VON RIBBENTROP: Please repeat the question.
DR. HORN: Is it correct that the German proposals which had been submitted by you on the preceding evening of the 30th to Ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson were not forwarded to Warsaw until the evening of 31 August?
VON RIBBENTROP: You mean from London?
DR. HORN: From London.
VON RIBBENTROP: That I cannot tell you precisely, but that can undoubtedly be verified from official documents.
DR. HORN: What considerations then led to the final decision to take military action against Poland?
VON RIBBENTROP: I cannot tell you the details of this. I know only that the Führer—that the proposals which I had read to the British Ambassador in the night of the 30th were published by broadcast, as I believe, on the evening of the 31st. The reaction of the Warsaw radio, I remember this reaction exactly, was unfortunately such as to sound like a veritable battlecry in answer to the German proposals which, as I heard, had been characterized by Henderson as reasonable. I believe they were characterized by the Polish radio as an insolence, and the Germans were spoken of as Huns or the like. I still remember that. At any rate, shortly after the announcement of these proposals a very sharp negative answer came from Warsaw. I assume that it was the answer which persuaded the Führer in the night of the 31st to issue the order to march. I, for my part, can say only that I went to the Reich Chancellery, and the Führer told me that he had given the order and that nothing else could be done now, or something to this effect, and that things were now in motion. Thereupon I said to the Führer merely, “I wish you good luck.”
I might also mention that the outbreak of these hostilities was the end of years of efforts on the part of Adolf Hitler to bring about friendship with England.
DR. HORN: Did Mussolini make another proposal of mediation and how did this proposal turn out?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, that is true. On 3 September, in the morning, such a proposal of mediation arrived in Berlin stating that Mussolini was still in a position to bring the Polish question in some way before the forum of a conference, and that he would do so if the German Government agreed rapidly. It was said at the same time that the French Government had already approved this proposal. Germany also immediately agreed. But a few days later—I cannot now state the time precisely—it was reported that, in a speech I believe, by the British Foreign Minister Halifax in the House of Commons or in some other British declaration, this proposal had been turned down by London.