27 august 1940

Johan Birger Essen Dahlerus (February 6, 1891–March 8, 1957) 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 proceeding the German invasion of Poland in 1939 are sometimes called the Dahlerus Mission.

Biography

Birger Dahlerus was born in Stockholm 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.

It had been known to the senior military personnel of the Third Reich, at least since the Military Conference of August 6, 1939 at Obersalzberg, that aggressive war between Greater Germany and the Western powers was imminent.^[1] On August 7, 1939 Dahlerus arranged a meeting at his own house, near the Danish border in Schleswig-Holstein, between Göring and seven British businessmen.

^[2]

The businessmen