[2] Coming from a family long noted for its service to the Prussia and then Germany, Moltke ascribed to the viewpoint that it was the greatest honour to serve the state and held that view throughout his life.

In the Imperial era, joining the Auswärtiges Amt required a candidate to have a university degree, preferably in jurisprudence; to be fluent in French and one other foreign language; and to have an income of 15,000 marks per year, which ensured that only men from very wealthy families could work as diplomats.

[7] In common with the other conservative civil servants of the Imperial era, Moltke saw Germany's defeat in the war and the November Revolution of 1918 as twin disasters, which threatened to ruin the Reich.

[14] Moltke fought to retain as of Upper Silesia as possible for Germany but displayed much "diplomatic dexterity" during the crisis caused by referendum, as he sought to balance the demands of the Allies and of his nationalism.

[6] Moltke thus found no contradiction between his efforts to improve German-Polish relations and his support for a policy of taking back the lands that Germany had lost to Poland by the Treaty of Versailles.

[2] Moltke believed that Germany could and should regain the lands lost under Versailles via peaceful means, and he was willing to accept the continued existence of Poland, albeit only within the German sphere of influence.

[2] The Auswärtiges Amt was a bastion of anti-Polish feelings, and almost all of the German diplomatic corps in the interwar period tended to accept that it would be necessary for Germany sooner or later to put an end to Poland.

[18] In common with the other diplomats of the Auswärtiges Amt, Moltke believed that Adolf Hitler would bring about a revival of Germany as a great power and would curtail what he considered to be "Jewish influence" in German life.

[22] Moltke, in a dispatch to Berlin, charged that the "anti-German" Polish Jews had engaged in "terror tactics" during the boycott, and he complained that people who shopped at German-owned businesses in Poland had been accosted on the streets by activists.

[23] Germany had frequently used the Human Rights Committee of the League of Nations as a forum for airing complaints about Poland's treatment of its Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority as a way to gain international sympathy for its revanchist foreign policy of taking back the lands lost under the Treaty of Versailles.

In Warsaw, the French decision to build the Maginot Line strongly (and correctly) indicated that France intended to pursue a defensive strategy in the event of a war with Germany.

In 1936, the German and the Polish governments joined forces to oust Seán Lester, the Irish diplomat who served as the League of Nations High Commissioner for the Free City of Danzig.

[32] Lester was replaced as the League of Nations high commissioner with the Swiss diplomat Carl Jacob Burckhardt, who proved to be accommodating about the violations of the Free City's constitution concerning human rights.

[34] Moltke stated that it was Beck's firm opinion that if the German-speaking Sudetenland were transferred to Germany on the basis of national self-determination, the same principle should be invoked to allow Poland to claim the Polish-speaking areas of Teschen.

[36] On 14 December 1938, Beck told Moltke that the establishment of an autonomous government in Carpatho-Ukraine, as Ruthenia had been renamed, had "evoked a certain excitement" in Poland, as there were fears that it would encourage Ukrainian nationalism in Galicia.

[38] The main issue at the summit turned not to Danzig, as had been expected, but Hitler's demands for Poland to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact and to promise to assist Germany in conquering the Soviet Union, which Beck rejected.

[42] Ribbentrop wrote up a démarche for Moltke to deliver to Beck that demanded that Poland allow the Free City of Danzig to rejoin Germany and offered parts of the Soviet Ukraine as a reward.

[44] On 28 March 1939, Beck told Moltke that if the Senate of the Free City voting to have Danzig "go home to the Reich", as was then being discussed, that would be regarded as a casus belli by Poland.

[47] Following his orders, Moltke refused to engage in any discussions about a solution to the Danzig crisis and stuck rigidly in public to the demand that the Free City "go home to the Reich", which he knew that the Poles would never accept.

[6] In late April 1939, Moltke was recalled to Berlin to meet with Ribbentrop, who threatened to fire him if he continued to advise that a peaceful outcome to the Danzig Crisis was still possible.

[6] On 1 August 1939, Moltke wrote an assessment of Poland and offered his observations about the sort of occupation policy Germany should pursue once Fall Weiss (Case White) started.

[50] Moltke portrayed the Polish people as almost mindlessly bellicose and wrote,: "The old hatred of everything German and the conviction that it is Poland's destiny to cross swords with Germany are too deeply rooted to allow passions once inflamed, to die away soon".

[50] Moltke predicated that there was no possibility of the Polish government allowing the Free City to rejoin Germany and said that even if that happened, the Sanation dictatorship would be promptly overthrown in a popular revolution.

[51] On 6 August 1939, Moltke, in a telephone call to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, stated that there was "hardly any doubt" that Poland would go to war "if there was a clear violation" of the Polish rights in the Free City.

[66] Moltke's first order of business was in negotiating with Gómez-Jordana the details of an agreement, which had been reached by his predecessor, Stohrer, that Spain would trade more wolfram, a metal crucial for making armour-piecing shells, in exchange for more German arms.

[70] Moltke was concerned that the situation in Portugal's colonies in Asia in which the Japanese had occupied East Timor and Macau without a Portuguese protest, let alone a declaration of war, had created a precedent in which Spain might likewise accept an Allied occupation of the Canary Islands and/or Spanish Morocco.

[71] On 29 January 1943, Franco gave Moltke a written promise that the German-Spanish economic agreement would contain a secret clause committing Spain to enter the war if the Allies tried to seize either the Canary Islands or Spanish Morocco.

[74] On 26 January 1943, Moltke gave Gómez-Jordana another note: "After the deadline of 31 March, it will not be possible for the German Authorities to continue the special treatment hitherto granted to the Jews of Spanish nationality".

[70] Moltke's diary does not support Lazar's claim of a key role in defusing the crisis, but it shows that he was quite convinced that the Swiss report had originated with his rivals within the German government who were trying to provoke an invasion of Spain.

[87] Most recently, Moltke came to widespread attention when the Russian president Vladimir Putin in a 2019 essay cited a cable issued by him on 1 October 1938, where he quoted Beck as having "expressed real gratitude for the loyal treatment accorded Polish interests at the Munich conference, as well as the sincerity of relations during the Czech conflict.