Equally circumspectly, though with even less success,
Göring pursued his other contacts with London throughout
September . When two RAF airmen were shot down in
Germany, he phoned Dahlerus on the tenth, and sent their let-
ters to London with a personal message to say that they were
alive and well. (The indignant Foreign Office requested the
Swedes not to forward any more such letters, since the Red
Cross was the proper channel.)
After the Soviet Union sprang its armies on eastern Poland
on September , Göring telephoned Dahlerus in Sweden.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“I am remaining here,” Dahlerus replied emphatically; but
he related this renewed approach to the British legation the next
day. “The field marshal is willing to do all he can to arrange a
truce,” he said, “provided he gets the credit.” If Göring could
meet somebody like General Ironside on neutral ground, this
would give him the necessary leverage to persuade Hitler. Ar-
riving back in Berlin on the twenty-first, however, Dahlerus had
to tell Göring that the British were refusing to state terms it
was for him to find out first what Göring had to offer, they said.
Three days later Dahlerus met Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes at the
British legation in Oslo, but the diplomat merely suggested
dryly that perhaps Göring ought to reflect upon the treatment
the Soviet Army was meting out to his “shooting pals” in Po-
land.
Göring took the search for peace seriously. He sent Prince
von Hohenlohe to a secret Swiss rendezvous with Colonel
Malcolm Christie of the British secret service, with instructions
to hint that if a properly authorized Englishman he now sug-
gested Vansittart should arrive there with British terms, then
he, Göring, would be ready to act against the Führer.
He was painfully aware that once again time was running