For years now Western German policy was made with sacrifice after sacrifice in order to get a free hand in the East one day - now, in the few weeks since Stresemann's death, our last means of pressure in the Poland negotiations has been thrown overboard...

Everybody who sails under the direct flag of the Right is not even listened to owing to the anxiety psychosis into which Hugenberg and Hitler have plunged the people...

I must confess that four weeks ago I could not have considered how deep the desire for Stresemann's return must be. He was certainly not a great man, but among the blind he was certainly one-eyed.

So my first impression of Russia is one of terrible poverty and oppression, a partly purposeless, partly systematic cultural decline of enormous proportions. On the other side the accumulation of sinister power and growing economic strength (partly through ruthless exploitation of large natural resources, partly however, through an undeniably systematic large scale reconstruction) in a few entirely or nearly barbaric hands.

The national character however has not changed. The Russian is still indolent, lazy, dull, unclean and unpunctual. Many things may be recognised in many fields; and the danger must not be underestimated.

To make common cause with Moscow is according to my impressions completely out of the question as long as the entire structure of our political mentality remains unchanged.

And now London. General impression: envy for the country which still has so many men to steer her history. I have at last seen almost all important leaders, to many of them I have spoken personally: e.g., Lord Allenby with whom I had a brilliant conversation for an hour without knowing who he was....

Splendid the old Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, a Scot of ancient descent - one of the wisest men I ever met ... Chamberlain who actually makes a less distinguished impression: Churchill, who has become fat and who looks more like a clever clown than a Statesman.... The German Embassy with the young Count Bernstorff and the young Prince Bismarck makes in comparison a rather paltry impression - the welcome was exceedingly cordial.

I am glad about the optimism of father and of Heinz, although I do not understand it.... The way our German world develops I see no possibilities of activity for myself....

But these are only the external things. Internally it looks like this: I now stand on a narrow strip of land which remains when one becomes indifferent to one's own existence, and when on the other hand there is no compelling reason for taking an active step towards non-existence.

I cannot really say very much regarding father's political letter. I am glad that he sees possibilities of activity for himself to a certain extent - in the same state which disqualifies his sons from the Civil Service ( I have very carefully read the new Ordinance to the Civil Servants' Act, I do not notice much relaxation in them). But we judge matters too differently for me to be able to say anything in respect of this attitude, in respect of his standing up or not standing up for people.

You cannot plane wood without producing shavings is a very fine proverb; but when some of the shavings are personally known to you, things look very different. I only do not know whether I should envy or admire the blindness which does not see how near to us already is the blade of the plane.

Inhibitions:

Lack in me of National Socialist philosophy of life. Lacking faith in the ability to teach and to find contact with the young generation. Compulsion to make a whole series of compromises in questions of opinion; loss of a good deal of both inner and external freedom.

Incentives:

Increased possibility of practical activity: improvement of my position in the sense of external prestige and of middle class significance of titles.

Compulsion to be active:

In a certain sense increase and safety of external freedom of movement, both financially as well as in respect of freedom to travel, which one must grant to the holder of this position.

You see, it is all rather muddled up, but it is, after all, a fact that the incentives are all on the side of my worldly vita activa - while the inhibitions are just inhibitions of my character. That I could accomplish many things better than others, that in this position a tolerably reasonable person is better than an unreasonable one, that I probably possess the necessary skill to create for myself further influence from this activity, that (and this is said really more for you than for myself, because your external need for my prestige is greater than my own) the then existing combination of external position would for quite a number of years serve as an absolutely satisfactory basis - all that I know of course. The question is whether I could manage to jump over the internal shadow, and if I do, how it will end.

I sometimes ask myself how long we shall be able to carry the responsibility, which we bear and which gradually begins to turn into historical guilt or, at least, into complicity.... But all of us are, after all, in a situation of conflicting obligations, from which at best fate can find a way out, and we have to carry on working, even when the task has become completely hopeless.

And now I must try to finish my geopolitics report. How, I do not know. In the evening of the day before yesterday I heard father's radio talk; I must admit it was very sinister to me to hear his sarcastic remark on Dolfuss's accumulation of offices while on the adjoining wave-length it was announced that he was dead.... There will be much violent dying and nobody knows when lightning will strike one's own house.

Britain has still not abandoned her search for chances of a settlement with Germany (perhaps on the basis of German leadership, but not conquest, in South-east Europe, frontier revisions through plebiscites, West African colonies, four-power pact, armaments restriction).

A certain measure of pro-German sentiment has not yet disappeared among the British people; the Chamberlain-Halifax government sees its own future strongly tied to the achievement of a true settlement with Rome and Berlin (with a displacement of Soviet influence in Europe)...

But the belief in the possibility of an understanding between Britain and Germany is dwindling fast. A new imperialism is suspected behind the pan-German programme of National Socialism (with which one has become more or less reconciled). Here the Czech question assumes the significance of a decisive test case. A German attempt to solve the Bohemian-Moravian question by a military attack would under present circumstances present for Britain (and in British opinion also for France) a casus belli.

In such a war the British Government would have the whole nation behind it. It would be conducted as a crusade for the liberation of Europe from German militarism. London is convinced that such a war would be won with the help of the U.S.A. (whose full participation, within days, not weeks, is anticipated) at the cost, of course, of an incalculable expansion of Bolshevism outside the Anglo-Saxon world.

That I am alive is evident from our telephone conversations. If I were physically ill, I would let you know. Should there be essential changes in the external order of my existence or should such be in the immediate offing, I would write about it, although such changes nowadays occur so quickly that often there remains no time for thinking or even for writing.

But on what else should I otherwise write? I no longer have a private life, and if I had I would not write about it. One never knows, after all, who else reads one's letters. One cannot write about things which move one. And when one can write about them once in a while like today, when I can send the letter by my brother - what is the point of making life even more difficult for each other?

You know very well yourselves that we live in medieval circumstances, which are an insult to the gallantry of our Middle Ages; that our spiritually possessed great leaders are enraged over their failure with their nice little war (with the result that all those who in the last minute pleaded for settlement and peace are now highly unpopular), that they endeavour as far as possible to frustrate a German-English settlement. And if you do not know it, it is perhaps better for Father's peace of mind...

It will be soon enough to realise what is going on, when we are all robbed or hanged. The disappointed fury over the missed war is now raging internally. Today it is the Jews. Tomorrow it will be other groups and classes.

The financial advice I gave to you yesterday is based on the contingency that perhaps as early as next Saturday, but perhaps only later, a partial capital levy will be imposed also for Aryans the financial consequences of which cannot be assessed, but which can very easily lead to a lowering of purchase power so that one may suddenly become non-liquid. The exact amount of the confiscation, which is to go by the name of `Thank Offering' is not yet known. It will be unavoidable because public coffers are empty.

I have been silent for a very long time - partly from outside, partly from inside reasons. The outside reasons are easily and quickly stated: having told some very unpopular truths after my last return from England, and having pulled my full weight with the forces of moderation on our side during the weeks before Munich, I had to move very carefully afterwards. I did not want to find myself waking up one morning with an appointment as Consul General to Paramaribo (I dare say such a place exists somewhere in South America).

The inside reasons are less easily put down. But I think I can make them clear at least to you. We have had more than one talk on the Versailles Treaty and its aftermath. You know how I feel about it. I have always regarded it as a failure on the side side of British farsightedness - to put it mildly - (but you may blame the French!) that concessions and revisions mostly came too late. I fully admit that the critical years were 193I/32 One third of the concessions to Germany that you allowed to be taken later on without agreement, offered in 1932 - and Germany would never have taken the revolutionary plunge she took in 1933. But that is old history.

After the National-Socialist advent to power there remained one hope: that - after having done away with most (if not all) of the Versailles grievances by rather violent and one-sided methods -the great man of the regime would be prepared to slow down, to accept an important (though not an alldominating) position in `the Concert of Europe'. It may have been an unreasonable hope -knowing the man as we know him - but - realities being what they were - it was the only hope one could act upon. Now - I cannot entertain that hope any longer; and that is my reason for writing and posting this letter somewhere on the coast of Western Norway, where I am taking a few short weeks of rest.

I just want to give you a sign of personal friendship - I do hope that you will survive whatever may happen in Europe - and I want to send you a word of warning. To the best of my knowledge there is not yet a definite time-table for the actual explosion, but any date after the middle of August may prove to be the fatal one. So far they want to avoid the `big war'. But the one man on whom everything depends is still hoping that he may be able to get away with an isolated `local war'. He still thinks in terms of British bluff, although the Prime Minister's and Lord H's [Halifax's] last speeches have made him doubt - at least temporarily; the most dangerous thing is that he is racing against time: in more than one sense.

Economic difficulties are growing, and his own feeling (a very curious and remarkable one) that he has not a very long time of life ahead of him, is a most important factor. I could never adapt myself to the idea that any war might be inevitable; but one would have to be blind not to realise that war may be very near.

So the question: what can be done? gets all the more important. But perhaps I should have added a few things about the psychological position in the mind of the German people before trying to answer that question. On the merits of their present government, the Germans are less united than at any date since 1934. But if war breaks out on the Corridor question, they will be more solidly behind their present leader than over any case that might have led to war in these last years. The territorial solutions in the East (Corridor and Upper Silesia) have never been accepted by the German nation, and you will find many and most important Englishmen, who never thought them to be acceptable - and said so ! A war against Poland would be not unpopular.

World war of course is quite another thing: but few people in Germany realise that they would be up against a world war. I should just mention one more point: 'encirclement' has proved to be a most efficient weapon of inside propaganda. Pre-war memories (and war-blockade experiences) have risen in many minds - and the idea that England wants to `hem in' Germany on every side has got very deep into the German mind (even there, where it is not `Nazi'). Of course there are difficulties. That hateful South Alpine deal is making a big, though naturally subterranean, stir.

But war against Poland would - for the first weeks at least - unite, not disintegrate the German nation. And that is - at least to my feeling - all-important; not because I might hope that an united German nation might win the war: I am very much convinced that Germany cannot win a short war and that she cannot stand a long one - but I am thoroughly afraid that the terrific forms of modern war will make any reasonable peace impossible if they are allowed to go on for even a few months. Therefore we simply have to stop the explosion. Another European war, another Treaty of Versailles, another total revolution all over Europe - well - I need not say what it would mean for Europe as a whole.

Now to the core of the question: what can be done? Very little from inside Germany. Even now at least something from England.

Something on the tactical side: Your `inside' people know how to put a certain amount of pressure on the big man in Rome: they ought to start that pressure fairly soon. Something of the more general type: It is not enough for England to advertise herself as the big boss in the fire brigade, or to organise a fire insurance company with other nations (some of them - viz. Poland - not quite above playing with fire themselves) : What Europe needs is a real British peace plan on the basis of full equality and with considerable (but strictly mutual) safeguards on the military side. I realise to the full that a strong system of safeguards will be necessary if your people are to be persuaded to meet even the slightest German wishes regarding European or colonial territory. But as long as your Government has not lost sight of the second part of their original programme - full security and peaceful change through negotiation - they might be able to test the second part early enough to secure a positive effect. I cannot outline what might be an acceptable compromise in detail.

I cannot imagine even a short-range settlement without a change in the status of Danzig and without some sort of change in the Corridor. Possibly a long-range settlement between Germany and Poland would have to be based upon considerable territorial changes combined with population exchanges on the Greek-Turkish model (people in England mostly do not know that there are some 600,000-700,000 Germans scattered through the inner (formerly Russian) parts of Poland!) - but if there is to be a peaceful solution at all, it can only come from England and it must appear to be fair to the German public as a whole.

Even now - after the present rulers of Germany have given ample provocation - your people would be wise not to forget that they refused a plebiscitarian solution in the Corridor (and that subsequently the Poles drove some 900,000 Germans out of their former German provinces!) and that they prevented one in Upper Silesia.

For an understanding with Britain the evacuation of the Western and Northern territories under German occupation must be accepted as a basis.

The German-French frontier, in the event of Alsace-Lorraine remaining within the German Reich's territory, should be moved further West than before 1914. ... This problem should form the topic of a joint German-French discussion....

Having regard to the fact that for Britain the way to India must be unconditionally secured, Britain's special interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East would have to be recognised....

Germany would have to be guaranteed, on the other hand, her special interests in the south-east European sphere....

The regulation of her eastern frontier is regarded by Germany as a special problem which should be settled by the states directly concerned alone....

There should, however, be no doubt that the occasion of a peace conference must be used for a basic reorganisation of Europe since the proposals would otherwise offer no guarantee for a permanent solution.

It is proposed that Europe should be enlarged into one economic region in which her peoples are led to a joint economic co-operation under the control of an Economic Council to which all European nations would send their representatives.... Each state should declare its willingness to contribute towards the creation of an European police force which could carry out, jointly, all military and security measures.

The German navy, like all other European naval units, would be placed under British command for safeguarding Europe's military co-operation, and would be available for the protection of British interests in the Indian Ocean...

The foundation of a joint European colonial association would appear to be necessary. It would be the task of this association to ensure a joint and equitable distribution of all African economic goods in an all-European market and of the corresponding counter-supplies (exports).

On 8 September, I was summoned to Bad Godesberg to report to the Deputy of the Fuehrer on the subject discussed in this memorandum. The conversation which the two of us had alone lasted two hours. I had the opportunity to speak in all frankness.

I was immediately asked about the possibilities of making known to persons of importance in England Hitler's serious desire for peace. It was quite clear that the continuance of the war was suicidal for the white race. Even with complete peace in Europe Germany was not in a position to take over the inheritance of the Empire. The Fuehrer had not wanted to see the Empire destroyed and did not want it even today. Was there not somebody in England who was ready for peace?

First I asked for permission to discuss fundamental things. It was necessary to realise that not only Jews and Freemasons, but practically all Englishmen who mattered, regarded a treaty signed by the Fuehrer as a worthless scrap of paper. To the question as to why this was so, I referred to the ten-year term of our Polish Treaty, to the Non-Aggression Pact with Denmark signed only a year ago, to the `final' frontier demarcation of Munich. What guarantee did England have that a new treaty would not be broken again at once if it suited us? It must be realised that, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, the Fuehrer was regarded as Satan's representative on earth and had to be fought.

If the worst came to the worst, the English would rather transfer their whole Empire bit by bit to the Americans than sign a peace that left to National Socialist Germany the mastery of Europe. The present war, I was convinced, shows that Europe has become too small for its previous anarchic form of existence; it is only through close German-English co-operation that it can achieve a true federative order (based by no means merely on the police rule of a single power), while maintaining a part of its world position and having security against Soviet Russian Eurasia. France was smashed, probably for a long time to come, and we had opportunity currently to observe what Italy is capable of accomplishing. As long, however, as German-English rivalry existed, and in so far as both sides thought in terms of security, the lesson of this war was this: every German had to tell himself: we have no security as long as provision is not made that the Atlantic gateways of Europe from Gibraltar to Narvik are free of any possible blockade. That is: there must be no English fleet. Every Englishman, must, however, under the same conditions, argue: we have no security as long as anywhere within a radius of 2,000 kilometres from London there is a plane that we do not control. That is: there must be no German Air Force.

There is only one way out of this dilemma: friendship intensified to fusion, with a joint fleet, a joint air force, and joint defence of possessions in the world -just what the English are now about to conclude with the United States.

Here I was interrupted and asked why, indeed, the English were prepared to seek such a relationship with America and not with us. My reply was: because Roosevelt is a man who represents a Weltanschauung and a way of life that the Englishman thinks he understands, to which he can become accustomed, even where it does not seem to be to his liking. Perhaps he fools himself - but, at any rate, that is what he believes.

A man like Churchill - himself half-American - is convinced of this. Hitler, however, seems to the Englishman the incarnation of what he hates that he has fought against for centuries - this feeling grips the workers no less than the plutocrats.

In fact, I am of the opinion that those Englishmen who have property to lose, that is, precisely the portions of the so-called plutocracy that count, are those who would be readiest to talk peace. But even they regard a peace only as an armistice.

I was compelled to express these things so strongly because I ought not - precisely because of my long experience in attempting to effect a settlement with England in the past and my numerous English friendships - make it appear that I seriously believed in the possibility of a settlement between Adolf Hitler and England in the present stage of development.

I was thereupon asked whether I was not of the opinion that feelers had perhaps not been successful because the right language had not been used. I replied that, to be sure - if certain persons, whom we both knew well, were meant by this statement - then certainly the wrong language had been used. But at the present stage this had little significance.

I was then asked directly why all Englishmen were so opposed to Herr von Ribbentrop. I suggested that in the eyes of the English, Herr von Ribbentrop, like some other personages, played the same role as did Duff Cooper, Eden and Churchill in the eyes of the Germans. In the case of Herr von Ribbentrop, there was also the conviction, precisely in the view of Englishmen who were formerly friendly to Germany that - from completely biased motives - he had informed the Fuehrer wrongly about England and that he personally bore an unusually large share of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war.

But I again stressed the fact that the rejection of peace feelers by England was today due not so much to persons as to the fundamental outlook above.

Nevertheless, I was asked to name those whom I thought might be reached as possible contacts. I mentioned among diplomats, Minister O'Malley in Budapest, the former head of the South Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, a clever person in the higher echelons of officialdom, but perhaps without influence precisely because of his former friendliness towards Germany; Sir Samuel Hoare,t who is half-shelved and half on the watch in Madrid, whom I do not know well personally, but to whom I can at any time open a personal path; as the most promising, the Washington Ambassador Lothian, with whom I have had close personal connections for years, who as a member of the highest aristocracy and at the same time as a person of very independent mind, is perhaps best in a position to undertake a bold step - provided that he could be convinced that even a bad and uncertain peace would be better than the continuance of the war - a conviction at which he will only arrive if he convinces himself in Washington that English hopes of America are not realisable. Whether or not this is so could only be judged in Washington itself; from Germany not at all.

As the final possibility I then mentioned that of a personal meeting on neutral soil with the closest of my English friends: the young Duke of Hamilton who has access at all times to all ment - then certainly the wrong language had been used. But at the present stage this had little significance.

I was then asked directly why all Englishmen were so opposed to Herr von Ribbentrop. I suggested that in the eyes of the English, Herr von Ribbentrop, like some other personages, played the same role as did Duff Cooper, Eden and Churchill in the eyes of the Germans. In the case of Herr von Ribbentrop, there was also the conviction, precisely in the view of Englishmen who were formerly friendly to Germany that - from completely biased motives - he had informed the Fuehrer wrongly about England and that he personally bore an unusually large share of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war.

But I again stressed the fact that the rejection of peace feelers by England was today due not so much to persons as to the fundamental outlook above.

Nevertheless, I was asked to name those whom I thought might be reached as possible contacts.

I mentioned among diplomats, Minister O'Malley in Budapest, the former head of the South Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, a clever person in the higher echelons of officialdom, but perhaps without influence precisely because of his former friendliness towards Germany; Sir Samuel Hoare,t who is half-shelved and half on the watch in Madrid, whom I do not know well personally, but to whom I can at any time open a personal path; as the most promising, the Washington Ambassador Lothian, with whom I have had close personal connections for years, who as a member of the highest aristocracy and at the same time as a person of very independent mind, is perhaps best in a position to undertake a bold step - provided that he could be convinced that even a bad and uncertain peace would be better than the continuance of the war - a conviction at which he will only arrive if he convinces himself in Washington that English hopes of America are not realisable. Whether or not this is so could only be judged in Washington itself; from Germany not at all.

As the final possibility I then mentioned that of a personal meeting on neutral soil with the closest of my English friends: the young Duke of Hamilton who has access at all times to all.

The circle of English individuals whom I have known very well for years, and whose utilisation on behalf of a GermanEnglish understanding in the years from 1934 to i938 was the core of my activity in England, comprises the following groups and persons:

1. A leading group of younger Conservatives (many of them Scotsmen). Among them are: the Duke of Hamilton - up to the date of his father's death, Lord Clydesdale - Conservative Member of Parliament; the Parliamentary Private Secretary of Neville Chamberlain, Lord Dunglass; the present Under Secretary of State in the Air Ministry, Balfour; the present Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Education, Lindsay (National Labour); the present Under Secretary of State in the Ministry for Scotland, Wedderburn.

Close ties link this circle with the Court. The younger brother of the Duke of Hamilton is closely related to the present Queen through his wife; the mother-in-law of the Duke of Hamilton, the Duchess of Northumberland, is the Mistress of the Robes; her brother-in-law, Lord Eustace Percy, was several times a member of the Cabinet and is still today an influential member of the Conservative Party (especially close to former Prime Minister Baldwin). There are close connections between this circle and important groups of the older Conservatives, as for example the Stanley family (Lord Derby, Oliver Stanley) and Astor (the last is owner of The Times). The young Astor, likewise a Member of Parliament, was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the former Foreign and Interior Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, at present English Ambassador in Madrid.

I have known almost all of the persons mentioned for years and from close personal contact. The present Under Secretary of State of the Foreign Office, Butler, also belongs here; in spite of many of his public utterances he is not a follower of Churchill or Eden. Numerous connections lead from most of those named to Lord Halifax, to whom I likewise had personal access.

2. The so-called `Round Table' circle of younger imperialists (particularly colonial and Empire politicians), whose most important personage was Lord Lothian.

3. A group of the 'Ministerialdirektoren' in the Foreign Office. The most important of these were Strang, the chief of the Central European Department, and O'Malley, the chief of the South Eastern Department and afterwards Minister in Budapest.

There was hardly one of those named who was not at least occasionally in favour of a German-English understanding.

Although most of them in 1939 finally considered that war was inevitable, it was nevertheless reasonable to think of these persons if one thought the moment had come for investigating the possibility of an inclination to make peace. Therefore when the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Reich Minister Hess, asked me in the autumn of iqq.o about possibilities of gaining access to possibly reasonable Englishmen, I suggested two concrete possibilities for establishing contacts. It seemed to me that the following could be considered for this:

A. Personal contact with Lothian, Hoare, or O'Malley, all three of whom were accessible in neutral countries.

B. Contact by letter with one of my friends in England. For this purpose the Duke of Hamilton was considered in the first place, since my connection with him was so firm and personal that I could suppose he would understand a letter addressed to him even if it were formulated in very veiled language.

Reich Minister Hess decided in favour of the second possibility; I wrote a letter to the Duke of Hamilton at the end of September 1940 and its despatch to Lisbon was arranged by the Deputy Fuehrer. I did not learn whether the letter reached the addressee. The possibilities of its being lost en route from Lisbon to England are not small, after all.

According to his brother, Albrecht Haushofer was furious when he heard that Hess had flown off on his mission without informing him of his intention to fly on that particular day. `And to think that one is forced to conduct politics with such fools,' he exclaimed bitterly. Thereafter, he referred to Hess as `the motorized Parsifal'taking the name of the fool in Wagner's opera.

His bitterness at Hess's impetuosity was increased by the fact that on the evening of May io-when Hess was actually on his way to Scotland and beyond all hope of contact or recall-Haushofer received a telegram from Herr Stahmer, Secretary of the German Embassy in Madrid.

"The pre-arranged wording ... indicated that Stahmer in Madrid had been able to contact the British Ambassador, then Sir Samuel Hoare, and that Haushofer's venture, to which Hess had eventually agreed, was apparently a success. But it was too late."

It was all far too late.

On May 12, the Monday following Hess's departure, the Gestapo flew Albrecht Haushofer to Bad Godesberg in a special aeroplane. There he was interrogated, and despite the lateness of the hour at which he had arrived, he was forced to write a full account of `the kind and extent of his English connections, destined for Hitler'. As Haushofer was already the principal adviser to Hitler's Foreign Office on British affairs, and since Hitler already knew of the previous attempts to reach some form of compromise armistice with Britain, it is not likely that the Fuhrer discovered much that he did not know. This exercise was purely a means to cloak and cover Hitler's own prior knowledge of these attempts.

After the interrogation, an enemy of the Haushofer family, envious of their standing, their estate and their intellectual capabilities, remarked to Himmler: "This is the right moment to finish off all the Haushofers."

I lightly carry what the judge calls my guilt

Guilt in planning and caring

I would feel guilty had I not from inner duty

Planned for the people's future

But I am guilty other than you think:

I should have sooner seen my duty

I should have sharper condemned evil

I have too long delayed my judgement.

I now accuse myself

I have long betrayed my conscience

I have lied to myself and to others.

I soon foresaw the evil's frightful path;

I have warned,

But my warnings were too feeble.

I know today wherein lies my guilt

No prosecution was made against Karl Haushofer at Nuremberg because the American prosecuting team regarded his role as being academic and advisory. He was taken to Nuremberg merely to see Hess who was alleged to be suffering from amnesia and who refused to recognise him. He was also asked to prepare a last statement on German geopolitics, which he agreed to do. On his way back to his lodgings, Karl Haushofer said that Hess was completely sincere in his fanatical support of Hitler, that his flight to Britain was characteristic of him, and that at no other time had Hess concealed his plans from him. Whilst being driven back he could see the ruins of the bombed city and he was dismayed.

He had always been in favour of setting aside the Versailles Treaty; now he saw Germany occupied and with far less territory than she had had under the Treaty of Versailles. He did not want to live in a Germany which had been defeated for the second time in a world war. In 1943 he had quarrelled with Albrecht and had told him that if the war was lost as Albrecht thought, he would kill himself, and his mind kept reverting to this theme.

Only the presence of his family kept him from putting his threat into action. At the end of 1945 after the return of his son Heinz, although his health was deteriorating, he did not wish to escape a confrontation regarding his life's work. Once he had completed his last defence of German geopolitics in which he claimed that his teachings had been misunderstood, and once he had discovered that Hess's counsel did not require him as a defence witness at the Nuremberg war trials he felt freed from all obligations. He told Heinz `You no longer need me' and again and again emphasised the right of the stoic to put an end to his life, once he had fulfilled all his duties.

Throughout his life Karl Haushofer had been an admirer of the ancient Greek stoics and on 11 March 1946 he carried his admiration to its logical conclusion. On that Monday Karl and Martha Haushofer set out for their last walk through the woods. They stopped about half a mile from their house in a hollow by the stream under a willow tree. There they took poison. Martha was also hanged from the tree; the General was not strong enough to follow suit as the poison took effect.