“So then, my Fuhrer…
what was it you wished to discuss further?”
Neurath still looked distinctly displeased.
If anything, he seemed eager to leave.
(Quite the opposite of Ribbentrop, who never wanted to leave.)
But I’d deliberately arranged this meeting for a time when Ribbentrop already had another engagement.
I wanted to speak with Neurath alone.
There was no way I intended to let him walk out before we’d finished.
I’d even had coffee brought in—not because either of us particularly needed it, but as a subtle warning that this conversation was going to take a while.
The minister had looked less than thrilled.
“Minister,” I began, “let me make one thing perfectly clear before anything else.
I value you more highly than I do Ribbentrop.
I have no intention of making him Foreign Minister.”
“…I see.
Thank you.”
The irritation on Neurath’s face gave way to genuine surprise.
“His methods may occasionally produce results,” I continued, “but the diplomatic successes he’s enjoyed in recent years are exceptions rather than the rule.”
“Then why,” Neurath asked, “choose the Empire of Japan over the Republic of China?
Japan has neither abundant resources nor overwhelming national strength, and its growing friction with the great power across the ocean is plain to see.
This is more than pulling chestnuts from the fire—it feels like grasping a stone that’s already burning.”
His confusion was genuine.
“Tell me something first, Minister.
How do you see the future of Europe?
Of the world?”
He thought for a moment.
“The immediate concerns are the Spanish Civil War and Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia.
Even so, Italy’s increasing isolation is hardly disadvantageous for the Reich.
It weakens the Anglo-French-Italian front against us.”
He took a measured sip of his coffee.
“But ultimately, doesn’t everything depend on Germany?
If the Reich remains restrained, Europe should remain peaceful—at least for the time being.”
His gaze sharpened as he spoke.
(As expected.
Schacht has probably shared more than a few things with him.)
“You’re right,” I admitted.
“Europe’s future depends greatly on how the Reich acts.”
I leaned forward.
“And you understand our current situation, don’t you?
You realize the Reich has already, in practical terms, raised its fist.”
Neurath fell silent for a moment.
“…Even so, we cannot win.
There is no path to victory if we make enemies of both Europe’s greatest land power and its greatest naval power.”
(Under the circumstances, that was the only reasonable conclusion.)
In 1936, no one imagined France would collapse in a matter of weeks.
Conventional military thinking held that Germany would be defeated long before the United States ever had a chance to intervene.
“Then would you have the Reich remain as it is?”
“I did not say that.” Neurath shook his head.
“Like every German, I resent the loss of our overseas colonies and the crushing reparations forced upon us.
But surely we should proceed more cautiously.”
“I am not opposed to war itself,” he continued.
“Only to its timing.
Must it be now?
Whether it takes five years or ten, surely a better opportunity will eventually present itself.”
That was the prevailing mindset of the era.
War was merely an extension of diplomacy.
When diplomacy failed, nations resorted to arms.
Germany, stripped of most of its overseas resources, would one day recover.
Not now—but eventually.
(But I know something no one else in this era does.)
(That ‘eventually’ will never come.)
“Minister,” I said quietly, “we cannot afford to wait for that ‘someday’—for two reasons.”
“First, if our economy takes another serious downturn, the communists could seize the Reich for good.
In the worst case, the old German Empire would splinter into a patchwork of petty states, each carved up by its neighbors.”
I paused to take a sip of my coffee.
(I wonder how much longer coffee will remain something I can enjoy.)
The thought crossed my mind unbidden.
But there was no turning back now.
The Reich had already crossed that line.
The failure of the postwar settlement after the Great War…
The failure to contain the global depression that began across the Atlantic…
Those two disasters had already pulled the trigger on the next world war.
“There’s something else, Minister.”
I looked directly into his eyes.
“You’re making one fundamental mistake.
It’s the reason that ‘better opportunity’ will never arrive.”
“And what mistake is that?”
“You assume there will still be another war ten or twenty years from now.”
I slowly shook my head.
“There won’t.”
“More accurately…”
“There can’t be.”
And with that, I began explaining to Neurath the true reason I intended to drive the Reich down the road to war.