by Ian Kershaw
In mid-February the operational plan for ‘Yellow’ was still not definitively agreed. Hitler was said to have described the existing planning of the Army High Command as the ‘ideas of a military cadet’ (‘Gedanken eines Kriegsschülers’).41 But nothing had as yet taken their place. At this point, Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant Schmundt took the initiative and arranged for a meeting with Manstein on 17 February. By this time, Jodl had been informed that Hitler favoured a thrust of the motorized units on the southern flank, towards Sedan, where the enemy would least expect them. The army leadership, taking these wishes of Hitler on board and also bearing in mind the outcome of the war games, had already adjusted its strategic thinking when, on 18 February, Hitler spoke of the favourable impression he had gained of Manstein’s plan the day before.42 The die was now cast. By chance, the basic thoughts of the amateur had coincided with the brilliantly unorthodox planning of the professional strategist. Further refined by the OKH, the Manstein plan gave Hitler what he wanted: a surprise assault in the most unexpected area which, though not without risk, had the boldness of genius. The famous ‘sickle cut’ – though the designation was not a contemporary one – was incorporated in the new directive of 24 February.43 While the Allied forces countered the expected German attack through Belgium, armoured units of Army Group A would rapidly drive through the Ardennes and into the lowlands of northern France towards the coast, scything through Allied forces and pushing them into the path of Army Group B, advancing from the north.44
No strategic information was, of course, passed to Mussolini when the dictators met, for the first time since the Munich Conference, on the Brenner Pass on 18 March 1940. But Hitler was keen to clarify relations with his Italian ally before the big western offensive started. It was snowing heavily when Hitler’s Special Train pulled into the small station, some 4,000 feet above the Italian-German border. Mussolini and Ciano greeted Hitler and Ribbentrop on the platform. Then the dictators and their foreign ministers stepped into Mussolini’s Special Train on the adjacent platform. The lines through the Brenner were blocked while the dictators talked. Neither passenger trains nor goods trains carrying crucial cargoes of coal, desperately needed in the hard winter, were allowed through.45
The talks lasted two-and-a-half hours. There was no doubt now who was the dominant partner. Mussolini said remarkably little. He listened, almost deferentially, as Hitler spoke almost the whole time. He said he had come, before the big showdown, to give the Duce an overview of the situation from the German standpoint. He sought to justify the timing of the attack on Poland, underlining how disadvantageous it would have been to wait. With scarcely concealed conceit he described the military achievement in Poland, and how bad weather had prevented him from attacking the West straight away. He bombarded Mussolini and the accompanying Ciano with facts and figures on German military strength. He was confident, he said, of dealing with his enemies by the autumn. He came to the point of the meeting: to persuade Italy to enter the war. If Italy was satisfied with being a second-rate Mediterranean power, he remarked, she needed to do nothing. But England and France would always block her ambitions to become a first-class power. Should Germany win the war, it would need to bring about a settlement ‘with a great partner’ to hold what had been won.46 Alluding to Mussolini’s letter in January, and to his own reply a few days before the meeting, Hitler emphasized how British intransigence had forced him to conclude an alliance with Russia. But, although Stalin had deprived Bolshevism of its Jewish and international character and turned it into a ‘slavic Moscowitism’, Russia remained for Germany an ‘absolutely foreign world’. ‘For Germany only one partner came into question: Italy. Russia was only insurance cover.’47 He ended his monologue by voicing his wish that Mussolini should bring Italy into the war in support of Germany at a moment of his own timing. In the few minutes left to him to speak, Mussolini – both overawed and enthused by Hitler – emphasized his keenness to join the war. Only the timing posed some problems. The Italian armed forces would not be ready for another four months or so. And Italy could not cope with fighting a long war. He would have to judge the right moment. After a quick snack, Mussolini and Ciano waved Hitler off from the platform as his Special Train set off back through the Tirol to Germany.48 Mussolini was irritated that he had been able to say so little. Remarkably, he drew the conclusion from the meeting that Hitler was not preparing to launch a major land offensive.49 Hitler was very satisfied with the outcome of the talks. Once more he was impressed by the Italian dictator – presumably, how well he had listened. ‘Mussolini will go with us to the end,’ was his assessment,50 ‘The Führer is not thinking at all of a rotten peace,’ Goebbels noted, after Hitler’s glowing account of the meeting with his Italian friend.51
Some sort of ‘rotten peace’ seems, however, to have been in Hitler’s mind when he talked a month later about his plans for dealing with Britain. ‘The Führer intends to deliver [England] a k.o. blow,’ Goebbels recorded. ‘Even so, he would make peace today. Condition: England out of Europe and our colonies back to us, rounded off (abgerundet). We’ll see. He doesn’t want at all to annihilate England, nor destroy its Empire. But we must have calm (Rube).’ He went on to speak of building up Norway to a fortress comparable to Singapore, still regarded as unconquerable, which would deter Britain from contemplating a new war. It was good, he argued, that Italy had not joined the war the previous September. England would then have pulled back from the conflict, only to begin again in three to five years time, under more favourable circumstances. He drew the conclusion: ‘If at all, then now.’ Drawing on the lessons of the Scandinavian campaign, he underlined the crucial importance of air-power. The Luftwaffe had revolutionized warfare. ‘And there we are in front,’ he claimed. Germany might have fought the war with a completely misplaced naval programme. But the great ships were no longer a match for air-power. That lesson had been learnt. Whatever Hitler’s stated preference for a peace to leave Britain as Germany’s junior partner, sedated and quiescent, its dominance destroyed even if its Empire were to be nominally left intact – and it would be as well not to overrate his professed admiration of the Empire52 – he was certain that Britain would only be forced to the conference table through the isolation left by the devastating military defeat he intended to inflict on France. And the sooner that took place, the better. ‘The Fuhrer presses for action as rapidly as possible,’ commented Goebbels. ‘We can’t and won’t wait for long.’53
Four days later, Hitler talked again of his plans. France had to be smashed, leaving England without a foot on the Continent, and powerless. He saw the crushing of France as ‘an act of historical justice’. But Britain needed its overseas possessions and should not lose them. ‘England can have peace if it keeps out of Europe and gives us back our colonies and a bit more besides. But that’s only possible if it has already received a k.o. blow.’ Fate would now have to take its course. The western offensive was only a matter of weather, and the most opportune moment.54
By early May, the British and French were anticipating that the German western offensive could begin at any time.55 The intention to attack in the first week of May had, in fact, been revised in the light of events in Scandinavia. But it was finally set for 10 May.56 Hitler was confident. To those who saw him at close quarters, he appeared calm and optimistic, as if the doubts of previous months had passed, and he was now letting events take their course. He thought that France would capitulate after around six weeks, and that England would then pull out of a war which, to continue, would mean losing its Empire – something wholly unimaginable.57 The balance of military forces was roughly even.58 What Hitler had not been fully informed about was the critical state of Germany’s raw-material reserves: enough rubber for six months, enough fuel for only four months. Booty from the western campaign would prove crucial in securing the material base for continuing the war.59
The level of secrecy maintained even in Hitler’s closest entourage in the days leading up to the offensive wa
s profound. When his special armoured train, code-named Amerika, pulled out of a small, secluded station on the outskirts of Berlin on the evening of 9 May, his press chief, Otto Dietrich, thought he was en route to visit shipworks in Hamburg, and Hitler’s secretaries thought they were setting out for Denmark and Norway to visit the troops. After midnight, the train quietly switched in the vicinity of Hanover from the northbound tracks and turned westward. Even then, the destination was not disclosed. But by now there was no longer any doubt of the purpose of the journey. Hitler was in excellent spirits throughout. Dawn was breaking when they got down from the train at a little station in the Eifel. It was near Euskirchen – though there was no station place-name to reveal this since all place-name signs in the area had been removed and replaced by yellow military indicators. Cars were waiting to drive the company through hilly, wooded countryside to their new temporary home: the Führer Headquarters near Münstereifel that had been given the name Felsennest (Rock Eyrie). The accommodation was cramped and simple. Apart from Hitler himself, only Keitel, Schaub, and a manservant had rooms in the first bunker. Jodl, Dr Brandt, Schmundt, Below, Puttkamer, and Keitel’s adjutant were in a second. The rest had to be accommodated in the nearby village. The woods around were filled with the springtime twittering of birds. But as his staff gathered in front of Hitler’s bunker the peaceful sounds of the countryside in spring were broken by the distant rumble of shellfire. Hitler pointed to the West. ‘Gentlemen, the offensive against the western powers has just started,’ he declared.60
II
That offensive proceeded with a breathtaking pace that stunned the world. Even Hitler and his military leaders scarcely dared hope for such a scale of early successes.61 On the northern flank, the Dutch surrender followed within five days, the Queen and government fleeing to exile in England. Before that, the terror-bombing, Guernica-style, of Rotterdam’s old town had brought death and devastation from the skies. It was the trademark of the new type of warfare. Warsaw civilians had suffered it first; the people of British cities would soon come to dread it; and, later in the war, German citizens themselves would be exposed to its full horror. Belgian neutrality, for the second time in under thirty years, was breached along with that of the Dutch. On 28 May the Belgian army surrendered unconditionally, leaving King Leopold in effect a prisoner with the government in exile. Meanwhile, the ‘sickle cut plan’ was proving a brilliant and decisive success. Aided by the strategic and operational ineptitude of the French military command, German armoured units were able to sweep through the Ardennes, through Luxemburg and southern Belgium into northern France, breaking the thin line of French defence, and crossing the Meuse already on 13 May. Within ten days of the launching of the offensive, by the night of 20–21 May, the advance had covered 150 miles and reached the Channel coast. The ‘sickle cut’ had worked. The Allied forces had been cut in two; vast numbers were now squeezed between the coast and the oncoming German divisions. On 26 May the War Office in London bowed to what had become increasingly inevitable, and ordered the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force, the bulk of it by then fighting a desperate rearguard action just east of Dunkirk, the last remaining Channel port in Allied hands. The next days would see almost 340,000 British and French soldiers – the vast proportion of the Allied troops still in combat in north-west France – carried to safety across the Channel in an improvised armada of small boats while the Luftwaffe pounded the harbour and beaches of the port.62
The evacuation had been greatly helped by Hitler’s decision, at 11.42a.m. on 24 May, to halt the German advance with the spearhead a mere fifteen miles or so from Dunkirk. Post-war suggestions that Hitler was deliberately allowing the British troops to get away as an act of generosity to encourage Britain to come to the peace table with its armies intact are far-fetched.63 Hitler himself was alleged to have told his entourage a fortnight or so later that ‘the army is the backbone of England and the Empire. If we smash the invasion corps, the Empire is doomed. Since we neither want to nor can inherit it, we must leave it the chance. My generals haven’t grasped that.’64 Such sentiments, if they were indeed expressed in those terms, were no more than a self-justification for a military mistake. For the decision not to move on Dunkirk was taken for military reasons, and on military advice. According to his Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, ‘the English army had no significance for him’ at Dunkirk.65
Hitler had flown that morning, 24 May, to Charleville, almost 100 miles east of the Channel, to visit the headquarters of Colonel-General Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group A, which had made the remarkable advance in the ‘sickle movement’ along the southern flank. When Hitler arrived at half-past eleven, Rundstedt gave him a report on the situation. The suggestion to hold back the motorized units came not from Hitler, but from Rundstedt, one of his most trusted generals. Hitler agreed, adding that the tanks had to be conserved for the coming operations in the south and that a further advance would restrict the scope for action of the Luftwaffe.66 Hitler was keen to press on with the attack to the south without the delay that he thought would come about if they took a few days dealing with the surrounded allied troops in Dunkirk.67 When Brauchitsch arrived next morning, the 25th, wanting to advance the tanks on to the plains, Hitler opposed him, arguing that the numerous canals criss-crossing Flanders made it an unsuitable terrain for tanks.68 But he left the decision to Rundstedt, who rejected the suggestion because of the need to have the tanks recover for the operations to come in the south.69 Halder, as well as Brauchitsch, was dismayed.70 They would have to come to terms with a Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht who intervened directly in the direction of operations.71 But there was no magnanimity in the decision to hold back the tanks. As we have seen, Hitler wanted to strike Britain a knock-out blow to force her to accept peace-terms. He had no interest in allowing the British troops to escape captivity or destruction. He had been persuaded by Göring to let the Luftwaffe finish off the encircled enemy.72 He thought few of the British would escape.73
In fact, the Luftwaffe could not deliver on Gröing’s promises. Despite its claims of success, bad weather and the Royal Air Force contrived to prevent the easy pickings Göring had imagined. Dunkirk did nothing to enhance the Luftwaffe’s prestige.74 Within two days, Hitler realized that the halt order had been an error. On 26 May, he reversed his decision and finally ordered the advance on Dunkirk to prevent further evacuations.75 Few of the encircled troops had got away by then.76 But the delay of forty-eight hours proved vital in enabling the British to orchestrate the extraordinary retreat – a masterpiece of improvisation accompanied by much good luck – over the next days.
In military terms Dunkirk seemed, as one stunning success followed another, of secondary importance to Germany. It amounted in reality to a massive defeat for Britain. But that the troops were brought back under such conditions to fight again another day was converted by the new British Prime Minister Churchill (who had come into office on the very day that the western offensive had begun), and by popular myth, into a symbol of the British fighting spirit – the archetypal triumph in adversity. As such, the great setback at Dunkirk provided a boost to British morale at one of the lowest points in the nation’s long history. In another way, too, Dunkirk was fateful. If the British Expeditionary Force had been lost, it is almost inconceivable that Churchill would have survived the growing pressure from those powerful forces within Britain that were ready to seek terms with Hitler.77
Towards the end of the first week in June, Hitler moved his headquarters to Brûly-de-Pesche, close to the Belgian-French border.78 The second stage of the German offensive was beginning. The French lines were rapidly overwhelmed. While the French had more guns and tanks than the Germans, they were hopelessly outmatched in air-power. Not just that: French weaponry and tactics were outdated, not attuned to the demands of modern, mechanized warfare. And, just as important, the French military leadership conveyed their sense of defeatism to the rank and file. Discipline collapsed along with
morale. Taking their lead from their fighting men, civilians fled from the big cities in their thousands. Some looked to astrology. The faithful placed their trust in prayer and the intercession of St Geneviève. Neither would be enough.79
On 14 June German troops penetrated the Maginot Line south of Saar-brücken. That same day, less than five weeks since the launch of the western offensive, their comrades entered Paris.80 A generation earlier, the fathers and uncles of these soldiers had fought for four years and not reached Paris. Now, the German troops had achieved it in a little over four weeks. The disparity in casualty figures mirrored the magnitude of the victory. Allied losses were reckoned at 90,000 dead, 200,000 wounded, and 1.9 million captured or missing. German dead numbered almost 30,000, total casualties just under 165,000.81