ADSS 1.70 Cesare Orsenigo, Germany, to Luigi Maglione, Sec
State.
Reference:
Report number 48 (27/810) (AES 4189/39)
Location
and date: Berlin, 23.06.1939
Summary
statement: Incidents between Germany and Poland call attention to the latent
danger of a conflict. Some place their
hope in the moderating influence of the HS.
Some trouble over use of Polish or German in the liturgy by minority
groups.
Language:
Italian
Text:
I
hasten to bring to your Eminence’s attention the following events:
Great
impression has been created in these diplomatic circles by the news, recently
secretly learned, regarding the existing tension between Polish and German
populations. The news leaked out that in
a Polish town, Thorn (1) some fanatic and degenerate people have assaulted and
castrated three Germans. The news came
to the knowledge of the German Press Agency (Deutsches Nachricktenbüro – DNB) who collected it and issued a
press release. I enclose a copy of it.
According
to the opinion of the diplomats such a publication would have been sufficient
to start a popular upheaval of such magnitude as to lead to a war. Fortunately, at the last moment, the Führer,
having heard of it, forbade its publication.
A feeling of fear, however, has remained in everybody’s mind as the
episode has shown how fragile is the prudence, both of the German and the
Polish populations, regarding matters which could start a war. (2)
To
this we must add the speech made by Minister Goebbels last Sunday in Danzig and
made more dangerous by other more menacing phrases, as for example “within
three months Danzig will belong to Germany”, said during an interview with
Foreign newspaper men, although he requested that it should not be published.
(3)
Some
diplomats, even amongst neutrals and Germany’s friends, find again new hope of
preventing war in some tentative effort of the Holy See: even the Secretary of
State at the Foreign Office, Baron von Weizsäcker, on Tuesday, talking to me,
mentioned very respectfully the moderating influence that the Catholic Church
could exert on the Polish population.
News
arrived here of increasing hostility by both sides against religious services
in the language of the minority population.
In German Silesia the numerous Polish people who live there rarely have
religious services in their own language as previous was the custom. At the same time in Katowice, Archbishop [sic] Adamski, has been compelled, in order to preserve dignity and decorum in the churches,
to forbid the service in two parishes in the town, which were regularly
celebrated in German. (4)
Notes:
(1)
There is no way of verifying this story.
Given that German propaganda indulged in lurid cases of Polish
atrocities against ethnic Germans, it is highly likely the story is fictional. The only verified account of so-called Polish
“atrocities” against Germans was in the opening week of the war, 03-04.09.1939,in Bromberg where German soldier and some civilians, possibly saboteurs, fired
upon retreating Polish soldiers which lead to a fight where between 40-50 Poles
and 100-130 Germans were killed. Savage
reprisals followed. German propaganda inflated the number of dead and used the
incident as “proof” of Polish savagery.
(2)
Compare the letter of 28.06.1939 of Nevile Henderson (1882-1942) UK Ambassador
in Berlin 1937-39: “Unwelcome though I feel that my warnings are, in London,
about Polish provocations, I cannot help it, for it is my duty to repeat to you
that they constitute a serious danger.” (DBFP, Series 3, Volume 6, n161, p184.
(3)
Henderson had expressed his surprise to the Secretary of State that Goebbels
could speak as he liked about foreign policy. Ibid.
(4)
Stanislaw Adamski (1875-1967), Bishop of Katowice 1930-67.
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