MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
THE news has recently been received from Germany that Albrecht Bemstorff, who for ten years was Counsellor of the German Embassy in London, was executed by the Nazis in March last. According to this report, which, I ftar, is well substantiated, Bern- storff was imprisoned last summer on the charge of being indirectly concerned with the conspiracy against Hitler's life. In the early spring of this year, when Himmler realised that a military disaster was impending, the Nazis seem to have decided that their own departure from the scene should be accompanied by a holocaust of those few remaining Germans who had refused to accept the Hitlerian gospel. Their decision was governed partly by sheer cruelty and partly by a determination to leave behind them no alter- native to themselves. Albrecht Bernstorff had from the first dis- played singular courage in decrying the Nazi system and in predict- ing that Hitler's policy would once again bring the Reich to catas- trophe. He was recalled from London in 1933, since it was well known that he made no secret among his many English friends of the iniquity of Hitler and his companions and of the dangers to which their daemonic energy would expose Europe and the world. He was also reckless in his outspokenness, and the many spies who hung about the German Embassy must have repeated some of the many caustic remarks which he was wont to make. I remember on one occasion a group of English people were discussing what type of emissary would be most likely to convince Hitler that our patience, although great, was not inexhaustible. Bernstorff remained silent until his advice was asked for. "I think I know," he said, "the type of person you should send. You should send a sergeant-major of the Grenadier Guards." We A cre surprised by this suggestion and asked him to explain. "Well, you see," he said, "the sergeant- major could say to Hitler Stand up, corporal, when I address you.' And Hitler would stand up."
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