178 J.-A. PEMBERTON
meant that the talks scheduled for May in Paris were bound to be an
exercise in futility. Indeed, by the time the talks took place, Schacht had
grown shy of discussing the political conditions set forth by Britain and
France as a basis for any settlement.^319 Weinberg offers an explanation
for Schacht’s shyness on this score, an explanation which, according to
Weinberg, should be viewed against the background of Hitler’s desire to
demonstrate that the German demands in regard to colonies and other
questions were non-negotiable. Of the talks Schacht conducted in Paris,
Weinberg states the following:
There is...good indirect evidence to suggest that Schacht saw Hitler
[before he left Berlin for Paris] and was given clear-cut instructions to stay
away from political subjects.... Whatever precise instructions Hitler gave
Schacht before or after the latter’s trip to Paris in May 1937, he was not
going to be detoured from his immediate aggressive designs, and most
assuredly not in talks inaugurated by a man whose advice he no longer
followed and whom he would soon drop entirely. Schacht could trum-
pet German colonial demands and economic needs in a general way; that
might soften public resistance abroad and build up enthusiasm for aggres-
sion at home, but there must be no bargaining in which German would
have to become specific in her demands and in her offers. Such a proce-
dure threatened to tie her down to what others considered reasonable and
to what she herself promised in return.
Beyond showing once more German determination not to allow
a negotiated settlement of alleged grievances, the Schacht talks must
be placed in still another context. Like the other efforts of the Western
Powers to come to an agreement with him, they were interpreted by
him—and by no means incorrectly—as signs both of opposition to
German continental expansion and of a desperate reluctance to go to war
to prevent it....In regard to colonies, he would get those for nothing when
the continental expansion he intended had made Germany strong enough
to demand them at the point of a gun. Ironically, the very attempts Britain
and France made and were still to make to divert him from aggression inwas empty during a political demonstration and empty seats were scattered about even on
the main floor. The speaker was General Franz Ritter von Epp, chief of the Reich Colonial
League, who has been touring the country. His audience consisted chiefly of elderly men
who were young enough to have gone out to the colonies before the war but whose col-
onising days were obviously over. Scarcely any young persons were to be seen.’ ‘Colonies
Rally in Berlin,’ New York Times, December 7, 1937.
(^319) Weinberg, Hitler’s Foreign Policy 1933–39: The Road to World War II, 341.