531. Hitler's War on Poland: The Pact with Stalin (Part 2)

27:38And we'll be talking about some of the comic activities with photographs later on. Cigars, isn't it? Cigars and photographs and drinking. So Ribbentrop finally lands in Moscow and he is met by sort of grim faced men with cars straight away. And he is driven directly to the Kremlin. the seat of communism on earth i mean what an incredible moment this is and he's escorted into this long sort of gilded marble hall with chandeliers and whatnot and waiting at the end there's molotov but to his surprise there's also another man a small man with very familiar features a potty have a mustache a gigantic mustache is of course stalin now ribbentrop didn't know that Stalin was going to be there to meet him, so he's a bit taken aback.

28:27And Ribbentrop comes out with his sort of polished, diplomatic, you know, we're lovely to be building a new relationship. We're looking forward to this moment for years. And Stalin is very relaxed and jovial. And Stalin says, we've poured buckets of filth, he uses a much more earthy word than filth, over each other for years. He says, but there's no reason we can't bury the hatchet now. Come on, let's bury the hatchet. And Ribbentrop kicks off with a very, very Hitler. idea let us stun the world with a non-aggression pact to last a hundred years very dr evil that's very dr evil and starlin yeah and starlin kind of laughs and he says if we say this pact will last for a hundred years people will laugh at us for not being serious i suggest 10 years 10 years is more reasonable there's the difference between hitler and starlin right but both of them must equally know it's not going to last of course they do even 10 years of course they do just That's the amazing thing.

29:19Absolutely it is. So the pact is one thing, but of course the really important thing is the secret protocol to divide up Europe between them. And Ribbentrop says, here's Hitler's offer. You can have Finland, you can have Estonia, you can have most of Latvia, you can have eastern Poland up to the River Vistula and the San, and you can have the Romanian region of Bessarabia, which is modern day Moldova, which of course they do get. And Stalin says, that's all great, but I would also like the coast of Latvia. and that's a bit of a stumbling block and Ribbentrop says I'll have to I'll have to ring Hitler I can't agree to that I'll have to ring Hitler now Hitler is at the eagle's nest and it's an extraordinary scene actually he's pacing up and down very nervously on the terrace he's very tense his adjutant was with him Nicholas Nikolaus von Beloff and he described he said it was a beautiful evening an August evening in the mountains and the sun was setting von Beloff said as we strolled up and down the eerie turquoise colored sky to the north turned first violet and then blood red at first we thought there must be a serious fire behind the untezberg the mountain but then the glow covered the whole northern sky in the manner of the northern lights i was very moved and i told hitler that it augured a bloody war oh that's nice that's moving moving to say and hitler replied that if it must be so, then the sooner the better.

30:44For the more time went by, the bloodier it would be. And at that point, the phone rings. And everybody's like, oh, my God, the phone's ringing. It's the news from Moscow. And Hitler picks up the phone, and he just listens in silence. He doesn't say anything. And then he puts the phone down, and he still says nothing. And then he says, bring me a map. So a map of the states. And someone brings him this map, and Hitler stares at it. And then half an hour later, he's like, okay. and he rings back and he says yes agreed now back in moscow ribbentrop puts down the phone and he says it's on so they finalize the details at midnight stalin's servants bring in caviar and vodka and crimean sparkling wine so ribbentrop would have enjoyed that was a sparkly sir of that's true maybe he could have a yeah yeah maybe maybe they did a little touch with your supplier And they light up a load of cigarettes and they start making toasts.

31:42Stalin incredibly makes this toast. He says, I know how much the German nation loves its Fuhrer. I should like to drink to his health. And he leaves it. He keeps that quiet in 1943. He does indeed. Yes, he did. He didn't talk often about that toast. Now the documents are ready. They've been finalised and they're prepared to sign. At this point, Hoffman, the photographer, comes in and he sets up this huge tripod and his camera and everything. and Stalin says hold on hold on on you can't take photos like this like we have to clear all the glasses away all the caviar because otherwise people will say they signed this pact when they were absolutely wasted and that's really bad publicity so they clear the stuff away and then Hoffman takes the photos and these are the photos that you see if you google it so you see Molotov and Ribbentrop very smart suited actually given the abuse we've given Ribbentrop about his suits he's signed their signing and Stalin is in the background beaming looking very jolly because he's tanked up on vodka and sparkling wine in his kind of beige tunic moustache bristling and then Ribbentrop rings Hitler again Hitler inevitably has been watching a film with Goebbels but he's not really been enjoying it because he's too nervous he wants to find out how it's going and Ribbentrop says brilliant it has been a complete success we have everything we wanted and Hitler says congratulations and then Hitler says that will hit them like a bombshell.

33:08Well when we get bombshells in the rest of history we generally like to take a break so I think that is what we will do.

33:20Hello welcome back to the rest is history and Dominic a bombshell has just exploded in the form of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It has. Hitler and Stalin have divided up Eastern Europe between them. And how does this all go down? Well, Ribbentrop flies back to Berlin to a hero's reception, not surprisingly. Hitler hails him, says, you know, well done, mate. Brilliant. You are second Bismarck. And of course, to Ribbentrop, that is music to his ears. Ribbentrop and Hitler now are absolutely convinced this has guaranteed them a free hand against Poland. And with the Soviet Union out, there is no way Britain and France will fight.

33:57They're convinced of this. Now, I mentioned the photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. He has come back to and he's been developing his photographs of the signing, which Stalin had said, clear the glasses away. And he goes into the Reich Chancellery to show them to Hitler. Hitler is obsessed with Stalin. He is absolutely obsessed. He's bombarded. He's his only peer, isn't he? Yes, I think so. Hitler had said, there are only three great men in the world. They are me, Stalin and Mussolini. And Mussolini is definitely third. So Stalin is the other great man. And he's just fascinated with Stalin. And he says to Hoffman, does he order people?

34:32Does he order them? Or does he cloak his orders in the guise of wishes? What about his health? Does he really smoke so much? How does he shake hands? What's his handshake like? It's just a shame they never met, isn't it? Oh, they got on so well. A lot of the Nazis, we know this from Ted Heath. Did you know this? Ted Heath went to a Nuremberg rally, the future British prime minister, when he was on a kind of gap year in Germany. Yeah, in 1938. Yeah. And he said he met Himmler and Göring. He said they had terrible handshakes, by and large. Very limp, drooping handshakes. And I would imagine Hitler had a poor handshake.

35:09Stalin, I don't know. I think he'd have a crunching handshake. Stalin's a bear hug kind of man, isn't he? Yeah. The thing that Hitler is really fixated on, have you seen this? It's Stalin's earlobes. yes because that's a sign of um jewishness isn't it he says are they ingrown and jewish or are they separate and aryan and the photographer hoffman says um they're separate and hitler apparently is delighted by that he says oh that's brilliant i'm so pleased i'm glad that stalin's got aryan earlobes and then they get out the photographs and hitler's face falls through the floor what he says oh what a pity there's not a single one of these photographs we can use and hoffman who's you know considers himself quite a good photographer is quite, you know, displeased by this.

35:49Yeah, why? And Hitler says, well, in every single photograph, Stalin is smoking. And he says the German people would take offence at this. Because Hitler's very anti-smoking, isn't he? Because you were saying in the previous episode how he spent his time, you know, wanting to ban them. Yeah, exactly. Hitler wanted to reduce nicotine and cigarettes. He's a health and safety Nazi. He's a health and safety Nazi. Exactly. He's a nanny state Nazi. What can I say? Hitler says the signing of a pact is a solemn act. Which one does not approach with a cigarette dangling from one's lips? Such a photograph smacks of levity.

36:23See if you can paint out the cigarettes. And so the photographs released to the press by Hoffman have been doctored and Stalin's cigarettes have all been taken out. It's so Orwellian, isn't it? First they came for the cigarettes. That's true. Yeah. Then, yes. So Stalin's reaction, it's fair to say, is a little bit less eccentric. So Stalin met his entourage the next day and his underlings had gone out and shot a load of duck. He loved eating duck. So they're eating all this duck and Stalin's in brilliant form. He's never been happier. And he says, you know, he's a smarter man than Hitler, frankly.

36:57He says, of course, it's all a game to see who can fool whom. I know what Hitler's up to. He thinks he's outsmarted me, but it's actually me who has tricked him. Well, is that true? Hitler's the one who launches a surprise attack. Yeah, but who's got the last laugh, Tom? True. I mean, yeah. Anyway, they're both bad men, let's be frank about it. Now, in the rest of the world, the reaction, of course, is total shock. Among the communists, in British newspapers and French newspapers and so on, Neville Chamberlain is a broken man because of this. Joseph Kennedy, the American ambassador, said he looks like a broken man.

37:34He said he could think of nothing further to say or do. He felt that all his work had come to naught. I can't fly again because that was good only once. In other words, Chamberlain recognises there's no possibility now for any more appeasement. The whole constellation has changed. However, Britain will not change its approach. So this is one thing that Hitler really misjudged. Hitler was convinced that this marked the end of the British and French guarantee to Poland, that there's no way they would fight. But actually, the 22nd of August, the day that the news of the signing of the pact reached London, the British cabinet reaffirmed its commitment to Poland.

38:12And they decided to send the ambassador in Berlin, Neville Henderson, to the eagle's nest with a letter to Hitler to say, don't get this wrong. We are not going to change. We are still completely committed to Poland. And how does this go down with Hitler? Poorly, I think it's fair to say. So we talked about Henderson last time. He loves a carnation. He's an old Etonian. He's got a gigantic moustache. He's very elegant. Family linked to Alice in Wonderland. Exactly. So Henderson turns up at the Eagle's Nest and Hitler just starts ranting and raving about it. He can't believe that the British are doing this.

38:47Hitler says, you know, we've wanted to be friends with you. You clearly hate us. We will fight you to the last man. And Henderson is very upset by this because he has spent his career trying to get in with the Nazis. He sees that as his task. Well, he's a great man for thinking that there are moderates, aren't there? Yes. So there are extreme Nazis and there are moderate Nazis. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say he's probably not right about that. He's not right at all. He's a brilliant lesson in self-delusion. And Henderson is really upset by Hitler's reaction. He basically storms out in the verge of tears or verge of a massive outburst of rage or something.

39:23I don't think someone who went to Eton in the first half of the 20th century would blub. You don't think so? You don't think Roy Stewart would break down in such similar circumstances? Roy Stewart's a later Etonian. Okay. But the early ones. You don't think they would? No, I mean, that's the whole point of going to Eton is you get beaten if you show a kind of single trace of emotion. All right. Well, Henderson, I think, is very emotional at this point because all his work has come to nothing. And when he goes out, do you know what Hitler does? He literally slaps his thigh. This was Hitler's great thing.

39:54He loves slapping his thigh. He does chortle. He says, ha, ha, ha, ha, Chamberlain won't survive this discussion. His cabinet will fall this evening. It does really feel like a kind of board game, doesn't it? Kind of like diplomacy or something. It does. But also in which one person has now completely lost sight of reality because there's no way Chamberlain's cabinet is going to fall apart. I mean, Hitler is completely deluded. So I think at this point, Hitler has just completely lost the ability to read what's going on in Britain and France. I mean, he's all over the shop because the next couple of days go by and he gets all these reports from London.

40:27The British are actually preparing for war. They've made coastal defence preparations. They have requisitioned merchant ships. They put their air raid on standby. In France, almost a million men have been called up to the colours. Hitler can't get his head around this. What? Why are they sticking by the mad pledge to Poland? Why haven't they yielded to reality? And so he says, well, I'm going to have to change tactics, clearly. so on the Friday which is the 25th of August he's moved back to Berlin and he says get Henderson back so Henderson comes back to the Reich Chancellery and it says look I've changed my mind I will make Britain a very generous offer if you let me solve this Polish problem I promise that will be it and I will guarantee the integrity of the British Empire and actually I'll even lend you german forces to defend the british empire as long as you let us have some of our pre-1914 colonies back so come on that's a brilliant deal we can be friends and he says um do you know what it's such a good deal actually i think you should take my private plane and go to london and offer it to chamberlain personally and then he says i mean this is shameless he says to henderson the thing is i actually i actually hate war i i don't i'm not a war i'm not a warrior i'm an artist he says when this polish business is settled yeah i'll probably give up and just go back to art because that's what i really that's what i'm really all about so dominic you i mean this whole thing on the all these episodes tour de force magnificent you've covered yourself in glory but at this point you shame yourself no you've written in your notes he hitler is john lennon yeah just an artist are you going to slap your thigh and chortle almost certainly but once the recording is finished i think just privately just imagine and tom imagine there's no religion you know imagine there's no countries it's not it isn't hard to do that's that's what hitler said afterwards he just loves art come on so the the irony is of course what hitler is pontificating about art you know imagine this and that and the other his generals are preparing to launch the invasion of poland the very next morning the very next morning saturday the 26th of august everything is ready the final decision is delayed because hitler is still talking to henderson about his love of watercolors but at last that afternoon he gives the order we'll go in tomorrow the 26th 4.30 in the morning.

43:01The British will be taken by surprise. It'll be a fait accompli. They'll just have to suck it up. Brilliant. Everything is ready. The wheels are put in motion. The generals are ready. And then, unbelievably, at 7.30 that evening, they get a new order from Hitler. It's off. It's cancelled. What? What's happened? What's happened? Unbelievable twist. Well, Mussolini. Mussolini, once again, has thrown a spanner in the works. Late that afternoon, he sent Hitler a message. This war you're planning against, but actually, I don't fancy this war at all. Italy's not ready for a war. We don't fancy this.

43:38Hitler can't believe it. What? The pact of steel is for nothing? He says, Massoni has betrayed me. The Italians are behaving just like they did in 1914. You can never rely on the Italians. So, I mean, it's all right for Hitler to rip up pacts and treaties, but when it's done to him, he doesn't like it at all. Yeah. On the other hand, Tom, you could say the Italians had let Germany down in 1940. So Hitler should perhaps have been forewarned. Anyway, it's too late to stop all the preparations. The army are outraged. I mean, they do stop most of the preparations, but some units do go ahead. So there's an attack on a railway tunnel in the Carpathians that is actually beaten back by the Poles overnight.

44:18The Poles wanted to order general mobilisation of their own, but the British and the French say, don't do it, don't do it. Don't provoke Hitler. And as we will discover next time. That's really, I mean, terrible for the Poles. This is terrible for the Poles because it means when the war does start, they are not properly ready. So as a result of Mussolini dragging his feet, the timetable is sort of frozen. Everybody is still in place. But, you know, the war has been postponed. And that gives Hitler one last chance to find a deal with Britain. Now, at this point, he has given up on traditional diplomacy.

44:53You know, the stuff with Henderson isn't going to work, clearly. Ribbentrop says look it's pointless they're not going to abandon Poland now but Göring is still hanging around in his white suit he kind of likes the idea of a deal and he has this mate not least because it would kind of stiff Ribbentrop right exactly he has this mate who's a Swedish industrialist called Berger Dalarus who Göring uses often as a kind of go between with London and Hitler says well let's maybe use this bloke this Dalarus so he sends this Swedish guy off to London with an alliance offer an alliance offer for Britain so he still hasn't given up on that old idea and again this is quite reminiscent of the build up of the First World it is, I was just thinking about that, about the Kaiser's various attempts at the last minute to have a deal with the British and he says look, Dalaris' offer is Germany gets Danzig Germany gets the Polish Corridor Germany gets its old colonies in Africa and stuff, but it will guarantee see Poland's borders and it will do all this deal with the British Empire and it will defend the British Empire.

45:57The difference this time is Hitler says we'll have this deal first and then we'll only worry about the Polish business afterwards. It's so important to me to be friends with you in Britain. Now there's a bit a lot of faffing around with this offer that we don't really need to go into because basically the underlying reality is that all the time Hitler is still making plans for the invasion. He has not given up on the invasion idea. So after Dalarus has been sent off to London. He gathers the Nazi top brass, the leaders of the SS, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, all these bad guys. And Hitler at this point is really strung out.

46:31He's exhausted. He's massively stressed. His voice is cracking. And he says, okay, we're going to do it on Friday, the 1st of September. There'll be no more postponements. I made up my mind, you know, enough faffing around this is it gonna happen and he says this is going to be brutal but for as long as i live there will never be any we would never surrender it's interesting that at this point even at this point before it's even started he's contemplating at least in part of his mind his own death and the possibility of defeat and actually goering says to him privately at one point he says listen we don't actually need to fight the british like we don't we don't need to do this.

47:14We don't need to gamble everything. Because Goering has been told, hasn't he, that the Luftwaffe lacks the capacity to bomb Britain. And Goering has not, I think, been completely honest with Hitler about the Luftwaffe's capabilities for obvious reasons. And he says to Hitler, look, we don't need to do this. You know, you don't need to prove anything. And Hitler says to him, all my life, I've always put my entire stake on the table. Which is true. He gambled and gambled and gambled and won and won and won until he didn't. Until he didn't, exactly. So the evening of Monday the 28th, Henderson pitches up again.

47:49He's drunk half a bottle of champagne to steady himself. Champagne, what is it with sparkling wine in these people before meeting Hitler? And he says, look, we've got the latest stuff from this Swedish guy. We're not going to do a deal with you while this Danzig thing is dragging on. Fine, we can talk about Danzig, but there is no way that you can invade because if you do that, we will fight you. and Hitler says okay I'll think about it so a day goes by then on the evening of Tuesday the 29th Henderson comes back for his answer and Berlin now is in darkness the government in Berlin has ordered a trial blackout there are hundreds of people waiting outside the Reich Chancellery because they know that this is kind of the last chance for peace and Hitler I mean I was going to say unbelievably but of course it's perfectly credible he decides to try the same trick that he had done in Bad Goudersburg with Chamberlain.

48:40He decides to just completely change the rules of the game and raise the stakes. And so instead of being Mr. Nice, he starts ranting and raving. Oh, I'm sick of you, British. You don't care about Germans. You don't care if we're being slaughtered. And he says, oh, you've encircled Germany. You've tricked us. You've betrayed us, all of this kind of thing. Henderson, for the first time probably in his diplomatic career, really, with Hitler, completely loses his temper. And he says, I won't listen to this language from you or from anybody. How dare you insult the British government? If you want a war, says Henderson, then you will have it.

49:13And Hitler says, well, fine. I mean, the Poles should come send someone tomorrow to give me everything that I want. And if they don't, I'll send in my army. I'm not waiting any longer. Now, actually, amazingly, Henderson at this point, he walks out and he's steaming with rage. But he's still, because he's an appeaser and has always been an appeaser, he's still partly, you know, part of him still wants a deal. And so he actually says to London, maybe we should get the polls to negotiate. Maybe we shouldn't give up completely. And Chamberlain back in London says, no way, you know, we're not going to be bullied again by Hitler.

49:44Chamberlain, by this point, has, I think, definitely run out of patience with the policy of appeasement. He says we are not going to yield on this point. There is nothing more to discuss. So the stage really is set now. The next day, Wednesday the 30th, the polls begin to mobilise. They should have done it earlier. they had delayed the request of the British and the French to avoid provoking the Germans that will cost them very dear I'm sorry to say can I just ask you they mobilizing the expectation that Britain and France will declare war on Germany but more than that that Britain and France will attack Germany in the west and that this would therefore give the Poles a fighting chance to to survive do you think if they'd known that the British and French weren't actually going to do anything, but they were just going to kind of sit there.

50:32Might they have negotiated in that eventuality? No, I don't think so. I think they'd still have fought. I think they would probably still have fought. I think they can't conceive that the British and the French won't intervene. Right. Okay. So it's a long question. Yeah. But I think the British and the French have sent slightly mixed signals. They've sent a military mission. They've sent some sort of pretty pitiful supplies. The British and the French have been saying to them, you know, it'll be a long war. They've been sort of hinting that their intervention will not exactly be as game-changing as the Poles might like.

51:06But Polish national pride, Polish public opinion, they will make it very, very difficult for any kind of compromise, I would say. So where are we? Thursday the 31st of August 1939. First thing that morning, Hitler says to his generals, the invasion will start tomorrow. He signs the attack order just after midday, and then he confirms it's an hour later. that afternoon uh early that afternoon riventrop arrives at the reich chancellery and he says look no give from britain you know it's looking pretty bleak on the british front and hitler says well i've already given the order di zacker roller things are rolling and and goebbels writes in his diary that afternoon it looks as if the die is finally cast and largely that will appeal to you and late that afternoon a very ominous sign they cut the telephone lines to and from the polish embassy in berlin and at 11 o 'clock that evening the 31st you have the first reports of incidents on the polish frontier the most famous one is at the a radio station at a place called glivitz now glivitza in upper silesia so this was basically a radio station generally used for kind of weather forecasting and there are reports that polish troops have stormed a german position that they They executed the staff and they broadcast Polish nationalist slogans.

52:26Actually, what happened was the attack was organised by the SS. It was planned directly by Reinhard Heydrich. Both the attackers and the defenders were SS men and they were actually firing blanks. And when they left, they left three bodies behind them. These are called canned goods. Canned goods, exactly. Is the sort of the jargon. two of these guys were concentration camp inmates they'd been killed with lethal injections and dressed in polish uniforms and the third man was a pole a pole but who was a german citizen he was a local farmer and his name was francis sick honiok and he had been arrested the day before he was well known for being very patriotic pole and he was arrested thrown into prison and Then he was taken out of prison and put to sleep with an injection.

53:18And then he was taken asleep to the radio station. And then he was shot dead and his body was dumped there. And he is the first of the six million Poles who will be killed by the Nazis in the next six years. So we'll get on to the fate of Poland in Monday's episode. But just to tie up this bit of the story. The war proper began at 4.45 the next morning, Friday the 1st of September, when an elderly German battleship called the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military depot on the Westerplatte, which is a peninsula that commands the entrance to Danzig's harbour. And the same time that happened, 60 German divisions, about one and a half million men, spearheaded by tank divisions, began to cross the border, flood across the border from Germany into Poland.

54:09And by the afternoon of that day, Friday, you have the first reports of bombings, of Stuka attacks coming in from Western Poland, and the Polish army is already beginning to fall back from the border. Hitler addressed the Reichstag that morning at 10 o 'clock. As you described, Tom, he was wearing his Wehrmacht uniform, and he never takes it off. I mean, presumably he takes off to sleep. To the shower. Yeah, but he never dresses again in civilian clothes. and you did that performance with gusto because that's what we associate with Hitler but actually as we said he was very nervous he stumbled over his words he's very downbeat he gets the time wrong and even that line looking forward to his own death it's a hint I think at the doubts that must that must have been there if only subconsciously it was a very gloomy day in Berlin there was no public enthusiasm at all the American journalist William Shira described the quote astonishment depression on the faces of the people no excitement no hurrahs no cheering no throwing of flowers no war fever no war hysteria of course they're all still waiting to find out what Britain and France will do and Hitler did make one last attempt another attempt through this Swedish guy Dalaris when Dalaris went to meet him at the Reich Chancellery in Kershaw describes the scene in his biography Hitler probably as a result of stress and tiredness not not the gun oil not the gun oil his his breath was so repellent the odor from his mouth was so strong that Dalaris was tempted to move back a step or two so you know Hitler's hygiene has kind of collapsed halitosis is yeah yeah and Hitler says you know tell the British give this is their last chance to avoid a fight with me I'll fight them for 10 years if I need to which is not a very yeah it's not very emollient no not very emollient and obviously doesn't work The next day, the Second Britain and France by now had ordered full mobilisation.

56:09They begin evacuating children from the cities. Chamberlain is in talks about drawing up a war cabinet, bringing Winston Churchill back as First Lord of the Admiralty. And that evening is the evening of the very famous debate. Chamberlain gives, as he so often does, a very ill-judged speech in which he says, if the Germans pull back from Poland, maybe we could still talk to them. What a mad thing to say. And this is the moment at which famously, as the Labour leader, Arthur Greenwood, stands up to reply. One of Churchill's sort of allies, Leo Emery, shouts, speak for England, Arthur. And this is a great shock to Chamberlain.

56:47The sense that he's lost touch with the public. With his own party. With many of his own party. And indeed with his own cabinet, because afterwards his cabinet say to him, look, enough. You've got to give an ultimatum. And Henderson goes to give the ultimatum first thing the next morning. So Sunday, the 3rd of September, 9 o 'clock in the morning, Henderson goes to the foreign ministry in Berlin. Ribbentrop. Do you remember when we did the series on the First World War, all those scenes of the ambassadors crying and foreign ministers shaking hands? Yeah, none of that now. You know, it's really kind of moving, actually, really moving.

57:23Well, Ribbentrop is cut from a very different cloth. He will not even meet Henderson. He refuses even to see him. And Henderson gets interned, doesn't he? He does indeed, yes. When Paul gets declared. So Henderson has to make do with the interpreter, Paul Schmidt. So he gives him the ultimatum. As surely everybody listening to this podcast will know, the ultimatum expired at 11 o 'clock. The Germans didn't reply. And a few minutes later, Chamberlain made that very famously gloomy speech. No such undertaking has been received. And consequently, this country is at war with Germany. you know, announcing the beginning of the Second World War for Britain and for France.

58:02But let's end with the interpreter, Paul Schmidt. He said, I took the ultimatum to the chancellery where everyone was anxiously awaiting me. There was something of a crush and I had difficulty in getting through to Hitler. When I entered, Hitler was sitting at his desk and Ribbentrop stood by the window. Both looked up expectantly as I came in. I stopped at some distance from Hitler's desk and then I slowly translated the British government's ultimatum. When I finished, there was complete silence. Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him. He was not at a loss, as was afterwards stated, nor did he rage, as others allege.

58:40He sat completely silent and unmoving. After an interval which seemed an age, he turned to Ribbentrop, who had remained standing by the window. And Hitler asked, what now? what now what now indeed um we will be back on monday to find out what happened next we'll be doing the story of poland's heroic resistance uh doomed resistance and the tragedy of its fall and its fate and if you're a member of the rest of history club you can hear that episode right now but for now thank you dominic brilliant stuff goodbye goodbye

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