The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Chapter 16: The Last Days of Peace Summary

The news about the German-Soviet non-aggression pact prompted a letter from the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Hitler himself.
Chamberlain stated in no uncertain terms that Britain wouldn't be intimidated by the new developments in German-Russian relations.
The letter threw Hitler into a rage. Shirer describes Hitler's response to Chamberlain as a bunch of the same lies and exaggerations he'd been peddling to everyone else.
He also told Chamberlain that Britain's promise to defend Poland wouldn't make any difference in his own actions.
By August 25, Shirer reports that everyone in Berlin thought war was imminent; he could see German planes flying in the direction of Poland.
Two events threw small wrenches into Hitler's plans.
First, Britain and Poland signed a treaty of mutual assistance if Germany invaded.
Hitler was unhappy about that.

Mussolini Gets Cold Feet

The second event a letter from Mussolini announcing that, if Germany attacked Poland and Poland's allies counterattacked, Italy could start military operations.
Mussolini also requested a boatload of military supplies from Germany; Italy wasn't prepared for war.
These two events forced Hitler to delay the advance of German troops into Poland. Before he moved, he wanted to see if there was still some way to get rid of the risk of British intervention.

It's been awhile since Shirer checked in on the band of anti-Nazi conspirators who indecisively and unsuccessfully plotted to overthrow Hitler, so in this section, he catches us up
He begins by tracing the various plots and schemes that they'd been hatching throughout the summer of 1939, and he concludes that there was a sense of confusion and futility in their efforts.
He then describes letters from international leaders who sent letters appealing to Hitler to keep the peace. In Shirer's view, those letters were just useless and pathetic as the plans of the anti-Nazi conspirators.
Shirer was on his way back to Germany from a short trip to the U.S. and Paris. He'd picked up a few newspapers there. Everyone knew that Hitler was threatening to start a war with Poland. He tells us how the German people, with no access at all to non-Nazi papers, were convinced that Poland was the aggressor. The Nazis paper printed hysterical headlines with fabricated stories about millions of Polish soldiers about to invade.

Soon after Hitler received Mussolini's letter, he responded by asking for a detailed list of the materials that Italy would need in order to take the initiative in a major military conflict in Europe.
As he describes the military grocery list that Mussolini produced, Shirer argues that it couldn't have failed to let Hitler know that the Fascist leader wanted out of his obligations.
Among other things, Mussolini's letter included an offer to help with the negotiations if Hitler was willing to pursue a peaceful solution. Shirer argues that it wasn't until this frank exchange of letters that Hitler finally told Mussolini straight up that he wanted war with Poland, whatever the cost.
Warnings and replies were flying back and forth between Germany and France.
The French—like the British—were continuing to make it perfectly clear to Hitler that they intended to come to Poland's aid if Germany attacked.

Although the French may have been doing their best to make their commitments clear to Hitler, Shirer argues that Hitler was much more concerned about their English-speaking allies.
Still, he pressed forward with his plan of attack. By now, the date for the invasion had been firmly set for September 1, 1939.
Constant schemer that he was, Hitler tried to drive a wedge between Britain and Poland so that Britain would have an excuse to back out of her treaty obligations.
Over the next several pages, Shirer recounts this story in all of its complex twists and turns, including the unlikely participation of the Swedish businessman and amateur diplomat Birger Dahlerus.

What the British and Polish governments didn't know was that even as the "eleventh hour" negotiations were moving forward, Hitler had already made the decision that would throw the world into a bloody war.
Here's the "propaganda trickery" that Hitler set in motion on the evening of August 31, 1939.
First was a public broadcast that read out a series of generous proposals that Hitler claimed to have offered to Poland. Next was the manufactured attack of a German radio station in Poland—an attack which, as we've already seen, had been planned by the Nazis themselves using Germans dressed as Polish soldiers.
On that final, fateful night before the war, Admiral Canaris told a colleague that this was the end of Germany.