Among those caught up in the coming war were the Solf family. Vailima born So'oa'emalelagi Solf was in Shanghai, epicentre of a global struggle for control and extraterritoriality. Lagi was one of Europe’s few experts on Asia, fluent in Japanese and spoke Chinese. Shanghai, a city of around four million people, had 20,000 Japanese, 15,000 Russians, 9000 British, 5000 Germans and Austrians and 4000 Americans. Japan wanted the city within its new ‘co-prosperity sphere’. An emerging Chinese Communist Party wanted revolution. Until the war, Germany’s main colonial interest in China had been Tsingtao in the north east, home port to Berlin’s Pacific fleet. With the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was handicapped in any involvement in Shanghai by the loss of the right of extraterritoriality. By 1928, author Han Suyin wrote, ‘the Germans were back in China with their briefcases and their blue eyes, sweating in the summer, cheerful in the winter, smiling and wanting to do business…. The Germans did not act superior like the British, nor did they mouth religion like the Americans….’ Since Germans had no extraterritorial privileges, they behaved prudently, since they could be tried by the Chinese for breaking the law: ‘As a result, the Germans were more popular in China than any other whites, not excluding Americans.’ German arms maker Krupp did business with Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang (KMT). He hired Germans to train his army, led by Prussian general Alexander von Falkenhausen. To the frustration of the Germans and later the Western Allies, the Nationalist army was more interested in fighting the Communist Party of Mao Zedong, than they were Japanese. The German consul general to Shanghai, Hermann Kriebel, a Bavarian who had served in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900-01. He had been with Wilhelm Solf as part of the German armistice delegation in 1918. His last words at those talks were, reputedly directed at the Allies; ‘see you again in 20 years’. He was close to Hitler. There was a quirk about Shanghai; people arriving there did not need a visa. Thus Shanghai became a bolt hole for Jews escaping Nazi Germany. Nazis followed them. And it was duly noted in Gestapo files that in Shanghai, Lagi Solf was among those who provided aid to them. She knew and met key people. In letters which used various codes, she told her father of the meetings. It would be tempting to dismiss Lagi’s correspondence, given her youth. Her father was living his fading years. But Lagi had spent her entire life, from birth at Vailima to Berlin and Tokyo, in a diplomatic and political world. Passing significant diplomatic letters could have been a habit. In October 1935 the 26-year-old wrote she had been in contact with Prime Minister Wang Zhaoming, 52, said to be ‘startlingly handsome and would build on his charismatic good looks by writing poetry in which he portrayed himself as a selfless patriot who cared little for his own life’. Wang wanted Hitler’s help to reach a compromise between China and Japan. Wang, Lagi wrote, had made a ‘confidential request’ and was urging Wilhelm Solf ‘to work together in a helpful way in Sino-Japanese questions….’ Lagi said Wang felt Wilhelm Solf was the only possible go-between: ‘We don’t know how Hitler will respond to this, but if he agrees with the wishes of the Chinese, he will probably request a meeting. What kind of role you would play, and how you would carry it out, is really up to you. I know that you have not been very active, but you are sympathetic to both China and Japan and I know you would do whatever is whatever is within your strength and power to do… Depending on what happens, I may be home in the next few months. What you are capable of taking on will depend in large part on your health – please take good care of yourself, so that you can do what you want.’
There is this line in Lagi’s letter: ‘Mao was called to Nanking to see Premier Wang a few days ago and with him Furholzer.’
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