SOME DOCUMENTS RELEVANT TO GERMANY'S INVASION OF POLAND AND 
RESPONSE TO GREAT BRITAIN'S ULTIMATUM.

The file contains the following documents in the order of 
appearance in the file:

(1)Proclamation by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, to the 
German Army, September 1,19139.

(2) Address by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, before the 
Reichstag, September 1, 1939.

(3) Communication from the German Government to the British 
Government, Handed to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to the British Ambassador (Sir Neville 
Henderson) at 11:20 A.M., September 3, 1939

(4) Proclamation by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, to 
the German People, September 3, 1939.

----------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Proclamation by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, to 
the German Army, September 1,19139.

The Polish State has refused the peaceful settlement of 
relations which I desired, and has appealed to arms.  Germans in 
Poland are persecuted with bloody terror and driven from their 
houses.  A series of violations of the frontier, intolerable to 
a great Power, prove that Poland is no longer willing to respect 
the frontier of the Reich.

In order to put an end to this lunacy, I have no other choice 
than to meet force with force from now on.  The German Army will 
fight the battle for the honour and the vital rights of reborn 
Germany with hard determination.  I expect that every soldier, 
mindful of the great traditions of eternal German soldiery, will 
ever remain conscious that he is a representative of the 
National-Socialist Greater Germany.  Long live our people and 
our Reich!

----------------------------------------------------------------
(2) Address by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, before the 
Reichstag, September 1, 1939.

For months we have been suffering under the torture of a problem 
which the Versailles Diktat created - a problem which has 
deteriorated until it becomes intolerable for us.  Danzig was 
and is a German city.  The Corridor was and is German.  Both 
these territories owe their cultural development exclusively to 
the German people.  Danzig was separated from us, the Corridor 
was annexed by Poland.  As in other German territories of the 
East, all German minorities living there have been ill-treated 
in the most distressing manner.  More than 1,000,000 people of 
German blood had in the years 1919-1920 to leave their homeland.

As always, I attempted to bring about, by the peaceful method of 
making proposals for revision, an alteration of this intolerable 
position.  It is a lie when the outside world says that we only 
tried to carry through our revisions by pressure.  Fifteen years 
before the National Socialist Party came to power there was the 
opportunity of carrying out these revisions by peaceful 
settlements and understanding.  On my own initiative I have, not 
once but several times, made proposals for the revision of 
intolerable conditions.  All these proposals, as you know, have 
been rejected - proposals for limitation of armaments and even, 
if necessary, disarmament, proposals for limitation of 
warmaking, proposals for the elimination of certain methods of 
modern warfare.  You know the proposals that I have made to 
fulfill the necessity of restoring German sovereignty over 
German territories.  You know the endless attempts I made for a 
peaceful clarification and understanding of the problem of 
Austria, and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia, 
and Moravia.  It was all in vain.

It is impossible to demand that an impossible position should be 
cleared up by peaceful revision and at the same time constantly 
reject peaceful revision.  It is also impossible to say that he 
who undertakes to carry out these revisions for himself 
transgresses a law, since the Versailles Diktat is not law to 
us.  A signature was forced out of us with pistols at our head 
and with the threat of hunger for millions of people.  And then 
this document, with our signature, obtained by force, was 
proclaimed as a solemn law.

In the same way, I have also tried to solve the problem of 
Danzig, the Corridor, etc., by proposing a peaceful discussion.  
That the problems had to be solved was clear.  It is quite 
understandable to us that the time when the problem was to be 
solved  had little interest for the Western Powers.  But that 
time is not a matter of indifference to us.  Moreover, it was 
not and could not be a matter of indifference to those who 
suffer most.

In my talks with Polish statesmen I discussed the ideas which 
you recognize from my last speech to the Reichstag.  No one 
could say that this was in any way an inadmissible procedure on 
undue pressure.  I then naturally formulated at last the German 
proposals, and I must once more repeat that there is nothing 
more modest or loyal than these proposals.  I should like to say 
this to the world.  I alone was in the position to make such 
proposal, for I know very well that in doing so I brought myself 
into opposition to millions of Germans.  These proposals have 
been refused.  Not only were they answered first with 
mobilization, but with increased terror and pressure against our 
German compatriots and with a slow strangling of the Free City 
of Danzig - economically, politically, and in recent weeks by 
military and transport means.

Poland has directed its attacks against the Free City of Danzig.  
Moreover, Poland was not prepared to settle the Corridor 
question in a reasonable way which would be equitable to both 
parties, and she did not think of keeping her obligations to 
minorities.

I must here state something definitely; German has kept these 
obligations; the minorities who live in Germany are not 
persecuted.  No Frenchman can stand up and say that any 
Frenchman living in the Saar territory is oppressed, tortured, 
or deprived of his rights.  Nobody can say this.

For four months I have calmly watched developments, although I 
never ceased to give warnings.  In the last few days I have 
increased these warnings.  I informed the Polish Ambassador 
three weeks ago that if Poland continued to send to Danzig notes 
in the form of ultimata, and if on the Polish side an end was 
not put to Customs measures destined to ruin Danzig's trade, 
then the Reich could not remain inactive.  I left no doubt that 
people who wanted to compare the Germany of to-day with the 
former Germany would be deceiving themselves.

An attempt was made to justify the oppression of the Germans by 
claiming that they had committed acts of provocation.  I do not 
know in what these provocations on the part of women and 
children consist, if they themselves are maltreated, in some 
cases killed.  One thing I do know - that no great Power can 
with honour long stand by passively and watch such events.

I made one more final effort to accept a proposal for mediation 
on the part of the British Government.  They proposed, not that 
they themselves should carry on the negotiations, but rather 
that Poland and Germany should come into direct contact and once 
more pursue negotiations.

I must declare that I accepted this proposal, and I worked out a 
basis for these negotiations which are known to you.  For two 
whole days I sat in my Government and waited to see whether it 
was convenient for the Polish Government to send a 
plenipotentiary or not.  Last night they did not send us a 
plenipotentiary, but instead informed us through their 
Ambassador that they were still considering whether and to what 
extent they were in a position to go into the British proposals.  
The Polish Government also said that they would inform Britain 
of their decision.

Deputies, if the German Government and its Leader patiently 
endured such treatment Germany would deserve only to disappear 
from the political stage.  But I am wrongly judged if my love of 
peace and my patience are mistaken for weakness or even 
cowardice.  I, therefore, decided last night and informed the 
British Government that in these circumstances I can no longer 
find any willingness on the part of the Polish Government to 
conduct serious negotiations with us.

These proposals for mediation have failed because in the 
meanwhile there, first of all, came as an answer the sudden 
Polish general mobilization, followed by more Polish atrocities.  
These were again repeated last night.  Recently in one night 
there were as many as twenty-one frontier incidents: last night 
there were fourteen, of which three were quite serious.  I have, 
therefore, resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that 
Poland for months past has used toward us.  This attitude on the 
part of the Reich will not change.

The other European States understand in part our attitude.  I 
should like here above all to thank Italy, which throughout has 
supported us, but you will understand that for the carrying on 
of this struggle we do not intend to appeal to foreign help.  We 
will carry out this task ourselves.  The neutral States have 
assured us of their neutrality, just as we had already 
guaranteed it to them.

When statesmen in the West declare that this affects their 
interests, I can only regret such a declaration.  It cannot for 
a moment make me hesitate to fulfill my duty.  What more is 
wanted?  I have solemnly assured them, and I repeat it, that we 
ask nothing of those Western States and never will ask anything.  
I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is 
a final one. I have repeatedly offered friendship and, if 
necessary, the closest co-operation to Britain, but this cannot 
be offered from one side only.  It must find response on the 
other side.  Germany has no interests in the West, and our 
western wall is for all time the frontier of the Reich on the 
west.  Moreover, we have no aims of any kind there for the 
future.  With this assurance we are in solemn earnest, and as 
long as others do not violate their neutrality we will likewise 
take every care to respect it.

I am happy particularly to be able to tell you of one event.  
You know that Russia and Germany are governed by two different 
doctrines.  There was only one question that had to be cleared 
up.  Germany has no intention of exporting its doctrine.  Given 
the fact that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its 
doctrine to Germany.  I no longer see any reason why we should 
still oppose one another.  On both sides we are clear on that.  
Any struggle between our people would only be of advantage to 
others.  We have, therefore, resolved to conclude a pact which 
rules out for ever any use of violence between us.  It imposes 
the obligation on us to consult together in certain European 
questions.  It makes possible for us economic co-operation, and 
above all it assures that the powers of both these powerful 
States are not wasted against one another.  Every attempt of the 
West to bring about any change in this will fail.

At the same time I should like here to declare that this 
political decision means a tremendous departure for the future, 
and that it is a final one.  Russia and Germany fought against 
one another in the World War.  That shall and will not happen a 
second time.  In Moscow, too, this pact was greeted exactly as 
you greet it.  I can only endorse word for word the speech of 
Russian Foreign Commissar, Molotov.

I am determined to solve (1) the Danzig question; (2) the 
question of the Corridor; and (3) to see to it that a change is 
made in the relationship between Germany and Poland that shall 
ensure a peaceful co-existence.  In this I am resolved to 
continue to fight until either the present Polish government is 
willing to continue to bring about this change or until another 
Polish Government is ready to do so.  I am resolved t remove 
from the German frontiers the element of uncertainty, the 
everlasting atmosphere of conditions resembling civil war.  I 
will see to it that in the East there is, on the frontier, a 
peace precisely similar to that on our other frontiers.

In this I will take the necessary measures to se that they do 
not contradict the proposals I have already made known in the 
Reichstag itself to the rest of the world, that is to say, I 
will not war against women and children.  I have ordered my air 
force to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives.  If, 
however, the enemy thinks he can form that draw carte blanche on 
his side to fight by the other methods he will receive an answer 
that will deprive him of hearing and sight.

This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on 
our territory.  Since 5.45 A.M. we have been returning the fire, 
and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.  Whoever fight with 
poison gas will be fought with poison gas.  Whoever departs from 
the rules of humane warfare can only expect that we shall do the 
same.  I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, 
until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.

For six years now I have been working on the building up of the 
German defenses.  Over 90 millions have in that time been spent 
on the building up of these defense forces.  They are now the 
best equipped and are above all comparison with what they were 
in 1914.  My trust in them is unshakable.  When I called up 
these forces and when I now ask sacrifices of the German people 
and if necessary every sacrifice, then I have a right to do so, 
for I also am to-day absolutely ready, just as we were formerly, 
to make every possible sacrifice.

I am asking of no German man more than I myself was ready 
throughout four years at any time to do.  There will be no 
hardships for Germans to which I myself will not submit.  My 
whole life henceforth belongs more than ever to my people.  I am 
from now on just first soldier of the German Reich.  I have once 
more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me.  
I will not take it off again until victory is secured, or I will 
not survive the outcome.

Should anything happen to me in the struggle then my first 
successor is Party Comrade Goring; should anything happen to 
Party Comrade Goring my next successor is Party Comrade Hess.  
You would then be under obligation to give to them as Fuhrer the 
same blind loyalty and obedience as to myself.  Should anything 
happen to Party Comrade Hess, then by law the Senate will be 
called, and will choose from its midst the most worthy - that is 
to say the bravest - successor.

As a National Socialist and as German soldier I enter upon this 
struggle with a stout heart.  My whole life has been nothing but 
one long struggle for my people, for its restoration, and for 
Germany.  There was only one watchword for that struggle: faith 
in this people.  One word I have never learned: that is, 
surrender.

If, however, anyone thinks that we are facing a hard time, I 
should ask him to remember that once a Prussian King, with a 
ridiculously small State, opposed a stronger coalition, and in 
three wars finally came out successful because that State had 
that stout heart that we need in these times.  I would, 
therefore, like to assure all the world that a November 1918 
will never be repeated in German history.  Just as I myself am 
ready at any time to stake my life - anyone can take it for my 
people and for Germany - so I ask the same of all others.

Whoever, however, thinks he can oppose this national command, 
whether directly of indirectly, shall fall.  We have nothing to 
do with traitors.  We are all faithful to our old principle.  It 
is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live, but it is 
essential that our people shall live, that Germany shall live.  
The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the 
sacrifice that many generations have made.  If we form a 
community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, 
resolved never to surrender, then our will will master every 
hardship and difficulty.  And I would like to close with the 
declaration that I once made when I began the struggle for power 
in the Reich.  I then said: "If our will is so strong that no 
hardship and suffering can subdue it, then our will and our 
German might shall prevail."

----------------------------------------------------------------
(3) Communication from the German Government to the British 
Government, Handed to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to the British Ambassador (Sir Neville 
Henderson) at 11:20 A.M., September 3, 1939


The German Government have received the British Government's 
ultimatum of the 3rd September, 1939.  They have the honour to 
reply as follows: -

1. The German Government and the German people refuse to 
receive, accept, let alone to fulfill, demands in the nature of 
ultimata made by the British Government.

2. On our eastern frontier there has for many months already 
reigned a condition of war.  Since the time when the Versailles 
Treaty first tore Germany to pieces, all and every peaceful 
settlement was refused to all German Governments.  The National 
Socialist Government also has since the year 1933 tried again 
and again to remove by peaceful negotiations the worst rapes and 
breaches of justice of this treaty.  The British Government have 
been among those who, by their intransigent attitude, took the 
chief part in frustrating every practical revision.  Without the 
intervention of the British Government - of this the German 
Government and German people are fully conscious - a reasonable 
solution doing justice to both sides would certainly have been 
found between Germany and Poland.  For Germany did not have the 
intention nor had she raised the demands of annihilating Poland.  
The Reich demanded only the revision of those articles of the 
Versailles Treaty which already at the time of the formulation 
of that Dictate had been described by understanding statesmen of 
all nations as being in the long run unbearable, and therefore 
impossible for a great nation and also for the entire political 
and economic interests of Eastern Europe.  British statesmen, 
too, declared the solution in the East which was then forced 
upon Germany as containing the germ of future wars.  To remove 
this danger was the desire of all German Governments and 
especially the intention of the new National Socialist People's 
Government.  The blame for having prevented this peaceful 
revision lies with the British Cabinet policy.

3. The British Government have - an occurence unique in history 
- given the Polish State full powers for all actions against 
Germany which that State might conceivabley intend to undertake.  
The British Government assured the Polish Government of their 
military support in all circumstances, should Germany defend 
herself against any provocation or attack.  Thereupon the Polish 
terror against the Germans living in the territories which had 
been torn from Germany immediately assumed unbearable 
proportions.  The Free City of Danzig was, in violation of all 
legal provisions, first threatened with destruction economically 
and by measures of customs policy, and was finally subjected to 
a military blockade and its communications strangled.  All these 
violations of the Danzig Statute, which were well known to the 
British Government, were approved and covered by the blank 
cheque given to Poland.  The German Government, though moved by 
the sufferings of the German population which was being tortured 
and treated in an inhuman manner, nevertheless remained a 
patient onlooker for five months, withour undertaking even on 
one single occasion any similar aggressive action against 
Poland.  They only warned Poland that these happenings would in 
the long run be unbearable, and that they were determined, in 
the event of no other kind of assistance being given to this 
population, to help them themselves.  All these happenings were 
known in every detail to the British Government.  It would have 
been easy for them to use their great influence in Warsaw in 
order to exhort those in power there to exercise justice and 
humaneness and to keep to the existing obligations.  The British 
Government did not do this.  On the contrary, in emphasising 
their obligation to assist Poland under all circumstances, they 
actually encouraged the Polish Government to continue in their 
criminal attitude which was threatening the peace of Europe.  In 
this spirit, the British Government rejected the proposal of 
Signor Mussolini, which might still have been able to save the 
peace of Europe, in spite of the fact that the German Government 
had declared their willingness to agree to it.  The British 
Government, therefore, bear the responsbility for all the 
unhappiness and misery which have now overtaken and are about to 
overtake many peoples.

4. After all efforts at finding and concluding a peaceful 
solution had been rendered impossible by the intransigence of 
the Polish Government covered as they were by England, after the 
conditions resembling civil war, which had existed already for 
months at the eastern frontier of the Reich, had gradually 
developed into open attacks on German territory, without the 
British Government raising any objections, the German Government 
determined to put an end to this continual threat, unbearable 
for a great Power, to the external and finally also to the 
internal peace of the German people, and to end it by those 
means which, since the Democratic Governments had in effect 
sabotaged all other possibilities of revision, alone remained at 
their disposal for the defence of the peace, security and honour 
of the Germans.  The last attack of the Poles threatening Reich 
territory they answered with similar measures.  The German 
Government do not intend, on account of any sort of British 
intentions or obligations in the East, to tolerate conditions 
which are identical with those conditions which we observe in 
Palestine, which is under British protection.  The German 
people, however, above all do not intend to allow themselves to 
be ill-treated by Poles.

5. The German Government, therefore, reject the attempts to 
force Germany, by means of a demand having the character of an 
ultimatum, to recall its forces which are lined up for the 
defence of the Reich, and thereby to accept the old unrest and 
the old injustice.  The threat that, failing this, they will 
fight Germany in the war, corresponds to the intention 
proclaimed for years past by numerous British politicians.  The 
German Government and the German people have assured the English 
people countless times how much they desire an understanding, 
indeed close friendship, with them.  If the British Government 
hitherto always refused these offers and now answer with an open 
threat of war, it is not the fault of the German people and 
their Government, but exclusively the fault of the British 
Cabinet or of those men who for years have been preaching the 
destruction and extermination of the German people. The German 
people and their Government do not, like Great Britian, intend 
to dominate the world, but they are determined to defend their 
own liberty, their independence and above all their life.  The 
intention, communicated to us by order of the British Government 
by Mr. King-Hall, of carrying the destruction of the German 
people even further than was done through the Versailles Treaty 
is taken note of by us, and we shall therefore answer any 
aggressive action on the part of England with the same weapons 
and in the same form.

----------------------------------------------------------------
(4) Proclamation by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the Reich, to 
the German People, September 3, 1939.

Great Britain has for centuries pursued the aim of rendering the 
peoples of Europe defenseless against the British policy of 
world conquest by proclaiming a balance of power, in which Great 
Britain claimed the right to attack on threadbare pretexts and 
destroy that European State which at the moment seemed most 
dangerous.  Thus, at one time, she fought the world power of 
Spain, later the Dutch, then the French, and, since 1871, the 
German.

We ourselves have been witnesses of the policy of encirclement 
which has been carried on by Great Britain against Germany since 
before the war.  Just as the German nation had begun, under its 
National Socialist leadership, to recover from the frightful 
consequences of the Diktat of Versailles, and threatened to 
survive the crisis, the British encirclement immediately began 
once more.

The British war inciters spread the lie before the War that the 
battle was only against the House of Hohenzollern or German 
militarism; that they had no designs on German colonies; that 
they had no intention of taking the German mercantile fleet.  
They then oppressed the German people under the Versailles 
Diktat the faithful fulfillment of which would have sooner or 
later exterminated 20 million Germans.

I undertook to mobilize the resistance of the German nation 
against this, and to assure work and bread for them.  But as the 
peaceful revision of the Versailles Diktat of force seemed to be 
succeeding, and the German people again began to live, the new 
British encirclement policy was resumed.  The same lying 
inciters appeared as in 1914.  I have many times offered Great 
Britain and the British people the understanding and friendship 
of the German people.  My whole policy was based on the idea of 
this understanding.  I have always been repelled.  I had for 
years been aware that the aim of these war inciters had for long 
been to take Germany by surprise at a favourable opportunity.

I am more firmly determined than ever to beat back this attack.  
Germany shall not again capitulate.  There is no sense in 
sacrificing one life after another and submitting to an even 
worse Versailles Diktat.  We have never been a nation of slaves 
and will not be one in the future.  Whatever Germans in the past 
had to sacrifice for the existence of our realm, they shall not 
be greater than those which we are to-day prepared to make.

This resolve is an inexorable one.  It necessitates the most 
thorough measures, and imposes on us one law above all others:  
If the soldier is fighting at the front, no one shall profit by 
the war.  If the soldier falls at the front no one at home shall 
evade his duty.

As long as the German people was united it has never been 
conquered.  It was the lack of unity in 1918 that led to 
collapse.  Whoever offends against this unity need expect 
nothing else than annihilation as an enemy of the nation.  If 
our people fulfills its highest duty in this sense, that God 
will help us who has always bestowed His mercy on him who was 
determined to help himself.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Collected and transcribed by
Larry W. Jewell
jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu