[3] Fink noted that through Welczeck had a strong case in that the land reform had largely exempted the estates owned by the szlachta, he weakened it by his strident and shill manner while Zaleski made a better impression by being calm and conciliatory.
[1] However, Welczeck was not favored with close friendships with the French cabinet ministers in the same way that his Anglo-American counterparts, namely Sir Eric Phipps and William Christian Bullitt Jr.
[1] Shortly after he arrived in Paris, the Front populaire won the French National Assembly election of 3 May 1936, leading to a coalition government headed by the Socialist leader Leon Blum coming to power.
[8] Blum and his cabinet made a point of visiting Welczeck at the German embassy to tell him that France wanted good relations with Germany and hoped for a return to the Locarno era.
[10] Right from the start, Welczeck favored aid to Franco over General Emilio Mola, the other leader of the junta that had launched the botched coup d'état of 17 July 1936 that caused the civil war.
[10] Welczeck initially advocated caution in Spain, believing that the junta of rebellious generals who just failed to overthrow the Second Spanish Republic would lose the civil war.
[16] Welczeck was in favor of taking up the French offer, but the Foreign Minister, Baron Konstantin von Neurath was opposed, advising Adolf Hitler to reject it.
[22] Bonnet's account of the meeting recorded him as saying: "I pointed out to Count Welczeck that if I had not asked him officially to come earlier it was because I feared that in this period of tension it might have been considered that I was making a comminatory démarche".
[23] However, Welczeck also reported that Bonnet had told him: "after a repetition of the general peace talk, which I have often heard from him, he added that...he himself, Daladier and other members of the cabinet were sincere admirers of the Führer...he, Bonnet, wished for nothing more ardently than to see the Führer in Paris as the guest of the French government...In the present situation, he wanted to leave no room for doubt that France and Britain at her side, were firmly resolved to hasten to the assistance of the Czechs if they were attacked by German troops...In France and Britain, however, nothing was so ardently desired as peace...we could depend upon it, that the Czechoslovak government would be forced to accept Runciman's verdict, which in all probability would mean the fulfilment of 70, 80 or 90 percent of the Sudeten German demands".
[26] Bonnet also expressed concern about an upcoming visit by Neville Chamberlain to Paris on 24 November 1938 as he stated he wanted to avoid the impression that "the agreement had been made under British tutelage".
Welczeck wore a swastika label pin on his coat, showing that he was a NSDAP party member and Grynszpan, who had grown up Jewish in the Third Reich, recognized that he must be someone connected with the embassy.
Unwilling to end his walk to talk to a teenager dressed in shabby clothes with an unlikely story about being a spy, Welczeck pointed to the embassy and said the ambassador was there; unknown to him, Grynszpan had a gun and was planning to assassinate him to protest Nazi Germany's antisemitic policies.
The Kristallnacht pogrom damaged the image of Germany and afterwards, Ribbentrop became keen to visit Paris to sign the Declaration of Franco-German Friendship to show that the Reich was not isolated.
[33] Ribbentrop told Welczeck to say that he could not visit Paris as long there was a wave of general strikes organised by the French Communist Party against the deflationary degrees passed by the Finance Minister Paul Reynaud on 14 November 1938.
[33] On 29 November 1938, Bonnet met with Welczeck to tell Ribbentrop to come to Paris as soon as possible, saying "the longer it [Ribbnetrop's visit] was postponed the more ominous might be the effect of the intrigues of all the opponents of a Franco-German rapprochement".
[33] Welczeck himself urged Ribbentrop to visit Paris in December to sign the declaration as he maintained postponement "would be a more difficult test case for the cabinet and might lead to its fall".
[35] At a reception attended by the elite of French society to celebrate the signing of the declaration, Welczeck asked Bonnet that "non-Aryan" cabinet ministers be excluded, by which he meant Jean Zay and Georges Mandel, both of whom were Jewish.
[36] On 24 January 1939, Bonnet told Welczeck that a statement that he was going to make before the Assemblée nationale affirming France's willingness to stand by its alliances in Eastern Europe "had been framed for domestic consumption".
[38] After Germany violated the Munich Agreement on 15 March 1939 by occupying the Czech half of Czecho-Slovakia, the French Premier Édouard Daladier refused to see Welczeck until July in protest.
[39] Welczeck reported that Bonnet had told him that he had no official opinion about the occupation and that his "personal view" was that "the peace and appeasement policy of the 'men of Munich' had suffered a lamentable disaster...in every country warmongers who would lead Europe catastrophe were bound to gain the upper hand".
In spite of everything he held fast to the idea of bringing back co-operation with Germany...If I met unfriendliness in the French press where he had some influence, he would remedy matters, as far as lay his power".
[42] On 21 May 1939, Welczeck told Sir Charles Mendl, the press attaché at the British embassy, that: "Bonnet was a man who would go to the utmost limits to avoid an European war up to the last moment.
[44] Coulondre advised Bonnet to tell Welczeck in no uncertain terms that France would honor its alliance with Poland if Germany should use force to resolve the Danzig crisis.
[46] On 1 July 1939, Bonnet met with Welczeck to tell him that any attempt to change the status of the Free City of Danzig unilaterally would cause a German-Polish war and that France would honor its alliance with Poland.
[48] Daladier ended the meeting by saying he tried appeasement, and that because of the bad faith of Hitler who had repudiated the Munich Agreement that he was against French pressure on Poland to make concessions in the Danzig crisis.
On 28 July 1939, Welczeck in a dispatch to Berlin stated he had learned from "an unusually well-informed source" that the French together with the British were sending military missions to Moscow to discuss having the Soviet Union join the "peace front".
[49] Welczeck stated that the French military mission was to be headed by General Joseph Doumenc, whom he described as "a particularly capable officer" and a former deputy chief of staff under the illustrious Marshal Maxime Weygand.
[49] The British military mission to Moscow was headed by Admiral Sir Reginald Plunket-Ernle-Erle-Drax, whom Welczeck reported that the French did not hold in high regard, not the least because of his convoluted surname.
On 30 July 1939, Welczeck reported that the current talks in Moscow were stalled owing to Anglo-Soviet differences of opinion, and the decision to send the military missions was a French initiative intended to break the impasse.
In August 1940, Welczeck returned to France to handle relations with the new Vichy regime established after the fall of the Third Republic, but was overshadowed by Abetz who replaced him as ambassador in November 1940.