“When I asked Ribbentrop for text of these proposals in accordance with undertaking in the German reply of yesterday, he asserted that it was now too late as Polish representative had not arrived in Berlin by midnight.
“I observed that to treat the matter in this way meant that the request for Polish representative to arrive in Berlin on the 30th of August constituted in fact an ultimatum, in spite of what he and Herr Hitler had assured me yesterday. This he denied, saying that the idea of an ultimatum was a figment of my imagination. Why then, I asked, could he not adopt the normal procedure and give me a copy of the proposals, and ask the Polish Ambassador to call on him just as Hitler had summoned me a few days ago, and hand them to him for communication to the Polish Government? In the most violent terms Ribbentrop said that he would never ask the Ambassador to visit him. He hinted that if the Polish Ambassador asked him for interview it might be different. I said that I would, naturally, inform my Government so at once. Whereupon he said, while those were his personal views, he would bring all that I had said to Hitler’s notice. It was for the Chancellor to decide.
“We parted on that note, but I must tell you that Von Ribbentrop’s demeanor during an unpleasant interview was aping Hitler at his worst. He inveighed incidentally against the Polish mobilization, but I retorted that it was hardly surprising since Germany had also mobilized as Herr Hitler himself had admitted to me yesterday.”
Nevertheless, Sir Nevile Henderson did not know at that time that Germany had also already given the orders to attack Poland some days before. The following day, the 31st of August at 6:30 in the evening, Mr. Lipski, the Polish Ambassador, had an interview with Ribbentrop. This document, the next Document TC-73, Number 112, becomes GB-72, and is a short account in a report to Mr. Beck:
“I carried out my instructions. Ribbentrop asked if I had special plenipotentiary powers to undertake negotiations. I said, ‘No’. He then asked whether I had been informed that on London’s suggestion the German Government had expressed their readiness to negotiate directly with a delegate of the Polish Government, furnished with the requisite full powers, who was to have arrived on the preceding day, the 30th of August. I replied that I had no direct information on the subject. In conclusion, Ribbentrop repeated that he had thought I would be empowered to negotiate. He would communicate my démarche to the Chancellor.”
As I have indicated already, it was too late. The orders had already been given on that day to the German Army to invade.
I turn to C-126. It is already in as GB-45. Other portions of it were put in, and I refer now to the letter on the second page, for the order (most-secret order). It is signed by Hitler and is described as his “Directive Number 1 for the Conduct of the War,” dated 31st of August 1939. Paragraph 1:
“(1) Now that all the political possibilities of disposing by peaceful means of a situation on the eastern frontier, which is intolerable for Germany, are exhausted, I have determined on a solution by force.