274 J.-A. PEMBERTON
when he, Tennant, reminded Ribbentrop that Britain was ‘ready and
vastly stronger than Germany at sea, and equal to Germany in the air,’
Ribbentrop ‘shook his head’.^113 According to Tennant, Ribbentrop then
stated: ‘My dear T...Britain’s strength or weakness never enters our cal-
culations because Britain could never get at us.’^114 After the evening din-
ner, Tennant drove back to Salzburg in the company of Berber. Tennant
described him as a ‘mild young man obviously alarmed at the outlook,’
adding that during the return drive, Berber
told me that if he might venture to give some advice on the present cri-
sis he would endeavour to urge upon Mr. Chamberlain the importance
of making it clear to the Poles that they must without further delay come
to a settlement with Germany over the Corridor and Danzig, even if that
meant Danzig returning to the Reich. When I asked him ‘and then what
would Germany demand of Poland next?,’ he replied ‘your guarantee to
Poland would still stand and would operate if Hitler went beyond what the
Poles felt compelled to agree to concede. That should prevent any further
demands on Poland.’^115Tennant travelled to Berlin the next day in the same train as Ribbentrop
and his party which he, Tennant, was invited to join. In his account of
the eleven hour journey, Tennant reported that Ribbentrop was trav-
elling to Berlin in order to attend a meeting with Hitler after which
Ribbentrop planned to conduct an inspection of a part of the Siegfried
Line. Clearly regarding it as of symbolic importance, Tennant observed
that while the day before Ribbentrop had been sporting ‘a white cot-
ton knickerbocker suit and brown stockings, he was now very much the
Foreign Minister in full uniform’.^116
A conference in bergen
The 1939 session of the ISC commenced on August 27 and was hosted
by the Christian Michelsen Institute of Science and Intellectual Liberty,
which had been founded in Bergen in March 1930. Despite the ominous
(^113) Text of Ernest Tenant’s memorandum, 1939, ibid., 52.
(^114) Ibid., 54.
(^115) Ibid., 57.
(^116) Ibid., 57.