Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

by Ian Kershaw

  The German people were completely unprepared for what Hitler had done. Many reacted initially with shock, worried about the consequences abroad and the possibility even of a new war.109 But the mood – at least of the vast majority – rapidly turned to euphoria when it was realized that the western powers would do nothing. It was felt that Germany had the right to rearm, since France had done nothing to disarm. Hitler’s prestige soared. People admired his nerve and boldness. He had put the French in their place, and achieved what ‘the others’ had failed to bring about in fourteen years.110 ‘Enthusiasm on 17 March enormous,’ ran one report from oppositional sources sent from Bavaria to Sopade headquarters in Prague. ‘The whole of Munich was on its feet. People can be compelled to sing, but not forced to sing with such enthusiasm. I witnessed the days of 1914 and can only say that the declaration of war did not make the same impact on me as Hitler’s reception on 17 March… The trust in the political talent and honest will of Hitler becomes greater all the time, as Hitler has again gained extraordinary ground among the people. He is loved by many.’111

  Foreign governments were also taken by surprise by Hitler’s move. French and Czech diplomacy went into overdrive. In each case, sluggish negotiations for treaties with Moscow were speeded up. In Italy, Mussolini made sabre-rattling noises against Germany, provoking for a time an atmosphere resembling that of 1915, and looked for closer alliance with France.112 But Great Britain held the key. And Britain’s interests overseas in the Empire and in the troubled Far East, alongside a prevalent concern about the threat of Bolshevism, encouraged a more pro-German stance completely at odds with French diplomacy and to Hitler’s direct advantage. Without consulting the French, the British government put out on 18 March a flat, formal protest at the German unilateral action, then, in the same protest note and to the astonishment of German diplomats, asked whether the Reich government was still interested in a meeting between Simon and Hitler.113 The French ambassador, François-Poncet, had wanted the meeting abandoned, ambassadors to be recalled from Berlin, and the creation of a common defence-pact against Germany.114 Instead, Britain was going its own way. The formal French and Italian protests, more sharply worded than the British, indicated to Berlin that Germany’s isolation was breaking down.115

  ‘I think we’ll come through’, Hitler had told Rosenberg, as the army leaders commissioned panicky war-games about the likely consequences of military intervention.116 The response, at home and abroad, amounted, in Hitler’s own eyes, to a triumph for boldness over timidity and a further indicator that he was unerringly right in his judgement.

  Hitler was confident and self-assured when the postponed visit of Simon and Eden eventually took place in the Reich Chancellery, on 25 March. Paul Schmidt, meeting Hitler for the first time and acting as his interpreter, noted the cordial atmosphere at the beginning of the talks. He had expected the ‘raging demagogue’ he had heard on the radio, but was instead impressed by the skill and intelligence with which Hitler conducted the negotiations.117 Anthony Eden noted a change in Hitler’s demeanour since the first time he had met him, back in February 1934. ‘Hitler was definitely more authoritative and less anxious to please than a year before,’ he recalled. ‘Another twelve months of a dictator’s power and growing military force to back it had had its consequence.’ He handled the talks ‘without hesitation and without notes, as befitted the man who knew where he wanted to go’.118 Hitler completely dominated the proceedings. In the first morning session of almost four hours, Simon and Eden could do no more than pose the occasional question during Hitler’s monologues – translated by Schmidt at twenty-minute intervals – on the menace of Bolshevism. Only when Eden mentioned Lithuania as a member of a proposed ‘Eastern Pact’, intended to include Germany as another partner, did Hitler suddenly fall into a rage, his eyes blazing, his Rs rolling, his fists clenched. ‘He suddenly seemed to have become another person,’ noted Schmidt. ‘We will under no circumstances take part in a pact with a state that is stamping on the German minority in Memel,’ he stormed, referring to the trial nearing its end of 128 Germans accused of treason.119 Then, suddenly, the storm subsided as quickly as it had blown up. Hitler was once more the skilled negotiator, effectively countering all attempts to draw Germany into multilateral agreements. When Simon criticized the unilateral renunciation of treaty agreements on Germany’s armaments level, Hitler asked ironically if Wellington had inquired of lawyers in the Foreign Office, as Blücher came to his assistance at Waterloo, whether Prussian army strength was in accord with treaty agreements. This struck Eden as a good parry – and the nearest Hitler came to humour.120

  Alongside his repeated attacks on Soviet expansionist intentions, Hitler’s main theme was equality of treatment for Germany in armaments levels. He insisted to Simon on parity in air-forces with Britain and France. Asked about the current strength of the German air-force, Hitler hesitated, then declared: ‘We have already attained parity with Great Britain.’121 Simon and Eden were sceptical, but said nothing. Nor did they when Hitler named a ratio of 35 per cent of English naval strength as the German demand, but their lack of immediate objection gave a hint to their hosts that they were not opposed. As he observed the patience with which the British ministers listened to Hitler’s unyielding reassertions of German demands, Schmidt wondered whether his colleagues in the Foreign Office were not mistaken; perhaps Hitler was indeed able to achieve more with his method of the fait accompli than were conventional negotiating ploys. He reflected on his time as an interpreter at the disarmament talks: ‘Two years ago in Geneva the heavens would have fallen in if German representatives had posed such demands as Hitler here advanced as if it were the most self-evident thing in the world.’122

  Both sides had been keen to make a good impression. Hitler was, according to Schmidt, ‘a charming host’ at a reception in the Reich Chancellery at the end of the talks. Earlier in the day, at Hitler’s first visit to a foreign embassy, the children of the British Ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps, had raised their arms in the ‘German Greeting’ when presented to the Chancellor.123 Behind the official posturing, reactions differed. Hitler rejoiced in what he saw, with justification, as a diplomatic triumph.124 The attitudes of the British ministers had darkened during the talks themselves as it became apparent that Hitler, despite his superficial cordiality, was in effect rejecting all their proposals. ‘Results bad… whole tone and temper very different to a year ago,’ noted Eden in his diary at the time, comparing the talks with his first discussion with Hitler in February 1934.125 He formed the impression that Hitler was shifty and devious, though skilful as well as tough in negotiations.126 But the position adopted by the British government was a weak one. The British had shown themselves as pliant, willing to negotiate, insistent on upholding peace, but ready to make concessions at the expense of solidarity with the French. The German stance, on the other hand, had been unyielding, inflexible on all points of substance. The courting of the British appeared to be making headway. The post-war European settlement was visibly crumbling. All Hitler needed to do was to stand firm; all the signs were that the British would move to accommodate him. The seeds of appeasement had been sown.

  Though British avowals of international solidarity continued, the much-trumpeted Stresa Front – the outcome of the meeting in Stresa of the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy on II April 1935, at which they pledged to uphold the 1925 Pact of Locarno guaranteeing the western borders of the Reich and to support Austria’s integrity – existed on paper only.127 Hitler appears to have been little worried by Stresa. ‘Stresa wavers further. No danger,’ Goebbels noted in his diary on 15 April, after talking to Hitler.128 Two days later, the Propaganda Minister was a little less sanguine. The meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva leading to condemnation of the German introduction of conscription and French efforts to bring about a pact of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union (eventually concluded on 16 May) led Goebbels to remark that the military dangers ought not to be underrated. That mean
t, he added, that ‘our only solution lies in power’. There was nothing for it but to carry on arming and put on a brave face. ‘Let us get through this summer, O Lord,’ he wrote.129

  The isolation arising from Stresa, the League of Nations condemnation of Germany, and the French pact with the Soviet Union had to be broken. This was the backcloth to Hitler’s second ‘peace speech’ – following that of 17 May 1933 – to the Reichstag on 21 May 1935. ‘What else could I wish for other than calm and peace?’ he rhetorically asked. ‘Germany needs peace, and wants peace.’130 He regretted the deterioration in relations with Italy, caused by conflict over Austria. ‘Germany had neither the intention nor the wish,’ he asserted, ‘to annex or incorporate Austria.’131 This was a clear response to the signal sent by Mussolini through Stresa for Germany to keep its hands off its eastern neighbour.132 Towards France, he was more hostile, if restrained. He attacked the treaty signed on 2 May between France and the Soviet Union, stated that Germany would only hold to the Locarno Pact as long as other signatories did the same, and hinted strongly that Germany’s toleration of the demilitarized Rhineland might last only a little longer. The speech was, however, directed chiefly at Britain.133 He was keen to appear reasonable and moderate while reiterating German demands for equal rights in armament. He dismissed any hint of a threat in the armaments programme. He wanted, he stated (as he had done privately to Simon and Eden), no more than parity in air weaponry and a limit of 35 per cent of British naval tonnage. He scorned press suggestions that this would lead to a demand for the possession of colonies. Nor had Germany any wish or capability for naval rivalry with Great Britain. ‘The German Reich government recognizes of itself the overwhelming importance for existence (Lebenswichtigkeit) and thereby the justification of dominance at sea to protect the British Empire, just as, on the other hand, we are determined to do everything necessary in protection of our own continental existence and freedom.’134 The framework of the desired alliance with Britain had been outlined.

  The idea of a bilateral naval agreement between Britain and Germany, to regulate the relative size of the fleets, had first arisen in the British admiralty in early 1933.135 The notion found support in Germany among some national-conservative politicians and naval officers before Hitler took it up in December 1933.136 During the following year, he bowed to pressure from Admiral Raeder, head of the navy, for a rapid build-up of the fleet. Raeder’s views of the navy’s role went back to the traditions of Admiral Tirpitz’s time under the Kaiser. Its keystone now was parity with France. But an arrangement with Britain about relative fleet sizes was envisaged merely as a temporary arrangement. At some future date an enlarged battle-fleet, Raeder imagined, might be needed to take on Britain itself.137 Parity with France meant, in effect, a ratio of 1:3 with Britain (which was rounded up to 35 per cent). Ambitious expansionists on Raeder’s staff wanted to push the demand up to 50 per cent, but Hitler – with a better sense of realism – insisted on the lower level. The Foreign Offices of both countries were critical of schemes for a naval accord. But the British Admiralty found the 35 per cent limit acceptable, as long as there was no weakening of the British position vis à vis the Japanese navy – seen as the greater threat. The British cabinet conceded. Despite the fact that Germany had been condemned for its breach of Versailles as recently as mid-April by the League of Nations, the British, following Hitler’s ‘peace speech’ of 21 May, had taken up German feelers for the naval talks in London, first mooted on Simon’s visit to Berlin in March.138

  Leading the German delegation, when the talks began on 4 June, was Joachim von Ribbentrop. The linguistically able but boundlessly vain, arrogant and pompous former champagne salesman had joined the party only in 1932. But with the passion of the late convert he had from the start showed fanatical commitment and devotion to Hitler – reminding the interpreter Schmidt, who saw him frequently at close quarters, of the dog on the label of the gramophone company His Master’s Voice.139 In 1934, as newly appointed ‘Commissioner for Disarmament Questions’, he had been sent by Hitler as a type of roving envoy to Rome, London, and Paris to try to improve relations, though at the time he had achieved little.140 Despite his lack of obvious success, Hitler, distrustful of the career diplomats at the Foreign Office, continued to favour him. On 1 June 1935 he was provided with the grand title of ‘Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary on Special Mission’.141 His moment of triumph in London a waited.

  The talks began in the imposing building of the Foreign Office in Whitehall.142 Ribbentrop imported a new style of diplomacy. Straight away, after the opening formalities led by Sir John Simon, he presented his ultimatum: acceptance of Germany’s terms – the 35 per cent ratio – as a binding and lasting settlement; otherwise, it was pointless to continue the talks. This ratio, he stated, was ‘not simply a demand to be put forward by the German side but a final decision by the German Chancellor’. Simon frostily remarked that ‘the German delegation’s demand was something which properly belonged not to the beginning but to the end of the negotiations’. He then left to attend another meeting.143 So cool was the atmosphere following Ribbentrop’s opening sally that the interpreter Schmidt was already contemplating what the weather would be like on the flight back to Berlin.144 Undeterred, Ribbentrop requested the following morning an early reply on whether the British Government ‘would clearly and formally recognize the Chancellor’s decision on the 100:35 ratio’. If not, there might well be a delay before negotiations could resume.145 Astonishingly, even to the German interpreter Schmidt, given Ribbentrop’s crude diplomacy and the evident offence taken by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon opened the meeting in the British Admiralty on the evening of 6 June with the formal announcement to the German Delegation that the British Government intended to accept Hitler’s proposal. The British delegates, meeting privately on the morning of the 5th, had told the cabinet that ‘we may have cause to regret it if we fail to take this chance’ and, after Hitler’s withdrawal of his offer, Germany then built to a higher level than 35 per cent.146

  The blackmail tactic had worked again. Schmidt had once more to revise his views of Nazi negotiating tactics. He concluded that the British must desperately have wanted an agreement with Germany to cave in so completely so quickly.147 The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was finally concluded on 18 June. Germany could now construct a navy of 35 per cent of the British navy, and a submarine fleet the size of that of Britain. Ribbentrop had covered himself with glory. Hitler had gained a major diplomatic triumph – and experienced, he said, the happiest day of his life.148 For the German people, Hitler seemed to be achieving the unimaginable. The world, meanwhile, looked on in astonishment. Great Britain, party to the condemnation of Germany for breach of treaties, had wholly undermined the Stresa Front, left its allies in the lurch, and assisted Hitler in tearing a further large strip off the Versailles Treaty.149 Whether peace would be more secure as a result already gave grave cause for doubt.

  Within little over three months, European diplomacy was plunged still further into turmoil. Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia – an atavistic imperialist adventure designed to restore Italy’s status as a world power and satisfy national pride and a dictator’s ambitions – was launched on 3 October. It was no puny affair. Across wide tracts of eastern Africa, terror bombing of towns, destruction of villages, and poison gas attacks would all be put to use over the following months by a large army engaged in what Mussolini dubbed ‘the greatest colonial war in all history’.150 The invasion was unanimously condemned by the members of the League of Nations. But their slow and half-hearted application of economic sanctions – which left out the key commodity, oil – did little but show up once more the League’s ineffectiveness.151 Divisions were once more exposed between the two western democracies. France, through its foreign minister Pierre Laval, had, in fact, the previous January given the green light to Mussolini to invade Abyssinia.152 The French had hoped by their compliance to keep Mussolini out of Hitler’s orbit.
Britain’s line was different, as explained to Lammers by the German ambassador in London, Leopold von Hoesch, a week after the Italian invasion had begun. ‘For England,’ reported Hoesch, ‘not imperialist aims but the establishment of “collective security” had priority at present. The view was generally adopted that some sort of adventure of Hitler would follow Mussolini’s adventure in Abyssinia. The first priority in this regard was to prevent Europe being faced with surprises.’153

  Mussolini’s action had plunged the League into crisis once more. It had blasted apart the accord reached at Stresa. Europe was on the move. Hitler could await rich pickings.

  III

  While events on the diplomatic front were turning Hitler’s way in the spring and summer of 1935, the new wave of anti-Jewish violence – after a relative lull since the later months of 1933 – that swept across the land between May and September spurred further radicalization in the area of his chief ideological obsession. Heavily preoccupied with foreign policy at this time, Hitler was only sporadically involved in the months before the hastily improvised promulgation of the notorious Nuremberg Laws at the Party Rally in September. ‘With regard to the Jews, too,’ Hitler commented at a much later date, ‘I had for long to remain inactive.’ His inactivity was tactical, not temperamental. ‘There’s no point in artificially creating additional difficulties,’ he added. ‘The more cleverly you proceed, the better.’154 There was little need for him to be active. All he had to do was to provide backing for the party radicals – or, even less, do nothing to hinder their activism (until it eventually became counter-productive) – then to introduce the discriminatory legislation which the agitation had prompted. Knowing that actions to ‘remove’ the Jews were in line with Hitler’s aims and met with his approval largely provided its own momentum.