Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  A few days earlier, Hitler had been more outwardly optimistic in a three-hour conversation with Goebbels. The Propaganda Minister remarked on how well Hitler was looking – almost unscathed from the pressures of the war, he thought. At first the discussion ranged over the situation in North Africa, where Hitler was more pessimistic than Army High Command about holding the position, given the inability to transport sufficient troops and material to that front. He foresaw setbacks there, and advised Goebbels not to raise expectations of military success. But his eyes were so fixed on the east, Goebbels recorded, that he regarded events in North Africa as no more than ‘peripheral’, and unable to affect events on the Continent itself.266 Hitler then turned to the eastern campaign. Once more he repeated his intention of destroying Leningrad and Moscow. ‘If the weather stays favourable, he still wants to make the attempt to encircle Moscow and thereby abandon it to hunger and devastation.’267

  Whether an advance to the Caucasus would prove successful depended on the weather. But the improvement in weather and road conditions – on the frozen surfaces, instead of mud – had at least allowed motorized units to operate again. The supplies problems were serious. But he remained confident that the troops would master the situation. Goebbels asked him if he still believed in victory. Typically, he answered that ‘if he had believed in victory in 1918 when he lay without help as a half-blinded corporal in a Pomeranian military hospital, why should he not now believe in our victory when he controlled the strongest armed forces in the world and almost the whole of Europe was prostrate at his feet?’ He played down the difficulties; they occurred in every war. ‘World history was not made by weather,’ he added.268

  Three days later, Goebbels was telephoned from FHQ and told to be cautious in his propaganda about the exhibition of winter clothing for the troops. It was proving scarcely possible to transport the provisions to the front. In these circumstances, such an exhibition at home could stir up ‘bad blood’.269 The caution was justified. Within weeks, the start of an emergency winter-clothing collection in Germany would give the most obvious sign that propaganda reassurance about provisions for the troops had been misplaced. It pointed unmistakably to a serious failure in planning.270

  On 29 November, with Hitler once again briefly in Berlin, Goebbels had a further chance to speak with him at length. Hitler appeared full of optimism and confidence, brimming with energy, in excellent health.271 He professed still to be positive, despite the reversal in Rostov, where General Ewald von Kleist’s panzer army had been forced back the previous day after initially taking the city.272 Hitler now intended to withdraw sufficiently far from the city to allow massive air-raids which would bomb it to oblivion as a ‘bloody example’. The Führer had never favoured, wrote Goebbels, taking any of the Soviet major cities. There were no practical advantages in it, and it simply left the problem of feeding the women and children. There was no doubt, Hitler went on, that the enemy had lost most of their great armaments centres. That, he claimed, had been the aim of the war, and had been largely achieved. He hoped to advance further on Moscow. But he acknowledged that a great encirclement was impossible at present. The weather uncertainty meant any attempt to advance a further 200 kilometres to the east, without secure supplies, would be madness. The front-line troops would be cut off and would have to be withdrawn with a great loss of prestige which, at the current time, could not be afforded. So the offensive had to take place on a smaller scale.273 Hitler still expected Moscow to fall. When it did, there would be little left of it but ruins. In the following year, there would be an expansion of the offensive to the Caucasus to gain possession of Soviet oil supplies – or at least deny them to the Bolsheviks. The Crimea would be turned into a huge German settlement area for the best ethnic types, to be incorporated into the Reich territory as a Gau – named the ‘Ostrogoth Gau’ (Ostgotengau) as a reminder of the oldest Germanic traditions and the very origins of Germandom.274

  Hitler was evidently by this time in his element, and allowing Goebbels a sight of the vision of German prosperity based on colonization and exploitation of the east that he had expounded many times to his entourage in the Wolf’s Lair. He returned, as always, to the threat from the west. It was only a matter of when London would recognize the ‘hopeless position of the plutocracies’.275 He expressed confidence – in contrast to some of his comments only a few days later – that the troops were being provided with winter equipment. Once that was the case, the weather would determine how far the advance would go. ‘What cannot be achieved now, will be achieved in the coming summer,’ were Hitler’s sentiments, according to Goebbels’s notes. ‘In any event, the Bolsheviks were to be driven back to Asia. European Russia must be won for Europe.’ Hitler saw 1942 as difficult, but a far better situation developing in 1943. Foodstuffs and raw materials were now available from the occupied European parts of the Soviet Union. Once the exploitation of the area was properly organized, ‘our victory can no longer be endangered’.276

  Hitler’s show of optimism was put on to delude Goebbels – or himself. On the very same day that he spoke with the Propaganda Minister, he was told by Walter Rohland – in charge of tank production and just back from a visit to the front – in the presence of Keitel, Jodl, Brauchitsch, Leeb, and other military leaders, of the superiority of the Soviet panzer production. Rohland also warned, in the light of his own experience gleaned from a trip to the USA in 1930, of the immense armaments potential which would be ranged against Germany should America enter the war. The war would then be lost for Germany.277 Fritz Todt, one of Hitler’s most trusted and gifted ministers, who had arranged the meeting about armaments, followed up Rohland’s comments with a statement on German armaments production. Whether in the meeting, or more privately afterwards, Todt added: ‘This war can no longer be won militarily.’ Hitler listened without interruption, then asked: ‘How, then, should I end this war?’ Todt replied that the war could only be concluded politically. Hitler retorted: ‘I can scarcely still see a way of coming politically to an end.’278

  As Hitler was returning to East Prussia on the evening of 29 November, the news coming in from the front was not good.279 Over the next days things were to worsen markedly.

  Immediately on his return to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler fell into ‘a state of extreme agitation’ about the position of Kleist’s panzer army, thrown back from Rostov. Kleist wanted to move back to a secure defensive position at the mouth of the Bakhmut river. Hitler forbade this and demanded the retreat be halted further east. Brauchitsch was summoned to Führer Headquarters and subjected to a torrent of abuse. Browbeaten, the Commander-in-Chief, an ill and severely depressed man, passed on the order to the Commander of Army Group South, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt. The reply came from Rundstedt, evidently not realizing that the order had come from Hitler himself, that he could not obey it, and that either the order must be changed or he be relieved of his post.280 This reply was passed directly to Hitler. In the early hours of the following morning, Rundstedt, one of Hitler’s most outstanding and loyal generals, was sacked – the scapegoat for the setback at Rostov – and the command given to Field-Marshal Walter von Reichenau.281 Later that day, Reichenau telephoned to say the enemy had broken through the line ordered by Hitler and requested permission to retreat to the line Rundstedt had demanded. Hitler concurred.282

  On 2 December, Hitler flew south to view Kleist’s position for himself. He was put fully in the picture about the reports, which he had not seen, from the Army Group prior to the attack on Rostov. The outcome had been accurately forecast. He exonerated the Army Group and the panzer army from blame. But he did not reinstate Rundstedt.283 That would have amounted to a public acceptance of his own error.

  By that same date, 2 December, German troops, despite the atrocious weather, had advanced almost to Moscow. Reconnaissance troops reached a point only some twelve miles from the city centre.284 But the offensive had become hopeless. In intense cold – the temperature outside Moscow on 4 December had dr
opped to – 32 degrees Fahrenheit – and without adequate support, Guderian decided on the evening of 5 December to pull back his troops to more secure defensive positions. Hoepner’s 4th Panzer Army and Reinhardt’s 3rd, some twenty miles north of the Kremlin, were forced to do the same.285 On 5 December, the same day that the German offensive irredeemably broke down, the Soviet counter-attack began. By the following day, 100 divisions along a 200-mile stretch of the front fell upon the exhausted soldiers of Army Group Centre.286

  VI

  Amid the deepening gloom in the Führer Headquarters over events in the east, the best news Hitler could have wished for arrived. Reports came in during the evening of Sunday, 7 December that the Japanese had attacked the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.287 Early accounts indicated that two battleships and an aircraft carrier had been sunk, and four others and four cruisers severely damaged.288 The following morning President Roosevelt received the backing of the US Congress to declare war on Japan.289 Winston Churchill, overjoyed now to have the Americans ‘in the same boat’ (as Roosevelt had put it to him), had no difficulty in obtaining authorization from the War Cabinet for an immediate British declaration of war.290

  Hitler thought he had good reason to be delighted. ‘We can’t lose the war at all,’ he exclaimed. ‘We now have an ally which has never been conquered in 3,000 years.’291

  This rash assumption was predicated on the view which Hitler had long held: that Japan’s intervention would both tie the United States down in the Pacific theatre, and seriously weaken Britain through an assault on its possessions in the Far East.292 Goebbels echoed the expectations: ‘Through the outbreak of war between Japan and the USA, a complete shift in the general world picture has taken place. The United States will scarcely now be in a position to transport worthwhile material to England let alone the Soviet Union.’293

  Relations between Japan and the USA had been sharply deteriorating throughout the autumn. With the collapse of any rapprochement by mid-October over the loosening of the economic sanctions which were biting hard in Japan, the government of Prince Konoye had resigned and been replaced by an administration headed by General Tojo.294 Since then, the hardliners and warmongers in the military had been increasingly in the ascendant. Early in November they had fixed a deadline for agreement with the Americans. If none could be reached, they had stipulated, there would be war.295 Though kept in the dark about details, the German Ambassador in Tokyo, General Eugen Ott, informed Berlin early in November of his impressions that war between Japan and the USA and Britain was likely. He had also learned that the Japanese administration was about to ask for an assurance that Germany would go to Japan’s aid in the event of her becoming engaged in war with the USA.296 Such information doubtless lay behind Hitler’s optimism, when speaking to Goebbels in the middle of the month, that Japan would ‘actively enter the war in the foreseeable future’.297

  The Japanese leadership had, in fact, taken the decision on 12 November that, should war with the USA become inevitable, an attempt would be made to reach agreement with Germany on participation in the war against America, and on a commitment to avoid a separate peace. Any insistence by Germany on Japan’s involvement in the war against the Soviet Union would be met with the response that Japan did not intend to intervene for the time being. Should Germany then delay her entry into the war against the USA, this would have to be taken on board.298

  On 21 November Ribbentrop had laid down the Reich’s policy to Ott: Berlin regarded it as self-evident that if either country, Germany or Japan, found itself at war with the USA, the other country would not sign a separate peace.299 Two days later, General Okamoto, the head of the section of the Japanese General Staff dealing with foreign armies, went a stage further. He asked Ambassador Ott whether Germany would regard itself as at war with the USA if Japan were to open hostilities.300 There is no record of Ribbentrop’s replying to Ott’s telegram, which arrived on 24 November. But when he met Ambassador Oshima in Berlin on the evening of 28 November, Ribbentrop assured him that Germany would come to Japan’s aid if she were to be at war with the USA. And there was no possibility of a separate peace between Germany and the USA under any circumstances. The Führer was determined on this point.301

  For the Japanese, little depended on the agreement with Germany. Already two days before Ribbentrop met Oshima, Japanese air and naval forces had set out for Hawaii. And on 1 December, the order had been given to attack on the 7th.302

  Ribbentrop’s assurances were fully in line with Hitler’s remarks during Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin in the spring, that Germany would immediately draw the consequences should Japan get into conflict with the USA.303 But at this point, before entering any formal agreement with the Japanese, Ribbentrop evidently deemed it necessary to consult Hitler. He told Oshima this on the evening of 1 December.304 The next day, Hitler flew, as we have seen, to visit Army Group South following the setback at Rostov. Bad weather forced him to stay overnight in Poltava on the way back, where he was apparently cut off from communications. He was able to return to his headquarters only on 4 December.305 Ribbentrop reached him there and gained approval for what amounted to a new tripartite pact – which the German Foreign Minister rapidly agreed with Ciano – stipulating that should war break out between any one of the partners and the USA, the other two states would immediately regard themselves as also at war with America.306 Already before Pearl Harbor, therefore, Germany had effectively committed itself to war with the USA should Japan – as now seemed inevitable – become involved in hostilities.

  The agreement, which had inserted the mutual pledge and not just left a one-sided commitment, was still unsigned when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. This unprovoked Japanese aggression gave Hitler what he wanted without having already committed himself formally to any action from the German side. However, he was keen to have a revised agreement – completed on 11 December, and now stipulating only an obligation not to conclude an armistice or peace treaty with the USA without mutual consent – for propaganda reasons: to include in his big speech to the Reichstag that afternoon.307

  The idea of a speech to the Reichstag in mid-December, giving an account of the war-year 1941, had been in Hitler’s mind for some weeks. He had spoken to Goebbels about it as early as 21 November.308 Immediately following Pearl Harbor, he decided to make a declaration of war on the USA the high-point of his long-planned speech. As soon as he heard the news of the Japanese attack, he telephoned Goebbels, expressing his delight, and ordering the summoning of the Reichstag for Wednesday, 10 December, ‘to make the German stance clear’. Goebbels commented: ‘We will, on the basis of the Tripartite Pact, probably not avoid a declaration of war on the United States. But that’s now not so bad. We’re now to a certain extent protected on the flanks. The United States will no longer be so rashly able to provide England with aircraft, weapons, and transport-space, since it can be presumed that they will need all that for their own war with Japan.’309

  From a propaganda point of view, the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor was most timely for Hitler. Given the crisis on the eastern front, he had little of a positive nature to include in a progress-report to the German people. No further mention had, in fact, been made of a speech to the Reichstag since he had himself originally raised the prospect weeks earlier. With nothing but setbacks and a prolonged war, contrary to all promises, to account for, he would almost certainly have wished to avoid a speech. But now the Japanese attack gave him a positive angle. On 8 December, Ribbentrop told Ambassador Oshima that the Führer was contemplating the best way, from the psychological point of view, of declaring war on the United States.310 Since he wanted time to prepare carefully such an important speech, Hitler had the assembling of the Reichstag postponed from 10 December, the date he had originally stipulated, to the next day, despite Japanese pressure for an earlier date.311 At least, Goebbels remarked, the time of the speech, three o’clock in the afternoon, though scarcely good for the German public, would a
llow the Japanese and Americans to hear it.312

  On the morning of 9 December, Hitler’s train pulled in at the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin.313 He told Goebbels, who saw him at midday, of his suprise and initial incredulity at the attack on Pearl Harbor, though he had always expected that Japan would be forced to act before long if she did not want to give up her claim to world-power status.314 ‘The Führer is beaming again with optimism and confidence in victory,’ Goebbels remarked. ‘It is good, after so many days when we’ve had to digest unpleasant news, to come into direct contact with him again.’315 Hitler still had to prepare his speech. He gave Goebbels a résumé of what he intended to say.316 But when Goebbels saw him again the following lunchtime, 10 December, Hitler had still found no time, he said, to begin work on the speech.317

  That Germany would declare war on the USA was, as we have seen, a matter of course. No agreement with the Japanese compelled it.318 But Hitler did not hesitate. A formal declaration might have to wait until the Reichstag could be summoned. But at the earliest opportunity, on the night of 8–9 December, he had already given the order to U-boats to sink American ships.319 A formal declaration of war was necessary to ensure as far as possible – in accordance with the agreement of 11 December – that Japan would remain in the war.320 And it was also important, from Hitler’s point of view, to retain the initiative, and not let this pass to the United States. Certain, as he had been for many months, that Roosevelt was just looking for the chance to intervene in the European conflict, Hitler thought that his declaration was merely anticipating the inevitable and, in any case, formalizing what was in effect already the situation. Not least, for the German public, it was important to demonstrate that he still controlled events. To await a certain declaration of war from America would, from Hitler’s standpoint, have been a sign of weakness.321 Prestige and propaganda, as always, were never far from the centre of Hitler’s considerations. ‘A great power doesn’t let itself have war declared on it, it declares war itself,’ Ribbentrop – doubtless echoing Hitler’s sentiments – told Weizsäcker.322