by Ian Kershaw
That evening, as always on 8 November, the ‘Old Guard’ of the Party assembled. Hitler had announced the previous day that he would, after all, give his annual address.245 Usually, this lasted from about 8.30p.m. until about ten o’clock. It had already been announced that, in the circumstances of the war, this year’s meeting would begin earlier and that the two-day commemoration of the Putsch would be shortened.246 Hitler began his speech soon after his arrival in the Bürgerbräukeller, at 8.10p.m., and finished at 9.07p.m. The speech itself was one long tirade against Britain, highly sarcastic in tone, well tailored to his raucous audience of Party fanatics.247 Hitler normally spent some time after his speech chatting to the Movement’s ‘Old Fighters’. This time, escorted by a good number of Party bigwigs, he left immediately for the station to take the 9.31p.m. train back to Berlin.248
At twenty past nine the pillar immediately behind the dais where Hitler had stood minutes earlier, and part of the roof directly above, were ripped apart by Elser’s bomb. Eight persons were killed in the blast, a further sixty-three injured, sixteen of them seriously.249 Hitler had been gone no more than ten minutes when the bomb went off.
He attributed his salvation to the work of ‘Providence’ – a sign that he was to fulfil the task destiny had laid out for him.250 In its headline on 10 November, the Völkischer Beobachter called it ‘the miraculous salvation of the Führer’.251 There was, in fact, nothing providential or miraculous about it. It was pure luck. Hitler’s reasons for returning without delay to Berlin were genuine enough. The decision to attack the West had been temporarily postponed on 7 November, with a final decision set for the 9th. Hitler had to be back in the Reich Chancellery by then. It was more important than reminiscing about old times with Party stalwarts in the Bürgerbräukeller.252 Elser could have known nothing about the reasons for the curtailment of Hitler’s quick trip to Munich. It was mere chance that the Swabian joiner did not succeed where the generals had failed even to mount an attempt. Whether the generals would then have acted, had Elser’s attempt been successful, and once the main object of their putsch plans had been removed, is open to question. But with Elser’s failure, the possibility of more ‘moderate’ forces taking over and pulling back from the brink of all-out war with the West had gone.
Elser himself was already under arrest at the customs post near Konstanz when the bomb went off. He had been picked up trying to cross the Swiss border illegally. It seemed a routine arrest. Only some hours after the explosion did the border officials begin to realize that the contents of Georg Elser’s pockets, including a postcard of the Bürgerbräukeller, linked him with the assassination attempt on Hitler. On 14 November, Elser confessed. A few days later he gave a full account of his actions, and the motives behind them. He was interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and treated, remarkably, as a privileged prisoner. Probably Hitler, who continued to believe that Elser was the front-man of an international conspiracy, intended a post-war show-trial to incriminate the British Secret Service. At the end of 1944 or in early 1945 Elser was brought to Dachau. There was to be no show-trial. With the war as good as lost, Elser had no more value to the regime. Shortly before the Americans liberated Dachau, he was taken out and killed.253
Elser had acted alone. But the concerns which had motivated him – worries about living-standards, anxieties about extending the war – were widespread in the autumn of 1939. Reports abounded of unrest in the working class around that time. The War Economy Decree of 4 September had brought an instant worsening of living standards, higher taxes, abolition of higher rates for overtime and weekend work, and other restrictions. A wage-freeze had followed.254 Industrial indiscipline, including absenteeism and refusal of overtime, eventually forced the regime to back down.255 But longer hours, rises in food prices, and an acute coal shortage affected the poorer in society most of all that autumn. And for those stepping out of line, increased police presence in factories was a constant reminder of the threat of the labour camp.256
Euphoria over the victory in Poland had soon faded. Alongside the daily worries were those of an extension of the war. The ‘Phoney War’ (as American journalists dubbed the autumn and winter months of 1939—40), with no action from the West, raised hopes. Above all else most people wanted the war to be over. In his anxieties about the war, Elser spoke for many. He was on far less sure ground with his attribution of blame for the war to the Nazi leadership. The signs are that propaganda had been successful in persuading most ordinary Germans that the western powers were to blame for the prolongation of a war which Hitler had done all he could to avoid.257 Whatever criticisms – and they were many and bitter – people had of the Party and the regime, Hitler still retained his massive popularity. The view of one Munich upper-class conservative, antagonized above all by the assault on Christianity, that there was no one in the city who did not regret the failure of Elser’s attempt, was no more than wishful thinking.258 Few would have applauded a successful assassination attempt. Vast numbers would have been appalled. The chances of a backlash, and a new ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend, would have been great. As it was, the failure of the attempt brought, as could be expected, a new, great upsurge of support for Hitler, accompanied by feelings of intense hatred for Britain, held to be behind the bomb-attack. Not only internal reports stressed that ‘the devotion to the Führer has deepened still further’.259 The underground opponents of the regime also acknowledged that Elser’s bomb had brought a ‘strengthening of determination’. People were saying that if the attempt had been successful it would have resulted in internal confusion, benefit to Germany’s enemies, loss of the war, worse misery than was caused by Versailles, and the upturning of everything achieved since 1933.260
Hitler’s hold over Germany was as strong as ever. The failure of those in positions of power to move against him and the repercussions of Elser’s bomb-attack demonstrated that his authority was unchallengeable from within the regime’s élites and that he was still immensely popular with the masses. He played on this latter point when he addressed a gathering of around 200 commanding generals and other senior Wehrmacht officers in the Reich Chancellery at noon on 23 November.
Hitler’s speech was remarkable for its frankness. In the light of the conflict with the army leadership in the previous weeks, its aim was to convince the generals of the need to attack the West without delay. First of all he paraded before his audience the successes of the previous years. Then he came to the conflict with Poland. He was, he said, reproached that he wanted to ‘fight and fight again’. His next words represented the core of his philosophy: ‘In fighting (Kampf) I see the fate of all creatures. Nobody can avoid fighting if he does not want to go under.’261 This led him into the struggle for Lebensraum. Again reiterating words which he had repeatedly preached in the late 1920s, he was adamant: ‘Solution only with the sword.’ The people lacking the strength to fight must yield. The struggle now, he went on, was different than it had been 100 years earlier. ‘Today we can speak of a racial struggle.’ This had a self-evident material dimension. It was a struggle, he added, for oil-fields, rubber, and mineral wealth.262
He went on to review the strategic position. Germany no longer faced a war on two fronts. The West front stood open. But no one knew for how long. He had long pondered whether to strike in the East first, then in the West. ‘Basically I did not organize the armed forces in order not to strike. The decision to strike was always in me.’263 The Polish front could now be held by a few divisions – something long held scarcely attainable. The question was how long Germany could sustain the position in the West. He spoke openly of future policy towards the Soviet Union. Russia, he stated, was currently not dangerous, and was preoccupied with the Baltic. ‘We can oppose Russia only when we are free in the West. Further, Russia is seeking to increase her influence in the Balkans and is striving toward the Persian Gulf. That is also the goal of our foreign policy.’264 He moved on to Italy. There, he said, everything depended on Mussolini. ‘Italy will
not attack until Germany has taken the offensive against France. Just as the death of Stalin, so the death of the Duce can bring danger to us.’ ‘How easily the death of a statesman can come about,’ he remarked with reference to Elser’s near-miss: ‘I have myself experienced that recently.’265 After his tour d’horizon he reached the characteristic conclusion: ‘Everything is determined by the fact that the moment is favourable now; in six months it might not be so any more.’266
He turned to his own role. ‘As the last factor I must in all modesty describe my own person: irreplaceable. Neither a military man nor a civilian could replace me. Attempts at assassination may be repeated. I am convinced of my powers of intellect and of decision. Wars are always ended only by the annihilation of the opponent. Anyone who believes differently is irresponsible. Time is working for our adversaries. Now there is a relationship of forces which can never be more propitious for us, but which can only deteriorate. The enemy will not make peace when the relationship of forces is unfavourable for us. No compromises. Hardness towards ourselves. I shall strike and not capitulate. The fate of the Reich depends only on me.’267
He underlined Germany’s military superiority over Britain and France. He flattered the armed forces’ leadership that it was better than that of 1914. But there was unmistakable criticism of army leaders. While there was express praise for the navy, the Luftwaffe, and the army’s achievements in Poland, Hitler – in a barbed comment directed straight at Brauchitsch – remarked that he could not ‘bear to hear people say the army is not in good order. Everything lies in the hands of the military leader. I can do anything with the German soldier if he is well led.’268
Internal conditions also favoured an early strike, he went on. Revolution from within was impossible. And behind the army stood the strongest armaments industry in the world. But Germany had an Achilles’ heel: the Ruhr. An advance by Britain and France through Belgium and Holland would imperil the Reich. Once the French army had marched into Belgium it would be too late.269 He put forward another argument for breaching Dutch and Belgian neutrality. Laying mines off the English coast to bring about a blockade could only be done through occupation of Belgium and Holland. He compared himself – as he would do throughout the war – with Frederick the Great. ‘Prussia owes its rise to the heroism of one man. Even there,’ Hitler declared, an aside aimed at his army leaders, ‘the closest advisers were disposed to capitulation. Everything depended on Frederick the Great.’270 Hitler said he was now gambling all he had achieved on victory. At stake was who was to dominate Europe in the future.271 His decision was unalterable, Hitler went on. ‘I shall attack France and England at the most favourable and earliest moment. Breach of the neutrality of Belgium and Holland is of no importance. No one will question that when we have won… I consider it possible to end the war only by means of an attack… The whole thing means the end of the World War, not just a single action. It is a matter of not just a single question but of the existence or non-existence of the nation.’272 Hitler demanded that the ‘spirit of determination’ be passed on to the lower ranks.273
His final point was the psychological readiness of the German people. He would return to stress this five years later when justifying to his generals the need to go to war in 1939. At that time he would say it was impossible to preserve enthusiasm and readiness for self-sacrifice as if it could be corked up in a bottle.274 This was not merely a retrospective reflection. With an eye on the possible deterioration of the backing he had from the German people, he now told the military: ‘I want to annihilate the enemy. Behind me stands the German people, whose morale can only grow worse.’275 Here, too, Hitler saw no possibility of waiting. Time was not on Germany’s side. Hitler ended with a rhetorical flourish – and with a prophecy: ‘If we come through this struggle victoriously – and we shall come through it – our time will go down in the history of our people. I shall stand or fall in this struggle. I shall never survive the defeat of my people. No capitulation to the outside, no revolution from within.’276
That evening, at 6p.m., Hitler summoned Brauchitsch and Haider to see him. He berated them once more with the failings of the army leadership, threatening to root out the ‘spirit of Zossen’ and crush any opposition from the General Staff. Brauchitsch offered his resignation. Hitler refused it. Brauchitsch, he said, should do his duty.277 Hitler had no need to go further. His speech earlier in the day, with its scarcely veiled criticism of army leaders set against praise for the Luftwaffe and navy, and its threats to destroy any opposing him, had offended some generals. But it had cowed them. None had protested at what Hitler had said. Afterwards, they complained in private but only Guderian could be prevailed upon to voice, and then in mild terms, a few days later their disquiet at Hitler’s evident distrust. The radicals in the opposition had meanwhile given up on Haider. And Brauchitsch had been reduced to a withdrawn depressive, prepared to take Hitler’s insults and still accept responsibility for the western offensive that he inwardly opposed.278
Hitler had been right in his speech: no revolution could be expected from within. Heydrich’s police-state ruled that out. But it was not only a matter of repression. Alongside the ruthlessness of the regime towards internal opponents stood the widespread basic consensus reaching across most of society behind much of what the regime had undertaken and, in particular, what were taken to be the remarkable achievements of Hitler himself. This was embodied in the extraordinary adulation of the Leader. Hitler enjoyed a level of popularity exceeded by no other political leader at the time. He was correct in saying that he had the German people – certainly an overwhelming majority of the German people – behind him. This had strengthened him inordinately in his conflicts with the army, and had weakened the resolve of oppositional groups on many occasions. By the end of 1939 his supremacy was assured. Elser’s bomb had merely brought a renewed demonstration of his popularity. Meanwhile, the internal opposition was resigned to being unable to act. The navy and Luftwaffe were behind Hitler. The army leadership would, whatever its reservations, fulfil its duty. The division of the generals, coupled with their pronounced sense of duty even when they held a course of action to be disastrous, was Hitler’s strength.
Nothing could stop the western offensive. Hitler was by now obsessed with ‘beating England’.279 It was purely a matter of when, not if, the attack on the West would take place. After further short-term postponements, the last of them in mid-January, on 16 January 1940 Hitler finally put it off until the spring.280
The war was set to continue, and to widen. Also set to escalate was the barbarism that was an intrinsic part of it. At home the killings in the asylums were mounting into a full-scale programme of mass murder. In Poland, the grandiose resettlement schemes presided over by Himmler and Heydrich were seeing the brutal uprooting and deportation of tens of thousands of Poles and Jews into the ‘dumping-ground’ of the General Government.281 Not least, the centre-point of the ‘racial cleansing’ mania, the ‘removal’ of the Jews, was farther from solution than ever now that over 2 million Polish Jews had fallen into the hands of the Nazis. In December Goebbels reported to Hitler on his recent visit to Poland. The Führer, he recorded, listened carefully to his account and agreed with his views on the ‘Jewish and Polish question’. ‘The Jewish danger must be banished from us. But in a few generations it will reappear. There’s no panacea.’282
Evidently, no ‘complete solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’ was yet in sight. The constant quest to find such a ‘panacea’ by Nazi underlings working directly or indirectly ‘towards the Führer’ would nevertheless ensure that, in the conquered and subjugated territories of the east, a ‘solution’ would gradually begin to emerge before long.
7
ZENITH OF POWER
‘The Führer is greatly puzzled by England’s persisting unwillingness to make peace… He sees the answer (as we do) in England’s hope in Russia…’
‘Decision: Russia’s destruction must therefore be made a part of this st
ruggle… If we start in May 1941, we would have five months to finish the job.’
Diary entries of General Halder,
Chief of the General Staff, 13 and 31 July 1940
‘Only when there’s no more going back… is the courage found for very big decisions… That’s how it is, too, in our present situation.’ Goebbels was summarizing what Hitler had been saying at lunch on 15 January 1940. Hitler had begun by grumbling about unreliable weather-forecasts; half-decent weather was needed for the offensive, he had stated. He then went on to philosophize about strength in adversity – one of his regular themes, and to become even more repetitive as the war wore on. He referred to the usual heroes in the German pantheon – Bismarck and, even more so, Frederick the Great – adding on examples from his own ‘time of struggle’ to illustrate how danger brought forth special qualities of courage and boldness in the ‘historical genius’. ‘The Führer was always greater in adversity than in fortune,’ added the impressionable Propaganda Minister. Goebbels had, however, registered the serious point of Hitler’s typically narcissistic musings on his own ‘greatness’: there could be no going back. This imperative had been directly linked to German policy in Poland – an indication that Hitler and Goebbels were only too aware of the Rubicon that had been crossed with the descent into the barbaric treatment of the Poles. ‘We simply must not lose the war,’ Goebbels summed up. ‘And all our thinking and action has to follow from that.’1