Page "Erich Raeder" Paragraph 26

The only problem Raeder faced was Hitler's determination to attack Poland.

Raeder supported the idea of aggression against Poland, but on 31 March 1939 the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had announced the “ guarantee " of Poland, by which Britain would go to war against any nation that attempted to end Polish independence.

Through Raeder expressed some worry in the first half of 1939 over the prospect of a war with Britain when the Plan Z had barely began, he accepted and believed in the assurances of Hitler and the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that neither Britain nor France would go to war if the Reich attacked Poland.

In July 1939, Raeder told Karl Dönitz that his fears of a general war were groundless, and told him he take the entire summer off for a vacation.

Despite his belief that the attack on Poland would cause only a local war, on 15 August 1939 Raeder took the precaution of ordering two Panzerschife the Admiral Graf von Spee and the Deutschland, a number of U-boats and the Dithmarschen ships Altmark and Westerwald to the Atlantic in case Britain should go to war.

In late August 1939, Raeder told other senior officers that the danger of a war with Britain and France was extremely remote, and at most Germany had to fear only sanctions if the invasion of Poland went ahead.

When Admiral Hermann Boehem sent Raeder a memo in late August saying that the disposition of the German fleet could only made sense if there was no general war, one of Raeder's aides, a Captain Fricke replied with the comment on the margin: " That is precisely the point!

It is highly unlikely ".