Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  Undaunted by the growing difficulties in German-Soviet relations, Ribbentrop impressed upon the more sceptical Hitler the opportunities to build the anti-British continental bloc through including the Soviet Union, too, in the Tripartite Pact. Hitler indicated that he was prepared to see what came of the idea. But on the very day that talks with Molotov began, he put out a directive that, irrespective of the outcome, ‘all already orally ordered preparations for the east [were] to be continued’.290

  The invitation to Molotov had been sent on 13 October – before the fruitless soundings of Franco and Pétain were made.291 On the morning of 12 November Molotov and his entourage arrived in Berlin. Weizsäcker thought the shabbily dressed Russians looked like extras in a gangster film.292 The hammer and sickle on Soviet flags fluttering alongside swastika banners provided an extraordinary spectacle in the Reich’s capital. But the Internationale was not played, apparently to avoid the possibility of Berliners, still familiar with the words, joining in. The negotiations, in Ribbentrop’s study in the lavishly redesigned old Reich President’s Palace, went badly from the start. Molotov, cold eyes alert behind a wire pince-nez, an occasional icy smile flitting across his chess-player’s face, reminded Paul Schmidt – there to keep a written record of the discussions – of his old mathematics teacher. His pointed, precise remarks and questions posed a stark contrast to Ribbentrop’s pompous, long-winded statements. He let Ribbentrop’s initial comments, that Britain was already defeated, pass without comment. And he made little response to the German Foreign Minister’s strong hints in the opening exchanges that the Soviet Union should direct her territorial interests towards the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and India (plainly indicated, but not mentioned by name). But when Hitler joined the talks for the afternoon session, and provided his usual grand sweep of strategic interests, Molotov unleashed a hail of precise questions about Finland, the Balkans, the Tripartite Pact, and the proposed spheres of influence in Asia, catching the German leader off guard. Hitler was visibly discomfited, and sought a convenient adjournment.

  Molotov had not finished. He began the next day where he had left off the previous afternoon. He did not respond to Hitler’s suggestion to look to the south, and to the spoils of the British Empire. He was more interested, he said, in matters of more obvious European significance. He pressed Hitler on German interests in Finland, which he saw as contravening the 1939 Pact, and on the border guarantee given to Romania and the military mission sent there. Molotov asked how Germany would react were the Soviet Union to act in the same way towards Bulgaria. Hitler could only reply, unconvincingly, that he would have to consult Mussolini. Molotov indicated Soviet interest in Turkey, giving security in the Dardanelles and an outlet to the Aegean.

  Symbolizing the fiasco of the two-day negotiations, the closing banquet in the Soviet Embassy ended in disarray under the wail of air-raid sirens. In his private bunker, Ribbentrop – showing once more his unerring instinct for clumsiness – pulled a draft agreement from his pocket and made one last vain attempt to persuade Molotov to concur in a four-power division of a large proportion of the globe. Molotov coldly reasserted Soviet interest in the Balkans and the Baltic, not the Indian Ocean.293 The questions that interested the Soviet Union, went on Molotov, somewhat more expansively than during the actual negotiations, were not only Turkey and Bulgaria, and the fate of Romania and Hungary, but also Axis intentions in Yugoslavia, Greece, and Poland. The Soviet government also wanted to know about the German stance on Swedish neutrality. Then there was the question of outlets to the Baltic.294 Later in the month, Molotov told the German Ambassador in Moscow, Graf von der Schulenburg, that Soviet terms for agreeing to a four-power pact included the withdrawal of German troops from Finland, recognition of Bulgaria as within the Russian sphere of influence, the granting of bases in Turkey, acceptance of Soviet expansion towards the Persian Gulf, and the cession by Japan of southern Sakhalin.295

  Molotov listed these terms on 26 November.296 Hitler did not need to wait so long. He viewed the talks in Berlin, he had told his army adjutant Major Engel before Molotov came to the Reich capital, as a test of whether Germany and the Soviet Union would stand ‘back to back or breast to breast’.297 The results of the ‘test’ were now plain, in Hitler’s eyes. The two-day negotiations with Molotov had sufficed to show that irreconcilable territorial interests of Germany and the Soviet Union meant inevitable clashes in the near future. Hitler told Engel that he had in any case expected nothing from Molotov’s visit. ‘The talks had shown where the Russian plans were heading. M[olotov] had let the cat out of the bag. He (F[ührer]) was really relieved. It would not even remain a marriage of convenience. Letting the Russians into Europe meant the end of central Europe. The Balkans and Finland were also dangerous flanks.’298

  Hitler’s conviction, hardening since the summer, was confirmed: the strike against the Soviet Union had to take place in 1941. Some time in the autumn, probably following Molotov’s visit, he sent his adjutants to search out a suitable location for field headquarters in the east. They recommended a spot in East Prussia, near Rastenburg, and he gave Todt orders to begin construction and have the headquarters completed by April.299 On 3 December he congratulated Field-Marshal Fedor von Bock on his sixtieth birthday and told him that the ‘Eastern Question is becoming acute’. He spoke of rumoured links between Russia and America, and Russia and England. To await developments was dangerous. But if the Russians were eliminated from the equation, British hopes of defeating Germany on the Continent would vanish, and Japanese freedom from worries about a Soviet attack from the rear meant American intervention would be made more difficult.300

  Two days later, on 5 December, he reviewed the objectives of the planned attack on the Soviet Union with Brauchitsch and Halder. Soviet ambitions in the Balkans, he declared, were a source of potential problems for the Axis. ‘The decision concerning hegemony in Europe will come in the battle against Russia,’ he added. ‘The Russian is inferior. The army lacks leadership.’ The German advantage in terms of leadership, materiel, and troops would be at its greatest in the spring. ‘When the Russian army is battered once,’ continued Hitler, in his crass underestimation of Soviet forces, ‘the final disaster is unavoidable.’ The aim of the campaign, he stated, was the ‘crushing of Russian manpower’. The key strikes were to be on the northern and southern flanks. Moscow, he commented, was ‘of no great importance’. Preparations for the campaign were to be advanced in full force. The operation was expected to take place at the end of May.301 Halder reported Hitler’s thoughts to a meeting of military leaders on 13 December. The campaign, he told them, would involve the launching of 130–140 divisions against the Soviet Union by spring 1941.302 There was no indication that Brauchitsch, Halder, or their subordinate commanders raised objections to Hitler’s analysis. On 17 December Hitler summarized his strategy for Jodl by emphasizing ‘that we must solve all continental European problems in 1941 since the USA would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards’.303

  The following day, 18 December 1940, Hitler’s war directive No.21 began: ‘The German Wehrmacht must be prepared, also before the ending of the war against England, to crush (niederzuwerfen) Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign.’304

  The operation had been code-named ‘Otto’ by the General Staff. It had been referred to as ‘Fritz’ by the Wehrmacht operational staff, and the draft directive No.21 laid before Jodl on 12 December had carried that name. When Jodl presented it to him five days later, Hitler changed the code-name to the more imperious ‘Barbarossa’ – an allusion to the mighty twelfth-century emperor, ruler of Germany’s first Reich, who had dominated central Europe and led a crusade against the Infidel.305 Hitler was now ready to plan his own crusade, against Bolshevism.

  On 8–9 January 1941 Hitler held discussions at the Berghof with his military leaders. On the reasons for deciding to attack the Soviet Union, Hitler reiterated arguments he had been deploying since the previous summer. Partly, the argument rested on a
n understanding of Soviet intentions, sharpened since Molotov’s visit. Stalin was shrewd, said Hitler, and would increasingly exploit Germany’s difficulties. But the crux of his case was, as ever, the need to pull away what he saw as a vital prop to British interests. ‘The possibility of a Russian intervention in the war was sustaining the English,’ he went on. ‘They would only give up the contest if this last continental hope were demolished.’ He did not think ‘the English were crazy (sinnlos toll). If they saw no further chance of winning the war, they would stop fighting, since losing it would mean they no longer had the power to hold together the Empire. Were they able to hold out, could put together forty to fifty divisions, and the USA and Russia were to help them, a very difficult situation for Germany would arise. That must not happen. Up to now he had acted on the principle of always smashing the most important enemy positions to advance a step. Therefore Russia must now be smashed. Either the English would then give in, or Germany would continue the fight against England in more favourable circumstances. The smashing of Russia would also allow Japan to turn with all its might against the USA,’ hindering American intervention. He pointed to further advantages for Germany. The army in the east could be substantially reduced in size, allowing greater deployment of the armaments industry for the navy and Luftwaffe. ‘Germany would then be unassailable. The gigantic territory of Russia contained immeasurable riches. Germany had to dominate it economically and politically, though not annex it. It would then preside over all possibilities of waging the struggle against continents in future. It could then not be defeated by anyone. If the operation were carried through,’ Hitler concluded, ‘Europe would hold its breath.’306 If the generals listening had any reservations, they did not voice them.307

  A little over a month later, Hitler added one further revealing argument – characteristically underlining the psychological aspect of mobilization. ‘A conflict is inevitable. Once England is finished, he would not be able to rouse the German people to a fight against Russia; consequently Russia would have to be disposed of first.’308

  During 1940 the twin obsessions of Hitler – ‘removing the Jews’, and ‘Lebensraum’ – had come gradually into sharp focus. The development was scarcely accidental. But it had, even so, been in many respects an indirect process. The radicalization of anti-Jewish policy had largely been pushed along by the leadership of the Security Police, for the most part without specific involvement of Hitler (though certainly with his approval), until in Poland genocidal mentalities in near-genocidal conditions had acquired their own momentum. In the crucial area of war strategy, where his own active involvement was unquestionably crucial, Hitler’s old obsession about ‘living space’ had returned via the difficulties he encountered in trying to force Britain out of the conflict. Now, in the first half of 1941, the practical preparations for the showdown that Hitler had always wanted could be made. In these months the twin obsessions would merge into each other. The decisive steps into genocidal war were about to be taken.

  8

  DESIGNING A ‘WAR OF ANNIHILATION’

  ‘The forthcoming campaign is more than just an armed conflict; it will lead, too, to a showdown of two different ideologies… The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, the “oppressor” of the people up to now, must be eliminated.’

  Operational guidelines for ‘Barbarossa’, 3 March 1941

  ‘We must forget the concept of comradeship between soldiers. A Communist is no comrade before or after the battle. This is a war of annihilation.’

  Hitler, addressing senior officers, 30 March 1941

  ‘Whether right or wrong, we must win… And when we have won, who will ask us about the method?’

  Hitler, speaking to Goebbels, 16 June 1941

  With the decision to invade the Soviet Union, confirmed in the directive of 18 December 1940, Hitler had closed off his strategic options. In his anxiety not to concede the initiative in the war, he had shifted the entire focus of the German war effort to the aim of inflicting comprehensive military defeat on the Soviet Union – and obliterating it as a political entity – within a matter of months. He was backed by his military leaders, who, even if some had private reservations, at no point raised serious objections to his proposed course of action. In retrospect, it seems sheer idiocy. At the time, Hitler’s generals did not for the most part demur because they, like he, grossly underestimated Soviet military strength and capacity. Remarkable though it seems from a later perspective, the real anxiety from their point of view was directed not towards the Soviet Union but towards Great Britain – backed by its world empire and, it seemed increasingly likely, in due course by the untold resources of the USA. The gamble, which most military advisers – Admiral Raeder was an exception, Göring’s early reservations were soon dispelled1 – acceded to, rested on knocking out the USSR within a matter of four or five months to attain hegemony in Europe. Britain, her hand forced by Japanese action against Imperial territory in south-eastern Asia, would then have no choice but to come to terms. America, confronted in the Pacific by Japan, would keep out of the European arena. Germany would have won the war. Domination throughout Europe would be hers. Subsequent, and ultimately inevitable, confrontation with the USA could be contemplated from a position of strength.

  Hitler had committed himself to action from which there was no turning back. Did he have a real choice? Grand-Admiral Raeder thought so. Some of the generals thought so. Ribbentrop thought so. Hitler himself, however, had only flirted in autumn 1940 with the ‘peripheral strategy’. Having mooted immediately after the victory in the West a campaign against the Soviet Union, the war he had for long advocated as the ultimate necessity, he became increasingly wedded to the idea. The attempt to erode British strength in the Mediterranean through balancing the interests of Italy, Spain, and Vichy France was abandoned at the first sign of self-evident difficulties. Probably, Hitler’s best strategy in autumn 1940 would have been to sit tight and await developments. Japan was playing her own game. As spring 1941 would show, she was willing to look to a rapprochement with the Soviet Union in order to have a free hand to the south. Direct conflict with Britain and the USA, as Japanese territorial ambitions insatiably grew, was almost inevitable. Had Hitler waited, the difficulties for both countries would without doubt have mounted sharply in the Pacific and the Far East. The Soviet Union and Germany, as Molotov’s visit had demonstrated, faced undoubted clashes in Scandinavia and in the Balkans. Russian expansionist aims conflicted directly with German interests in these regions. But the USSR posed no direct threat to Germany at this time. Himmler, probably echoing Hitler’s own views, had expressly rejected the notion of such a threat at a speech to Party functionaries around the time of Molotov’s visit to Berlin in November 1940. Russia, he stated, was ‘militarily harmless (militärisch ungefährlich)’. With a poor officer corps and badly equipped and trained, the Russian army ‘cannot pose any danger to us at all (Sie kann uns überhaupt nicht gefährlich werden)’.2 Had the will been there to co-exist and carve up continental Europe between them – effectively the basis of Ribbentrop’s thinking – it is hard to see which power could have prevented it, given the global commitments of Britain and the threat posed by Japan in the Pacific. But none of these scenarios fitted Hitler’s mentality – nor, ultimately, that of his military and Party leaders. From Hitler’s perspective, Germany could not afford to wait. Russia posed, in his eyes, a threat which could only mount in the following year or so. An immediate German strike would both remove that threat, and destroy the British hopes that hinged on American intervention. On the other hand, to lose the initiative meant, from Hitler’s point of view, to put himself and Germany in a strait-jacket that could only tighten. The war would then be lost. Germany’s chance would have gone. And such was the international enmity towards Germany which he and the National Socialist regime had prompted that any concessions from weakness would most likely mean the demise of his regime and his own ousting from power.

  Moreover, to refrain from
the bold move, to remain passive, would be – as seen by Hitler – to forfeit the psychological impetus that the war had built up. Sustaining the dynamism of the National Socialist Movement required the continuation of expansion, the conquest of new territories, the setting of new goals, the relentless pursuit of the millennium. The vision could not be limited; the quest could not be permanently halted through conventional territorial settlements that would leave – in Hitler’s eyes and those of his followers – the grail of a new society built upon racial purity and racial domination still unattained. If Nazism were to sustain and reinvigorate itself, were not to lose its ideological edge, the war had to continue. There could be no subsiding into sterility – a point which Hitler had emphasized as long ago as the Hoßbach meeting in November 1937.3

  Such considerations predominated in Hitler’s mind. But there were, too, economic pressures, of which he was far from unaware. Germany had since 1939 become increasingly dependent upon the vast supplies of raw materials coming from the USSR. Under an agreement signed in January 1941, improving on that of February 1940, the Russians promised delivery of 2½ million tons of grain and 1 million tons of oil by May 1942, in return for German capital goods – in increasingly high demand in the war effort – whose delivery was scheduled to start in the summer of 1941. Problems in German supplies, given its overstretched war economy, were already causing tensions and difficulties in summer 1940. The economic problems in Germany were foreseen by planning experts as mounting in 1941. The dependence on Russia – anathema to all who put their faith in variants of autarkic policies resting on economic hegemony in Europe (Großraumwirtschaft) – was accordingly set to grow, not diminish. The Soviet threat to the Ploesti oil-fields in Romania posed real danger to the Axis war effort. Not for nothing did Hitler use this as an argument in remarking that the Russian air-force could turn these oil-fields into ‘an expanse of smoking ruins… and the life of the Axis depends on those oil-fields’.4