Nevile Henderson

Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson

He was educated at Eton and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1905. He was, as one historian notes, "something of a snob", although another historian states that his snobbishness mostly derived from the death of his mother.^[4]

Henderson had a great love of sports, guns, and hunting, and those who knew him noted he was always most happy when he was out on the hunt.

On 28 May 1937, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden appointed Henderson to be ambassador in Berlin. Harold Macmillan, wrote in his 1966 memoires of Eden's choice:

Why he did so is difficult to understand.... Henderson proved a complete disaster; hysterical, self-opinionated and unreliable. Eden later realised what a terrible mistake he had made.^[10]

Eden wanted an ambassador in Berlin who could get along well with dictators, and Vansittart gave him a list of three diplomats who had shown a strong partiality towards autocratic leaders: Henderson, Sir

Shortly after arriving in Berlin, Henderson started to clash with Vansittart, who complained that Henderson was exceeding his brief and becoming too close to the Nazi leaders, especially Hermann Göring, who became Henderson's main diplomatic source as well as a personal acquaintance.^[17] Henderson first met Göring on 24 May 1937 and admitted to having a "real personal liking" for him.^[19] The same tendency towards hero worship that Henderson had displayed towards King Alexander in Belgrade reasserted itself in Berlin towards Göring, as Henderson had a fascination with militaristic authority figures.^[7] Göring shared Henderson's love of hunting and guns, and both frequently went away for hunting trips to discuss the future of Anglo-German relations.^[4] Eden sharply criticised Henderson for not challenging Göring's statement that the German people should not look upon Britain as "an enemy in their path" and that closer Anglo-German ties were needed, as the statement implied that current British foreign policy was anti-German.^[19] In one of his "calculated indiscretions", Henderson broke with the unwritten rule in the Foreign Office that ambassadors should never criticise their predecessors by telling Göring that Sir Eric Phipps had been too insensitive towards German concerns.^[20]

In June 1937, Canadian Prime Minister

When Henderson accepted Göring's invitation to attend the 1937 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg without consulting the Foreign Office, Vansittart was furious and wrote that it was "extraordinary" that Henderson should "not only take an important decision like this off his own bat without giving us a chance at consultation... but also announce it to a foreign colleague as a decision".[17] Vansittart wrote to Henderson that he should not attend the Nuremberg Rally since "you would be suspected of giving countenance or indeed eulogy (as alleged by one Member of Parliament) to the Nazi system", and the Foreign Office would be accused of having "fascist leanings".^[23] Henderson wrote back that "one has to be empirical to a certain degree and since Nazism could not be wished away, what was the point of being discourteous to Hitler and unnecessarily irritating to him?"^[23]

Henderson's attendance at the rally was widely interpreted by the Nazis as granting his official approval of their ideology.^[17] At the same time, Henderson described the "Strength Through Joy" movement and the labour camps for young people as showing the "beneficial" aspects of Hitler's rule and ensured that the young Germans developed properly-patriotic attitudes towards the fatherland.^[24]

Henderson called the rally (10-11 September 1937) a most impressive event attended by some 140,000 Germans, who were full of enthusiasm for the regime.^[23] Henderson wrote that his hosts in Nuremberg went out of their way to be friendly towards him by giving him a luxurious apartment to stay in and inviting him to sumptuous meals with the best German food and wine being served.^[23] From Nuremberg, Henderson reported to London:

We are witnessing in Germany the rebirth, the reorganisation and unification of the German nation. One may criticise and disapprove, one may thoroughly dislike the threatened consummation and be apprehensive of its potentialities. But let us make no mistake. A machine is being built up in Germany, which in the course of this generation, if it succeeds unchecked, as there is no reason to believe that it will not, will be extraordinarily formidable. All this was achieved in less than five years. Germany is now so strong it can no longer be attacked with impunity, and soon, the country will be prepared for aggressive action.^[23]

However, Henderson saw no reason for alarm and wrote that "we are perhaps entering the quieter phrase of Nazism, of which the first indication has been the greater tranquility of the 1937 meeting [at Nuremberg]."^[23] Henderson spoke with Hitler at Nuremberg and described him as seeking "reasonableness" in foreign affairs with a special interest in reaching an "Anglo-German understanding".^[23] Because Hitler's speech at Nuremberg had demanded that Britain and France return the former German colonies in Africa, Henderson came away with the impression that for Hitler, the restoration of the German colonial empire in Africa was his principal foreign policy interest.^[25] The British historian Andrew Crozier wrote that the thesis developed by the German historian Klaus Hildebrand of "colonial blackmail" that for Hitler, the demands for lost colonies in Africa were meant to "blackmail" Britain into giving Germany a "free hand in the East" to be well supported by the available evidence.^[26]

Sudeten issue

On 16 March 1938, Henderson wrote to the Foreign Secretary,

During the May Crisis of 20–21 May 1938, Henderson was badly shaken by the partial Czechoslovak mobilisation, which, for Henderson, proved that President Edvard Beneš was dangerous and reckless.^[30] At the same time, Henderson formed alliances with Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, the State Secretary of the Auswärtiges Amt; André François-Poncet, the French ambassador in Berlin; and Baron Bernardo Attolico, the Italian ambassador in Berlin, to work together to "manage" Germany's return to great power status peacefully.^[32] Acting independently of their own national governments, Weizsäcker, Attolico, Henderson and François-Poncet formed a common front: on the one hand, to sabotage the plans of Hitler and Ribbentrop to attack Czechoslovakia; and, on the other, to ensure that the Sudetenland, the ostensible object of the German-Czechoslovak dispute, was handed over to Germany.^[32] Attolico, Weizsäcker, Henderson and François-Poncet would meet in secret to discuss in French to share information and to devise strategies to stop a war in 1938.^[32] Weizsäcker and Henderson both wanted a peaceful "chemical dissolution of Czechoslovakia", instead of the "mechanical dissolution" of war, which was favoured by Hitler and Ribbentrop.^[32] During Henderson's time in Berlin, he was closer to Weizsäcker than to any other German official except Göring.

Despite his earlier pro-Yugoslav views, Henderson started to display strong anti-Slavic views during his time in Berlin. He wrote writing to Lord Halifax on 22 August 1938, "The Teuton and the Slav are irreconcilable-just as are the Briton and the Slav. Mackenzie King told me last year after the Imperial Conference that the Slavs in Canada never assimilated with the people and never became good citizens".^[33] As the crisis over the Sudetenland region intensified in September 1938, Henderson became convinced that Britain should not fight a major war with Germany, which jeopardised the British Empire, over the Sudetenland, especially since he believed that it had been "unjust" in the first place for the Treaty of Versailles to have assigned the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia.^[34] In September 1938, Henderson, along with Halifax and Sir Horace Wilson, the Chief Industrial Adviser to the government, were the only ones aware of Chamberlain's Plan Z to have the Prime Minister fly to Germany to meet Hitler personally and to find out just exactly it was that he wanted with the Sudetenland.^[34]

After Hitler gave his

Henderson was ambassador at the time of the 1938 Munich Agreement and counselled Chamberlain to agree to it. Shortly thereafter, he returned to London for medical treatment, returning to Berlin in ill health in February 1939 (he would die of cancer less than four years later).^[36] Sir Oliver Harvey, Halifax's Private Secretary, wrote in September 1938, "Nevile Henderson's very presence here is a danger as he infects the Cabinet with his gibber".^[37]

Czechoslovakia

In October 1938, Henderson was diagnosed with cancer, which caused him to leave for London.^[18] From October 1938 to February 1939, the British Embassy in Berlin was run by the chargé d'affaires, Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, a member of the Scottish gentry and a protégé of Vansittart.^[18] The dispatches from Berlin changed markedly as Ogilvie-Forbes stated his belief that Hitler's aims went beyond revising the Treaty of Versailles towards winning Germany "world power status".^[38] Ogilvie-Forbes wrote to London 6 December 1938 that based on the information he received, he believed that Hitler would start a war sometime in 1939 with Hitler divided only about whether it would be in Western Europe or in Eastern Europe.^[38] Unlike Henderson, who tended to gloss over the sufferings of German Jews, Ogilvie-Forbes gave far more attention to Nazi anti-Semitism.^[39] Ascher, himself a German Jew, noted in Ogilvie-Forbes's dispatches to London that there was a real sense of personal empathy with the sufferings of German Jews, which Henderson never displayed.^[39] After Hitler gave his "Prophecy Speech" to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, Ogilvie-Forbes predicted that the "extermination" of Jews in Germany "can only be a matter of time".^[39] Henderson, by contrast, wrote that "Jews and Communists" were the principal "warmongers"; British Jews caused Germanophobia in Britain; Jews around the world would "move heaven and earth" to cause an Anglo-German war and "Jews, Communists and the intelligentsia" were the chief troublemakers in the world.^[24] To counter the negative reaction caused in Britain by the Kristallnacht pogrom, Henderson during his stay in London suggested to Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the Court of St James's that the persecution of German Jews be "regularized in an orderly and systematic manner" so as to reduce the offence given to British public opinion.^[24]

When Henderson returned to Berlin on 13 February 1939, his first action was to call a meeting of the senior staff of the British embassy, where he castigated Ogilvie-Forbes for his negative tone in his dispatches during his absence and announced that all dispatches to London would have to conform to his views, and that any diplomat who reported otherwise would be removed from the Foreign Office.^[40] On 18 February 1939, Henderson reported to London: "Herr Hitler does not contemplate any adventures at the moment... all stories and rumours to the contrary are completely without foundation".^[41] In February 1939, Henderson cabled the Foreign Office in London:

If we handle him (Hitler) right, my belief is that he will become gradually more pacific. But if we treat him as a pariah or mad dog we shall turn him finally and irrevocably into one.^{[citation needed]}

On 6 March 1939, Henderson sent a lengthy dispatch to Lord Halifax that attacked almost everything that Ogilvie-Forbes had written while he was in charge of the British embassy.^[41] Besides disallowing Ogilvie-Forbes, Henderson also attacked British newspapers for negative coverage of Nazi Germany, especially the Kristallnacht, and demanded foe the Chamberlain government impose censorship to end all negative coverage of the Third Reich.^[41] Henderson wrote: "If a free press is allowed to run riot without guidance from higher authority, the damage which it may do is unlimited. Even war may be one of its consequences".^[41] Henderson praised Hitler for his "sentimentality" and wrote "the humiliation of the Czechs [at the Munich conference] was a tragedy", but it was Beneš's own fault for failing to give autonomy to the Sudeten Germans while he still had the chance.^[41] Henderson called Kristallnacht a "disgusting exhibition", which was, however, "comprehensible within limits. The German authorities were undoubtedly seriously alarmed lest another Jew, emboldened by the success of Grynszpan should follow his example and murder either Hitler or one of themselves".^[42]

After

On 29 April 1939, the French ambassador in Berlin,

Czecho-Slovakia on 15 March 1939, that Henderson, "always an admirer of the National Socialist regime, careful to protect Mr. Hitler's prestige, was convinced that Great Britain and Germany could divide the world between them" but was very angry when he learned that the Reich had just violated the Munich Agreement, as it "wounded him in his pride".^[45] Coulondre went on to write: "Yesterday, I found him exactly as I knew him in February".^[45] Coulondre added that Henderson had told him that the German demand for the Free City of Danzig to be allowed to rejoin Germany was justified in his view and that the introduction of conscription in Britain did not mean that British policies towards Germany were changing.^[45] Coulondre concluded that "it appears that events barely touched Sir Nevile Henderson, like water over a mirror.... It would seem that he forgot everything and failed to learn anything".^[45] Henderson's relations with Coulondre were unfriendly and cold as the latter distrusted both Henderson and Weizsäcker, and unlike François-Poncet, Coulondre refused to join the "group of four" that had met in 1938 to stop a war.^[32] By early May 1939, Henderson reported to London that Hitler still wanted good relations with Britain but only if it ended "the policy of encirclement".^[43] Henderson also added that he believed in the "justice" of Hitler's demand for the Free City of Danzig to return to Germany and wrote that Danzig was "practically a wholly German city" and that Hitler did not want a war with Poland, but one might break out "if his offer to Poland was uncompromisingly rejected".^[44]

Prelude to war

During the

Danzig Crisis, Henderson consistently took the line that Germany was justified in demanding the return of the Free City of Danzig and that the onus was on the Poles to make concessions to Germany by allowing it to "go home to the Reich".^[46] Henderson wrote to Halifax about Danzig and the Polish Corridor: "Can we allow the Polish government to be too uncompromising with them?"^[47] Henderson felt the Versailles had been unjust towards Germany by creating the Free City of Danzig and giving the Polish Corridor and part of Silesia to Poland, and his preferred solution to the crisis would be Britain to pressure the Poles into concessions.^[47] However, Henderson also believed that Britain needed to deter Germany from attacking Poland while Britain pressured Poland into concessions and so favoured the "peace front" with the Soviet Union, despite his distrust, as the best form of deterrence.^[47]

On the eve of the

Second World War, Henderson came into frequent conflict with Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Henderson argued that Britain should rearm secretly, as public rearming would encourage the belief that Britain planned to go to war against Germany. Cadogan and the Foreign Office disagreed with Henderson.^{[citation needed}

]

The signing of the

Anglo-Polish military alliance two days later made war imminent. On the night of 30 August, Henderson had an extremely-tense meeting with Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop presented the German "final offer" to Poland at midnight and warned Henderson that if he received no reply by dawn, the "final offer" would be considered to have been rejected. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg described the scene: "When Ribbentrop refused to give a copy of the German demands to the British Ambassador at midnight of 30–31 August 1939, the two almost came to blows. Ambassador Henderson, who had long advocated concessions to Germany, recognised that here was a deliberately conceived alibi the German government had prepared for a war it was determined to start. No wonder Henderson was angry; von Ribbentrop on the other hand could see war ahead and went home beaming".^[48]

While negotiating with Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski and advising accommodation over Germany's territorial ambitions, as he had during the Anschluss with Austria and the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Germany staged the Gleiwitz incident, and the invasion of Poland began on 1 September. Henderson had to deliver Britain's final ultimatum on the morning of 3 September 1939 to Ribbentrop that if hostilities between Germany and Poland did not cease by 11 a.m. that day, a state of war would exist between Britain and Germany. Germany did not respond and so Chamberlain declared war at 11:15 a.m. Henderson and his staff were briefly interned by the Gestapo before they returned to Britain on 7 September.

Later life

After he had returned to London, Henderson asked for another ambassadorship, but was denied. He wrote Failure of a Mission: Berlin 1937–1939, which was published in 1940, while staying at

Italian Royal Army had been sent overseas.^[49] The historian A. L. Rowse described Failure of a Mission as "an appalling revelation of fatuity in high place".^[50]

In his memoir, Henderson stated:

Atatürk (Mustafa Kemal) built a new Turkey on the ruins of the old; and his expulsion of the Greeks, which perhaps suggested to Hitler that he should do the same in Germany with the Jews, has already been forgotten and forgiven.^[51]

This has been compared to

annihilation of the Armenians?"^[51]

Death

Henderson died on 30 December 1942 of cancer. He was then staying at the

Dorchester Hotel, in London.^[52] Informed by his doctors that he had around six months left to live, he wrote an anecdote-filled diplomatic memoir, Water Under the Bridges, which was posthumously published in 1945. Its final chapter defends his work in Berlin and the policy of "appeasement," praises Chamberlain for being "an honest and brave man" and argues on behalf of the Munich Agreement on the grounds that Britain was too weak militarily in 1938 to have stood up to Hitler. It also asserts that if Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia, the latter would have fallen within a few months.^[2]

References

1. ISBN 978-0333739877
   p. 1.
2. ^ ^{a b} "Water Under The Bridges(1945)". 22 October 1945. Retrieved 22 October 2022 – via Internet Archive.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Neville 1999, p. 1.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Neville 1999, p. 2.
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Neville 1999, p. 9.
6. ^ "No. 33573". The London Gazette. 24 January 1930. p. 494.
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Neville 1999, p. 14.
8. ^ Neville 1999, p. 14-15.
9. ^ ^{a b} Neville 1999, p. 15.
10. ^ Macmillan, Harold (1966), Winds of Change 1914-1939, London: Macmillan, p. 530 citing Avon, The Earl of, The Eden Memoirs: Facing the Dictators, p. 504
11. ^ ^{a b} Neville 1999, p. 22.
12. ^ ^{a b} Ascher 2012, p. 66.
13. ^ ^{a b c} Neville 1999, p. 20.
14. ^ ^{a b} Ascher 2012, p. 67.
15. ^ ^{a b c} Neville 1999, p. 20-21.
16. ^ Neville 1999, p. 21.
17. ^ ^{a b c d e} Neville 2006, p. 149.
18. ^ ^{a b c} Ascher 2012, p. 74.
19. ^ ^{a b} Crozier 1988, p. 220.
20. ^ Crozier 1988, p. 220-221.
21. ^ ^{a b} Neville 2006, p. 150.
22. ^ ^{a b c d} Wendt 1983, p. 169-171.
23. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Ascher 2012, p. 70.
24. ^ ^{a b c} Strang 1994, p. 109.
25. ^ Crozier 1988, p. 226-227.
26. ^ Crozier 1988, p. 228.
27. ^ Neville 1999, p. 263.
28. ^ Neville 1999, p. 266.
29. ^ Neville 1999, p. 266-267.
30. ^ ^{a b} Neville 1999, p. 267.
31. ^ ^{a b} Neville 1999, p. 268.
32. ^ ^{a b c d e} Watt 2003, p. 334.
33. ^ Goldstein 1999, p. 282.
34. ^ ^{a b} Neville 1999, p. 96.
35. ^ ^{a b c d e} Ascher 2012, p. 73.
36. ^ Appeasing Hitler: The Diplomacy of Sir Nevile Henderson, 1937–39, findarticles.com; accessed 2 October 2014.
37. ^ Strang 1994, p. 108.
38. ^ ^{a b} Ascher 2012, p. 74-75.
39. ^ ^{a b c} Ascher 2012, p. 76.
40. ^ Ascher 2012, p. 77-78.
41. ^ ^{a b c d e} Ascher 2012, p. 78.
42. ^ Ascher 2012, p. 78-79.
43. ^ ^{a b} Ascher 2012, p. 79.
44. ^ ^{a b c d e} Ascher 2012, p. 80.
45. ^ ^{a b c d} Duroselle 2004, p. 337.
46. ^ Neville 1999, p. 145-146.
47. ^ ^{a b c} Neville 1999, p. 146.
48. ^ A World At Arms by Gerhard Weinberg, p. 43.
49. ^ Jukic, Ilija (1974). The Fall of Yugoslavia. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp. 14–15.
50. ISBN 0351-18069-9
    .
51. ^
    ISBN 978-0-674-50479-0
    .
52. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 22 October 2022. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)

Primary sources

• Henderson, Sir Neville (1940). Failure of a Mission Berlin 1937-1939.
• Henderson, Sir Neville (1945). Water Under the Bridges.
• Henderson, Sir Neville (20 September 1939). "Final Report on the Circumstances Leading to the Termination of his Mission to Berlin". (CMD 6115) Pamphlet.

Secondary sources

• Ascher, Abraham (2012). Was Hitler a Riddle?: Western Democracies and National Socialism. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
• Crozier, Andrew (1988). Appeasement and Germany's Last Bid for Colonies. London: Macmillan.
  ISBN 0312015461
  .
• Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste (2004). France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939. New York: Enigma.
• Gilbert, Martin (2014). The Second World War: A Complete History. RosettaBooks.
• Goldstein, Erik (1999). "Neville Chamberlain, the British Official Mind and the Munich Crisis". In Igor Lukes; Erik Goldstein (eds.). The Munich Crisis, Prelude to World War II. London: Frank Cass.
  ISBN 0-7146-4995-3
  .
• Jukic, Ilija (1974). The Fall of Yugoslavia. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
  ISBN 9780151301003
  .
• McDonogh, Frank (2010). Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the road to war. Manchester.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Henderson, Sir Neville (25 March 1940). "War's First Memoirs". Life Magazine.
• Neville, Peter (1999). Appeasing Hitler The Diplomacy of Sir Nevile Henderson, 1937-39. London: Macmillan.
• Neville, Peter (2000). "Appeasing Hitler: The Diplomacy of Sir Nevile Henderson 1937–39". Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations. Palgrave.
• Neville, Peter (2006). Hitler and Appeasement: The British Attempt to Prevent the Second World War. London: Hambledon Continuum.
• Neville, Peter (2004). "Henderson, Sir Nevile Meyrick (1882–1942)".
  doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33814. Retrieved 1 November 2014. (Subscription or UK public library membership
  required.)
• Strang, Bruce (March 1994). "Two Unequal Tempers: Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, Sir Nevile Henderson and British Foreign Policy, 1938-39". Diplomacy and Statecraft. 5 (1): 107–137.
  doi:10.1080/09592299408405911
  .
• Watt, D.C. (2003), "Diplomacy and Diplomatists", in Maiolo, Joseph;
  ISBN 0333945395
• Weinberg, Gerhard (2005). A World At Arms: Global History of World War II. Cambridge.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Wendt, Bernd-Jürgen (1983). "Economic Appeasement". In Lothar Kettenacker; Wolfgang Mommsen (eds.). The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement. London: George Allen & Unwin.

External links

Media related to Nevile Henderson at Wikimedia Commons

• Failure of a Mission, Berlin 1937-1939 at Faded Page (Canada)
• Failure of a Mission: Berlin 1937 – 1939
• Newspaper clippings about Nevile Henderson in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Howard William Kennard	Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1929–1935	Succeeded by Ronald Ian Campbell
Preceded by Eric Phipps	Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to the Third Reich 1937–1939	Succeeded by No representation until 1950 Ivone Kirkpatrick