Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)
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Mussolini’s reply had arrived at 5.45p.m. At 7.30p.m. Brauchitsch telephoned Halder to rescind the invasion order.208 A shaken Hitler had changed his mind.
On 24 August Hitler had prepared a lengthy letter for Mussolini, justifying the alliance with the Soviet Union, and indicating that a strike against Poland was imminent.209 The letter was delivered by the German Ambassador in Rome on the morning of the 25th.210 Mussolini’s answer gave the overconfident Hitler an enormous shock. The Duce did not beat about the bush: Italy was in no position to offer military assistance at the present time.211 Hitler icily dismissed Attolico, the Italian Ambassador. ‘The Italians are behaving just like they did in 1914,’ Paul Schmidt heard Hitler remark.212
‘That alters the entire situation,’ judged Goebbels. ‘The Führer ponders and contemplates. That’s a serious blow for him.’213 For an hour, the Reich Chancellery rang with comments of disgust at the Axis partner. The word ‘treachery’ was on many lips.214 Brauchitsch was hurriedly summoned. When he arrived, around seven that evening, he told Hitler there was still time to halt the attack, and recommended doing so to gain time for the Dictator’s ‘political game’ (‘politisches Spiel’). Hitler immediately took up the suggestion. Vormann was dispatched at 7.45p.m. with a frantic order to Halder to halt the start of hostilities.215 Keitel emerged from Hitler’s room to tell an adjutant: ‘The march order must be rescinded immediately.’216
Another piece of bad news arrived for Hitler at much the same time. Minutes before the news from Rome had arrived, Hitler had heard from the French Ambassador Robert Coulondre, that the French, too, were determined to stick by their obligations to Poland.217 This in itself was not critical. Hitler was confident that the French could be kept out of the war, if London did not enter.218 Then Ribbentrop arrived to tell him that the military alliance between Great Britain and Poland agreed on 6 April had been signed late that afternoon.219 This had happened after Hitler had made his ‘offer’ to Henderson. Having just signed the alliance, it must have been plain even to Hitler that Britain was unlikely to break it the very next day.220 Yesterday’s hero, Ribbentrop, now found himself all at once out of favour and, in the midst of a foreign-policy crisis on which peace hinged, was not in evidence for over two days.221 Hitler turned again to the Foreign Minister’s great rival, Göring.222
Immediately, Göring inquired whether the cancellation of the invasion was permanent. ‘No. I will have to see whether we can eliminate England’s intervention,’ was the reply.223 When Göring’s personal emissary, his Swedish friend the industrialist Birger Dahlems, already in London to belabour Lord Halifax with similar vague offers of German good intent that Henderson would shortly bring via the official route, eventually managed, with much difficulty, to place a telephone call to Berlin, he was asked to report back to the Field Marshal the following evening.224
In the meantime, Hitler wrote again to Mussolini, who had indicated that lack of matériel prevented Italy from joining Germany’s war, to ask what precisely was needed.225 The reply next day brought a deliberately impossible list of demands. Hitler could do nothing but tell Mussolini that he had understanding for Italy’s position, hoped for propaganda support, but would not hold back from solving the eastern question even at the risk of the involvement of the West.226 Mussolini, ‘really out of his wits’, was left vainly proposing that there should be a political solution.227 Hitler’s rage was directed at the King of Italy, not at his friend, the Italian dictator. He was glad, he said, that there was no longer a monarchy in Germany.228
The mood in the Reich Chancellery had not been improved by the message from Daladier on 26 August underlining France’s solidarity with Poland.229 Things at the hub of the German government seemed chaotic. No one had a clear idea of what was going on. Hewel, head of Ribbentrop’s personal staff, though with different views to those of his boss, warned Hitler not to underestimate the British. He was a better judge of that than his Minister, he asserted. Hitler angrily broke off the discussion. Brauchitsch thought Hitler did not know what he should do.230
Dahlerus certainly found him in a highly agitated state when he was taken towards midnight to the Reich Chancellery. He had brought with him a letter from Lord Halifax, indicating in non-committal terms that negotiations were possible if force were not used against Poland.231 It added in reality nothing to that which Chamberlain had already stated in his letter of 22 August.232 It made an impact on Göring, but Hitler did not even look at the letter before launching into a lengthy diatribe, working himself into a nervous frenzy, marching up and down the room, his eyes staring, his voice at one moment indistinct, hurling out facts and figures about the strength of the German armed forces, the next moment shouting as if addressing a party meeting, threatening to annihilate his enemies, giving Dahlerus the impression of someone ‘completely abnormal’.233 Eventually, Hitler calmed down enough to list the points of the offer which he wanted Dahlerus to take to London. Germany wanted a pact or alliance with Britain, would guarantee the Polish borders, and defend the British Empire (even against Italy, Göring added). Britain was to help Germany acquire Danzig and the Corridor, and have Germany’s colonies returned. Guarantees were to be provided for the German minority in Poland.234 Hitler had altered the stakes in a bid to break British backing for Poland. In contrast to the ‘offer’ made to Henderson, the alliance with Britain now appeared to be available before any settlement with Poland.
Dahlerus took the message to London next morning, 27 August. The response was cool and sceptical. Dahlerus was sent back to report that Britain was willing to reach an agreement with Germany, but would not break its guarantee to Poland. Following direct negotiations between Germany and Poland on borders and minorities, the results would require international guarantee. Colonies could be returned in due course, but not under threat of war. The offer to defend the British Empire was rejected.235 Astonishingly, to Dahlems, back in Berlin late that evening, Hitler accepted the terms, as long as the Poles had been immediately instructed to contact Germany and begin negotiations.236 Halifax made sure this was done. In Warsaw, Beck agreed to begin negotiations.237 Meanwhile, the German mobilization, which had never been cancelled along with the invasion, rolled on.238 On the very day of Dahlerus’s shuttling, the Abwehr had word that the new date for the attack was 31 August.239 Next day, before Henderson arrived back in Berlin to bring the official British response, Brauchitsch informed Halder that Hitler had provisionally fixed the invasion for 1 September.240
As Henderson was setting out for Berlin, Hitler was addressing a meeting of SS and Party leaders in the Reich Chancellery. Himmler, Heydrich, Bormann, and Goebbels were among those present. Whatever his state of mind, Hitler could expect nothing but enthusiastic backing from this grouping for whatever hard line he wished to take. He told them he was determined to have the eastern question settled one way or the other. He posed a minimal demand of the return of Danzig and the settling of the Corridor issue. The maximum demand depended upon the military situation. He could not retreat from the minimalist position, and would attain it. ‘It has already become a question of honour,’ Goebbels noted.241 If the minimum demands were not met, ‘then war: brutal!’ The war would be hard, and Hitler did not even rule out eventual failure. But, Halder recorded him saying, ‘as long as I am alive, there will be no talk of capitulation’. The agreement with the Soviets had been widely misunderstood in the Party. It was nothing but ‘a pact with Satan to cast out the Devil’, Hitler declared. He looked worn and haggard to Halder, speaking in a breaking voice. It was said he kept himself completely surrounded by his SS advisers.242
Henderson handed Hitler a translation of the British reply to his ‘offer’ of 25 August at 10.30p.m. that evening, the 28th. Ribbentrop and Schmidt were there.243 Hitler and Henderson spoke for over an hour. For once, Hitler neither interrupted, nor harangued Henderson. He was, according to the British Ambassador, polite, reasonable, and not angered by what he read.244 The ‘friendly atmosphere’ noted by Henderson w
as so only in relative terms. Hitler still spoke of annihilating Poland.245 The British reply did not in substance extend beyond the informal answer that Dahlems had conveyed (and had been composed after Hitler’s response to that initiative was known).246 The British government insisted upon a prior settlement of the differences between Germany and Poland. Britain had already gained assurances of Poland’s willingness to negotiate. Depending upon the outcome of any settlement and how it was reached, Britain was prepared to work towards a lasting understanding with Germany. But the obligation to Poland would be honoured.247 Hitler promised a written reply the next day.248
Goebbels quickly learned that Hitler was not satisfied with what he had seen.249 The Propaganda Minister nonetheless thought he detected a weakening of the British stance, a greater readiness to negotiate. The Führer, he commented, now wanted a plebiscite in the Corridor under international control. He hoped through this device to prise London away from Warsaw ‘and to find an occasion to strike’.250 Hitler planned to ponder his reply overnight, and come up, Himmler noted, with a ‘masterpiece of diplomacy (ein Meisterstück an Diplomatie)’ that would put the British on the spot.251
At 7.15p.m. on the evening of 29 August, Henderson, sporting as usual a dark red carnation in the buttonhole of his pin-striped suit, passed down the darkened Wilhelmstraße – Berlin was undergoing experimental blackouts – through a silent, but not hostile, crowd of 300–400 Berliners, to be received at the Reich Chancellery as on the previous night with a roll of drums and guard of honour.252 Otto Meissner, whose role as head of the so-called Presidential Chancellery was largely representational, and Wilhelm Brückner, the chief adjutant, escorted him to Hitler. Ribbentrop was also present. Hitler was in a less amenable mood than on the previous evening. He gave Henderson his reply. He had again raised the price – exactly as Henlein had been ordered to do in the Sudetenland the previous year, so that it was impossible to meet it. Hitler now demanded the arrival of a Polish emissary with full powers by the following day, Wednesday 30 August. Even the pliant Henderson, protesting at the impossible time-limit for the arrival of the Polish emissary, said it sounded like an ultimatum.253 Hitler replied that his generals were pressing him for a decision. They were unwilling to lose any more time because of the onset of the rainy season in Poland.254 Henderson told Hitler that the success or failure of any talks with Poland depended upon his good will, or lack of it. The choice was his. But any attempt to use force against Poland would inevitably result in conflict with Britain.255 Henderson’s telegram to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, early the following afternoon, stated: ‘If Herr Hitler is allowed to continue to have the initiative, it seems to me that [the] result can only be either war or once again victory for him by a display of force and encouragement thereby to pursue the same course again next year or the year after.’256
When Henderson had left, the Italian Ambassador Attolico was ushered in. He had come to tell Hitler that Mussolini was prepared to intercede with Britain if required. The last thing Hitler wanted, as he had made clear to his generals at the meeting on 22 August, was a last-minute intercession to bring about a new Munich – least of all from the partner who had just announced that he could not stand by the pact so recently signed. Hitler coldly told Attolico that direct negotiations with Britain were in hand and that he had already declared his readiness to accept a Polish negotiator.257
Hitler had been displeased at Henderson’s response to his reply to the British government. He now called in Göring to send Dahlerus once more on the unofficial route to let the British know the gist of the ‘generous’ terms he was proposing to offer the Poles – return of Danzig to Germany, and a plebiscite on the Corridor (with Germany to be given a ‘corridor through the Corridor’ if the result went Poland’s way). By 5a.m. on 30 August, Dahlerus was again heading for London in a German military plane.258 An hour earlier Henderson had already conveyed Lord Halifax’s unsurprising response, that the German request for the Polish emissary to appear that very day was unreasonable.259
During the day, while talking of peace Hitler prepared for war. In the morning he instructed Albert Forster, a week earlier declared Head of State in Danzig, on the action to be taken in the Free City at the outbreak of hostilities.260 Later, he signed the decree to establish a Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Reich with wide powers to promulgate decrees. Chaired by Göring, its other members were Heß as Deputy Leader of the Party, Frick as plenipotentiary for Reich administration, Funk as plenipotentiary for the economy, Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, and Keitel, chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.261 It had the appearance of a ‘war cabinet’ to administer the Reich while Hitler preoccupied himself with military matters. In reality, the fragmentation of Reich government had gone too far for that. Hitler’s own interest in preventing any centralized body operating as a possible check on his own power was to mean that the Ministerial Council was destined not to bring even a limited resurrection of collective government.262
Hitler spent much of the day working on his ‘proposals’ to be put to the Polish negotiator who, predictably, never arrived. From the outset it had not been a serious suggestion. But when Henderson returned to the Reich Chancellery at midnight to present the British reply to Hitler’s communication of the previous evening, he encountered Ribbentrop in a highly nervous state and in a vile temper. Diplomatic niceties were scarcely preserved. At one point it seemed to the interpreter Paul Schmidt – in attendance though Henderson, as usual, insisted on speaking his less than perfect German – that the German Foreign Minister and the British Ambassador were going to come to blows.263 After Ribbentrop had read out Hitler’s ‘proposals’ at breakneck speed, so that Henderson was unable to note them down, he refused – on Hitler’s express orders – to let the British Ambassador read the document, then hurled it on the table stating that it was now out of date (überholt), since no Polish emissary had arrived in Berlin by midnight.264 Henderson reported to Halifax ‘that Herr von Ribbentrop’s whole demeanour during an unpleasant interview was aping Herr Hitler at his worst’.265 In retrospect, Henderson thought that Ribbentrop ‘was wilfully throwing away the last chance of a peaceful solution’.266
There had, in fact, been no ‘last chance’… No Polish emissary had been expected. Ribbentrop was concerned precisely not to hand over terms which the British might have passed to the Poles, who might have been prepared to discuss them. Hitler had needed his ‘generous suggestion over the regulation of the Danzig and Corridor Question’, as Schmidt later heard him say, as ‘an alibi, especially for the German people, to show them that I have done everything to preserve peace’.267 Immediately following Henderson’s audience with Ribbentrop, Hitler had told Goebbels that he wanted the document published ‘at a suitable opportunity’.268 It was arranged for a radio broadcast that evening.269 By then, Göring had heard, unsurprisingly, from his intermediary Dahlerus that there was no further movement in London: the British government insisted, as it had throughout, on peaceful settlement of the Polish question before there could be any negotiations towards a better relationship between Britain and Germany.270
The army had been told on 30 August to make all preparations for attack on 1 September at 4.30a.m. If negotiations in London required a postponement, notification would be given before 3p.m. next day. But 2 September was the last day possible for a strike.271 At 6.30a.m. on the morning of 31 August, within hours of Henderson’s departure from the Reich Chancellery after hearing the terms of the German ‘offer’ to Poland, Halder learnt that Hitler had given the order to attack on 1 September – a day before the deadline ran out.272 For some reason, Göring, on behalf of the Luftwaffe, had objected to having the timing set for 4.30a.m.273 By 12.40p.m. the order directive had been completed and signed by Hitler.274 At 1.50p.m. – still well before the possible cancellation point of 3p.m. – the order was confirmed to go ahead, with the starting time changed to 4.45a.m. ‘Armed intervention by Western powers now said to be unav
oidable,’ noted Halder. ‘In spite of this, Führer has decided to strike.’275
When informed that Ribbentrop had arrived at the Reich Chancellery, Hitler told him he had given the order, and that ‘things were rolling (die Sache rolle)’. Ribbentrop wished him luck.276 ‘It looks as if the die is finally cast,’ wrote Goebbels.277
After making his decision, Hitler cut himself off from external contact.278 He refused to see the Polish Ambassador, Jozef Lipski, later in the afternoon. Ribbentrop did see him a little later. But hearing that the Ambassador carried no plenipotentiary powers to negotiate he immediately terminated the interview. Lipski returned to find telephone lines to Warsaw had been cut off.279
At 9p.m. the German radio broadcast Hitler’s ‘sixteen-point proposal’ which Ribbentrop had so crassly presented to Henderson at midnight.280 By 10.30p.m. the first reports were coming in of a number of serious border incidents, including an armed ‘Polish’ assault on the German radio station at Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia. These had been planned for weeks by Heydrich’s office, using SS men dressed in Polish uniforms to carry out the attacks. To increase the semblance of authenticity, a number of concentration-camp inmates killed by lethal injections and carried to the sites provided the bodies required.281