if he showed a willingness to disarm; Hudson breezily added
that he thought Germany could have her old colonies back on
trust as well, and agreed that all this might be secretly conveyed
to Göring.
Wohlthat did so on July , but simultaneously the anti-
German faction in the British Foreign Office leaked details to the
press. On July , the Daily Telegraph printed a report that Brit-
ain had offered Nazi Germany a “billion pound credit” in an at-
tempt to buy off Hitler. Göring had no option but to dismiss the
Wohlthat-Hudson proposals as “utter rubbish,” and did so in
conversation with another Swedish businessman on July .
But beneath that brazen exterior and the glowing, rouged
complexion, the field marshal’s heart still pumped with terror at
the idea of open conflict. Once that summer he growled at Jo-
seph Goebbels, the poisonous minister of propaganda, “We ha-
ven’t slaved for six years, with such success, just to risk losing the
lot in a war.”