to pluck a feather from a goose, the Anglo-American boot ap-
pears and kicks our hand away.” He reminded the British peer
that his air force was now superior to Britain’s RAF and then
dangled before him the very tempting prospect of a world-
embracing Anglo-German alliance. “It is Germany’s primary
interest,” he explained, dismissing with a flabby wave of one
hand the adjutant who insistently reminded him, after two
hours’ talking, that he was already late for lunch with the
Führer, “not to see any weakening of the British Empire. In
fact,” he added, mentioning for the first time an idea that he
had obviously cleared with Hitler, “I would go so far as to say
that if the British Empire were gravely menaced, it would be to
our interest to come to its support.”
Replacing Baldwin in May , Britain’s new prime min-
ister, Neville Chamberlain, sincerely desired to improve relations
with Germany. He replaced the loose-tongued, sarcastic Phipps
as ambassador with Sir Nevile Henderson. Henderson had ad-
mired Göring ever since his coup de théâtre at the Belgrade fu-
neral ceremonies, and he had a leaning towards the new Ger-
many. He had recently crossed the Atlantic aboard Germany’s
majestic liner Cap Arcona, to brush up his spoken German.
Once, the giant Zeppelin-built airship Hindenburg hovered
overhead, exchanging greetings, until its ,-horsepower en-
gines propelled it over the horizon. Both ships became symbols
of the violence of world feeling against Hitler: Sabotaged by
anti-Nazis, the airship would crumble in flames at Lakehurst,
New Jersey, a few days later, killing thirty-five passengers and
crew; and eight years later the Cap Arcona would be sunk by a
single British airplane in the Baltic with the loss of seventy-three
hundred civilian lives five times as many as died aboard the
Titanic.
The mutual attraction that ripened between Henderson