Journalist Günter Peis wrote about Naujocks’s story in The Man Who Started the War, published in 1960. Naujocks, in the foreword of the book, says that he spent two years telling his story to the author. However, the book includes three different variations of Naujocks’s Nuremberg affidavit. On January 5, 1961, The Times (London) reviewed his book. 819 Peis says that Heydrich informed Naujocks about the assault on August 5, 1939. However, Naujocks, in his affidavit, stated that Heydrich gave him his orders “on or about 10 August.” There were numerous contradictions between what he told Peis and what he stated in the affidavit that the Nuremberg prosecutors used. Yet, Naujocks read Peis’ manuscript and verified its accuracy. Peis, who did not necessarily portray Naujocks as credible, interviewed many people and included the details of other border incidents. Future writers viewed his affidavit as crucial. Author Robert Smyth suggests that the discrepancies were deliberate, perhaps to distract and divide future investigators. 820
There are some “obvious grammatical oddities and inconsistencies” in Naujocks’s typewritten “original transcript,” now housed in the U.S. archives. The document, signed by Naujocks, is in German, witnessed by Lt. John B Martin. The typewriter was either American or British as it did not have the umlaut characters, distinctive to the German language. Yet, it was ostensibly composed in Germany. The affidavit was dated November 20, 1945 but Naujocks signed it on November 19. He undoubtedly was willing to sign anything that the Allies asked him to sign. 821 Naujocks did not testify in person but they introduced his affidavit, created when he was under British custody and which he signed the day before the start of the trial. Perhaps they wanted his affidavit on record so that court historians could later expand and exploit it as they have so many other fabrications introduced by the Allies. This would also account for the fact that they did prosecute him.
People refer to Wilhelm Canaris and the statements in his diary, dated August 17, 1939 about the procurement of Polish uniforms as evidence for the “Nazi plot.” Canaris, head of the Abwehr, and many of his associates opposed the NSDAP. Canaris discussed Hitler’s alleged orders for the SS for these uniforms for Heydrich for “Operation Himmler” with Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the OKW. The diary did not mention Gleiwitz or any other border raid. Keitel apparently did not have previous information about the supposed event and did not comment on it in his post-war memoirs. He testified that he had not heard about Gleiwitz until he heard testimonies about it during the Tribunal. During his trial by the IMT in Nuremberg, Keitel admitted that Canaris, who he viewed as a traitor, had discussed the Polish uniforms but that he did not reveal their purpose, if he even knew. 822
Anti-Nazi Colonel Erwin von Lahousen, who was opposed to the NSDAP, was the prosecution’s first witness. He voluntarily testified against Hermann Göring and twenty-one other defendants. He claimed that Germany murdered hundreds of thousands of Soviet POWs and described the Einsatzgruppen death squads, who he said liquidated more than a million Jews in the Soviet Union, Poland and Ukraine. He said that Canaris received the order to obtain Polish uniforms and other items in mid-August 1939. Lahousen suspected that the Nazis were planning something “crooked.” He also testified that Canaris said that Naujocks was going to use concentration camp inmates to carry out the Gleiwitz raid. Sir Alan Bullock, author of Hitler, a Study in Tyranny, who they knighted for his “services to history,” said that Lahousen confirmed Naujocks’s story.
In addition to the testimonies of Naujocks, Canaris and Lahousen, others use Walther Schellenberg’s memoirs. In early 1945, using Hitler’s poor health as justification, Schellenberg, Himmler’s personal aide (1939-1942), tried to persuade Himmler to overthrow Hitler so that Himmler could negotiate a peace agreement. Himmler obviously rejected his suggestion. Schellenberg, like Naujocks, accommodated the allies by testifying against other Germans, including Ernst Kaltenbrunner. 823 In the 1949 Ministries Trial, the judges sentenced Schellenberg to six years during which time he wrote The Schellenberg Memoirs. They released him in 1951 because of ill health. Bullock, in his introduction to Schellenberg’s book, said that Schellenberg, whose validity people had doubts about, was “deeply worried about finding the money to meet his expenses,” possibly the reason for his revealing disclosures. Bullock, despite writing the introduction, warned people that one should not accept Schellenberg as a trustworthy witness because one cannot corroborate his evidence. 824 Bullock, in his implied endorsement of a questionable witness, provides clarification on him! Remember, Bullock also validated Lahousen who confirmed Naujocks’s story.
Court historians point to Naujocks’s affidavit as the “key evidence” of German culpability for starting World War II through their alleged assault at Gleiwitz. The Allies used it to justify their prosecution of Germans as war criminals. Naujocks, if he did perpetrate the raid, was also guilty of a significant crime. Per his affidavit, he may have killed the victim Franciszek Honiok, or at least ordered the murder. Yet, the Allies failed to prosecute him. Naujocks, using his real name, lived in Hamburg where he was a businessman and died there on April 4, 1966, about six years after the publication of Peis’s book. It seems likely that the British and the Americans guaranteed his continued prosecutorial protection in exchange for his critical testimony.
On February 12, 1966, Czech officials publicly announced that they were going to pursue the prosecution of Naujocks for the 1935 murder of Rudolf Formis. Given the statute of limitations, it may be that Czech authorities, perhaps serving an unknown agenda, furnished credibility to the idea that Naujocks not only instigated the raid at Gleiwitz but also directed an earlier raid on yet another radio station, as if it were his military specialty. The Czechs, for whatever reason, did not follow through and, interestingly, Naujocks died of a heart attack in April 1966.
The Resumption of World Revolution
On September 2, 1939, in the House of Commons, Chamberlain argued against declaring war on Germany because of its invasion of Poland. Leopold Amery, a backbencher, along with Churchill, was a bitter critic of German appeasement and remained seated a year earlier, along with Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Nicolson, when the House cheered as Chamberlain announced his trip to Munich to negotiate with Germany. Amery, a Jew, was livid and accused him of not representing British interests. Labour Party leader Clement Attlee was absent, so Arthur Greenwood, in favor of a war against Germany, and later a member of Churchill’s War Cabinet, spoke in his behalf. Amery shouted to his colleague, “Speak for England, Arthur!” implying that Chamberlain certainly did not. On September 3, under pressure from the war factions in Parliament, France and Britain, and other Commonwealth countries declared war on Germany which began a deadly war that lasted almost six years and led to the deaths of between 60,000,000 to 85,000,000 people.
According to The New York Times, of October 6, 1940, Arthur Greenwood, assured the Jews living in America, that following the Allied victory, people would direct all of their efforts to found a new world order based on the ideals of “justice and peace,” and would “demand that the wrongs suffered by the Jewish people in so many countries should be righted.” Following the war, he promised that officials would give Jews throughout the world the opportunity to make a “distinctive and constructive contribution” in the rebuilding of the world. Rabbi Maurice L. Perizweig delivered Greenwood’s message to Dr. Stephen S. Wise, head of the executive committee of the World Jewish Congress. Wise viewed Greenwood’s message as England’s absolute intention to help “right the wrongs which Jews have suffered” because of Hitler’s “disorder and lawlessness.” Greenwood said that the fate of the Jewish victims of “Nazi tyranny” filled the men in Parliament with “deep emotion” and that people associated with the League of Nations, during the last seven years, reflected on the horrors perpetuated by the Nazis who had descended “into barbarism.” 825
Those same factions in the British Parliament who demanded a declaration of war against Germany did not object when the Red Army inva
ded Eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, based on an agreement that Stalin and Churchill made. On October 6, after the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet military forces annexed and divided Poland, signaling the end of the Second Polish Republic though Poland never formally surrendered. On that day, Hitler addressed the Reichstag and offered the Allies a negotiated peace, which, if they accepted, would legitimize Germany’s partial conquest of Poland. Hitler appealed for Britain’s friendship and the return of some German territory that Britain and France had incorporated following World War I. He did not anticipate or desire a second war. Britain rejected his appeal, most likely due to the influence of Greenwood, Amery and their cronies. Amery was an avid supporter of the creation of the Army League, a propaganda pressure group. On October 8, Germany annexed western Poland and the former Free City of Danzig.
During the Norway Debate in 1940, following the announcement of several military and naval disasters, Leopold Amery, still trying to depose Chamberlain, viciously attacked his anti-war policies by quoting Oliver Cromwell, “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” During debates in the House of Commons, Amery focused on re-arming the British forces and on army affairs while Churchill spoke about air defense and Roger Keyes discussed naval affairs. Both Churchill and Amery bitterly opposed the idea of appeasement of NS Germany, even if it meant attacking their own party. Amery opposed the return of Germany’s colonies, as Chamberlain proposed.
Amery, regarding rearmament, advocated spending more money and reappraising the nation’s priorities. He recommended the creation of a top-level cabinet position to develop a military defense strategy to handle the increased military budget efficiently. He suggested that the ministry appoint either he or Churchill. Instead, ministry officials appointed Thomas Inskip, which Amery regarded as laughable. Amery’s constant, influential tirades against Chamberlain ultimately led to a debate where Conservative MPs voted to oust Chamberlain and his Conservative government and the formation of a national government with Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, which occurred on May 10, 1940. Amery, according to his diary, credited himself and his rhetoric as making a difference in the results of the debate.
By 1940, Alfred Cooper, a close friend of Churchill, directed the government’s Ministry of Information (MOI), which censored the news by controlling the source, those entities that distribute information to newspapers. The British army, at that time, had suffered a huge defeat at the hands of Germany. While the Anglo-French were successful in Belgium from May 10-14, the government had to prepare the public for the likelihood of defeat. Churchill and Cooper essentially created a scenario, as events transpired, to maintain the public’s support of the war despite the costs in lives and resources. 826
The 1940 Campaign
The Germans had been victorious in Poland but feared that France, who had declared war on Germany, would be much harder. However, they discovered that the roads were much better, the bridges much stronger and local resistance was almost non-existent.
Germany had their new armored panzer divisions, airborne shock troops, foot soldiers and divisions of horse-drawn guns. General Gerd von Rundstedt, with German Army Group A, had seven of the ten modern armored divisions and General Fedor von Bock had German Army Group B with three army divisions. However, they were the three weakest in the German Army with old tanks and insufficient strength. The infantry had an adequate number of trucks and buses in addition to trains. Horses conveyed most of Bock’s heavy artillery. In the Low Countries, there would be plenty of fodder but very little tank fuel. 827
The poorly or only half trained Dutch and Belgian conscripts were unprepared and paralyzed by Germany’s bomber planes and glider troops, what the British called commando units, and Bock’s highly disciplined “impeccably organized military formations. The Germans used their bombing tactics to open the way for their infantry. The British and French forces moved forward into Belgium and Holland but were surprised that the strongpoints and trenches they anticipated finding were not there. Additionally, the Germans were already there and had set up a defense line. The Dutch Army fought for three days and then surrendered. General Rundstedt had the best-trained troops and the finest machines in the German Army. The Allies did not possess anything like his panzer divisions. 828
The Germans also had their own cross-country transport units and their own supply organization, motorized guns and anti-aircraft units. Their tanks had radios so that the commanders could transmit orders back to the rear and to the aircraft that did the work that heavy guns did for conventional army formations. Though the Germans had fewer tanks, they were lighter and much faster. The tanks in Bock’s group were heavier and so they dispersed them among the infantry formations. General Heinz Guderian, the chief theoretician and creator of the panzer divisions, had been a radio officer as early as 1912. Guderian’s group commander was General Paul von Kleist. General Erich von Manstein had persuaded Hitler to adopt a plan of attack through the Ardennes where Group A would move along the narrow valleys. In France, when the Allies blew up bridges, the Germans would just build their own. 829
The Second Battle of Sedan began on May 10, 1940, after German forces advanced into Luxembourg and Belgium. To avoid the Allies’ strongest military positions, they went through the Forest of the Ardennes to attack weaker defenses along the Meuse River. General Guderian, with some of the Nineteenth Panzer Corps, arrived at the Meuse River near Sedan in the afternoon of May 12. 830 The Second Battle of Sedan, part of the Wehrmacht’s operation Fall Gelb, was to surround the Allied armies in Belgium and northeastern France. General Gerd von Rundstedt leading German Army Group A crossed the Meuse River in order to capture Sedan, on the east bank of the river, and then move north towards the Channel coast, intending to ensnare the Allied forces then proceeding east into Belgium.
The German seizure of Sedan, instrumental in the fall of France, was accomplished without much resistance on May 12, and it allowed the Wehrmacht to proceed into the undefended French countryside and then onward to the English Channel. Thereafter, the Germans, largely with the assistance of the Luftwaffe, defeated the demoralized French military forces on the west bank of the Meuse. The German military, after capturing the Meuse bridges at Sedan, crossed the river with reinforcements and tanks. On May 14, the RAF and the French Air Force attempted to destroy the bridges but the Luftwaffe prevented this destruction and cost the Allies huge losses.
On May 15, 1940, the Royal Navy began moving destroyers and other ships to the southeast. Learning of the French military disaster at Sedan, Churchill flew to Paris to meet with anxious French officials on May 16. 831 The Germans crossed the Meuse at three locations, and on the morning of May 16, they broke through the last of the rapidly assembling French forces. 832 Cooper persuaded Churchill to prepare the British public for probable unpleasant news. Though official reports are unavailable, He and Cooper apparently initiated a media campaign. On May 17, the newspapers reported the German onslaught on the Meuse River while military experts, in the editorial pages, reviewed the fact that the Germans experienced military success in March 1918, but the Allies still defeated them. On Sunday, May 19, in a cabinet meeting, Churchill discussed an evacuation. That night he addressed the nation for the first time since taking office, speaking to more than half of the population. Churchill, calling for a policy of “war to the death,” said, “Arm yourselves and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict: for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our alters. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let Him do.” He implied that Britain might end up fighting alone. The government then selected Sunday May 26, as a Day of National Prayer. 833
As the Germans crossed the Meuse, they broke through the Allied front and proceeded to the English Channel without much opposition despite France’s attempted counter-attacks. On May 20, after c
onsolidating their bridgeheads at Sedan, the German Army reached the Channel. Their success at Sedan enabled them to meet the objective of Fall Gelb and enclose the strongest Allied armies, even the British Expeditionary Force. Further battles depleted the French army and ultimately expelled the British Army from the continent, making possible the defeat of France in June 1940. Also on Monday, May 20, the Germans reached the Channel coast and the British newspapers warned about the peril that this created for the rear of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), then in western Belgium. 834
The 1940 campaign has produced numerous myths. Initially, the Germans did not have any perceptions for what they later referred to as the blitzkrieg. Only later did they realize the full potential of advanced mechanized warfare. The infantry skillfully waged the battle that allowed the tanks to cross the Meuse River and thereafter, despite the resistance, continue proceeding south from Sedan to other areas. The Luftwaffe, through their efforts, weakened the resolve of the French military along the Meuse River. 835
The Dunkirk Incident
Nicholas Harmon, a British journalist, using administrative papers, war diaries, and other documents, under Britain’s Official Secrets Act, counters the earlier reports regarding Dunkirk. He discovered that British officials had lied about France and Belgium, her allies, deserting Britain when Germany invaded Western Europe on May 10, 1940. The Allied forces were militarily superior and in greater number but the German generals were more ingenious. On May 22, Churchill, supported by his cabinet, resolved to withdraw the BEF from Dunkirk. Anthony Eden told the BEF commander, General Lord Gort, to conceal that retreat from the allies. 836
Churchill, while in the process of planning a total evacuation, assured French Premier Paul Reynaud that Britain would fight until they were victorious. The British also persuaded the Belgians to maintain their military position for an additional five days, postponing the progress of the German Army, Group B towards Dunkirk. Instead of France and Belgium betraying their ally, Britain deceived them, which allowed the British forces to retreat while her allies defended their rear. Harmon revealed that the British caused the deaths of German soldiers and Allied civilians. The British military supplied some of their troops with dumdum bullets-lethal missiles, prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. 837
The Ruling Elite Page 30