Birger Dahlerus

Johan Birger Essen Dahlerus (6 February 1891–8 March 1957, Stockholm) was a Swedish businessman, amateur diplomat, and friend of Hermann Göring who tried through diplomatic channels to prevent the Second World War. His futile diplomatic efforts during the days preceding the German invasion of Poland in 1939 are sometimes called the Dahlerus Mission.

Birger Dahlerus was born in in 1891. He had an excellent network of contacts of authoritative Englishmen and various leaders of the Third Reich,----e.g. his early acquaintance with Hermann Göring.

Only after the failure of Dahlerus' efforts did the British Government bother to do a basic background check on him (on 23 October). The results were startling: It emerged that his wife was a German national who owned considerable farm property in Germany. Furthermore, the British Government was not aware that Göring had assisted in 1934 Dahlerus in obtaining a marriage permit or that Dahlerus had acted as guardian to Göring's son from his first marriage.

Had these facts been known in advance, it is very likely that Dahlerus' offices would not have been accepted by the British, as his purported neutrality would have been greatly compromised by them.

It had been known to the senior military personnel of the Third Reich, at least since the Military Conference of 6 August 1939 at Obersalzberg, that aggressive war between Greater Germany and the Western powers was imminent. On 7 August 1939 Dahlerus arranged a meeting at his own house, near the Danish border in Schleswig-Holstein, between Göring and seven British businessmen.

The businessmen attempted to persuade Göring that the British Government would stand by its treaty obligations to Poland, which obliged it to support the Polish Government in any conflict in which it became embroiled. Dahlerus believed that they had succeeded. At the Nuremberg trials, the British prosecutor, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, was able to persuade the Swede that he had been badly misled by the German leaders. Clearly, the discussion had no effect on the policy and actions of the Third Reich.

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