Was Hitler a Riddle? Western Democracies and National Socialism by Abraham Ascher (review)

This book offers a careful examination of the reports that the diplomatic representatives of England, France, and the United States sent to their respective governments during the last years of the Weimar Republic and the pre-war years of the National Socialist regime. The emphasis is on the ambassadors, but the book also examines reports by senior members of embassy staffs and consular officials. Ascher has carefully searched the relevant archives, at times compares the contemporary reports with the memoirs subsequently published by the diplomats, and offers short biographical sketches of the ambassadors' prior careers.

Several characteristics of the reports sent home are clearly shared by all of the diplomats, most notably their alarm concerning the unprecedented events occurring in Germany—the violence that accompanied the Nazi consolidation of power, the escalating persecution of Jews, the rapid pace of re-armament and militarization of society, and the conflict with the Christian churches. The diplomats wrote about these developments in considerable detail, frequently enhanced by reports from consular officials describing events in major communities where they were stationed.

The reports also emphasize the extent to which Adolf Hitler was willing to meet with foreign diplomats, though William Dodd, the American ambassador, preferred not to consult with Hitler because of his hatred for him. All of them expressed astonishment at Hitler's periodic outbursts, his extreme antisemitism, and his periodic efforts to reassure everyone that Germany only wanted peace.

Significantly, with few exceptions, neither the diplomats nor the foreign ministers with whom they corresponded had read Hitler's Mein Kampf. Nor did they seem to have any familiarity with Hitler's speeches before he became chancellor. These two failures illuminate a major confusion of the diplomats that Ascher neither clarifies nor even notes. In all of their endless discussions about, and references to, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, none of them mentions Hitler's long-standing denunciation, in speeches and writings, of those Germans who merely wanted to recover what Germany had lost. He referred to them as "Grenzpolitiker"— border politicians—willing to wage war for mere snippets of land that left the country as bereft of land needed for raising food as it had been before 1914. By contrast, Hitler portrayed himself as the "Raumpolitiker"—the politician of space—for whom only huge territories would be satisfactory prizes of war. But, as Ascher notes, the diplomats did manage to cover the increasing persecution of Germany's Jews and the repeated public allusions to the possibility, if not outright desirability, of moving to extermination.

The answer to the puzzle of why generally accurate reporting produced no firm responses to the looming danger lies in the inclination of England and France to avoid repeating the horrors of World War I at all costs and in the determined isolationism that the United States espoused at the time. Ascher might have noted the irony that while Hitler was ordering weapons systems for war with the United States, the U.S. Congress was busy passing "neutrality laws" that encouraged Hitler and discouraged possible resistance.