38 J.-A. PEMBERTON
that had been produced abroad as a result of events in Germany.
Toynbee wrote in the Survey for 1934 that the first of these shocks was
the ‘suddenness and unexpectedness of Herr Hitler’s actual advent to
power’; the second, the ‘“raging tearing” campaign of brutal violence
in which the victorious Nazi Movement swept all its political oppo-
nents or rivals in Germany away’; and the third, the announcement of
Germany’s intention to withdrawn from the LON. The fourth shock in
question was the following: ‘the sudden shooting of an unknown num-
ber of Germans— both Nazis and non-Nazis—by German hands on the
29th and 30th, June 1934.’^123 Toynbee observed that it was shocking
for Europeans to see a head of state, even one who was the head of a tri-
umphant revolutionary movement, shoot ‘down his own former hench-
men in the style of an American “gangster”.’^124
Many years later in his book Acquaintances (1967), Toynbee
pointed out that the Survey for 1934 had appeared after Berber had
issued Toynbee with his invitation to speak in Berlin at the Akademie
für Deutsches Recht. According to Toynbee, following its appearance,
Berber, fearful for his future, went to see Hitler to explain the situa-
tion and to show him what Toynbee had written, a report of which had
just been published in the Swiss press. According to Toynbee, Hitler’s
response to Berber’s brief was to firstly observe that the gangster anal-
ogy was ‘unfair’ as American gangsters kill ‘for money’ and he did not
and secondly to ask Berber to arrange for him to ‘see the Englishman’
on his arrival in the capital.^125 Toynbee claimed in Acquaintances that
he was informed by Berber of the interview only on the first day of his
official visit to Berlin: unknown to the authorities, or so he thought,
Toynbee had arrived there a week earlier in order to meet with oppo-
nents of the regime. Toynbee recorded in Acquaintances that after tell-
ing him that Ribbentrop was aware of his meetings with members of
the anti-Nazi opposition and that Ribbentrop was greatly displeased
by this, Berber, using a ‘flat’ tone, stated the following: ‘You are going
to see Hitler.’ Toynbee recalled that on learning of this he became
‘excited:’ having studied its opponents he was now being afforded the
(^123) Arnold J. Toynbee and V. M. Boulter, Survey of International Affairs, 1934 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1935), 324.
(^124) Ibid., 325.
(^125) Toynbee, Acquaintances, 283–5.