Berlin Games (39 page)

One person whom Channon met at the banquet was Sir Robert Vansittart. According to the MP, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office admitted to ‘being impressed by the Nazi regime, and the way it had transformed Berlin and rejuvenated the country'. ‘Van' was no doubt humouring ‘Chips', not wishing to start an argument in the middle of the Opera House with one of the House of Commons' most ardent appeasers. Besides, Vansittart was too wily to display his opinions openly–he was after all a civil servant, not a politician. Such a distinction was not respected by the Nazis, who wooed Vansittart and wife Sarita the moment they arrived in the British embassy in Berlin. Lady Vansittart received a huge display of orchids from Goebbels, and her husband was invited to countless lunches, meetings and dinners.

The purpose of Vansittart's visit was manifold. As well as coming to give support to his brother-in-law, Sir Eric Phipps, Vansittart was also keen to show the Nazis that he was not the zealous Germanophobe of their imagination. In addition, he wished to explore tentatively the possibility of getting Hitler around a conference table in which a ‘new
Locarno' could be negotiated. Vansittart knew there was little chance now of getting a response to the questionnaire that Eden had drawn up earlier in the year. Indeed, Hitler's recalcitrance over the issue was the subject of some public jocularity back in Britain. A cartoon in the 5 August issue of
Punch
magazine showed Hitler dressed in athletic garb, clutching a discus on which were the words ‘Reply to British Questionnaire'. The caption read, ‘I wonder how much longer I can keep this attitude up without letting the thing go?' From the stadium came shouts of ‘Let her go, Adolf!' and ‘Get a move on!' Vansittart's job, then, was not to bully Hitler into throwing the discus, but to try to wheedle out of him which way he might consider throwing it, and indeed, how far.

When Vansittart met Hitler, he found the dictator to be ‘an amiably simple, rather shy, rotundly ascetic,
bourgeois
, with the fine hair and thin skin that accompany extreme sensitiveness'. Ribbentrop had asked Vansittart to avoid ‘rough passages and disputable corners', and to concentrate on generalities, partly because ‘an Olympic truce lay thick over the city, and had its effect on Herr Hitler's mood'. Vansittart was struck by the presence of Hitler's entourage, although he found him surrounded by fewer yes-men than Mussolini. What he did not find was the demagogue of the newsreels, although he knew that still to be there.

It is not known precisely what Hitler thought of Vansittart, but to the bourgeois corporal, the tall Old Etonian must have represented something of the
ancien régime
whose favours he resented having to curry. Perhaps Hitler shared Himmler's view that Etonians were members of a secret society, with their bizarre language that had to be some sort of code. ‘In Nazi teaching,' wrote Airey Neave, ‘Old Etonians were soft but cunning and should therefore be carefully watched and reports compiled about their activities.'

Vansittart was pleased to discover that he was able to have a conversation with Hitler rather than endure a rant, and that the German was even able to ‘take interruption kindly'. Hitler began the conversation by explaining and justifying to Vansittart what he had done, both domestically and internationally. The Briton saw no point in arguing with Hitler, and told him that the British were a practical people, and wanted only to look to the future. As soon as Vansittart raised the possibility of a five-power summit–a new Locarno–however, he found that Hitler was more willing to talk about the civil war in Spain, which Vansittart was finding to be ‘the constant theme of every man and woman in Berlin'. In Hitler's opinion, if the left won in Spain, then France might turn communist as well. If that happened, argued Hitler, then the ‘contagion' of communism might well spread to Czechoslovakia, in which case Germany would be ‘caught between two, if not three, fires, and must be prepared'. Vansittart countered this by saying that the war in Spain might in fact deter France from going communist, a point that Hitler accepted. Privately, however, Vansittart was not so sure. ‘I made the most reassuring picture I could,' he wrote. ‘For I am by no means convinced of the accuracy of this picture. France will probably go further left, and further still in the event of a Communist victory in Spain, with all its violent consequences. Meanwhile, the Communists in France are already honeycombing the country with cells.' In essence, Vansittart and Hitler were in agreement, but the former knew that he could not possibly say so, as that would look as though he were giving Hitler a free hand in Spain, and carte blanche to rearm.

The conversation then moved on to Hitler's domestic position, and the Fuehrer gave an account of ‘his own hold on his own people'. During the course of his stay, Vansittart found that all the leading figures were entirely confident of this hold, which confirmed Vansittart's view as to the ‘unreality of any German fear as to internal communism'. What had the Nazis to fear from the Werner Seelenbinders among them? The Nazi grip on power was so strong that, in Vansittart's words, ‘the underdog stays under'. There was no need to repress ruthlessly, the diplomat thought, as a ‘nod is as good as a kick, though there are plenty of kicks going on–under the table'. When Vansittart met Goering, the Reichsmarschall bet the Briton
that he could drive him to the roughest part of Germany he could find, and that they could get out of the car and nothing untoward would happen to them. ‘I replied that I had practically given up betting against certainties,' Vansittart wrote.

 

On 8 August, the British held a party of their own at the embassy. It was not a great success, with Henry Channon describing it as ‘boring, crowded and inelegant'. Goebbels, who by now was fed up with the Olympics, was even more damning. ‘[It was] originally just a small meal,' he wrote, ‘but then it turned into a massive reception. A thousand people and a thousand idiotic conversations.' ‘Phipps', he wrote, ‘is stupid.' Unlike the Nazis, Phipps was not a natural party-giver. Martha Dodd observed that Phipps, ‘when he entertained formally, seemed as nervous as a cat, bounced around with his crooked walk–one shoulder hunched up, making one leg seem shorter than the other–his head carried to the side, jerking from one group of his guests to another, emitting almost inaudible, “Yes, yes, how interesting” sounds'. Goebbels was, however, struck by Lady Vansittart, whom he described as ‘extremely kind and generous with us'. He also respected her husband, who Goebbels felt had ‘opened up a lot' since he had been in Berlin. Goebbels had met Vansittart a few days before, and the meeting, according to Goebbels, had gone well.

Vansittart also had some respect for Goebbels. ‘He seemed to me the deepest of them all,' he wrote. ‘I found much charm in him–a limping, eloquent, slip of a Jacobin, “quick as a whip,” and often, I doubt not, as cutting […] He is a calculator and therefore a man with whom one might do business.' Vansittart added that he and his wife had got on very well with Goebbels and his wife, noting that ‘it is an obviously happy marriage, with attractive devotion on both
sides'. The Goebbels were clearly good actors, as Goebbels had just had his suspicions confirmed that Magda had indeed been having some sort of dalliance with a man called Luedecke.

Among the visitors to the British embassy that night was the Indian hockey team, who arrived half an hour late. ‘Of course, it was not a novel experience for us,' wrote their captain, ‘for we seldom reached any place at the given time […] We had never been punctual at a reception, game or anything, and this fact was known in the Village and outside.' Like the other guests, the Indians found the party overcrowded, although they were happy that Phipps was able to receive them personally. They left after just an hour. With an hour's bus ride there and back, the trip can hardly have seemed worth it.

 

On the night of Tuesday, 11 August, Ribbentrop held a huge party at his villa in the Dahlem district of Berlin. That morning, what was an open secret in diplomatic circles had finally been announced–Ribbentrop was going to London as the German ambassador. ‘No one quite knows why he has been selected,' wrote Henry Channon. ‘Is it because his power is waning? Have the machinations of his jealous colleagues led to this dignified banishment? Is it because London is considered so important a post that their best man had to be sent, or is it because there is no-one else?' The truth was a mixture of all these. In the eyes of Neurath, the post was a banishment, whereas Hitler thought that Ribbentrop was the best man for the job.

Ribbentrop and his wife Annelies worked hard at staging a party that they hoped would eclipse all others during the Olympic fortnight. ‘Our house in Dahlem was none too big,' Ribbentrop wrote, ‘certainly too small for all the guests, and so Annelies very ably turned our garden into a veritable little fairground.' The lawn and the tennis court were covered by a vast marquee, in which the 600 guests would mingle among the rhododendrons and next to the lily-covered swimming pool.

When the guests arrived, they were presented with a thick booklet that showed them where to sit. The most prestigious table was no doubt table twelve, around which sat Vansittart, Goering, Mrs Dodd–the wife of the American ambassador–Lady Aberdare, Baillet-Latour, François-Poncet–the French ambassador to Berlin–Annelies
Ribbentrop, the Prinz von Liechtenstein, Countess Szembek–the wife of the Polish secretary of state–General Ernst Udet–the flying ace from the war–Baroness Reischach, and finally, of all people, Avery Brundage. Here then was a motley collection of distinguished guests from different countries, and in some senses worlds–those of diplomacy, aristocracy, politics, the military and sport. Of those five, sport was without doubt the most junior, and it is hard to imagine how the politically naive Brundage would have managed when so out of his depth. There is no doubt that both he and Baillet-Latour, when they looked around the table, would have felt themselves to be every bit as important as an ambassador or a secretary of state. In their minds, the IOC was a sovereign state in itself, and no Mickey Mouse state either. In short, Avery Brundage had arrived.

Also among the guests was Unity Mitford, although her sister and fellow guest of the Goebbels family, Diana, had not been invited. The two Englishwomen and their host got on well, and had chatted into the small hours of the night of 2/3 August. ‘The two English girls are actually very nice,' Goebbels noted in his diary. Diana and Unity taught Goebbels and his wife Magda how to play a parlour game called ‘Analogies', in which the players had to elucidate what person one of them was thinking of by asking a series of questions that would reveal analogous characteristics of that person. Goebbels was asked what colour his subject reminded him of. ‘Fiery red!' he replied, at which everyone guessed he was talking about Hitler. All this badinage must have given Diana some optimism when, on going to see Goebbels in his office on Wednesday, 5 August, she asked whether her lover could have more money for his British Union of Fascists. Unfortunately for Diana, Goebbels put her off, saying that he would need to ask Hitler. ‘These are times to help themselves,' he wrote in his diary. The following day, Goebbels spoke to the Fuehrer, who refused to give Oswald Mosley any more money.

The Nazis were more helpful, however, when it came to arranging another private matter for Diana. She and Mosley wanted to marry in secret, but it was impossible to do so in Britain. They had considered Paris, but that would have attracted just as much publicity, as a notice would have to be pinned on the wall outside the embassy. In Munich, Diana discovered that there was a reciprocal
arrangement between Germany and Britain which allowed for British subjects to be married by a registrar in Germany, and vice versa. ‘Hitler said he would ask the Berlin registrar to keep the marriage quiet,' Diana recalled, ‘and while we were staying with her, Magda helped me with all the form-filling.' The wedding day was set for 6 October.

Diana was unfortunate not to go to Ribbentrop's party. ‘After dinner, as the marquee was being noiselessly cleaned,' wrote Channon, ‘we listened to some very good singing […] perfection, and not too long. About midnight, the older people began to drift away, whilst the others returned to the marquee […] Goering, his merry eyes twinkling, shook us both by the hand: he really is a most disarming man. Frau von Ribbentrop was simply dressed, unlike the other Nazi ladies.' While his guests drank his champagne, Frau von Ribbentrop's husband was concerned about one guest in particular. ‘The Vansittarts were among those who stayed longest,' Ribbentrop noted with optimism. ‘They danced a lot and seemed happy–was this a good omen? Could it be that Sir Robert did not find Berlin so repulsive after all?' During the evening, Vansittart congratulated Ribbentrop on his appointment as ambassador to London, which prompted Ribbentrop to ask him to a private lunch. Vansittart accepted, which delighted his host. The party went on until the small hours, with Channon describing it as a ‘lovely evening' with its ‘fantastic collection of notabilities, the strangeness of the situation, the excellence of the Ambassador's (or rather more correctly Frau von Ribbentrop's) champagne, all went somewhat to my head'. Not all were quite so dizzy with the headiness of it all. Martha Dodd and her family ‘were greatly bored by the gorgeousness of the celebration', she wrote, ‘and figured out that Ribbentrop's wife, a dark, thin snub-nosed woman who looked hard and bitter, had paid the bill'. Dodd also noted how Himmler ‘wove his mincing, quiet, and sinister way through the crowds'. The following morning, Ribbentrop recalled how Bohnhaus, his old gardener, shook his head at the damage the guests had wrought on his beloved lawn. ‘He made it a point of honour to remove all traces of the night as quickly as possible,' wrote Ribbentrop.