by Jim Wilson
Lady Snowden came to see me early in the morning. She informed me that, through someone on the closest terms with Hitler – I took this to mean Princess Hohenlohe – she had received a message with the following burden: Hitler wanted to find out whether H.M. Government would welcome it if he were to send one of his closest confidants, as I understand it, to England for the purpose of conducting unofficial talks. Lady Snowden gave me to understand that this referred to Field-Marshal Goering, and they wished to find out whether he could come to England without being too severely and publicly insulted, and what attitude H.M. Government would take generally to such a visit.10
A few days before Ethel Snowden’s call at the Foreign Secretary’s home, Princess Stephanie had received a cable from Fritz Wiedemann summoning her to Berlin. On arrival there she had been immediately driven to Hermann Goering’s mansion. Goering told her he was keen to visit Britain. He said Hitler was not bluffing when he threatened war. The one chance he could see of avoiding conflict was if he could speak with the British Foreign Secretary in London. He asked Stephanie to make all the urgent arrangements necessary for the high-level meeting. He genuinely believed war could still be avoided, but only if he could get some time alone, face to face, with Lord Halifax. Wiedemann, he said, would travel in secret to London to prepare the ground, and that Ribbentrop must know nothing about the proposed meeting. The German Foreign Minister was no friend of either Wiedemann or the princess, as Hitler well knew, and Goering was an arch-rival of Ribbentrop’s in foreign affairs within the Nazi hierarchy.
Halifax was concerned and somewhat suspicious of the unorthodox nature of the approach, and he privately noted that Wiedemann and Princess Stephanie were not the go-betweens he would have chosen to deal with. He described the princess as a ‘well known adventuress, not to say blackmailer’.11 Halifax had good reason to be suspicious. The previous year Sir Walford Selby, the British ambassador in Vienna, Stephanie’s birthplace, had warned the Foreign Office that she was an ‘international adventuress’ who was ‘known to be Hitler’s agent’.12 However, having weighed up the prospect, and sought permission from Prime Minister Chamberlain, Halifax agreed to meet Wiedemann – but only on the strict understanding that the sole purpose of the meeting was to discuss the visit of a high-ranking Nazi figure for wide-ranging talks on Anglo-German relations. Halifax intimated that he understood the emissary he would be meeting would be Field Marshal Goering. But if Goering did come, Halifax said, there was no way his presence in England would remain secret. The flamboyant Goering was an unlikely figure to be ‘smuggled’ into London without the press finding out. In any case, that was not the way Goering would have been prepared to act. He would have wanted the status and the red-carpet treatment that he would have considered were his due.
The meeting between Halifax and Wiedemann took place on 18 July at Halifax’s private residence in Belgravia. Wiedemann confirmed he had come with Hitler’s knowledge to explore the possibility of a very senior Nazi leader entering into a full discussion on Anglo-German relations. Halifax gave a cautious welcome in principle, but he said the timing of such a visit would need to be carefully chosen as it would inevitably attract wide public attention and comment. He added that there was a danger that a face-to-face discussion might do more harm than good. Wiedemann assured Halifax that Hitler had always regarded England with admiration and friendship, but he also felt that on a number of occasions Hitler’s friendship had been rebuffed and this had caused serious resentment in Germany.13 Halifax told Hitler’s adjutant that the present time might not be altogether favourable, unless there was a peaceful resolution of the position of Czechoslovakia. Was Wiedemann in a position to give him any assurances on that, he asked? Wiedemann initially said he had not been charged with a political mission, and therefore was not in a position to discuss Czechoslovakia or to negotiate. When he saw Halifax was put off by this response, Wiedemann changed tack and gave a solemn undertaking that the German government was not planning any kind of action involving force, unless they were given no option to act through some unforeseen incident. The brief meeting ended on good terms, with Wiedemann recalling his time in the trenches during the Great War as Hitler’s senior officer.
Halifax noted in a memorandum:
The Prime Minister and I have thought about the meeting I had with Capt Wiedemann. Of especial importance to us are the steps which the Germans and the British might possibly take, not only to create the best possible relationship between the two countries, but also to calm down the international situation in order to achieve an improvement of general economic and political problems … Our hopes have recently been shattered by the conduct of the German press, which it seems to us, has not hesitated to incite public opinion in a dangerous manner over every incident that occurs in Czechoslovakia or on the frontiers.14
Although the Foreign Office was cautiously optimistic about the visit, the low-profile episode quickly rebounded on the British Foreign Secretary. Wiedemann had been spotted by journalists arriving at Croydon airport. The next day the Daily Herald came out with a banner headline revealing the secret meeting. Once the news was out, there were diplomatic responses across Europe. The French government said the idea of Wiedemann being received by Lord Halifax had been ‘cooked up’ by Princess Hohenlohe, who was extremely well known to the secret services of all the ‘Great Powers’. While ‘pretending to serve the interests of Britain’, she was actually ‘chiefly committed to the interests of Germany’.15 The Czech ambassador in London wrote to his government in Prague:
If there is any decency left in this world, then there will be a big scandal when it is revealed what part was played in Wiedemann’s visit by Steffi Hohenlohe, née Richter. This world-renowned secret agent, spy and confidence trickster, who is wholly Jewish, today provides the focus of Hitler’s propaganda in London.16
Sir Walford Selby, British ambassador to Austria, warned the government that the princess’ suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London had become a base for Nazi sympathisers and an ‘outpost of German espionage’, and that she had been behind much of the German propaganda circulating in London since she had first moved to England.17 A rather different view came from Herbert von Dirksen, Germany’s ambassador in London in 1938. In his autobiography he recalled what he described as the most important political event of the summer of 1938:
It was an attempt at rapprochement, undertaken from the German side which sheds the brightest of lights on the methods of Hitlerian diplomacy – its multi-tracked approach, its by-passing of official channels, its dishonesty and lack of consistency, as well as the complete inability to attune itself to the mentality of the other side.
He wrote that the motivation for the London mission had come from two sources: Goering’s desire for prestige and his wish to maintain peace through an understanding with Britain; and an initiative by a clever woman.18
Ribbentrop, who had been purposely kept out of the loop, reacted with fury when news of the meeting reached Berlin. He protested vehemently about this interference in foreign affairs that had been arranged entirely without his knowledge, and it appears he succeeded in changing Hitler’s mind about pursuing a high-level Anglo-German meeting. When Wiedemann returned to Berchtesgaden to report back to Hitler, he was kept waiting at the Berghof for several hours while Hitler entertained Unity Mitford. Later, Wiedemann was given just five minutes in Hitler’s presence, during which Hitler angrily ruled out a visit by Goering to London and refused to discuss the subject further. Wiedemann was ordered to compile a lengthy report for Ribbentrop. In it he made the extraordinary claim that Halifax had asked him to convey to Hitler that before he (Halifax) died, he would like to see, as the culmination of his work, the Führer entering London at the side of the English king, amid the acclamation of the English people.19 It is hard to believe Halifax could have made such a comment to Wiedemann, but Halifax’s biographer records that in 1957, when the Manchester Guardian enquired about the incident, Halifax, then aged 75, ‘decided to
absent himself from his Yorkshire home for the day and consistently refused to take calls from the press about it’.20
Wiedemann’s mission caused a flurry of speculation in the press. The Daily Express came out with a full-page article examining Wiedemann’s background, particularly the curious situation Wiedemann and Hitler had found themselves in among the muddy trenches of Flanders. ‘The orderly of Lieutenant Fritz Wiedemann was Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler,’ the writer C.A. Lyon recalled. ‘Adolf Hitler saluted Lieutenant Wiedemann, clicked his heels, ran across the desert of shell-holes with the message and came back, reported, saluted and clicked his heels again. There was no friendship, that would have been impossible, but there in the trenches Hitler must have conceived an unforgettable respect for his officer.’21 Now the boot was on the other foot. ‘Hitler’s thoughts’ after he achieved supreme power, the article continued, ‘always turned to the man whose errands he had run and whom he admired … It was now the captain who ran the messages and clicked his heels to the lance-corporal.’ Wiedemann was recruited by Hitler as his closest adjutant and promoted to be his ‘listening-post, his contact man, negotiator, a checker-up, a man with a job without a name and without a parallel’. Wiedemann was trusted and Hitler continually found him new jobs to do.
A few months after his abortive trip to London, Fritz Wiedemann was sent to San Francisco to take up the appointment of Consul General. Was this punishment for the failure of his and Princess Stephanie’s mission to establish high-level talks in order to achieve an alliance between Britain and Germany? It certainly seemed like it – but perhaps there were other, more covert reasons.
13
CHATELAINE OF SCHLOSS LEOPOLDSKRON
The award of the Nazi Party Gold Medal was not the only reward Princess Stephanie received ‘for services she rendered to the Führer’. After the Anschluss Hitler directly commanded the Nazi government to put at her disposal one of Austria’s most magnificent mansions: Schloss Leopoldskron, a historic national monument in the southern district of Salzburg, dating from 1736. It is a vast rococo palace famous for its elaborate stucco work, which is regarded at its finest in the castle’s chapel and its vast ceremonial hall. The building had been confiscated by the Gestapo from its owner, the world-famous theatre director Max Reinhardt, on the grounds that he was ‘a person hostile to the people and the state’. He was in fact a Jew.
Reinhardt was among Germany’s greatest actors and theatre directors. He was a co-founder in 1920 of the Salzburg Festival and he used the castle as a glittering location for some of his most lavish stage productions. He used the whole building as his stage, with the audience moving from room to room as the production proceeded. Reinhardt had bought the mansion in 1918 and Leopoldskron was central to the lively social side of the famous festival with numerous patrons from all over Europe. It became a prominent gathering place for writers, artists, composers and designers. Reinhardt spent twenty years renovating the building and its famous Great and Marble Halls, and creating a library, a Venetian Room and also an outdoor theatre in the extensive gardens. In 1933 the Nazis offered Reinhardt ‘honorary Aryanship’, probably because Hitler admired great theatre. But Reinhardt vehemently rejected the offer. In October 1937, having criticised Hitler and been the victim of a bomb attack at Leopoldskron, he left his homeland and travelled to America as an immigrant. The grounds of the schloss, which have magnificent views to the Alps, were in the limelight again in 1965 when they featured in the film The Sound of Music.
Following its confiscation by the Nazis, the castle and its estate were offered personally by Hitler to the princess for use as a home and a ‘political salon’. She was given the task of transforming it into a guest house for prominent artists of the Reich, and as grand reception accommodation convenient to Hitler’s home at the Berghof, some 10 miles away. The intermediary, who made all the actual arrangements on behalf of the Nazi leadership, was the princess’ lover. The actress Helene Thimig, who later married Max Reinhardt in the United States, when she heard of the gift to Stephanie, wrote in fury: ‘What a macabre joke: Reinhardt’s creation – now a palace for the Nazis! And this Aryanised palace has been placed under the management of the Jewish Princess von Hohenlohe.’1
Despite the care and money Reinhardt had lavished on it, Princess Stephanie, as the new chatelaine and using Nazi funds, had extensive works carried out to match her own needs and to make it more suitable for the use the Nazis now required. She planned to hold large receptions there which would enable her to continue her work of lobbying and manipulating influential people from across Europe in support of Nazi policies even more effectively. To do this, extravagant catering facilities were installed. Also, to allow her to pursue her passion for tennis, she had a court built, and the castle’s extensive gardens remodelled. The considerable costs of all this were paid by the central government in Berlin. Wiedemann, who was agent for payment of the bills, commented that the Führer had said the renovations would increase the value of the schloss, and contribute to the tasks he wanted Stephanie to fulfil. As the mansion was now state owned, Hitler felt it was money well spent. In 1939, when Wiedemann had left Germany for his posting to San Francisco, the Reich Party Leader, Martin Bormann, took over as intermediary, paying all the bills at the princess’ request.
Princess Stephanie was by now not the most popular person in Austria, the country of her birth. After the Anschluss her fellow countrymen judged her critically, knowing her background and her close friendship with Hitler. She was not well liked in Salzburg, particularly after being installed as the chatelaine at Schloss Leopoldskron. To help her gain the support of the local authorities, and to demonstrate that she had powerful friends in Berlin and was carrying out Hitler’s direct orders, Wiedemann gave her an official note, signed ‘Adjutant to the Führer’. Dated 10 June 1938, it read:
Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe is personally known to the Führer. She has at all times stood up for the new Germany abroad in a manner worthy of recognition. I therefore ask all German authorities concerned with domestic and foreign affairs to take every opportunity to show her the special appreciation that we owe to foreigners who speak up so emphatically for today’s Germany.2
Whenever she was at Leopoldskron, Stephanie invited a number of French, British and American guests with a view to winning them over to Hitler’s regime, particularly by impressing them with the cultural and artistic events Salzburg offered. Goebbels was at pains to ensure that the famous Salzburg Festival should become a cultural pilgrimage dedicated to Hitler’s Reich, and the schloss was an important symbol of this. It fulfilled the role of luxury guest house for important visitors whose support and influence the Nazi state wished to win. It was conveniently close to Hitler’s and Goering’s Bavarian mountain homes on the Obersalzberg, just over the border in Germany. During the long, hot summer of 1938 numerous guests were entertained at the mansion: princes, European aristocracy, statesmen, bankers, and many from the worlds of music and the theatre. The princess was in her element as hostess and the Führer’s ambassador.
Among those she entertained were the famous American conductor Leopold Stokowski, the theatre critic Philip Carr and the wife of a prominent New York art dealer, Mrs Carroll Carstairs. Others who enjoyed her hospitality included Charles Bedaux, who, it will be recalled, had been instrumental with Stephanie in organising the visit to Germany of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Stephanie revelled in having charge of the schloss, with its extravagant furnishings and spacious grounds. It suited the style she loved to portray and it certainly impressed all those who visited her there, but she was disappointed Hitler himself never came to visit her at the mansion the Nazis had stolen from its legitimate owners. Germany’s ambassador to Britain, Herbert von Dirksen (after Ribbentrop he became Hitler’s Foreign Minister), did however visit the princess there on several occasions. He was a well-travelled man, skilled in diplomacy and an expert in foreign affairs, having also been the German emissary in Tokyo and Moscow.
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bsp; While she was at Schloss Leopoldskron, Stephanie was primed by the Reich Chancellery to influence the British politician Lord Runciman. In 1938 he had been appointed by the British government as its official mediator in the dispute between the Czech and German governments over the Sudetenland. The western border regions of Czechoslovakia were largely populated by ethnic Germans. Under the pro-Nazi Sudeten leader, Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten German Party, serious civil unrest had been provoked in the Sudetenland. Hitler saw this as the perfect pretext to invade the territory and later to annexe the whole of Czechoslovakia. The dispute was dangerous; it was escalating fast and threatened to be the flash point leading to war. Runciman was sent by the British government to sound out the situation. It was suggested by Nazi authorities in Berlin that Princess Stephanie should invite Runciman to the schloss. After hours of tiring negotiations in Prague, trying to solve the Sudetenland problem amicably, Runciman and his wife were keen to escape at the weekends and visit some of the castles of the Austrian nobility. Runciman had a penchant towards the aristocracy.
Stephanie was not able to attract Runciman to Schloss Leopoldskron, so instead she used her connections to meet him at another Austrian schloss. Here she used the meeting to steer him towards a resolution that favoured the Nazi cause. The princess subtly spun him the pro-Nazi line, as she was so competent in doing, and the British government’s representative seems to have largely accepted her arguments. In America, Time Magazine described the affair:
