “The French delegation certainly had fewer ties with the government in Paris than it had under Tardieu, but the fact that Parmentier attended proves that they maintained contact with certain high-ranking civil servants.” On the German side, von Papen, who was no longer chancellor but was orchestrating the many intrigues that would return him to power as Hitler’s deputy chancellor on the same day—January 30—was kept informed.
⁴⁵
The second conference concluded that the German-Polish border in the Corridor and in Upper Silesia would be modified with Poland receiving Memel at Lithuania’s expense in exchange. Germany would agree to guarantee its eastern borders. A security pact, along with general staff agreements, was to be reached between France, Belgium, Germany, and Poland. Germany would be granted a colonial mandate. Economic issues were not discussed.

That meeting, as it turned out, had very little effect. Hitler wasn’t told about it. The German Minister of Foreign Affairs, von Neurath, and his deputy von Bülow, expressed their disagreement on all points. Did the French government approve of the plan, as Duchemin believed? No trace of it can be found in the archives.

In any case, after the proclamation of “equal rights” and after Hitler had come to power, the question of disarmament continued to dominate the relations between the two countries. Germany had already expressed doubts as to the “French constructive plan,” demanding that compulsory
military service be reinstated.
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Thus, the Geneva conference became mired, for a while, in minor details. Should plenary and public meetings be held, as France wished?
⁴⁷
Or should the five member conversations be resumed, as the English suggested?
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Massigli telegraphed Paul-Boncour, “It is hardly necessary to point out to your excellency how risky such meetings would be for us, we would find ourselves caught between the German-Italian bloc, a neutral United States and an undecided Great Britain.”
⁴⁹

Was Great Britain, however, really that undecided? On March 7, the conference’s political committee had practically rejected the “French constructive plan.”
⁵⁰
Macdonald was thinking of a new disarmament plan. He “therefore played the role of arbiter” between France and Germany, once again forgetting about the old alliance. He again forgot to consult his French partners. Massigli wrote, “Isn’t it time we had a talk with Sir John Simon and told him that, without in any way wishing to curtail the British Prime Minister’s freedom of initiative, the French delegate is entitled to expect, in a matter of such vital importance for France, not to be faced with some kind of summons?” What had happened to the “trust agreement.”
⁵¹

In effect, having conceded just about everything in 1932, France was back to square one in 1933. But, this time, there was Hitler and he was very busy: the Reichstag fire, the elimination of the communists and the elections of March 5, returning 288 Nazi and 52 German-nationalist deputies to the Reichstag, were all great successes, even though he didn’t quite have an absolute majority. Was his silence something to be feared? Ambassador François-Poncet didn’t think so. “It would be wrong…to turn the Hitler movement into a bogeyman. … It sows the seeds of its own divisions and weakness… Germany’s opportunities for rearmament remain constrained by its economic and financial situation.”
⁵²
François-Poncet attended the grandiose ceremony of March 21, when the new Reichstag met in the Garnisonkirche at Potsdam. He was inspired to write an excellent report, evoking the paradox of this half-Austrian Hitler, “placing himself, with great pomp, under the aegis of the kings of ancient Prussia… Time will soon come, then, when it is possible to ask what one may expect of German facism.”
⁵³

That time came on April 8 when Hitler received the French ambassador for the first time. It was to be the first of a long series of meetings, since Hitler seemed prepared to grant France special treatment. As Professor Hildebrand and Professor Jacobsen have noted, in the first three
years of his government, Hitler spent almost fifty percent of the time allotted to consultations in talks with the French and British representatives.
⁵⁴
And François-Poncet got even more time than his British colleague.

At the April 8 meeting Hitler was as gentle as a lamb. “I repeat, my government is sincerely, deeply pacifist. We are all convinced that war, even if it were to be victorious, would cost much sacrifice and bring very little gain. What is important for Germany is to overcome unemployment and economic hardship.” Hitler was “courteous and friendly, not at all self-conscious.” François-Poncet had the impression that he wanted a Franco-German agreement.
⁵⁵

In fact, the plan Macdonald had been preparing was presented on March 17. It entirely omitted the idea of the mutual assistance pact that France held dear. On the other hand, it offered Germany the perfect means for launching a very profitable “leap forward.” Quietly ignoring the fact that Germany had been more or less secretly involved in a substantial rearmament,
⁵⁶
it proposed to reduce the armies of all the main continental powers to the level of 200,000 men. Germany would therefore be able to double the size of the army allowed by the Treaty of Versailles. All the other powers, and particularly France, were to disarm until they reached that level. Worse, as Daladier, who was prime minister at the time pointed out to Macdonald, no provisions had been made for a system of oversight. The concept of oversight was becoming increasingly central to French policy. Daladier was to announce it on March 2 in a speech to the British and American press association.
⁵⁷
He mentioned “oversight” again on March 16, and made it the centerpiece of French policy on May 2 at a cabinet meeting and on May 20 in a staff meeting. The controls would include: 1) budgets; 2) technical issues—relating to armament categories; 3) arms manufacturing; and 4) troop levels. There would be a four-year trial period to gauge the effectiveness of controls. Stockpiling or destruction of surplus weapons would be carried out during a four-year period afterward.
⁵⁸
That was the only condition whereby France was ready to support the Macdonald plan.

Therefore, France was abandoning the old idea of a mutual assistance pact, which would guarantee security, and replacing it with the oversight system
. This change seemed to be linked to Daladier himself, who would long remain the promoter of controls. The United States, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, the countries of the Little Entente and the USSR,
all subscribed to this system. Its success depended, of course, on British and German response.

On June 8, 1933,
⁵⁹
in a conversation held at the Quai d’Orsay between France, Great Britain and the United States, Daladier and Paul-Boncour defended their oversight plan. The British and the Americans accepted the principle, but declared that France must
first
make a gesture toward disarmament. What the Americans and the British wanted was “to ensure that the conference would succeed”—meaning “that it is agreed…that the interlocutor is in good faith.” Daladier replied that, “Germany has already partially rearmed…which is why we must be particularly cautious.” There had to be an observation period, since he “doubted the sincerity of Germany’s intentions.” Daladier added, “A dictatorial regime can set the moment when it will launch an attack in advance and therefore prepare its build-up accordingly.” To which Norman Davis, the American negotiator, answered: Start disarming first, then we will accept controls. It was a dialog of the deaf.

Hitler must have been watching all this with glee. By setting the 200,000-man army as a basis for discussion, Macdonald was handing him the arguments to protest that the Reichswehr had only 100,000 men (a number it already largely exceeded). The British and the Americans, by asking France to make a “gesture” and by trying to water down the principle of an oversight system, were allowing him to look good; all he had to do was play along and pretend to be a pacifist first and foremost. While the democratic countries embarked in byzantine discussions on whether to adjourn the conference or not, Hitler gave a great “speech for peace on May 17, 1933”
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in the Reichstag. He declared his willingness to abide by the treaty and, at the same time, asked for the arms forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles as “samples.” “Hitler and his friends want peace,” wrote François-Poncet, “not because they have stopped idolizing strength, but because peace is for them a requirement and, as for strength, they just don’t have it.”
⁶¹

In the same way, Hitler adhered with apparent enthusiasm to the Four Power Pact that we will mention later on.
⁶²
While he was busy eliminating political parties, he signed a concordat with the Vatican. Minister of Foreign Affairs, von Neurath, proposed “direct contacts” between France and Germany. He mentioned a possible meeting with Prime Minister Daladier, who found the idea very attractive.
⁶³
While he was persecuting the Jews, and making incendiary speeches to the SA and even allowing
the SA in Kehl to inscribe “Strasburg” on their flag, he again met with François-Poncet on September 15 to say, “with the greatest tone of sincerity, that at no time had he contemplated and would never contemplate challenging the border between France and Germany, because he knew very well that most Alsatians didn’t like the Germans.” Moreover he would abide by the Locarno accords. “My one ambition,” he added, “is that some day in the future there will be a monument dedicated to me as the man who reconciled France and Germany.”
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Did Hitler really want bilateral negotiations with France? In any case, he intended to rearm as quickly as possible. Throughout the summer of 1933, the French tried to convince the British and the Americans of Germany’s “lapses,” which were clearly obvious.
⁶⁵
In spite of the evidence, Hitler had a perfect excuse to do as he pleased—Germany had been promised “equal rights” in December 1932. And now France wanted an eight-year “probation” period? That amounted to a breach of trust and, in that case, there was only one solution, one that both General Renondeau and François-Poncet had sensed in early September
⁶⁶
—to walk out of the disarmament conference. On October 14, 1933, Sir John Simon announced at the conference that the French, British, Italians and the Americans agreed to the probation period.
⁶⁷
Immediately, on the very same day, Hitler announced that Germany was leaving the conference. To further increase what the French chargé d’affaires Pierre Arnal called “a bomb blast,”
he also announced that Germany was leaving the League of Nations
.
⁶⁸