The Second World War

by Antony Beevor

  Central Committee Plenum, September–October 1938: see Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp. 260–4

  ‘They roped them together’: Smedley, China Fights Back, p. 156

  ‘We seized the village’: diary taken by New Fourth Army, quoted Smedley, Battle Hymn of China, pp. 185–6

  Nationalist and Communist clashes in 1939: Garver, Chinese–Soviet Relations, pp. 81–2

  ‘the criminal traitor’: van de Ven, War and Nationalism in China, p. 237

  5: Norway and Denmark

  The munitions crisis: see Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 328–57

  ‘without regard to the future’: Göring to Generalmajor Thomas, 30.1.40, quoted ibid., p. 357

  Luftwaffe sinking two German destroyers: GSWW, vol. ii, pp. 170–1

  ‘peaceful occupation’: ibid., p. 212

  here Hitler and Manstein: see Karl-Heinz Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West, Annapolis, Md, pp. 79–81

  ‘the nerveless philosopher’: Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 155

  ‘greatest victory’: GSWW, vol. ii, p. 280

  6: Onslaught in the West

  Belgian soldiers planting pansies: Cox, Countdown to War, pp. 194–5

  Paris in early May: see Horne, To Lose a Battle, pp. 171–2

  ‘The battle beginning’: Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 1937–1945, Mainz, 1980, p. 228

  Deuxième Bureau and ‘principal axis’: Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 169

  Huntziger: see ibid., p. 165; and for Corap, see Julian Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940, Oxford, 2003, p. 35

  Germans breaking French codes: Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend, p. 87

  ‘the French insouciance’: Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few, p. 51

  Aircraft destroyed: James Holland, The Battle of Britain, London, 2010, pp. 67–8

  ‘permit to enter Belgium’: Robin McNish, Iron Division: The History of the 3rd Division, London, 2000, p. 77

  Delayed start of French formations: GSWW, vol. ii, p. 283

  ‘The Belgians stood cheering’: Cox, Countdown to War, p. 203

  ‘They walked, they rode’: ibid., p. 213

  ‘Despair in Berlin’: quoted Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 209

  ‘Hardly had the first boats’: Hans von Luck, Panzer Commander, London, 1989, p. 38

  ‘The atmosphere was that of a family’: André Beaufre, The Fall of France, London, 1967, p. 183

  ‘My Führer, I congratulate you’: quoted Lev Kopelev, Ease my Sorrows, New York, 1983, pp. 198–9

  ‘the ruins of’: Alexander Stahlberg, Bounden Duty, London, 1990, p. 132

  ‘Marching, marching’: Riedel, 20.5.40, BfZ-SS

  here German shortage of munitions and need for more time: Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend, pp. 21–3

  ‘little hysterical’: quoted Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 331

  ‘The road to Paris is open’: Roland de Margerie, Journal, 1939–1940, Paris, 2010, pp. 180–1

  ‘As you are no doubt aware’: TNA PREM 3/468/201

  ‘If members of the present’: ibid.

  ‘The wind in eddies’: Margerie, Journal, p. 181

  ‘Utter dejection’: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, 6 vols, London, 1948–53, vol. ii: Their Finest Hour, p. 42

  ‘avec stupeur’: ibid., p. 192

  ‘They are the most pathetic sight’: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, London, 2001, p. 67

  7: The Fall of France

  Kleist and Guderian at Saint-Quentin: GSWW, vol. ii, p. 287

  ‘Colonel Motors’: Margerie, Journal, p. 12

  ‘Go on, de Gaulle!’: Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre, 3 vols, Paris, 1954– 9, vol. i: L’Appel, 1940–1942, p. 30

  André Maurois: Margerie, Journal, p. 201

  ‘I think I see my way through’: quoted Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1940–41, London, 1983, p. 358

  Cripps in Moscow: see Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia, New Haven and London, 1999, pp. 19–22

  For the Arras counter-attack, see Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk Fight to the Last Man, London, 2007, pp. 142–55

  ‘The face of war is dreadful’: Sold. Hans B., 7.kl.Kw.Kol.f.Betr.St./Inf.Div. Kol.269, BfZ-SS

  ‘By the roads, shattered’: Gefr. Ludwig D., Rgts.Stab/Art.Rgt.69, Tuesday, 21.5.40, BfZ-SS

  ‘There are many, many’: Gefr. Konrad F., 5.Kp./Inf.Rgt.43, 1.Inf.Div., Wednesday, 22.5.40, BfZ-SS

  Massacres of colonial troops: Christophe Dutrône, Ils se sont battus: mai–juin 1940, Paris, 2010, p. 150

  ‘for [the] sake of Allied solidarity’: TNA WO 106/1693 and 1750, quoted Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, p. 228

  ‘only a miracle can save France’: Paul Addison and Jeremy Crang (eds), Listening to Britain, London, 2010, 22.5.40, p. 19

  ‘The whiter the collar, the less the assurance’: ibid., p. 39

  ‘evidence before us’: ibid., p. 31

  ‘Nothing but a miracle’: Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 67

  Panzer Corps Kleist losses: BA-MA, W 6965a and Wi/1F5.366, quoted GSWW, vol. ii, p. 290

  here Lack of German motor transport: Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend, p. 29

  ‘predominant consideration’: TNA WO 106/1750, quoted Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, p. 250

  ‘criminal lack of prudence’: J. Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres, vol. iii, Paris, 1946, quoted Quétel, L’Impardonnable Défaite, p. 303

  ‘This time I’ll declare war’: quoted GSWW, vol. iii, p. 62

  here Bismarck’s comment on Italy: quoted John Lukacs, Five Days in London: May 1940, New Haven, 1999

  ‘thunderclaps mingled’: Riedel, 26.5.40, BfZ-SS

  ‘British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality’: TNA CAB 66–7

  ‘in order to reduce proportionately’: Margerie, Journal, p. 239

  ‘We must not get entangled’: TNA CAB 65/13

  ‘fall back upon the coast’: TNA WO 106/1750

  1st Armoured Division: see Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, pp. 272–3

  ‘Even if we were beaten’: TNA CAB 65/13/161, quoted Gilbert, Finest Hour, p. 412

  ‘Finally, we have a scapegoat!’: Leca quoted Margerie, Journal, p. 253

  ‘We should find that all’: TNA CAB 65/13

  ‘slave state’: ibid.

  ‘like a flock of huge infernal seagulls’: Lieutenant P. D. Elliman, 1st HAA Regiment, quoted Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, p. 387

  here British and French tensions at Dunkirk: see ibid., pp. 404–11

  Allied troops taken off from Dunkirk port and beaches: GSWW, vol. ii, pp. 293 and 295; Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, pp. 540–1, 628–9

  ‘the Sikorski tourists’: SHD-DAT 1 K 543 1

  ‘almost too good’, and rumours: Addison and Crang, Listening to Britain, pp. 71, 53

  French and Italian losses in the Alps: GSWW, vol. iii, p. 247

  ‘puffy with fatigue’: Cox, Countdown to War, p. 236

  ‘poor relations at a funeral reception’: Edward Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. ii: The Fall of France, London, 1954, p. 138

  ‘That would be the destruction of the country!’: quoted Quétel, L’Impardonnable Défaite, p. 330

  ‘who have refused’: quoted Paul Baudouin, Private Diaries: March 1940– January 1941, London, 1948, in Jackson, The Fall of France, 2003, p. 135

  ‘This country had been rotted’: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. ii, p. 171

  Surrender of Paris: Charles Glass, Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation, 1940–1944, London, 2009, pp. 11–22

  ‘I will remain’: Philippe Pétain, Actes et écrits, Paris, 1974, p. 365

  Weygand’s regret: Alanbrooke, War Diaries, p. 80

  ‘it was impossible’: ibid., p. 81

  ‘We were the first to enter’: Sold. Paul Lehmann, Inf.Div.62, 28.6.40, BfZ-SS

  Evacuation and sinking of Lancastria Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, pp. 486–95

>   8: Operation Sealion and the Battle of Britain

  ‘The disgrace is now’: TBJG, part I, vol. viii, p. 186

  ‘for continuing the war against Britain’: BA-MA RM 7/255, quoted GSWW, vol. iii, p. 131

  ‘If Great Britain is not forced’: quoted Quétel, L’Impardonnable Défaite, p. 384

  ‘most glorious victory of all time’; Domarus, vol. ii, p. 1533, quoted Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, p. 299

  ‘You are charged with one’: quoted Colin Smith, England’s Last War against France, London, 2009, p. 62

  ‘the orders of His Majesty’s Government’: TNA ADM 399/192 p.125

  ‘tantamount to a declaration of war’: TNA ADM 199/391

  here Hitler’s return to Berlin: Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, pp. 300–1; and Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital, 1939– 1945, London, 2010, pp. 61–3

  ‘cheering thousands who shouted’: New York Times, 7 July 1940

  ‘Studie Nordwest’: finalized 13.12.40, BA-MA RM 7/894, quoted GSWW, vol. ix/1, p. 525, n. 11

  ‘Special Search List’, or ‘Sonderfahndungsliste’: Walter Schellenberg, Invasion 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain, London, 2000

  ‘appeal to reason’: Domarus, vol. ii, p. 1558

  ‘Now there’s a lot’: Sold. Paul Lehmann, Inf.Div.62, 28.6.40, BfZ-SS

  Dowding: quoted Max Hastings, Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord, 1940–45, London, 2009, p. 67

  here For Polish airmen in Britain, see Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few

  ‘With Russia smashed’: quoted Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. ii : Von der geplanten Landung in England bis zum Beginn des Ostfeldzuges, p. 49

  ‘the first soldier of the Reich’: BA-MA RH 19I/50, quoted GSWW, vol. ix/1, p. 529

  ‘child’s play’: Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, p. 188, quoted Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, p. 305

  ‘its ground-support organization’: BA–MA RL 2/v. 3021, quoted GSWW, vol. ii, p. 378

  ‘dear fighter boys’: Patrick Bishop, Fighter Boys, London, 2003, p. 239

  here Fighter squadron routine: ibid.; Holland, The Battle of Britain; Larry Forrester, Fly for your Life, London, 1956

  ‘People with pitchforks’: quoted Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few, p. 84

  ‘a savage, primitive exaltation’: quoted Bishop, Fighter Boys, p. 204

  here Polish pilots and baled-out Germans: Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few, p. 71

  Losses August and September: GSWW, vol. ii, p. 388; October losses: ibid., p. 403

  ‘You say that England’: V. N. Pavlov, ‘Avtobiograficheskie Zametki’, in Novaya i noveishaya istoriya, Moscow, 2000, p. 105

  ‘prolonged banshee howlings’: quoted Panter-Downes, London War Notes, pp. 97–8; ‘The sirens go off’: ibid.

  ‘Worse than the tedium’: Peter Quennell, The Wanton Chase, London, 1980, p. 15

  ‘The view now prevails’: Ernst von Weizsäcker, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 1933– 1950, Berlin, 1974, p. 225

  9: Reverberations

  here For the Ichang operation, see Tobe Ryöichi, ‘The Japanese Eleventh Army in Central China, 1938–1941’, in Peattie, Drea and van de Ven, The Battle for China, pp. 207–29

  ‘What about the wounded?’: Smedley, Battle Hymn of China, pp. 343–4

  ‘China, they said, couldn’t fight’: ibid., p. 348

  62,000 Japanese soldiers killed in China: Kershaw, Fateful Choices, p. 99

  ‘Hundred Regiments’ campaign: Garver, Chinese–Soviet Relations, pp. 140–1

  ‘parallel war’: GSWW, vol. iii, p. 2

  here Italian armed forces in 1940: ibid., p. 68

  ‘as a circus clown’: Weizsäcker, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, p. 206

  Franco and Hitler at Hendaye: Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler, New Haven, 2008, pp. 90–4; and Javier Tusell, Franco, España y la II Guerra Mundial: Entre el Eje y la Neutralidad, Madrid, 1995, pp. 83–201

  ‘alianza espiritual’: Tusell, Franco, España y la II Guerra Mundial, p. 159

  ‘The Führer sees the value’: KTB OKW, vol. i, 15.11.40, p. 177

  ‘like a Jew’: ibid., p. 144 (‘como un judío que quiere traficar con las más sagradas posesiones’)

  ‘Jesuit swine’: Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. i, p. 670

  ‘territorially and materially’: GSWW, vol. iii, p. 194

  ‘accept everything for the time being’: The Times, 2.7.40

  ‘lady friend’: Dudley Clarke, The Eleventh at War, London, 1952, p. 95; and Michael Carver, Out of Step, London, 1989, pp. 54–5

  ‘foregone conclusion’: Count Galeazzo Ciano, Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers, London, 1948, p. 273

  ‘Hitler keeps confronting me’: ibid., 12.10.40, p. 297

  macaronides Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44, New Haven, 1993

  Greeks in Egypt: Artemis Cooper, Cairo in the War, 1939–1945, London, 1989, p. 59

  here Italian casualties in Greece and Albania: GSWW, vol. iii, p. 448

  ‘purred like six cats’: Churchill, The Second World War, vol. ii, p. 480

  10: Hitler’s Balkan War

  ‘clearly understood’: KTB OKW, vol. i, 10.12.40, p. 222

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that’: Sir Francis de Guingand, Generals at War, London, 1964, p. 33

  ‘gasping for revenge’: Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, p. 223

  ‘final proof’: Domarus, vol. ii, pp. 1726ff.

  here Civilian casualties in Belgrade: GSWW, vol. iii, p. 498

  ‘At 05.30 hours the attack’: Gefr. G., Art.Rgt.119, 11. Pz.Div., BfZ-SS 13/517A

  ‘At the command post’: Richthofen KTB, 6.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 53

  ‘That’s war!’: Richthofen KTB, 10.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 59

  ‘astonishing news’: Richthofen KTB, 9.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 58

  ‘just like a picture’: Major G. de Winton, quoted Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, London, 1990, p. 36

  ‘Near Vevi’: OL 2042, TNA DEFE 3/891

  ‘In just under five’: Gefr. G., Art.Rgt.119, 11.Pz.Div., 17.4.41, BfZ-SS 13 517A

  ‘Did [the Serbs] perhaps believe’: Sold. Erich N., 8.Kp./SS-Rgt.(mot.) DF, SS-Div. Reich, 10.5.41, BfZ-SS 11 707 E

  ‘by moonlight’: Beevor, Crete, p. 38

  here 2 million drachmas and starvation: Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece, p. xiii

  ‘Dünkirchen-Wunder’: Richthofen KTB, 10.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 60

  ‘If I saw the enemy’: quoted GSWW, vol. ix/1, p. 536

  ‘so that our children’: Hauptmann Friedrich M., 73.Inf.Div., BfZ-SS 20 305

  here For the debate over the delay to Barbarossa, see Martin van Creveld, Hitler’s Strategy, 1940–1941: The Balkan Clue, London, 1973; Salonika symposium, May 1991; GSWW, vol. iii, p. 525; Müller-Hillebrand, ‘Improvisierung’, 78, MGFA-P 030; Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, Frankfurt am Main, 1965, pp. 504ff.; and Andrew L. Zapantis, Greek–Soviet Relations, 1917–1941, New York, 1983, pp. 498 ff.

  ‘air landing of’: OL 2167, TNA DEFE 3/891

  ‘five to six thousand airborne’: TNA PREM 3/109

  ‘seaborne invasion’: Freyberg to Wavell, quoted Churchill, The Second World War, vol. iii: The Grand Alliance, p. 243

  ‘a beach landing with tanks’: Freyberg, quoted John Connell, Wavell: Scholar and Soldier, London, 1964, p. 454

  ‘We for our part’: quoted Ian Stewart, The Struggle for Crete, Oxford, 1955, p. 108

  ‘It ought to be a fine’: quoted Churchill, The Second World War, vol. iii, p. 241

  ‘They’re dead on time’: Woodhouse, quoted C. Hadjipateras and M. Fafalios, Crete 1941, Athens, 1989, p. 13

  ‘We do not reinforce failure’: Brigadier Ray Sandover, conversation with the author, 12.10.90

  ‘seaborne attack’: New Zealand Division war diary, quoted Stewart, The Struggle for Crete, p. 278

  Destination of Light Ships Group: ‘Einsatz Kreta’, B
A-MA RL 33/98

  ‘Enemy still shooting’: Richthofen KTB, 28.5.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 115 German losses: BA-MA ZA 3/19 and RL2 III/95

  11: Africa and the Atlantic

  Hitler’s dislike of Generalleutnant von Funck: Gen der Artillerie Walter Warlimont, ETHINT 1

  Failure to bomb Benghazi: Adalbert von Taysen, Tobruk 1941: Der Kampf in Nordafrika, Freiburg, 1976, quoted Martin Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War: Waging World War II in North Africa, 1941–1943, Cambridge, 2009, p. 54

  ‘Arabo Morte’ etc.: Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War, p. 17

  ‘All day long he races’: Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. ii, 23.4.41, p. 381, quoted ibid., p. 100

  ‘perhaps the only man’: Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. ii, 23.4.41, p. 385

  ‘the crux of the problem’: ibid., p. 412

  ‘The war is becoming ever’: Richthofen KTB, 19.5.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 100

  ‘greatest tank battle’: Gefr. Wolfgang H., 15.Pz.Div., 21.6.41, BfZ-SS 17 338

  here On Roosevelt and Marshall, see Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West, London, 2008, pp. 24–34

  ‘a decisive act of’: Churchill to FDR, quoted Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. ii, p. 498

  ‘the most unsordid’: ibid., p. 503

  American conditions for Lend–Lease: Hastings, Finest Years, pp. 171–4

  here German reaction to Lend–Lease: DGFP, Series D, vol. xii, no. 146, 10.3.41, pp. 258–9

  Twenty-two U-boats operational in February 1941: GSWW, vol. ii, p. 343 Admiral Scheer: ibid., p. 353

  12: Barbarossa

  Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin: Garver, Chinese–Soviet Relations, pp. 112–18

  Foreign Minister Matsuoka drunk on departure: Valentin M. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side, New York, 1994, p. 205

  ‘We must always stay’: Krebs letter of 15.4.41, BA-MA MSg1/1207

  here For Backe and the Hunger Plan, see Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food, London, 2011, pp. 32–8; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 173–5, 476–80