Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  249. Janßen/Tobias, 240.

  250. Müller, Beck, 298–300.

  251. Müller, Beck, 300–301 (and n.88 for a date after 16 June for the concluding discussion).

  252. Müller, Beck, 307–8, 537–62. Beck imagined Brauchitsch issuing Hitler in the second half of September with a collective protest of the top military leadership and refusal to collaborate in a war against Czechoslovakia (Müller, Beck, 558). See also Müller, Heer, 315–33.

  253. Müller, Beck, 552.

  254. Müller, Heer, 333–5 and n.138, 337; Müller, Beck, 542–50, for the text of Beck’s memorandum of 16 July 1938. See also the account of the meeting (misdated to 3 August 1938) in General Liebmann’s memoirs, IfZ, ED 1, Fol.418.

  255. Müller, Heer, 335–7.

  256. Müller, Heer, 337.

  257. Below, 112.

  258. Below, 113.

  259. Anton Hoch and Hermann Weiß, ‘Die Erinnerungen des Generalobersten Wilhelm Adam’, in Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Miscellanea: Festschrift für Helmut Krausnick zum 75. Geburtstag, Stuttgart, 1980, 32–62, here 54. Adam’s account is to be preferred to one in which Hitler’s fury was directed at Beck’s criticism of the Westwall (Müller, Heer, 338).

  260. Below, 113.

  261. IfZ, ED 1, Liebmann Memoirs, Fol.417–18; Müller, Heer, 339; Keitel, 186–7; Below, 115.

  262. Müller, Heer, 339.

  263. Müller, Heer, 333, 339–40; Müller, Beck, 310–11.

  264. Müller, Heer, 340; Müller, Beck, 557.

  265. Müller, Beck, 311, 580.

  266. See Müller, Beck, 311. For extensive analysis of Beck’s position and radicalization during the summer of 1938, see Müller, Heer, ch.7.

  267. Klemperer, 96–101; Meehan, 141ff.

  268. Kube, 269.

  269. Weinberg II,383 and n.18.

  270. Wiedemann, 166; Müller, Beck, 557, 559; Bloch, 188–9; Weinberg II, 383.

  271. Wiedemann, 166, 235–6; Bloch, 188–9; Weinberg II,383.

  272. TWC, xii.798–9. Hitler and Göring had told naval chiefs much the same in July (BA/MA, PG/34566, Akten des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder, ‘Aus der Unterrichtung des Amtschefs A am 12.7.38…’).

  273. Ernst von Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, Munich/Leipzig/Freiburg i.Br., 1950, 192 (and for his quoted words, 165).

  274. Cit. Blasius in Knipping and Müller, 118.

  275. Irving, Führer, 118–19 (with examples, but no sources). See also Broszat, Staat Hitlers, 418.

  276. Below, 112, 114–15.

  277. TBJG, I/6, 49 (19 August 1938).

  278. Cit. Irving, Führer, 127.

  279. Text in Förster, Befestigungswesen, 123–48, here especially 132, 137, 143; and see Keitel, 185–6, for Hitler’s intended fortifications on the Westwall.

  280. Irving, Führer, 128; Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 106, 556, 667, 849.

  281. Hoch and Weiß, 55.

  282. TBJG, I/6, 59 (26 August 1938).

  283. TBJG, I/6, 61–2 (28 August 1938).

  284. TBJG, I/6, 63 (30 August 1938).

  285. TBJG, I/6, 68 (1 September 1938).

  286. Müller, Beck, 538–9, 544–5, 561.

  287. Shirer, 102.

  288. TBJG, I/6, 65 (31 August 1938), 68 (1 September 1938).

  289. See Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 133ff.; Auerbach in Knipping and Müller, 282–3.

  290. BA/MA, RW19/41, WWI VII (Munich, 9 September 1938).

  291. Groscurth, 105 n.29; Smelser, 231–2.

  292. Bloch, 191; Weinberg II, 421, 428; Klemperer, 101ff.; Meehan, 149ff.

  293. DBFP, Ser.3, II, 195–6, No.727 (and see also 220–21, No.752).

  294. Weinberg II, 418–20; Smelser, 235.

  295. Smelser, 235.

  296. Smelser, 236–7.

  297. Groscurth, 104 and n.26.

  298. Groscurth, 111.

  299. Groscurth, 104.

  300. Groscurth, 107.

  301. Groscurth, 112.

  302. Groscurth, 112 and n.62; Smelser, 234–5.

  303. DGFP, D/II, 686–7, NO.424; and see Bloch, 191.

  304. Groscurth, 113–15.

  305. Groscurth, 109.

  306. Groscurth, 107.

  307. Groscurth, 109.

  308. Groscurth, 112.

  309. Cit. Weinberg II, 423 n.195.

  310. Domarus, 900–905 (especially 904–5); Shirer, 104–5 for reactions.

  311. Schmidt, 401.

  312. Shirer, 104–5.

  313. At a meeting with his military leaders at Nuremberg on September 9–10, the target day was confirmed as that stated in Plan Green (1 October) (DGFP, D, II, 727–30, NO.448 (notes of Schmundt); Smelser, 238).

  314. Smelser, 237.

  315. Weinberg II, 426–9.

  316. TBJG, I/6, 91 (15 September 1938); Groscurth, 118.

  317. Schmidt, 401; Keith Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, 1946, 364.

  318. He confessed to ‘some slight sinking when I found myself flying over London and looking down thousands of feet at the houses below’, but he was soon enjoying ‘the marvellous spectacle of ranges of glittering white cumulus clouds stretching away to the horizon below me’, before experiencing ‘more nervous moments when we circled down over the aerodrome’ in Munich after passing through some turbulence when ‘the aeroplane rocked and bumped like a ship in a sea’. (Birmingham University Library, Chamberlain Collection, NC 18/1/1069, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister Ida, 19 September 1938.)

  319. Birmingham University Library, Chamberlain Collection, NC 18/1/1069, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister Ida, 19 September 1938.

  320. Schmidt, 401–7; DGFP, D, II, 787–98, No.487; DBFP, Ser.3, II, 342–51, No.896. According to Chamberlain’s notes of the meeting (DBFP, Ser.3, II, 338–41, No.895, here 340), his reply to Hitler had been: ‘If the Führer is determined to settle this matter by force without even waiting for a discussion between ourselves to take place, what did he let me come here for? I have wasted my time.’

  321. Schmidt, 406, blames it on Ribbentrop. As Weinberg II points out, however, 433 and n.235, it appears that Ribbentrop was acting on Hitler’s orders. See DGFP, D, II, 830–31, no.532.

  322. Weinberg II, 433.

  323. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 184.

  324. Weizsäcker-Papiere, 143.

  325. TBJG, I/6, 94 (17 September 1938); Below, 123. Keitel, 189, claimed that Hitler was not satisfied at the outcome. This assertion is left unsupported, and contradicts the impressions of Weizsäcker and Below.

  326. Below, 123. Keitel’s own account – since he had been present at the Berghof, but not at the actual talks – must have drawn upon Hitler’s own description and diminished the role played by Chamberlain. Hitler, reported Keitel, had threatened the cancellation of the naval pact, at which Chamberlain had ‘collapsed’ (zusammengesackt). The Führer had added that he was ready for anything, and had twenty years’ advantage over the British Prime Minister. To spare Chamberlain the long journey to Berchtesgaden, he agreed to meet him in Godesberg. He was prepared to travel to London but would be exposed there to insults of the Jews. ‘There is a determination to march,’ Keitel concluded. (Groscurth, 120 and n.102–3.)

  327. Weinberg II, 438.

  328. Birmingham University Library, Chamberlain Collection, NC 18/1/1069, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister Ida, 19 September 1938.

  329. Weinberg II, 437–44.

  330. TBJG, I/6, 94 (17 September 1938).

  331. TBJG, I/6, 99 (19 September 1938).

  332. TBJG, I/6, 101 (20 September 1938).

  333. TBJG, I/6, 98 (18 September 1938).

  334. Groscurth, 120 and n.104; Weinberg II, 434.

  335. See Goebbels’s report on Hitler’s thinking in TBJG, I/6, 113 (26 September 1938).

  336. TBJG, I/6, 101 (20 September 1938), 103 (21 September 1938), 105 (22 September 1938).

  337. TBJG, I/6, 103 (21 September 1938).

  338. Schmidt, 407.


  339. Shirer, 113. For references to Hitler as the ‘carpet-biter’ in the middle of the war, see Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 187.

  340. Schmidt, 407–9.

  341. Schmidt, 409–11.

  342. Schmidt, 412.

  343. TBJG, I/6, 105 (22 September 1938).

  344. Schmidt, 412.

  345. Schmidt, 413–14.

  346. TBJG, I/6, 113 (26 September 1938).

  347. See Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 184; Weizsäcker-Papiere, 143.

  348. Below’s recollection differed somewhat. According to his later account, Hitler did not believe that the Czechs would fall into line with British and German demands. Therefore, he would continue with Plan Green, aimed at the occupation of the whole of Czechoslovakia. Hitler had told his military leaders that this would be his favourite solution. The talks with Chamberlain had confirmed his impression that Britain and France would not intervene militarily. (Below, 126.)

  349. Weinberg II, 449.

  350. Schmidt, 415; Henderson, 159; DBFP, Ser.3, II, 554–7 (quotation, 555), No.1118, where Kirkpatrick’s note reads: ‘If France and England decided to strike, let them strike. He did not care a farthing.’

  351. Domarus, 933, has 20,000; Shirer, 116, has 15,000.

  352. Shirer, 116.

  353. TBJG, I/6, 116 (27 September 1938).

  354. Domarus, 928.

  355. Domarus, 930–32.

  356. Domarus, 932 (and see also 927).

  357. Domarus, 932.

  358. Domarus, 932–3; Shirer, 116–17.

  359. Henderson, 160; Schmidt, 416–17.

  360. Henderson, 160; Schmidt, 417.

  361. Schmidt, 416.

  362. Henderson, 160–61; Groscurth, 125–6, n.130–31 (for Weizsäcker’s authorship); Schmidt, 417; Weinberg, II, 451 and n.294 for the timing of the decision to write to Chamberlain being taken before the military demonstration that afternoon; DGFP, D, II, 966–8, No.635; DBFP, Ser.3, II, 576–8, No.1144.

  363. Henderson, 161.

  364. Below, 127.

  365. Shirer, 117; and see Wiedemann, 175–6.

  366. TBJG, I/6, 119 (29 September 1938).

  367. Below, 127.

  368. Schmidt, 417; Shirer, 117. See also Weizsäcker-Papiere, 145; Engel, 39–40; Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Schauplatz Berlin. Ein deutscbes Tagebuch, Munich, 1962, 5–6; and Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen. Stimmung und Haltung der deutscben Bevölkerung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Düsseldorf/Vienna, 1970, 77–9.

  369. Weizsäcker-Papiere, 170.

  370. Groscurth, 125 (27 September 1938) and n.127.

  371. Himmler, as Weizsäcker subsequently implied, also favoured war. (See Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen 191.) The growth of his SS empire was predicated upon German expansion. But his involvement in foreign-policy deliberations was minimal.

  372. Groscurth, 128 (28 September 1938).

  373. Kube, 273–5.

  374. Neville Chamberlain, The Struggle for Peace, London, 1939, 275; Groscurth, 125 n.129.

  375. Chamberlain, 299; Schmidt, 420.

  376. Henderson, 162–3.

  377. DBFP, Ser.3, II, 587, no.1159; Feiling, 372–3.

  378. Henderson, 162.

  379. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 186–7.

  380. Henderson, 162–3.

  381. Schmidt, 418.

  382. Henderson, 163; TBJG, I/6, 119 (29 September 1938).

  383. André François-Poncet, Als Botschafter im Dritten Reich. Die Erinnerungen des französischen Botschafters in Berlin September 1931 bis Oktober 1938, Mainz/Berlin, 1980, 378; Schmidt, 418–19.

  384. Schmidt, 420; Henderson, 164.

  385. Schmidt, 420.

  386. Henderson, 164.

  387. TBJG, I/6, 119 (29 September 1938).

  388. Henderson, 164–6; DBFP, 3rd Ser., II. 597, No.1180; Weinberg II, 453–6 for the diplomatic background to Mussolini’s decision. Goebbels [TBJG, I/6, 119 (29 September 1938)] mistakenly remarks that the idea for the Four-Power Conference was Hitler’s.

  389. Chips, 171; see also Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1930–1964, New York, 1980, 138; Jones, 410–11; Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 109; Richard Lamb, The Ghosts of Peace, 1935–1945, Salisbury, 1987, 86. Chamberlain himself commented a few days later: ‘That the news of the deliverance should come to me in the very act of closing my speech in the House was a piece of drama that no work of fiction saw surpassed’ (University of Birmingham Library, Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1070, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister, Hilda, 2 October 1938). The Labour and Liberal leaders were warm in their approval of Chamberlain’s decision to go to Munich, though they were aware that any settlement would mean the cession of the Sudetenland to Germany. Conservative critics, including Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden were silent. Only one Member of Parliament – a Communist – protested. (Roy Douglas, ‘Chamberlain and Appeasement’, in Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, London, 1983, 79–88, here 86–7.)

  390. TBJG, I/6, 120 (29 September 1938).

  391. Schmidt, 421. See Celovsky, ch.10, especially 460ff., for a detailed account of the course of the conference and its results; also Keith Eubank, Munich, Norman, Oklahoma, 1963, 207–22.

  392. University of Birmingham Library, Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1070, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister, Hilda, 2 October 1938.

  393. Description of the conference proceedings from Schmidt, 421–4. See also DBFP, 3rd Ser., 11, 630–5, No.1227; Henderson, 166–8. For the authorship of the proposal attributed to Mussolini, see Schmidt, 423, Weinberg II, 457; Kube, 273; and Blasius, Für Deutschland, 68.

  394. Henderson, 166.

  395. Schmidt, 421.

  396. Schmidt, 424.

  397. Henderson, 167.

  398. TBJG, I/6, 122 (30 September 1938).

  399. TBJG, I/6, 122 (1 October 1938).

  400. Groscurth, 128 (29 September 1938) and n.142; Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 187–8; Schmidt, 425–6.

  401. Schmidt, 425–6; see Below, 129 (a distorted account). Kube, 276 n.86; Michalka, Ribbentrop, 240 n.2; Josef Henke, England, 187–204, for Hitler’s negative reactions to Munich.

  402. University of Birmingham Library, Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1070, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister, Hilda, 2 October 1938.

  403. Schmidt, 425; DBFP, 3rd Ser., 11, 635–50, No.1228.

  404. See Henderson, 174–5.

  405. IMG, xxvi.343, Doc.798-PS.

  406. Kube, 275–8, 299ff.

  407. Henke, England, 188.

  408. According to Below, Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant Major Engel reported at the time that he had found Halder slumped across his desk when the announcement of the Munich Conference was made. Below was incredulous, since he was aware that Halder had been against mobilization, and only, he said, understood following the post-war revelations about his connections with a plot to depose Hitler how the Munich Agreement had pulled the rug from under his feet (Below, 130). For Halder’s connections with the emergent opposition to Hitler, and for his behaviour during the Sudeten crisis, see Hoffmann, 109–29; Christian Hartmann, Halder. Generalstabschef Hitlers 1938–1942, Paderborn etc., 1991, 99–116; and also Gerd R. Ueberschär, Generaloberst Franz Halder. Generalstabschef, Gegner und Gefangener Hitlers, Göttingen, 1991, 33–4. On Munich and the failure of the coup plans, see Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 326; Klemperer, 109–10; and Hoffmann, 128–9. For the internal divisions of those opposed to war, and the coup plans, see Müller, in Koch, Aspects, 163–72.

  409. University of Birmingham Library, Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1070, letter of Neville Chamberlain to his sister, Hilda, 2 October 1938, where the euphoric scenes in the streets as he was driven from the aerodrome at Heston to Buckingham Palace, then in Downing Street, are described. See also The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945, ed. David Dilks, London, 1971, 111; Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War. Vol.1: The Gathering Storm, London etc., 19
48, 286. For Chamberlain’s immediate regret at having used such a phrase while swept away by emotion on his return, see Nicolson, 140; Halifax, 198–9.

  410. Manchester Guardian, 1 October 1938.

  411. Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 326; Müller, in Koch, Aspects, 171. See also Ritter, 204; Ulrich von Hassell, Die Hassell-Tagebücher 1938–1944. Aufzeichnungen vom Andern Deutschland, ed. Friedrich Freiherr Hiller von Gaertringen, Berlin, 1988, 54–7.

  412. Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 138; Auerbach in Knipping and Müller, 284–6; Steinert, 79; Below, 129.

  413. Treue, ‘Rede Hitlers vor der deutschen Presse’, 182.

  CHAPTER 3: MARKS OF A GENOCIDAL MENTALITY

  1. For the sphere of competence of the Party’s central office, see, especially, Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter. Führung der Partei und Kontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Heß und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormann, Munich etc., 1992; and Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, vol.2, 1933–1945, Newton Abbot, 1973.

  2. Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS 1933–1945, Paderborn, 1982, 114–15.

  3. See Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 188, 191.

  4. Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson (eds.), Heinrich Himmler. Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945. Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Vienna, 1974, 37 (speech to SS-Gruppenführern, 8 November 1938). See also Peter Padfield, Himmler. Reichsführer-SS, London, 1991, 238.

  5. The term ‘Reichs kristallnacht’ was an ironic reference, alluding not simply to the amount of broken crystal-glass littering the streets in the centre of Berlin and other cities, but also to the obvious orchestration of the destruction from above, despite the propaganda line that there had been a spontaneous outburst of the people’s anger against the Jews (Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 35).

  6. Fundamental studies are those of Helmut Genschel, Die Verdrängung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft im Dritten Reich, Göttingen, 1966; and Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zur ‘Entjudung’. Der wirtschaftliche Existenzkampf der Juden im Dritten Reich 1933–1943, Frankfurt am Main, 1987. See also Avraham Barkai, ‘Schicksalsjahr 1938’, in Walter H. Pehle (ed.), Der Judenpogrom 1938. Von der ‘Reichskristallnacht’ zum Völkermord, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, 94–117, 220–24; and Günter Plum, ‘Wirtschaft und Erwerbsleben’, in Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Die Juden in Deutschland 1933–1945. Leben unter nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft, Munich, 1988, 268–313.