Accomplices with Reservations: German Diplomats and the Preparation of the Polish Campaign of September 1939

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the conservative foreign policy establishment in the decision‐making process leading to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939. Post‐war statements by German diplomats portrayed the conservative elite as reluctant participants in Hitler's drive to war. However, an examination of the foreign policy views of German conservatives reveals a significant degree of convergence with Nazi goals in their desire to revise Germany's post‐Versailles borders with Poland. In order to understand the role of the German diplomatic elite, it is also necessary to understand the degree to which foreign policy was subject to the same “polycracy” of decision‐making instances that characterised the structure of the “Third Reich” in general. While Hitler had relied on the conservative elites, including the Foreign Ministry and the military, their influence on decision‐making was waning by 1938–1939.