by Ian Kershaw
It was no wonder that Hitler felt on top of the world, slapping his thigh for joy – his usual expression of exultation – and laughing in relief, when he was brought the news at Brûly-de-Pesche on 17 June that Marshal Pétain’s new French government had sued for peace.82 The end of the war seemed imminent. Britain would now surely give in. Total victory, Hitler imagined, was within his grasp.
Mussolini had brought Italy into the war a week earlier, hoping to cash in on the action just before it was all over, in time to win rich pickings and bask in the glory of a cheap victory.83 Hitler took no pleasure in greeting his new companion-in-arms when he flew to Munich to meet him on 18 June to discuss the French armistice request.84 He wanted lenient terms for the French, and swiftly dispelled Mussolini’s hopes of getting his hands on part of the French fleet. Hitler was anxious to avoid the French navy going over to the British – something which Churchill had already tried to engineer.85 ‘From all that he says it is clear that he wants to act quickly to end it,’ recorded Ciano. ‘Hitler is now the gambler who has made a big scoop and would like to get up from the table risking nothing more.’86 Ribbentrop confirmed to Ciano that Hitler wanted peace with Britain in preference to war. Again the German Dictator stated that he had no wish to demolish the British Empire, something he claimed to regard as ‘an important factor in world equilibrium’.87 A hint of what he meant by this last phrase can be gleaned from a remark a fortnight or so later to Goebbels, that, if the Empire were destroyed, its inheritance would fall not to Germany but to ‘foreign great powers’, by which he had the United States, Japan, and probably also the Soviet Union chiefly in mind.88 What Hitler’s apparent magnanimity about the Empire would amount to for Britain was clearly foreseen by Churchill. Britain would become, the British Prime Minister stated, ‘a vassal state of the Hitler empire’. ‘A pro-German government,’ he wrote to Roosevelt on 15 June, ‘would certainly be called into being to make peace and might present to a shattered or starving nation an almost irresistible case for entire submission to the Nazi will.’89
Having won his great victory without any help from the Italians, Hitler was determined that the embarrassed and disappointed Mussolini, now forced to swallow his role as junior partner in the Axis, should not participate in the armistice negotiations with the French.90 Already on 20 May, when German tanks had reached the French coast, Hitler had specified that the peace negotiations with France, at which the return of former German territory would be demanded, would be staged in the Forest of Compiègne, where the armistice of 1918 had taken place.91 He now gave orders to retrieve Marshal Foch’s railway carriage, preserved as a museum piece, in which the German generals had signed the ceasefire, and have it brought to the forest clearing. That defeat, and its consequences, had permanently seared Hitler’s consciousness. It would now be erased by repaying the humiliation. At quarter past three on the afternoon of 21 June, Hitler, accompanied by Göring, Raeder, Brauchitsch, Keitel, Ribbentrop, and Heß, viewed the memorial recording the victory over the ‘criminal arrogance of the German Reich’, then took his place in the carriage, greeting in silence the French delegation. For ten minutes, he listened, again without a word though, as he later recounted, gripped by the feeling of revenge for the humiliation of November 1918.92 Keitel read out the preamble to the armistice terms. Hitler then left to return to his headquarters. The symbolic purging of the old debt was completed.93 ‘The disgrace is now extinguished. It’s a feeling of being born again,’ reported Goebbels after Hitler had told him of the dramatic events late that night on the telephone.94
France was to be divided – the north and western seaboard under German occupation, the centre and south to be left as a puppet state, headed by Pétain, with its seat of government at Vichy.95 Following the signing of the Italian-French armistice on 24 June, all fighting was declared to have ceased at 1.35a.m. next morning. Hitler proclaimed the end of the war in the west and the ‘most glorious victory of all time’. He ordered bells to be rung in the Reich for a week, and flags to be flown for ten days.96 As the moment for the official conclusion of hostilities drew near, Hitler, sitting at the wooden table in his field headquarters, ordered the lights put out and the windows opened in order to hear, in the darkness, the trumpeter outside mark the historic moment.97
He spent part of the next days sightseeing. Max Amann (head of the Party’s publishing concerns) and Ernst Schmidt, two comrades from the First World War, joined his regular entourage for a nostalgic tour of the battlefields in Flanders, revisiting the places where they had been stationed.98 Then, on 28 June, before most Parisians were awake, Hitler paid his one and only visit to the occupied French capital.99 It lasted no more than three hours. And its purpose was cultural, not military. Accompanied by the architects Hermann Giesler and Albert Speer, and his favourite sculptor, Arno Breker, Hitler landed at Le Bourget airport at, for him, the extraordinarily early hour of half-past five in the morning. The whistlestop sightseeing tour began at L’Opéra. All the lights were ablaze, as if for an evening gala performance, as the three large Mercedes pulled up. A white-haired French guide, deferential but reserved, took the small group through the empty building. Hitler was thrilled by its beauty. He had doubtless been reading up on the descriptions of the opera house during wakeful hours on the previous nights, and delighted in showing off his detailed knowledge. The guide refused the 50-Mark tip that Hitler had his adjutant attempt to proffer.100 The tourists moved on. They drove past La Madeleine, whose classical form impressed Hitler, up the Champs Elysées, stopped at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier below the Arc de Triomphe, viewed the Eiffel Tower, and looked in silence on the tomb of Napoleon in Les Invalides. Hitler admired the dimensions of the Panthéon, but found its interior (as he later recalled) ‘a terrible disappointment’,101 and seemed indifferent to the medieval wonders of Paris, like the Sainte Chapelle. The tour ended, curiously, at the nineteenth-century testament to Catholic piety, the church of Sacré-Coeur. With a last look over the city from the heights of Montmartre, Hitler was gone. By mid-morning he was back in his field headquarters. Seeing Paris, he told Speer, had been the dream of his life.102 But to Goebbels, he said he had found a lot of Paris very disappointing.103 He had considered destroying it. However, he remarked, according to Speer, ‘when we’re finished in Berlin, Paris will only be a shadow. Why should we destroy it?’104
On 2 July Goebbels visited the new Führer Headquarters in the Black Forest to discuss arrangements for Hitler’s triumphal return to Berlin and plans for a Reichstag speech directed at another ‘peace offer’ to Britain. The return was scheduled for the 6th, a Saturday, the speech for the Monday following. The speech would be generously framed, a last chance for England. He was doubtful that it would be well received. Churchill, he knew, would not accept the bait. But he had some hopes, though not strong, in others who were known to be making overtures aimed at peace. If London did not accept the terms, Goebbels noted menacingly, then it had only itself to blame for the consequences. ‘They will be terrible,’ he added.105
The reception awaiting Hitler in Berlin when his train pulled into the Anhalter-Bahnhof at three o’clock on 6 July was astonishing. It surpassed even the homecomings after the great pre-war triumphs like the Anschluß. Many in the crowds had been standing for six hours, as the dull morning gave way to the brilliant sunshine of the afternoon. The streets were strewn with flowers all the way from the station to the Reich Chancellery. Hundreds of thousands cheered themselves hoarse. Hitler, lauded by Keitel as ‘the greatest warlord of all time’, was called out time after time on to the balcony to soak up the wild adulation of the masses.106 ‘If an increase in feeling for Adolf Hitler is still possible, it had become reality with the day of the return to Berlin,’ commented one report from the provinces.107 In the face of such ‘greatness’, ran another, ‘all pettiness and grumbling are silenced’.108 Even opponents of the regime found it hard to resist the victory mood. Workers in the armaments factories pressed to be allowed to join the army. Peopl
e thought final victory was around the corner. Only Britain stood in the way. For perhaps the only time during the Third Reich there was genuine war-fever among the population. Incited by incessant propaganda, hatred of Britain was now widespread. People were now thirsting to see the high-and-mighty long-standing rival finally brought to its knees.109 But mingling with the aggression were still feelings of fear and anxiety.110 Whether triumphalist, or fearful, the wish to bring the war to a speedy end was almost universal.
Hitler had meanwhile changed his mind about delivering his Reichstag speech on the Monday. On 3 July British ships had sunk a number of French warships moored at the naval base of Mers-el-Kébir, near Oran, in French Algeria, killing 1,250 French sailors in the process. Churchill’s move, a show of British determination, was to prevent the battle-fleet of his former allies falling into Hitler’s hands.111 For Hitler, this brought a new situation. He wanted to await developments. He was uncertain whether he ought to go ahead and appeal to England.112 When Ciano met him the day after Hitler had returned to Berlin, the Italian Foreign Minister found him ‘rather inclined to continue the struggle and to unleash a storm of wrath and of steel upon the British’. However, Ciano added, ‘the final decision has not been reached, and it is for this reason that he is delaying his speech, of which, as he himself puts it, he wants to weigh every word.’113 He was to postpone his speech three times – an indication of his uncertainty about how to proceed at this crucial time – before finally scheduling it for the 19th.114 ‘Despite everything the Führer still has a very positive attitude towards England,’ remarked Goebbels. ‘He is still not ready for the final blow. He wants to think over his speech again in peace and for that reason go to the Obersalzberg.’ If London should refuse the last offer, then Britain would be ‘immediately following dealt an annihilatory blow. The English apparently have no idea what then awaits them.’115
While he was at the Berghof, Hitler had talks with his military leaders about a possible invasion of Britain, should his ‘peace offer’ be rejected. At these discussions, an invasion was still seen as a last choice rather than first option. Raeder, reporting on a study that the naval leadership had been conducting since the previous November, had on his own initiative already as early as 21 May, during the early stages of the western offensive, raised with Hitler the possibility of a landing.116 They had spoken again on 20 June about it, and Hitler had briefly also discussed the matter with Brauchitsch.117 The Wehrmacht had officially learned on 2 July of Hitler’s decision that under certain conditions a landing in Britain could be undertaken.118 Raeder had advised Hitler in June that a naval landing could only take place once the Luftwaffe had secured air superiority over southern England.119 He repeated this precondition when he met Hitler on 11 July on the Obersalzberg, advocating ‘concentrated bombing’ to begin forthwith. But naval ambitions went far beyond a presumed British surrender, thus obviating the need for what Raeder, as well as Hitler, saw as the risky venture of invading Britain. Germany would need a big navy to defend its colonial empire, in particular against the looming threat of the United States.120 Taking the opportunity to push the interests of the navy, Raeder held out, therefore, the prospect of building up a great battleship fleet to combat any potential Anglo-American naval alliance.121 The next day Jodl outlined for Hitler initial thoughts on operational plans for a landing.122 On Saturday, 13 July, it was Halder’s turn to travel to the Berghof to report on operational plans.123 But a landing was to be a last resort. ‘The Führer is greatly puzzled by England’s persisting unwillingness to make peace,’ Halder noted. ‘He sees the answer (as we do) in England’s hope in Russia and therefore counts on having to compel her by main force to agree to peace. Actually that is much against his grain. The reason is that a military defeat of England will bring about the disintegration of the British Empire.’ As Halder recorded, Hitler reiterated what he had told Goebbels and others. ‘This would not be of any benefit to Germany. German blood would be shed to accomplish something that would benefit only Japan, the United States, and others.’124
The talk was only of England at this time. Hitler regretted that he had not done more to ‘sign up’ (angebeuert) the Duke of Windsor while he had still been King. He wondered how useful Sir Oswald Mosley – the leader of the ‘Blackshirts’, the British Union of Fascists – might be.125 He remained uncertain how to act. ‘It’s my impression that F[ührer] is still unsure and doesn’t know what he should do and how he should do it,’ noted army adjutant Gerhard Engel, wondering whether Hitler would indeed give his Reichstag speech.126 A brief trip out from the Berghof to the steelworks in Linz and tank factory at Wels saw him pressing for expansion. Whether or not the British should come to terms, German armaments were intended for use again before long.127
On 16 July Hitler then signed ‘Directive No. 16 for Preparations of a Landing Operation against England’. The preamble ran: ‘Since England, in spite of its militarily hopeless situation, still gives no recognizable signs of readiness to come to terms, I have determined to prepare a landing operation against England and, if need be, to carry it out. The aim of this operation is to exclude the English motherland as a basis for the continuation of the war against Germany, and, if it should be necessary, to occupy it completely.’128 Operational plans followed. But the qualifications in the preamble – ‘if need be’, ‘if necessary’ – indicated Hitler’s half-heartedness.
This conveyed itself to his army leaders. Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief in the West, simply did not take ‘Sealion’ seriously – a feeling endorsed by Göring’s report of Hitler telling him privately that he did not intend to carry out the operation. He never even bothered to attend the amphibious landing exercises. To him and all who studied them, given the strength of the British navy, the logistic difficulties seemed insuperable.129
If the British would only see sense, thought Hitler, it would be far more desirable than an invasion. After signing the directive, he fixed his Reichstag speech for the evening of Friday, 19 July, in the Kroll Opera House.130
The Reichstag had a military appearance that evening. Six seats, of deputies who had fallen in the western campaign, had laurel wreaths placed on them. In the front row were the gold-braided top brass of the military, their chests heaving with medals and decorations, many preening themselves on their new promotions to Field-Marshals and Colonel-Generals.131 (Hitler had a cynical view about promoting his military leaders. Through acts of generosity, as in ancient times, they would be bound all the more, whatever their political views, to their oaths of loyalty, and to him as the bestower of such gifts. He intended their salaries to be tax-free, and would not be miserly with donations of landed estates once the war was finally won.132 This altered nothing of his view that the army leadership – Brauchitsch and Halder in particular – had been found seriously wanting once more, and that his own judgement had again been proved right in the western campaign.133) Hitler was in impressive form, speaking more quietly and less hysterically than was often the case. William Shirer, watching from the gallery, admired the performance. ‘The Hitler we saw in the Reichstag tonight was the conqueror, and conscious of it, and yet so wonderful an actor, so magnificent a handler of the German mind, that he mixed superbly the full confidence of the conqueror with the humbleness which always goes down so well with the masses when they know a man is on top… His oratorical form was at its best… I’ve often admired the way he uses his hands, which are somewhat feminine and quite artistic. Tonight he used those hands beautifully, seemed to express himself almost as much with his hands – and the sway of his body – as he did with his words and the use of his voice.’134
The point of his speech, as he told Goebbels earlier that day, was to make Britain a brief but imprecise offer, indicating that it was the last word, and leaving the choice to London.135 A large part of the speech, which lasted no less than two and a quarter hours, was spent describing the course of the war, praising the military achievements of the commanders, and listing their promotions. As
he came to the names of the twelve generals who were to be made Field-Marshals, Hitler saluted each of them. From their places in the balcony, they stood to attention and returned the salute.136 Special mention was made of Göring, now elevated to Reich Marshal. Göring was like a child with a new toy when Hitler gave him the accompanying insignia.137 Hitler then emphasized the strength of Germany’s position. Only in the last few minutes of his speech did he reach the point that everyone was waiting for: his ‘appeal to reason, also in England’.138 The ‘appeal’ came and went – in those words, and little besides. There was the usual accusation levelled at Churchill as the warmonger. There was the threat that Britain, and the British Empire, would be destroyed. There was a hypocritical expression of regret for the victims of continued war. And there was the victor’s ‘appeal to reason’. That was all.139 It was little wonder that the reaction, even among those around Hitler, was one of disappointment – especially when the British categorical rejection of the ‘offer’ was announced within the hour.140
Hitler had misjudged the mood in Britain. And his speech had not been tuned to offer anything that might tempt the opponents of Churchill, who could have formed a peace-lobby.141 Ciano, who met Hitler the day after the speech, was told that British reactions had ruled out any possibility of an understanding being reached. Hitler said he was preparing to strike at Britain, whose resistance would collapse under the first blows.142 This was meant for the Italians, but indirectly – through the known leaks – for British ears, to help concentrate their minds. To Goebbels, Hitler had a different line. He still did not want to accept England’s answer at face-value. ‘He thinks of still waiting a bit.’143