In the tense atmosphere of September 1938, with the crisis in Central Europe looking likely to explode into war at any moment, Goerdeler was waiting anxiously for the "putsch" to overthrow the Nazi regime, and his taking over the reins of the German state as the new Chancellor. During his planning for the coup, Goerdeler was in contact with Chinese intelligence, using General Alexander von Falkenhausen as intermediary. Like most German conservatives, Goerdeler favoured Germany's traditional informal alliance with China, and was strongly opposed to the "volte-face" in Germany's Far Eastern policies effected in early 1938 by the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who abandoned the alliance with China for an alignment with Japan. In a September 1938 meeting with Young, the latter reported that "X" (as Goerdeler was code-named by the British) had stated about the domestic situation in Germany: "the working classes are nervous, distrustful of the Leader. Their allegiance is doubtful." In another meeting on September 11, 1938, in Zurich, Young recorded Goerdeler as saying: the feeling among the people against the war is welling up at an alarming rate. His [Goerdeler's] recent talks with leading industrialists had satisfied him that the workers' feelings have been bitterly roused to the point where, if they were in possession of arms, they would physically revolt against the regime On September 29, 1938 Goerdeler informed the British, through one of Vansittart's contacts, Colonel Graham Christie, that the mobilization of the Royal Navy was turning German public opinion against the regime. The British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, who knew Goerdeler well, noted that Goerdeler failed to realize that Hitler was not bluffing with "Fall Grün" and had every intention of attacking Czechoslovakia on October 1, 1938, and that he regarded Munich as a personal set-back.