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    "localId": "245256128",
    "label": "Memorandum from Joseph Grew to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
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    "id": "245256128",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from Joseph Grew to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
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            "logicalDate": "1945-07-02",
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{
    "seq": 5,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "-3-\ninfluence prevailed in the occupied countries in which move-\nments with similar ideas anddoctrines/promoted and carrying\nthe political life and the foreign office was eliminated.\nAbout the question of world conception I have had serious\ndivergencies of views and disputes with Hitler, which I presume\nwas also the cause that the Fuehrer never asked me to party\nmeetings, which he held regularly; an influence on these\nquestions from the department of foreign politics has not been\npossible for some years, but if the Fuehrer had once decided\non a matter his policy was always carried out according to\nthe Fuehrer principle.\nWhen German-Russian relations severed and the war\nwith Russia broke out, a development which I as the originator\nof the German-Russian pact more than regretted, everything\nwas subordinated to the anti-communistic parole.\nI only mention these facts to show that for a long\ntime already the Fuehrer had looked upon this war as the war\nbetween the Weltauffassungen\", national and communistic. All\nother problems f.i. the holding together of the Germanic\npeople, the concert of the European States, whereby territorial\nquestions were always kept open (though the territories occupied\nby German troops did not fall under the care of my ministry\nthe Fuehrer always agreed with me to keep these questions open\nwith regard to our future policy with Great Britain on the old\nlines) were always seen under the same aspect. In our last\nconversation this fundamental idea came again into the fore-\nground, when I remember well - the Fuehrer in talking of the\nwar suddenly turned around to me and said: \"You will see,\nmy spirit will arise from my grave and one will see that I\nhave been right\".\nAbout one point there has always been entire agreement\nbet the Fuehrer and myself and that was that a strong and\nunited Germany as a preliminary condition, for a stable and\nflourishing Burope could only exist in the long run by a close\ncollaboration with Great Britain. What the Fuehrer and myself\nhave done, I first alone and then as his envoy, for the realiz-\nation of this English-Germa conception during the last quarter\n-\nARCHIVES\nof a century is known to all people concerned. I believe, it\nSERVICE'*\nwas very much. I have the intention to lay down the facts in\na chronological survey about the development of Foreign policy\nsince 1933. Here I would like to say only this: In spite of\nall disappointment and embitterment about the repeated English\nrejection of the German offers the English-German collaboration\nhas to his last hour alway's been the political creed of the\nFuehrer. He has spoken often in vehement terms about British\npolitics, which he did not understand, but everyone who knew\nthe Fuehrer was well aware that it was one of the most out-\nstanding features of his character that - impulse though he\nwas - he never changed his fundamental convictions. For this\nreason in all those years I worked for him and in all our dis-\ncussions on foreign politics he always came back to this cardinal\npoint. Pvery step, political, military etc. during these years\nwas always taken with an eye on this final issue, that is to\nsay to bring Great Britain to terms. To the outside world this\nmay at times not have been recognisable and yet it was so. That\nEngland declared war on Germany over the Polish question, a\nwar which we both wanted to avoid by all means and which I tried\nand almost succeeded to prevent at the last moment, came lastly\nas a great shock to the Fuehrer."
}