race, who believed they had much to avenge and who had attained power by the exercise of determination and self-sacrifice. Rothermere pointed out that:
The new German Chancellor was a man of obscure origins. The Austrian house-painter who had been battalion runner and a corporal in the German army had raised a standard of revolt in Munich, only to be cast into prison for his pains. It seemed to the unimaginative eyes in London and Paris that his appointment as Reich Chancellor was rather in the nature of a bad joke than an event in the serious history of Europe. 1
But Rothermere concluded that, ‘a man of known resolute and daring character pledged to the wiping out of the Peace Treaties who had made himself in a very few years the master of the German Parliamentary machine was a man neither to be derided nor ignored’.
There was no secret about Hitler’s aims for those willing to look for them. His three most significant objectives were his pledge to wipe out the humiliating clauses imposed by the peace treaties, to win the return of Germany’s ex-colonies and to recognise the Jew as an alien. Rothermere wrote:
Germany, a decade and a half after the end of the World War was in odium surrounded by armed neighbours and herself unarmed … It was surely a simple deduction that such men as now controlled the German nation would turn from requests to demands, and would strive to back those demands with adequate military force, whatever the rejected treaties might say. 2
He argued that demands for redress from a revitalised Germany could only be addressed to two nations – France and Britain. Of these Britain had, in pursuit of her treaty pledges, spent fifteen years reducing her armaments, and now the British government was showing no signs of waking up to the menace which the new National Socialist government in Germany posed.
In November 1933, a month before the princess had her first meeting with the German chancellor, Rothermere published a peculiarly prophetic article in the Daily Mail headlined ‘We Need 5,000 War-Planes’. 3 In it he predicted that the next war in Europe would begin with mass air attacks upon the cities of the weaker powers. Britain, he argued, was powerless to resist these perils. Successful defence in the air demanded a lead in aircraft numbers of at least 2:1, and of all the great European powers Britain was weakest, with a home defence force of a mere 490 aircraft. The French in contrast had 3,000, the Italians 1,500. Rothermere wrote:
No other country on earth is so exposed to devastating air attack. Our capital city offers an almost ideal target for enemy bombers. It lies in the corner of the kingdom which is most accessible to air-raiders with a broad estuary to guide them to its heart … Though we were to double the size of our Navy and our Army we could at present be decisively defeated in any new European war by aerial action alone.
Rothermere’s fear was that in a war, an armada of enemy planes laden with bombs, some filled with poison gas, would rain destruction on Britain and particularly on its capital city.
He was not alone in warning of the bomber threat. Stanley Baldwin in a well-publicised speech said: ‘I think it is as well for the man in the street to realise there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.’ 4 Alexander Korda produced an alarming film, Things to Come , written by H.G. Wells, which depicted the dire effects of an aerial bombardment on an average town. Public fears were stoked by the experience of attacks from the air in the Far East, Africa and during the civil war in Spain. It was estimated in the late 1930s that in the first week of a war against Britain, 83,000 people would be killed by bombing; that every ton of bombs dropped would result in fifty casualties; and in a concentrated campaign of aerial bombing on the UK, more than half a million people would
The new German Chancellor was a man of obscure origins. The Austrian house-painter who had been battalion runner and a corporal in the German army had raised a standard of revolt in Munich, only to be cast into prison for his pains. It seemed to the unimaginative eyes in London and Paris that his appointment as Reich Chancellor was rather in the nature of a bad joke than an event in the serious history of Europe. 1
But Rothermere concluded that, ‘a man of known resolute and daring character pledged to the wiping out of the Peace Treaties who had made himself in a very few years the master of the German Parliamentary machine was a man neither to be derided nor ignored’.
There was no secret about Hitler’s aims for those willing to look for them. His three most significant objectives were his pledge to wipe out the humiliating clauses imposed by the peace treaties, to win the return of Germany’s ex-colonies and to recognise the Jew as an alien. Rothermere wrote:
Germany, a decade and a half after the end of the World War was in odium surrounded by armed neighbours and herself unarmed … It was surely a simple deduction that such men as now controlled the German nation would turn from requests to demands, and would strive to back those demands with adequate military force, whatever the rejected treaties might say. 2
He argued that demands for redress from a revitalised Germany could only be addressed to two nations – France and Britain. Of these Britain had, in pursuit of her treaty pledges, spent fifteen years reducing her armaments, and now the British government was showing no signs of waking up to the menace which the new National Socialist government in Germany posed.
In November 1933, a month before the princess had her first meeting with the German chancellor, Rothermere published a peculiarly prophetic article in the Daily Mail headlined ‘We Need 5,000 War-Planes’. 3 In it he predicted that the next war in Europe would begin with mass air attacks upon the cities of the weaker powers. Britain, he argued, was powerless to resist these perils. Successful defence in the air demanded a lead in aircraft numbers of at least 2:1, and of all the great European powers Britain was weakest, with a home defence force of a mere 490 aircraft. The French in contrast had 3,000, the Italians 1,500. Rothermere wrote:
No other country on earth is so exposed to devastating air attack. Our capital city offers an almost ideal target for enemy bombers. It lies in the corner of the kingdom which is most accessible to air-raiders with a broad estuary to guide them to its heart … Though we were to double the size of our Navy and our Army we could at present be decisively defeated in any new European war by aerial action alone.
Rothermere’s fear was that in a war, an armada of enemy planes laden with bombs, some filled with poison gas, would rain destruction on Britain and particularly on its capital city.
He was not alone in warning of the bomber threat. Stanley Baldwin in a well-publicised speech said: ‘I think it is as well for the man in the street to realise there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.’ 4 Alexander Korda produced an alarming film, Things to Come , written by H.G. Wells, which depicted the dire effects of an aerial bombardment on an average town. Public fears were stoked by the experience of attacks from the air in the Far East, Africa and during the civil war in Spain. It was estimated in the late 1930s that in the first week of a war against Britain, 83,000 people would be killed by bombing; that every ton of bombs dropped would result in fifty casualties; and in a concentrated campaign of aerial bombing on the UK, more than half a million people would
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