3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 273Socialism,’ Ribbentrop stated that Das Diktat von Versailles demon-
strated that ‘political science in Germany retained the courage of objec-
tivity without losing sight of the needs of the day’. As he had wished for
Locarno: A Collection of Documents, Ribbentrop wished for Das Diktat
von Versailles the ‘widest circulation.’^109 In respect to Berber’s objectiv-
ity, an American reviewer, writing immediately after the outbreak of war
in Europe, stated that ‘after all the discounts are made for the “needs
of the day,” reticences, and fanaticisms,’ the material presented in Das
Diktat von Versailles was ‘objective enough...to make the nature of the
new peace a matter of profound concern to all men of good will.’^110
It was in consequence of his role as Ribbentrop’s personal advisor,
that Berber’s letter to Bonnet of July 23 was sent from Salzburg. James
Douglas-Hamilton has established that during the afternoon and evening
of the July 26, Berber was witness to a conversation between Ribbentrop
and the British merchant banker and founder of the Anglo-German
Fellowship, Ernest Tennant. This conversation was held at Ribbentrop’s
recently acquired castle on Lake Fuschl, approximately eighteen kilo-
metres from Salzburg.^111 Hamilton-Douglas points out that the report
of this meeting, which was headlined ‘PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL,’
was sent to the chief intelligence officer of the RAF Fighter Command
on July 31.^112
Tennant recorded that at the meeting, Ribbentrop spoke of his
great disappointment at the British failure to reach an understanding
with Germany: an understanding ‘by which Germany,...would look
after Britain’s interests on the Continent in exchange for Britain look-
ing after Germany’s interests overseas’. Tennant further recorded
that Ribbentrop left no doubt that irrespective of the British guaran-
tee to Poland, Germany planned to take most of it and observed that
(^109) Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreword to Das Diktat von Versailles: Entstehung, Inhalt,
Zerfall, eine Darstellung in Dokumenten (Essen: Essener Verlagsantalt, 1939), iii.
(^110) Pfankuchen, review of Das Diktat von Versailles, ed., Fritz Berber, 794.
(^111) James Douglas-Hamilton, ‘Ribbentrop and War,’ Journal of Contemporary History 5,
no. 4 (1970): 45–63, 45.
(^112) Ibid. James Douglas-Hamilton record that the document prepared by Ernest Tennant
‘came into the hands of Mr Hird, the General Manger of the Bank of Scotland, who
sent a copy to the Earl of Selkirk, the newly appointed Chief Intelligence Officer of RAF
Fighter Command.’ He also notes that Tennant had earlier organised meetings between
Ribbentrop and the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and that in the mid-1930s his
reports were of ‘considerable interest’ to the British Secret Service (ibid.).