1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 39opportunity ‘to study the National Socialist movement at its source.’^126
On the day of the scheduled interview, Toynbee was escorted by Berber
to the Wilhelmstrasse where he was greeted by a party that included
Ribbentrop (whom he had already met on a number of occasions), the
foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath, and Hans Dieckhoff, this
last being permanent under-secretary of state at the Foreign Ministry
and someone whom Toynbee described as an old friend. According to
Toynbee, the presence of these three men, whom he characterised as the
‘principal foreign affairs authorities in Hitler’s set-up,’ showed that the
‘occasion was being taken seriously.’^127
In respect to McNeill’s interpretation of the actual purpose of the
interview, Crozier argues that it is equally plausible that Hitler was mak-
ing use of Toynbee in order to effect ‘the special Anglo-German rela-
tionship which he deemed so critical to the realisation of his long term
plans: the destruction of the Soviet Union and the establishment of
Lebensraum in the Ukraine.’ Crozier points out that by 1936, Hitler was
having serious doubts as to whether such a relationship could be effected
and that it was against this background that the demands for the return
of Germany’s former colonies began to be issued: these demands were
part of a strategy aimed at pressuring Britain into accepting the kind of
relationship that Hitler so wanted.^128
These two interpretations of Hitler’s motives in inviting Toynbee
to an interview are not mutually exclusive. Beyond this, it should be
noted that Crozier, whose view as to why there had been a resurgence
in German colonial propaganda around the time of Toynbee’s inter-
view with Hitler had currency among many contemporary observers,
and McNeill are both agreed on the point that Toynbee’s report did
not greatly impact on British policy. McNeill points out that the British
position on Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland had been deter-
mined on March 7, the very day the Rhineland was invaded, adding that
at best Toynbee’s report ‘may have reinforced the readiness of Baldwin
and Eden to acquiesce’ in Germany’s action.^129 Crozier similarly sug-
gests that Toynbee’s report served only to reinforce an already existing
(^126) Ibid., 276, 278.
(^127) Ibid., 278–9.
(^128) Crozier, ‘Chatham House and Appeasement,’ 231.
(^129) McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life, 172.