Sir Nevile Henderson emphasizes Göring’s love of peace in various passages of his book Failure of a Mission. The passages are quoted again in Document Book Number 1, Page 63, and I offer it as Document Number 23, Exhibit Number Göring-2. I quote from Page 78 of the book.
“I”—that is, Henderson—“was inclined to believe in the sincerity of his”—that is, Göring’s—“personal desire for peace and good relation with England.”
On Page 83 of the book, it says:
“I would like to express here my belief that the Field Marshal, if it had depended on him, would not have gambled on war, as Hitler did in 1939. As will be related in due course, he took a decisive stand for peace in September 1938.”
On Page 273, which is the next page, there is the following sentence which I quote:
“I saw the Polish Ambassador at 2 a.m. on 31 August 1939, gave him an objective, and studiously moderate account of my conversation with Ribbentrop, mentioned the cession of Danzig and the plebiscite in the Corridor as the two main points in the German proposals, stated that so far as I could gather they were not on the whole too unreasonable, and suggested to him that we recommend to his Government that they should propose at once a meeting between the Field Marshals Smigly-Rydz and Göring.”
On Page 276 of the book, you will find the following sentences which I quote from the last paragraph:
“Nevertheless, the Field Marshal seemed in earnest when after having been called to the telephone, he returned to tell us that M. Lipski was on his way to see Ribbentrop. He seemed relieved and to hope that, provided contact could only be established, war might, after all, be avoided.”
In February of 1937, the Defendant Göring, on the occasion of an international meeting of war veterans in Berlin, made the following speech, which is contained in the book Hermann Göring, the Man and His Work, on Page 265, and which is contained in Document Book 2, Page 42, which is Exhibit Number 39, and from which I quote the following sentences:
“There are no better defenders of peace than the old war veterans. I am convinced that they, above all others, have a right to ask for peace and to shape it. I recognize that those men who, weapon in hand, went through 4 hard years of the hell of the World War, have the primary right to shape the life of the nations, and I know that the war veterans more than anybody else will take care to preserve the blessings of peace for their countries.”