Scraping a Very Narrow Conservative Party Victory: A timeline from 1929

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At the beginning of February 1935, the Foreign Secretary, Hugh Dalton, and the French Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, met in London. They decided that the armaments clauses of the Treaty of Versailes should be abolished. They would be replaced by a new agreement, in particular on airforces. Also Germany would accept its eastern frontiers. In return Hitler would be asked to be part of a multilateral promise to maintain Austrian independence, and return Germany to the League of Nations.

Because there was nothing to be gained by rejecting the Anglo- French proposals, Hitler said that he would welcome talks and invited the British but not the French to Berlin. The British government accepted the invitation.

 

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On 7 March 1935, Dalton, and the Lord Privy Seal, Thomas Johnston, travelled by plane to Berlin. The next morning, Hitler welcomed them and the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Horace Rumbold. He gave a long speech in which he said that his life work was reviving the German people. But National Socialism was for Germany only. Dalton pressed Hitler on an eastern pact which would guarantee Europe's eastern borders, to which Hitler objected. He refused any participation by Lithuania, which he claimed was abusing the German minority in Memel. Besides, Communist Russia was the great threat to European peace. Johnston said that Russia was not able to, nor wanted to wage war. Hitler asked him not to under estimate the threat from the Soviet Union, the strongest power on land and air. He assured his British guests that he would never contemplate war against either Russia or Czechoslovakia.

 

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In the afternoon session, Hitler denied any intention of violating Austrian independence. He said that Germany wanted an agreement with both France and Britain, but while one with France was full of difficulties, one with Britain would be mutually beneficial. Great Britain could not defend all her colonies and would one day be glad to have the help of Germany's armed forces. He wanted Germany to have friendly relations with Great Britain. Dalton told him that any good relations with Germany would not be at the expense of Britain's friendship with France.

 

[HexWargamer]

Looking forward to British response to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia this time around.
(no mention of the OTL, 7 January 1935 Franco-Italian Agreement that gave Italy a free hand in Africa in return for Italian co-operation in Europe)

By now the military build up in Eritrea with Italian troop and munitions ships transitting the Suez Canal should becoming obvious & a cause for concern to the British ... (OTL the actual invasion started October 1935. British comission in Ethiopia since Nov 1934 to settle the border - see Walwal Incident)

EDIT - IMHO British & French (and all the other League members) abandoment of Ethiopia to an agressive invasion is a major indication to Hitler that no-one is going to stop him stomping on any independent minor country .. especially as he has a lot more 'justification' (incorporation of ethnic Germans, recover lands lost after WW1) whilst the Italians have none (other than wanting to build up an African Empire).
ADDITIONAL - Stalin, of course, would also note the Leagues refusal to get invloved ..

 

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The Franco-Italian Agreement on 7 January 1935 happened as in OTL.

The Nazis had organised a lavish banquet in an ornately decorated with hordes of flunkies with powdered hair. The whole hierarchy of German government was there. In his memoirs, Hugh Dalton wrote about the talks with Hitler and the banquet. Goring wore a sky-blue uniform with lots of gold braid. Hitler wore a badly cut evening suit.

The talks resumed the next day, 9 March 1935. Hitler said he was in favour of a ban on indiscriminate bombing, but insisted on reaching parity with Britain or France, whichever was the greater. Dalton asked him about the size of the German Air Force. He replied untruthfully that it had attained parity with Britain. (1) Dalton and Thomas Johnston then challenged Hitler on several aspects of German government policy.

Dalton asked about the assassination of the Austrian Chancellor, Englebert Dollfuss, by Austrian Nazis on 25 July 1934. Hitler asserted that he and the German government had nothing to do with it, and was as much as shock to he and them as to everyone else. Germany would respect the independence of Austria. It had no territorial claims in Europe.

Johnston asked about the Night of the Long Knives from 30 June to 2 July 1934, in which officially 85 people died, but estimates range up to a 1,000. Was the murder of Elisabeth von Schliecher, wife of former Chancellor, General Kurt von Schliecher, in accordance with National Socialist values? Hitler said that her death was a tragic accident. He had not authorised it. The SS were responsible for it. Johnston then asked who authorised the murders of Kurt von Schliecher; Edgar Jung, a close associate of Vice Chancellor, Franz von Papen; Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action; and Gregor Strasser, who resigned from the Nazi Party in 1932. Hitler declared that they were executed because they were enemies of the German people. It was solely a German matter.

Dalton then asked about the concentration camps and the conditions in them, with the brutal treatment of prisoners. Did not their existence and the murders of critics and rivals in the Night of the Long Knives show that the German government allowed no opposition Hitler said that conditions in the camps were not easy, but prisoners were reasonably well treated. But they were enemies of the German people, and deserved to be there. Dalton commented that they were opponents of the German government.

(1) The banquet and talks up to here are taken are from the OTL talks in Berlin in March 1935, between the Hitler and the Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, and the Lord Privy Seal, Anthony Eden, as described in the book Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie, London: The Bodley Head 2019.

 

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Thomas Johnston raised the matter of the persecution of Jews in Germany. Hitler assured him that Jews had their place in Germany, and were safe there. They were not being persecuted and no harm would come to them. Johnston said he hoped what Hitler said about the safety of Jews in Germany was true.

Hugh Dalton said that the Nazi regime was a gangster regime. In the last two years it had shown its true colours. The light of freedom had gone out in Germany. Great Britain wanted peace with Germany, as long as it stayed within its borders. But there could never be friendship between the two nations, while Germany was ruled by the Nazi Party. He and Johnston had no illusions about the real nature of the Nazi regime. There was no point in continuing the meeting. So they left the room and the building.