Letter to Hitler, on the French government's desire to maintain peace, including a diplomatic solution to German-Polish issues

LETTER FROM THE FRENCH PRIME MINISTER DALADIER TO THE FUEHRER, DATED 26th AUGUST 1939.
Paris, 26th August 1939
Dear Reichchancellor,
The French Ambassador in Berlin has informed me of your personal communication.
In the hours, in which you speak of the greatest responsibility which two heads of Governments can possibly take upon themselves, namely that of shedding the blood of two great nations, who long only for peace and work, I feel I owe it to you personally and to both our peoples to say that the fate of peace still rests in your hands.
You can doubt neither my own feelings towards Germany, nor France's peaceful feelings towards your nation. No Frenchman has dbne more than myself to strengthen between our two nations not only peace, but also sincere cooperation in their own interests as well as in those of Europe and of the whole world. Unless you credit the French People with lower sense of honour, than I credit the German Nation with, you cannot doubt that France loyally fulfills her obligations towards other powers, such as Poland, which, as I am fully convinced, wants to live in peace with Germany. .
These two convictions are fully compatible.
Till now there has been nothing to prevent a peaceful solution of the international crisis, with all honour and dignity for all nations, if the same will for peace exists on all sides.
Together with the good will of France I proclaim that of all
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her allies. I take it upon myself to guarantee Poland's readiness, which she has always shown, to submit to the mutual application of a method of open settlement, as it can be imagined between the governments of two sovereign nations. With the clearest conscience I can assure you that among the differences which have arisen between Germany and Poland over the question of Danzig, there is not one which could not be submitted to such a method the purpose of reaching a peaceful and just solution.
Moreover, I can declare on my honour that there is nothing in France's clear and loyal solidarity with Poland and her allies, which could in any way prejudice the peaceful attitude of my country. This solidarity has never prevented us, and does not prevent us today, from keeping Poland in the same friendly state of mind.
In so serious an hour, I sincerely believe that no high minded human being could understand it, if a war of destruction was started without a last attempt being made to reach a peaceful settlement between Germany and Poland. Your desire for peace could in all certainty work for this aim, without any prejudice to German honour. I, who desire good harmony between the French and the German people, and who am on the other hand bound to Poland by bonds of friendship and by a promise, am prepared, as head of the French Government, to do everything an upright man can do, to bring this attempt to a successful conclusion.
You and I were in the trenches in the last war. You know, as I do, what horror and condemnation the devastations of that war have left in the conscience of the peoples, without any regard to its outcome. The picture I Can see in my mind's eye of your outstanding role as the leader of the German people on the road of peace, towards the fulfillment of its task in the common work of civilization, leads me to ask for a reply to this suggestion.
If French and German blood should be shed again, as it was shed 25 years ago, in a still longer and more murderous war, then each of the two nations will fight believing in its own victory. But the most certain victors will be—destruction and barbarity.
(Signed) Daladier.
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