by Ian Kershaw
that the mastery of the Mediterranean will be of decisive strategic significance for the continuation of the war. The operations envisaged for this purpose go well beyond ‘interim actions’, as they were previously described. Not only will an effective strengthening of the German-Italian war potential and a greatly improved basis for the last decisive struggle against the English Motherland and the sources of strength of the English Empire be attained. [But] since the most sensitive points of the English world empire will be attacked or threatened, there is even the possibility that England will feel compelled to give up further resistance.78
This would be all the more likely if American support had been negligible to that point. There was, therefore, no time to be lost. The strategy was in the interests of the navy, Wagner pointed out, ending with the expectation that Raeder would put the proposals to Hitler.
Four days before Raeder could put the case, in his briefing on 6 September, the United States had agreed to provide Great Britain with fifty ageing destroyers. This decision (to which we will return more fully in Chapter 5) was of far greater symbolic than direct military importance, signalling to the German leadership the increased likelihood of a British-American coalition in the not too distant future.79 Following Raeder’s highlighting of the danger to the Portuguese and Spanish islands in the Atlantic and to the French colonies in west Africa which would be posed by American involvement in the war, Hitler gave instructions to prepare for the occupation of the Azores, the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands to prevent any possible landing by the British and Americans (though naval analysts working on the logistics over the following weeks were not persuaded of the value of such an operation).80 In the light of the growing ‘Problem USA’, and asking somewhat disingenuously what Hitler’s political and military directives might be in the event of ‘Sealion’ not taking place, Raeder indeed pressed the argument for a Mediterranean strategy, along the lines of Wagner’s memorandum, not as an ‘interim’ but as a ‘main action against England’. He asked for preparations to begin immediately so that they could be implemented before the United States could intervene. Hitler gave orders to that effect. This did not mean, however, that he was signalling approval for a Mediterranean strategy instead of the intended strike at the Soviet Union. The proposed Russian campaign–at this time code-named ‘Problem S’–came up later in the briefing. When it did, Raeder raised no objections, merely observing that the most suitable time for the navy would be as the ice melted. He added, a point immediately agreed by Hitler, that ‘Sealion’ should not be attempted at the same time.81
By the time of Raeder’s briefing with Hitler on 26 September, the case for the Mediterranean strategy had taken on a new urgency in the light of the attack by British and Free French troops (supporters of General Charles de Gaulle) on Dakar a few days earlier. French Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were endangered as the Vichy regime lost ground to the Gaullist movement in French Equatorial Africa. This concentrated German minds. Raeder had asked to speak alone with Hitler–a quite exceptional occurrence–and had begun by expressing his wish to go beyond his specific remit in commenting on the progress of the war. He pressed for a more conciliatory approach to the Vichy regime, wishing to upturn previous relations by incorporating the French as full allies in the war against Britain. Waging war together with the French would, argued Raeder, offer the possibility not only of securing the French possessions and their raw materials, but also of forcing Britain out of central Africa and depriving her of the port of Freetown on the western coast, thus causing significant problems for convoy traffic from the south Atlantic, from Latin America and South Africa. It would constitute a big step towards pushing the British out of the Mediterranean. Even before turning to north-west Africa, Raeder had urged Hitler to concentrate on ‘waging the struggle against E[ngland] by all available means and without delay, before America can intervene’. The British, he stated, had always regarded the Mediterranean as the key to their world position. He concluded, therefore, that ‘the Mediterranean question must therefore be cleared up over the winter’. Gibraltar had to be taken, and even before that the Canaries secured by the Luftwaffe. German support was necessary to help the Italians take the Suez Canal. From there, he saw an advance through Palestine and Syria–which Hitler said would depend upon the French but ought to be possible–as far as Turkey. ‘When we reach that point, Turkey will be in our power. The Russian problem will then appear in a different light. Russia basically fears Germany. It is questionable whether an attack on Russia from the north will then be necessary.’82
It would have been difficult for Raeder to have been more explicit about the navy’s preferred strategy.83 The Naval Warfare Executive was keen to establish the fact that Hitler had even indicated his basic agreement with the ideas expressed.84 Two problems nevertheless surfaced at the briefing, if only implicitly.
The first was the size of the fleet. Raeder pointed out (and Hitler concurred) that the fleet was currently too small for the tasks awaiting it if the Mediterranean strategy were to be implemented, particularly if the war were to acquire a global dimension through the entry of the United States. But shipbuilding capacity did not allow for any extension to existing commitments. Obviously, therefore, a maritime strategy was severely hampered from the outset if the fleet was too small to implement it and resources did not allow for any rapid expansion.
The second was the implication for foreign policy, which Hitler touched upon. He told Raeder that after concluding the Tripartite Pact with Japan (which was to be signed the very next day, 27 September), he would have talks with Mussolini and Franco, and would have to decide whether to go with France or Spain. He thought that France was the more likely choice since Spain demanded a great deal (French Morocco) but offered little in return. Britain and the United States had to be excluded from north-west Africa. That much was clear. But France would have to comply with certain territorial demands of Germany and Italy before agreement could be reached on the extent of her African colonial possessions. Though Hitler did not stress the point, this plainly weakened the attractiveness to France of any arrangement with Germany. Moreover, Hitler was cool about Raeder’s hopes of engaging the French fleet on Germany’s side. He was unprepared to move on this without the approval of his Axis partner Mussolini, who was unlikely to be enamoured of any strengthening of Italy’s rival, France, in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, if Spain were to join the war on the Axis side, the Canaries and perhaps also the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands would have to be secured by the Luftwaffe.85 In effect, therefore, while agreeing to the Mediterranean strategy in principle, Hitler was making its execution dependent upon the outcome of his negotiations with Mussolini, Franco and Pétain. He was well aware that pleasing all of them would be no easy matter. He recognized, cynically, that squaring the circle of the competing interests would only be possible through ‘grandiose fraud’.86 This would prove beyond even Hitler.
At the time, in late September, the navy’s ideas on directing Germany’s war effort at the Mediterranean corresponded quite closely to the notion developed in the Foreign Ministry of a ‘Continental bloc’ of countries formed into a powerful alliance against Britain.87 The Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop himself, no less, had been keen to build up a powerful worldwide alliance, incorporating both the Soviet Union and Japan, which would be ranged against Britain, at the same time neutralizing the United States.88 Within this grand concept, a western ‘Continental bloc’ incorporating Vichy France and Spain, alongside Italy, formed a smaller, but vital, component.89 In military terms, the ‘peripheral strategy’ as it had developed by early autumn 1940 involved–apart from trying to block British imports–three strands: an Italian-German Middle East offensive; the taking of Gibraltar; and extension of German control over the African coast and the Atlantic islands.90 Clearly, as had emerged from the Raeder briefing on 26 September, the military potential of such a strategy rested upon important breakthroughs in diplomacy: quite specifically, upon
Hitler’s ability to come to satisfactory agreements with the leaders of Spain and Vichy France. And this was precisely where they would founder.
IV
As summer turned into autumn, it was still not clear to those close to the hub of power in Germany–including for a while, it seems, Hitler himself–which variant of military strategy should be followed. The setting of different priorities was still possible. That is to say, options were still apparently open.
Hitler’s own preference, both ideological and military, was obviously for an early strike on the Soviet Union. That had been plainly established at the end of July. Nothing in the interim indicates that he had changed his mind. But his interest in the ‘peripheral strategy’ was not simply a ruse. The Russian campaign, which he had initially hoped to launch that autumn, could not take place until spring at the earliest. Meanwhile, however, the worry had deepened that America might join in the war on the British side sooner rather than later.91 Clearly, Hitler was no less anxious than earlier in the summer to prevent this happening. The most obvious way was to force Britain out of the war. With ‘Sealion’ now shelved (and effectively, if not nominally, abandoned), a military and diplomatic focus on the Mediterranean offered the best opportunity. Variants of such a strategy were supported, as we have seen, by Jodl (and his deputy Warlimont) in the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, by Raeder and the Naval Warfare Executive and by Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister. Hitler was prepared for a while to give his backing to the search for a diplomatic opening on the ‘periphery’ and continued to promote the military planning which would depend upon the success of such a breakthrough. But whereas for Raeder, for Warlimont (if not for Jodl) and even for Ribbentrop the ‘peripheral strategy’ was viewed as an alternative to the invasion of Russia, for Hitler it was merely a prelude to secure Germany’s rear before engaging on the showdown with the Soviet Union which was, in his eyes, both inevitable and alone capable of deciding the final outcome of the war. Hitler’s heart was never in the ‘peripheral strategy’, therefore, as an end in itself. In part at least, this probably explains why his diplomatic effort in the October tour he made to engage in talks with Mussolini, Franco and Pétain proved so unfruitful. He went into them with few illusions.
The central purpose of Hitler’s meeting with Mussolini on the Brenner on 4 October was (though he came only slowly to the point) to sound out the Duce about the possibility of bringing France and Spain to a ‘common line’ and in this way to create ‘a Continental coalition against England’.92 Mussolini had no objections. But both dictators clearly saw that Spain’s territorial demands as a price for entering the war–the gain of Morocco and Oran from France as well as Gibraltar from Britain, only the last posing no problem–would be impossible for the French to meet, and would pave the way to Gaullist success (in turn meaning the penetration of British interests) in the vital area of north Africa. Since Mussolini took the opportunity to remind Hitler of Italian demands for French territorial concessions, it was plain that the potential for finding a diplomatic solution which would satisfy the three Mediterranean powers, Italy, France and Spain, was extremely limited. Moreover, Hitler was clearly going to undertake nothing which might damage relations with his Axis partner. So, though friendly, the talks produced nothing tangible to assist the creation of the ‘Continental coalition’.93
The meeting with Franco at Hendaye on 23 October lacked all promise from the outset.94 Hitler’s bargaining position was weak. He wanted Spain in the war primarily to ease the planned attack on Gibraltar and to bolster the defence of the Atlantic islands off the Iberian coast. But he was not prepared to pay the exorbitant price which he was well aware that Spain would demand: huge supplies of armaments and foodstuffs, and satisfaction of her territorial claims not only on Gibraltar (which was easy to concede) but on Morocco and Oran as well. Hitler’s view was probably much the same as the private verdict confided to his diary by Ernst von Weizsäcker, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry: ‘Gibraltar is not worth that much to us.’95 Germany could not contemplate meeting Franco’s material demands. And the territorial concessions, as Hitler had made clear to Mussolini, were out of the question on account of the serious threat they would pose, through the weakening of Vichy France’s position, to the hold of the Axis in north Africa. So Hitler had nothing to offer Franco, other than Gibraltar itself. Desirable though the acquisition of Gibraltar was to the Spaniards, it was available only at what, from their point of view, was the high risk of involvement in a war which Franco, despite Hitler’s posturing, seriously doubted was as good as won by the Axis. Hitler came away empty-handed.
He fared little better the next day with Pétain, even if the talks were more cordial.96 Agreement on closer ‘cooperation’ between France and Germany fell well short of an outright French commitment to join the war against Britain. Discussion remained at the level of generalities. Once again, Hitler’s hands were effectively tied, and he had nothing concrete to offer the French. Though Vichy France’s entry into the war on Germany’s side (and on her terms) made military and strategic sense from the German point of view, it was difficult to make this proposition attractive if mention were made of the mooted tampering with French colonial territory in north Africa in a peace-treaty between the two countries, let alone the expropriation of Briey and Calais on the coast of France itself, as well as Alsace-Lorraine, which the Germans had in mind.97 Moreover, and a key point for Hitler, closer relations with France would certainly cause Italian hackles to rise, something he wanted at all costs to avoid. In any case, it seems doubtful that Hitler really wanted the French as fully fledged allies.98 So the talks with Pétain amounted to no more than shadow-boxing.
In short, Hitler could not satisfy Spain without antagonizing France, and could not accommodate the French without upsetting his ‘friend’ Mussolini. Meanwhile, by the time the two dictators met again, in Florence on 28 October, his ‘friend’ had, to Hitler’s fury, begun his ill-fated invasion of Greece, putting a further sizeable spanner in the works of any strategy revolving around German-Italian military cooperation in the Mediterranean.
Already on his way back from his meetings with Franco and Pétain,
Hitler had indicated to his pliant head of Wehrmacht High Command, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and Jodl that the war against Russia had to take place in the coming year.99 Soon afterwards, on 4 November, while offering his military leaders a tour d’horizon of all current strategic possibilities which concentrated on the Mediterranean and Middle East, Hitler nevertheless remarked that Russia remained the ‘great problem of Europe’ and that ‘everything must be done to be ready for the great showdown’.100 Evidently, his failure to accomplish any breakthrough in engineering even a limited west-European ‘Continental bloc’ ranged against Great Britain had confirmed his own prior instinct that the only way to achieve final victory was through attacking and rapidly defeating the Soviet Union. The taking of Gibraltar (together with the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands) was still high on the agenda, and Hitler continued to cherish hopes of Franco joining in the war. If it came to occupying the Azores (in Portuguese possession), and Lisbon demurred, he was prepared if need be, he said, to threaten to send troops into Portugal. But Mussolini’s Greek adventure meant that the Italian offensive in Libya had to be deferred, and in consequence also the deployment of German troops in north Africa and the drive to Suez. It was the first clear sign of Hitler’s lack of trust in the military capability of his Italian partner.101
As Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, made his way to Berlin for talks with Hitler on 12–13 November, German war strategy was still unclear and undetermined. On the very day that discussions with Molotov began,102 Hitler put out a military directive which ranged widely over potential fields of combat. The taking of Gibraltar to drive the British from the western Mediterranean and prevent them gaining a foothold on the Iberian peninsula or the Atlantic islands was the dominant item. Political efforts to bring Spain into the war were in tra
in. France would for the time being provide cooperation short of full military engagement in the war against Britain. Deployment of German troops to support the planned Italian offensive against Egypt was put on hold. ‘Operation Sealion’, the invasion of Britain, was not formally abandoned, but no longer figured as anything remotely resembling a military priority. Thanks to Mussolini, preparations had to be undertaken for the occupation of Greece north of the Aegean. But perhaps the most crucial consideration came towards the end of the directive: ‘Political discussions with the aim of clarifying Russia’s position in the near future are in progress. Whatever the results of these discussions, all preparations already verbally ordered for the east are to be continued.’103 Though no military option had been closed off by this point, there is every indication that Hitler had become so sceptical about progress in the Mediterranean that he was returning, his ideas confirmed, to the strategy he had already favoured in the summer: the attack on the Soviet Union. The unease prompted in his mind by the Molotov visit was the final determinant.104
Raeder’s renewed plea, on 14 November, for priority to be given to the Mediterranean, and to a push on Suez, could only fall, therefore, on deaf ears. Hitler made it plain that he was still inclined to press forward with the showdown with Russia. Raeder’s recommendation to postpone this until victory over Britain had been attained was by now whistling in the wind. And when Raeder advised caution to obviate a possible occupation of the Portuguese Atlantic islands by the British or Americans, Hitler’s reply was characteristic. He was not thinking of the Azores primarily in a defensive, but in an offensive, capacity, to allow the stationing of bombers capable of reaching America and therefore compelling the United States to build up air defences rather than providing aid to Britain.105 It was an indication that the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic islands now figured in his thinking as a deterrent to Anglo-American intervention while he was engaged in the east, rather than–as earlier in the summer–as part of a strategy aimed primarily at getting Britain to the conference table.106