180 J.-A. PEMBERTON
different diplomatic position to that which it had occupied in the days
of Bismarck: since the war, Germany had been ‘constantly a claimant
party’—what else could Germany ‘offer in a general or particular discus-
sion...other than the attenuation of a previous claim?’^327 By way of pro-
viding an answer, if only partial, to the question as to what benefit would
be derived from sacrificing or attenuating Germany’s colonial claims,
Maroger suggested that these claims were part of a campaign to induce
in Great Britain a willingness to further cooperate with the Reich.^328
tHe germAn coloniAl ProPAgAndA And tHe 1937
internAtionAl studies conference
As he was a member of Ribbentrop’s entourage, the interventions of
Berber at the 1937 session of the ISC on the colonial question deserve
attention and thus they will be discussed below. It will suffice to say here
that Berber’s declarations in regard to this question at the session, were
interpreted to mean that the economic case for retrocession which had
been so forcefully advanced by Schacht only a few months earlier, had for
the moment been abandoned.
Berber attended the conference accompanied by his secretary
Dorothea von Renvers whose previous position had been that of
‘Scientific Secretary’ of the German Central Committee for the Study
of International Relations’ (Deutsche Zentralstelle zum Studium der
Internationalen Beziehungen) in Berlin. This committee had been estab-
lished by Berber on August 15, 1936, as a successor to a previous com-
mittee he had established, namely, the Department of Scientific Studies
of International Relations (Abteilung für das Wissenschaftliche Studium
der Internationalen Beziehungen). The German Central Committee
‘acted as the...[IIIC’s]...correspondent in Germany for all questions
relating to the International Studies Conference.’^329 After having
(^327) Maroger, L’Europe and the question coloniale, 218. See also Chalmers Wright,
Population and Peace, 56.
(^328) Maroger, La question des matières premières et les revendications coloniales, 26.
(^329) League of Nations, International Institute of International Co-operation, The
International Studies Conference: Origins Functions, Organisation, 44, 107. For Dorothea von
Renvers’s position, see Berber to Bonnet, 15 August 1936, Conférence permanente des hautes
études internationales: ‘Peaceful Change,’ du 1er juin 1936 au 1er janvier 1937, AG 1-IICI-
K-I-15.d, UA, and Christophersen to Bonnet, 28 October 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-18.d, UA.