party officials like David Margesson and with the prime minister
himself on June . Chamberlain pointed out that Göring’s plan
involved “all give on our side and all take on his.” Moreover, the
guarantees that he offered were no different from those that
Hitler had so recently been breaking. “If,” Mr. Chamberlain
continued, “I were to propose even discussing the colonial ques-
tion with Herr Hitler in the present atmosphere, I should be
swept out of office without a month’s delay.” He invited Wen-
ner-Gren to repeat all this to Göring. “I take him,” he added,
“to be a man with whom one can speak frankly.”
By the ninth, Wenner-Gren had reported back to Göring
in person; in a letter to Margesson on June , he described how
he had pointed out that “under prevailing conditions a discus-
sion [with Chamberlain] could not lead to results, but that Mr.
Chamberlain would gladly consent to an exchange of views in
regard to all of the vital questions when more time had passed
after the Czecho-Slovakian occupation, or at any time if Ger-
many would be able to show in a drastic and convincing way her
desire and real will to an understanding.”
The Nazis, Wenner-Gren advised Göring, must do some-
thing “really dramatic” to restore Britain’s faith in them. “A
mere discussion,” he warned, “would be fruitless.”
Back in Stockholm, Wenner-Gren drew up a seventeen-
page letter to Göring outlining a peace program based on a
twenty-year peace treaty. This document reiterated that only
deeds could prove that the Nazis had turned over a new leaf.
They should call their next party rally a “rally for peace,” they
should end racial persecution, release both the former Austrian
chancellor Schuschnigg and Pastor Niemöller from the concen-
tration camps, and close all those camps down.
Göring acknowledged this by telegram on July :