Foreign policy

A clear, up-to-date and well-researched history of American foreign policy since 1938, Volume 8 of the Pelican History of the United States. 

In May, 1991, Hemy Thomas, a former Assistant Secretary ofEnergy and executive of the American Gas Institute, described his vision for an energy future in the US to participants at a Federal executive seminar on foreign policy. He described nuclear power as safe - but then said that natural gas would become the energy resource of choice because of the inability to manage nuclear wastes. 

Von Schnitzler offered an amazing explanation. "For twelve years," he said of the whole enterprise in which Krauch s Berlin office played a vital part, "the Nazi foreign policy and the I.G. foreign policy were largely inseparable. I also conclude that l.G. was largely responsible for Hitler s foreign policy."... 

Ilgner s was the plan to pressure the Reich s foreign policy into alliance with Farben. His was the plan to make of the Wehrmacht an affiliate of I.G. Farben, to support border clashes, to change the subtle kiss-of-death tactics in Austria to the direct threat across national borders. If the victim did not yield his chemical state, the invading Wehrmacht would take it — a threat that was empty until, by Ilgner s plan, the directors forced the generals themselves to go along. 

Then Ilgner set up a Farben "Foreign Policy School." He personally examined all candidates. One textbook might have been "The New Order for the Chemical Industries of Poland" for that was the latest edition of a survey he had written two years before, "The Most Important Chemical Plants in Poland."... 

It was March of 1939 when foreign policy carried guns openly... 

This event caused reactions abroad, the extent of which had so far not been realized by most of the German participants. The English and French naturally expressed themselves very pointedly on the subject. Nobody wants a war, and hopes for peace are still being cherished, but they felt certain that in case of any further arbitrary proceedings in Germany s foreign policy, war would be unavoidable. 

Q. Dr. Krauch, I have only a very few questions. You said some time ago in your direct examination, if I remember correctly, that before 1933 a German statesman once said that "without Farben no foreign policy was possible." May I ask you to interpret this statement ... 

I cannot remember that I made such a statement. I assume that one of my experts — I might give you a few names — inserted this part. They were worried about the irresponsible foreign policy of our government. They expressed misgivings voiced by various persons "Where is the road of the government leading us "... 

The first time I really had the feeling that our foreign policy was in no way in order was when German military forces were used to occupy Czechoslovakia in March 1939. This deeply shocked me, the more so... 

Yet, as 1950 went by, and 1951, I grew more tolerant of the two judges who went to Numberg more or less uninitiated. No doubt they were influenced somewhat by our foreign policy, formed by officials who have traveled farther and longer, and who are more experienced in both business and government. 

This declaration of faith should have resounded in the Palace of Justice. No playwright could have conceived a more inspiring tragedy than the Farben judges, had they stood on the ashes of that other tyranny and exhorted free institutions to rise from their sleep. Such action alone could not have rescued our foreign policy from the fear on which it bases its appeal to public opinion, but it might have helped an alert public opinion to have seen its main current. 

What were the foreign policy objectives of Italy, Germany, and Japan in the 1930s How did each nation achieve its objectives ... 

Keith M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 1985). 

Note by Edward Bridges (head of the Treasury division dealing with defence and foreign policy issues), 1 Dec. 1937, T 161/779/S.41815, and comment by Fisher on note by Bridges, 12 Jan. 1938, T 161/849/S.42779, TNA. For Treasury attempts to influence policy towards Japan, see Gill Bennett, British policy in the Far East 1933-1936 Treasury and Foreign Office , Modem Asian Studies, 26 (1992), 545-68. David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937-41 A Study in Competitive Co-operation (Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1981), pp. 16-17, 60-2. 

Ian M. Drummond, The Floating Pound and the Sterling Area 1931-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1981) G. C. Peden, A matter of timing the economic background to British foreign policy, 1937-1939 , History, 69 (1984), 15-28 L. S. Pressnell, External Economic Policy since the War, vol. I The Post-war Einancial Settlement (London HMSO, 1986), pp. 1-2, 413. 

Great Britain with that of certain other nations as at January 1938 , Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 (DBFP), 2nd series, vol. XIX (London HMSO, 1982), p. 502 Peden, British Rearmament, pp. 137-8. 

D.K. Fieldhouse, The Labour governments and the Empire-Commonwealth, 1945-51 , in Ritchie Ovendale (ed.). The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments, 1945-1951 (Leicester University Press, 1984), pp. 83-120, at pp. 95-102. 

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