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Diary 3: May 1936 - February 1937 Item 61
TRANSCRIPTION
I saw Papée yesterday and intimated to him that
I regarded my situation at the moment here as largely
a formal one. I had reported a situation to Geneva
and their remedy had been to ask Poland to take action.
I considered the matters to be entirely in Poland's
hands. Colonel Beck has been on holiday and also in
Paris, and Papée goes to Warsaw this weekend to see him
to get the final instructions. He personally anticipates
that a new chapter is opening in Danzig-Polish relations.
The Senate has just banned the Social Democrat Party
and all its organisations on the grounds that some arms
were alleged to have been found in the possession of
some members. It is quite possibly a plant; I do not
know. Papée had seen Greiser and had warned him against
such extreme steps. At the same time I do not anticipate
that Poland will endeavour or will succeed in maintaining
the Constitution.
I see that Forster in a recent speech again laid
on me the responsibility for the death of his three
S.A. men. This could well be regarded as criminal
incitement.
Incidentally, at one of the last Committee meetings,
Eden apparently asked Beck to ensure that life was made
tolerable for me while I remained in Danzig and Beck
had given assurances. Both of them told me about this
afterwards.
I came back through Vienna, Prague and Berlin.
I made no official calls in Vienna. Strang, who had heard
I was going to Prague, said he would write to the
Chargé d'Affaires there, but I had asked him not to do
so as I wanted to make no calls. I met nobody except
Bruins, who used to be American Consul in Danzig.
On the way to Bruins' house to lunch we passed a huge
open space in the new town and Bruins told me that
underneath was a vast bomb-proof shelter. The impression
of the corps apparently was that the situation was
still very uncertain and dangerous. I left cards on
the British Minister and Foreign Minister two hours
before I left and had the Legation on the telephone
half an hour later, as the new Minister wanted to see
me. This was of course not possible.
The valley of theElbe as one goes through the
frontier towards Dresden is a beautiful corner of
Germany which I hope some time to explore.
Language(s) of Transcription
LOCATION
Gdańsk (Poland) (54.3612, 18.5499)
Story Location
ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
Document Date
Document Type
Document Description
Language of Description
Keywords
External Web Resources
People
Arthur Greiser
Description: German politician (NSDAP), MdR, Senate President of the Free City of Danzig, Reich Governor and Gauleiter of the NSDAP
Wikidata Reference: Q213826
Albert Forster
Description: German politician (NSDAP), MdR, Gauleiter of the NSDAP and Reich Governor in Danzig
Wikidata Reference: Q704305
STORY INFORMATION
Title
Diary 3: May 1936 - February 1937
Creator
Lester | Seán | 1888-1959
Contributor
Lester, Seán, 1888-1959
Seán Lester
Coverage
name=Twentieth century; start=1936-05-06; end=1937-02-01
Date
6 May 1936-1 February 1937
Type
Text
Rights
This collection has been digitised and made available by Dublin City University Library. Please credit Dublin City University Library when using these images, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Language
eng
Identifier
#ng45f7525
LandingPage
https://www.europeana.eu/item/707/_ng45f7525Country
Ireland
DatasetName
707__Dublin_City_University
Begin
1936-05-01
End
1937-02-28
Language
en
Created
2022-03-23T16:13:34.244Z
2022-03-23T16:14:08.313666Z
2022-03-23T16:14:08.314189Z
Story Description
Consists of unbound typed diary entries, documents and letters relating to Lester's final months as High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig. Lester left Danzig on 22 December 1936 having been promoted to the position of Deputy Secretary General of the League. He took up his new appointment in Geneva on 16 January 1937. Includes document written by Lester outlining the context for the file: 'The following fragments are the only notes I have of my last six months in Danzig ... The reason they are so fragmentary ... was that the crisis in Danzig developed so quickly and in such uncertainty that I could not safely keep any record of certain matters, either in my house or my Office. For three months at any rate I was not at all sure that my house and Office might not be occupied any day by the political Police or the Storm Troopers [sic].' - Document comprising of two diary entries, the first from 6 May 1936 (pages 1-3) and the second from early July 1936 (pages 4-9) combined together as a single entry. The section from 6 May 1936 is duplicated in Diary 2: January-June 1936 in the collection [diary C1/2]. Includes diary entries (some marked 'Private Diary') from the following dates: 8, 17, [?20], 23 (two entries with this date, one titled 'Relations with Greiser'), 24, and 28 July 1936; 3, 5, 6 and 7 August 1936 (two copies); 12 September 1936; 16, 19 and 24 October 1936; 22 December 1936 and 1 February 1937. Entries were all written in Danzig apart from the final entry (1 February 1937) which was written in Geneva. Includes undated notes on Albert Forster, the Nazi Party's Gauleiter in Danzig, that was originally filed between diary entries from 24 October 1936 and 22 December 1936, and was thus possibly written during that period. Includes copy letters from Lester to Joseph Avenol, Secretary General of the League of Nations, from the following dates: 11, 14 and 24 July 1926; 1 August 1936 (two copies of two different letters from this date). Most of the letters are marked 'Personal', 'Personal and Confidential', or 'Personal; Secret'.
TRANSCRIPTION
LOCATION
DESCRIPTION
PEOPLE
STORY INFO
TUTORIAL
I saw Papée yesterday and intimated to him that
I regarded my situation at the moment here as largely
a formal one. I had reported a situation to Geneva
and their remedy had been to ask Poland to take action.
I considered the matters to be entirely in Poland's
hands. Colonel Beck has been on holiday and also in
Paris, and Papée goes to Warsaw this weekend to see him
to get the final instructions. He personally anticipates
that a new chapter is opening in Danzig-Polish relations.
The Senate has just banned the Social Democrat Party
and all its organisations on the grounds that some arms
were alleged to have been found in the possession of
some members. It is quite possibly a plant; I do not
know. Papée had seen Greiser and had warned him against
such extreme steps. At the same time I do not anticipate
that Poland will endeavour or will succeed in maintaining
the Constitution.
I see that Forster in a recent speech again laid
on me the responsibility for the death of his three
S.A. men. This could well be regarded as criminal
incitement.
Incidentally, at one of the last Committee meetings,
Eden apparently asked Beck to ensure that life was made
tolerable for me while I remained in Danzig and Beck
had given assurances. Both of them told me about this
afterwards.
I came back through Vienna, Prague and Berlin.
I made no official calls in Vienna. Strang, who had heard
I was going to Prague, said he would write to the
Chargé d'Affaires there, but I had asked him not to do
so as I wanted to make no calls. I met nobody except
Bruins, who used to be American Consul in Danzig.
On the way to Bruins' house to lunch we passed a huge
open space in the new town and Bruins told me that
underneath was a vast bomb-proof shelter. The impression
of the corps apparently was that the situation was
still very uncertain and dangerous. I left cards on
the British Minister and Foreign Minister two hours
before I left and had the Legation on the telephone
half an hour later, as the new Minister wanted to see
me. This was of course not possible.
The valley of theElbe as one goes through the
frontier towards Dresden is a beautiful corner of
Germany which I hope some time to explore.
- English (English)
I saw Papée yesterday and intimated to him that
I regarded my situation at the moment here as largely
a formal one. I had reported a situation to Geneva
and their remedy had been to ask Poland to take action.
I considered the matters to be entirely in Poland's
hands. Colonel Beck has been on holiday and also in
Paris, and Papée goes to Warsaw this weekend to see him
to get the final instructions. He personally anticipates
that a new chapter is opening in Danzig-Polish relations.
The Senate has just banned the Social Democrat Party
and all its organisations on the grounds that some arms
were alleged to have been found in the possession of
some members. It is quite possibly a plant; I do not
know. Papée had seen Greiser and had warned him against
such extreme steps. At the same time I do not anticipate
that Poland will endeavour or will succeed in maintaining
the Constitution.
I see that Forster in a recent speech again laid
on me the responsibility for the death of his three
S.A. men. This could well be regarded as criminal
incitement.
Incidentally, at one of the last Committee meetings,
Eden apparently asked Beck to ensure that life was made
tolerable for me while I remained in Danzig and Beck
had given assurances. Both of them told me about this
afterwards.
I came back through Vienna, Prague and Berlin.
I made no official calls in Vienna. Strang, who had heard
I was going to Prague, said he would write to the
Chargé d'Affaires there, but I had asked him not to do
so as I wanted to make no calls. I met nobody except
Bruins, who used to be American Consul in Danzig.
On the way to Bruins' house to lunch we passed a huge
open space in the new town and Bruins told me that
underneath was a vast bomb-proof shelter. The impression
of the corps apparently was that the situation was
still very uncertain and dangerous. I left cards on
the British Minister and Foreign Minister two hours
before I left and had the Legation on the telephone
half an hour later, as the new Minister wanted to see
me. This was of course not possible.
The valley of theElbe as one goes through the
frontier towards Dresden is a beautiful corner of
Germany which I hope some time to explore.
Language(s) of Transcription
English Translation
Transcription History
I saw Papée yesterday and intimated to him that I regarded my situation at the moment here as largely a formal one. I had reported a situation to Geneva and their remedy had been to ask Poland to take action. I considered the matters to be entirely in Poland's hands. Colonel Beck has been on holiday and also in Paris, and Papée goes to Warsaw this weekend to see him to get the final instructions. He personally anticipates that a new chapter is opening in Danzig-Polish relations. The Senate has just banned the Social Democrat Party and all its organisations on the grounds that some arms were alleged to have been found in the possession of some members. It is quite possibly a plant; I do not know. Papée had seen Greiser and had warned him against such extreme steps. At the same time I do not anticipate that Poland will endeavour or will succeed in maintaining the Constitution. I see that Forster in a recent speech again laid on me the responsibility for the death of his three S.A. men. This could well be regarded as criminal incitement. Incidentally, at one of the last Committee meetings, Eden apparently asked Beck to ensure that life was made tolerable for me while I remained in Danzig and Beck had given assurances. Both of them told me about this afterwards. I came back through Vienna, Prague and Berlin. I made no official calls in Vienna. Strang, who had heard I was going to Prague, said he would write to the Chargé d'Affaires there, but I had asked him not to do so as I wanted to make no calls. I met nobody except Bruins, who used to be American Consul in Danzig. On the way to Bruins' house to lunch we passed a huge open space in the new town and Bruins told me that underneath was a vast bomb-proof shelter. The impression of the corps apparently was that the situation was still very uncertain and dangerous. I left cards on the British Minister and Foreign Minister two hours before I left and had the Legation on the telephone half an hour later, as the new Minister wanted to see me. This was of course not possible. The valley of theElbe as one goes through the frontier towards Dresden is a beautiful corner of Germany which I hope some time to explore.
I saw Papée yesterday and intimated to him that I regarded my situation at the moment here as largely a formal one. I had reported a situation to Geneva and their remedy had been to ask Poland to take action. I considered the matters to be entirely in Poland's hands. Colonel Beck has been on holiday and also in Paris, and Papée goes to Warsaw this weekend to see him to get the final instructions. He personally anticipates that a new chapter is opening in Danzig-Polish relations. The Senate has just banned the Social Democrat Party and all its organisations on the grounds that some arms were alleged to have been found in the possession of some members. It is quite possibly a plant; I do not know. Papée had seen Greiser and had warned him against such extreme steps. At the same time I do not anticipate that Poland will endeavour or will succeed in maintaining the Constitution. I see that Forster in a recent speech again laid on me the responsibility for the death of his three S.A. men. This could well be regarded as criminal incitement. Incidentally, at one of the last Committee meetings, Eden apparently asked Beck to ensure that life was made tolerable for me while I remained in Danzig and Beck had given assurances. Both of them told me about this afterwards. I came back through Vienna, Prague and Berlin. I made no official calls in Vienna. Strang, who had heard I was going to Prague, said he would write to the Chargé d'Affaires there, but I had asked him not to do so as I wanted to make no calls. I met nobody except Bruins, who used to be American Consul in Danzig. On the way to Bruins' house to lunch we passed a huge open space in the new town and Bruins told me that underneath was a vast bomb-proof shelter. The impression of the corps apparently was that the situation was still very uncertain and dangerous. I left cards on the British Minister and Foreign Minister two hours before I left and had the Legation on the telephone half an hour later, as the new Minister wanted to see me. This was of course not possible. The valley of theElbe as one goes through the frontier towards Dresden is a beautiful corner of Germany which I hope some time to explore.
English Translation
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