Logo
The French Yellow Book


Previous Document Contents Next Document

No. 131 :
M. LÉON NÖEL, French Ambassador in Warsaw, to M. Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Warsaw, May 31, 1939.

A P.A.T. AGENCY bulletin has given a resumé of the letter addressed by the Polish Commissioner-General at Danzig to the President of the Senate, Herr Greiser, in reply to the two notes addressed by the latter to the Polish Government after the Kalthof incident.

According to this resumé M. Chodacki states in his letter that responsibility for the events at Kalthof rests entirely with the authorities of Danzig, who, despite repeated representations from the Commissioner-General, had taken no steps "to prevent the criminal activities of the disturbers of the peace . . ."

In reply to the Senate's demand for the recall of the Polish Deputy Commissioner, M. Perkowski, and of two Customs officials, the Commissioner-General confined himself to saying that he was unable to discover any lapse on the part of these officials and that, furthermore, "he could not admit the right of the Senate to formulate any demands in the matter."

The letter ended by declaring that, if the Senate was really prepared to put an end to the existing tension, the Polish Government was, for its part, prepared to undertake a joint examination "of the arrangements that could be made in order to ensure the possibility of normal activity for Polish officials in the territory of the Free City, and to improve the relations between these officials and the authorities of Danzig."

No comments accompanied this P.A.T. communiqué, but one cannot help being struck by the conciliatory tone of M. Chodacki's letter. It does its utmost to avoid a continuation of the discussions started by the Senate on the prerogatives of the Polish Commissioner-General and his collaborators. At the same time the Polish Government implicitly renounces its claim for an indemnity for the damage done and refrains from speaking of the "new guarantees" for its officials, and for the Polish population of Danzig, which had been demanded in a previous letter immediately after the incident.

LÉON NÖEL.

Previous Document Contents Next Document
Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 20th Century Page World War II Page

127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511.