Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  285. Halder KTB, i.52 (1 September 1939), trans. Halder Diary, 47.

  286. Levine, Hitler’s Free City, 153.

  287. Domarus, 1308.

  288. Shirer, 156. See Henderson’s impressions, 287–91; and those of Dahlerus, 123–4.

  289. Domarus, 1311, cit. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1 September 1939.

  290. Shirer, 156; Domarus, 1316 and n.901. Below, 195 contradicts Shirer’s impressions, stating that Hitler was received with far more cheering than usual, which broke out repeatedly through his speech. Shirer’s contemporary account is probably to be preferred. Hellmuth Groscurth, a rooted opponent of Hitler in the Abwehr, noted in his diary: ‘10.00a.m. Reichstag speech. Terrible impression everywhere’ (Groscurth, 196).

  291. Domarus, 1315; text of speech 1312–17. As regards the timing of the start of hostilities, Hitler appears simply to have made a mistake (Rohde, 479 n.1).

  292. Dahlerus, 124–5.

  293. See the references to Mussolini’s peace efforts in Chamberlain’s speeches in the House of Commons on 1 and 2 September 1939: Documents, 161, No.105, 172, No.116; DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 501–2, 507–8, Nos. 700, 710; and Weinberg II, 640–41.

  294. Domarus, 1319; DGFP, D, VII, 485–9, Nos. 504, 505, 507. In the evening of 3 September, Hitler thanked Mussolini for his efforts and explained why Germany was now at war with Great Britain and France (DGFP, D, VII, 538–9, No.565).

  295. Dahlerus, 125–6. And see Hofer, Entfesselung, 392–3.

  296. Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Foreign Office, was brisk in his reply when Dahlerus telephoned him on the early afternoon of 1 September, after his meeting with Hitler (Dahlerus, 127; DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 479–80, Nos.651–2). Cadogan had already noted in his diary on 28 August that the ‘masses of messages from Dahlerus…don’t amount to much unless one can infer from them that Hitler has cold feet’ (The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 203). Dahlerus’s frantic last efforts to engineer a visit by Göring to London were no more than whistling in the wind (Dahlerus, 136–7). In an interview on BBC-TV on 14 September 1997, Sir Frank Roberts (then a prominent diplomat in the Foreign Office, later, in the 1960s, British Ambassador to Moscow, then Bonn), who took the call from Dahlerus on the morning of 3 September, after the British ultimatum had been issued, recalled that he had not thought it worth passing on the message to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.

  297. DGFP, VII, 527–8, N0.558; DBFP, 3rd Ser., IX, 539, App.IV; Weinberg, ii.649–50.

  298. Henderson, 278–9; Documents, 168–9, No.109–11; DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 492, No.682.

  299. Documents, 175, No.118; DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 521, 535, Nos.732, 757.

  300. Schmidt, 472; Henderson, 284.

  301. Documents, 175, No.118; DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 535, No.757; German reply, DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 539–41, N0.766; Domarus, 1336–8.

  302. Documents, 179, No.120.

  303. Halder KTB, i.58 (3 September 1939); TBJG, I/7, 91 (4 September 1939); DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 538, No.764.

  304. See IfZ, F34/1, Vormann, Fol.56.

  305. Schmidt, 473. Doubts have been expressed about the accuracy of Schmidt’s account (Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘Hitler and England, 1933–1945: Pretense and Reality’, German Studies Review, 8 (1985), 299–309, here 306). Certainly, Schmidt’s memoirs contain errors. However, Schmidt was present on the occasion, and Hitler’s response was short enough and striking enough for the interpreter to have remembered it correctly, even several years later. What might, perhaps, be justifiably doubted is whether Schmidt grasped Hitler’s meaning; whether Hitler was not simply asking Ribbentrop in practical terms about what the next step would be. The reported response (Schmidt, 473) of the Foreign Minister, ‘I presume that the French will hand us a similar-sounding ultimatum in the next hour,’ points in this direction.

  306. Documents, 157, No.105.

  307. L.B. Namier, Conflicts. Studies in Contemporary History, London, 1942, 57.

  308. Klemperer, 112–29; Watt, How War Came, 390–94; Meehan, especially ch.7; Lamb, 105–8. Some of the clearest warnings of the need for Britain to take a firm stand against Hitler were passed on in the spring and summer by Lieutenant-Colonel von Schwerin, head of the ‘Foreign Armies West’ section of the Army High Command’s Intelligence Department. The Foreign Office was, however, largely dismissive of his information. ‘As usual the German army trusts us to save them from the Nazi regime,’ was the minute of one prominent diplomat, Frank K. Roberts (Klemperer, 119). I am grateful to R. A. C. Parker for referring me to reports on Schwerin in PRO, FO 371/22990 and FO 371/22968.

  309. Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946, ii.138. Gisevius did not claim these were Oster’s exact words, but was adamant that they represented his meaning.

  310. Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946; ii.140.

  311. See Müller, Heer, 414–19.

  312. Watt, How War Came, 394–404.

  313. See Kube, 319; Martens, 199–200; Irving, Göring, 268, 272.

  314. Bloch, 261. Similar thoughts were current in Berlin on the very day of the British declaration (Shirer, 159).

  315. According to Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, 115–16, the photographer found Hitler at the height of the crisis in August 1939 slumped in his chair in the Reich Chancellery, just after a visit by Ribbentrop, bitterly criticizing the Foreign Office. ‘I knew, of course, exactly what he meant,’ Hoffmann wrote. ‘Again and again I had myself heard Ribbentrop, with an aplomb and self-confidence out of all proportion to his knowledge and his faulty powers of judgment, assure Hitler that Britain was degenerate, that Britain would never fight, that Britain would certainly never go to war to pull someone else’s chestnuts out of the fire…’

  316. IfZ, F34/1, Vormann, 43: ‘Hitler glaubte nicht an einen Krieg mit den Westmächten, weil er nicht daran glauben wollte. Wie weit Ribbentrop mitverantwortlich war für diesen Glauben, wird sich wohl kaum mehr feststellen lassen. Aus der Verschiedenheit der beiden Charaktere und auf Grund der ganzen Atmosphäre im Führerhauptquartier [sic] möchte ich jedoch schließen, daß die Initiative bei Hitler gelegen hat, und der im Grund weiche Ribbendrop, der sowieso keine eigene Meinung vertrat, es für angebracht und zweckmäßig hielt, ihn in dieser Einstellung zu bestärken…’

  317. See Himmler’s diary entry of 28 August 1939, where Hitler was pondering his next step in the Polish crisis. Hitler said he wanted to think about it overnight. He had his clearest thoughts between 5.00 and 6.00a.m. (IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Hitler-Dokumentation, 1939 Bd.20; Irving, Führer, 222–3).

  318. See the comment of army liaison officer Nikolaus v. Vormann, on what he regarded as characteristic for Hitler: ‘On problems that bothered him, he spoke until he was clear about them. Just as others need paper, pencil, and the peace of a study to order and clarify their thoughts sitting at a desk, he needed to speak to an audience’ (IfZ, F34/1, Vormann, Fol.47) (‘Über Probleme, die ihn beschäftigten, sprach er sich klar. Wie andere Papier und Bleistift und die Ruhe eines Arbeitszimmers brauchen, um am Schreibtisch ihre Gedanken zu ordnen und zu klären, brauchte er einen Zuhörerkreis, vor dem er sprechen konnte’).

  319. See Speer, 178–9, for his little contact.

  320. Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946, ii.135.

  321. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 254–5.

  322. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 255.

  323. DBFP, 3rd Ser., VII, 201–2 (quotation 201), No.248. The remark was made on 23 August.

  324. IfZ, F34/1, Vormann, Fol.44 (29 August): ‘Ich bin jetzt 50 Jahre alt, noch im Vollbesitz meiner Kraft. Die Probleme müssen von mir gelöst werden, und ich kann nicht mehr warten. In einigen Jahren bin ich dazu rein körperlicb und vielleicht auch geistig nicht mehr im Stande…’

  325. Weinberg II, 629.

  326. See Weinberg II, 654.

  327. See Dahlerus, 126.

  328. IfZ, F34/1, Vormann, Fols.31, 34.

  329. Weizsäcker-Papiere, 162 (entry for 29 August 1939): ‘Ich habe in meinem Leben immer va b
anque gespielt’.

  330. TBJG, I/7, 92 (4 September 1939).

  CHAPTER 6: LICENSING BARBARISM

  1. See Broszat, Staat, 380–81.

  2. Mason, Sozialpolitik, 26.

  3. Schroeder, 98; Jochen von Lang, Der Sekretär. Martin Bormann: Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte, Frankfurt am Main, 1980, 149.

  4. Below, 205.

  5. Below, 204.

  6. Lang, 149; Irving, Hitler’s War, London etc., 1977 (Irving, HW), 3.

  7. Cit. Broszat, Staat, 392 n.

  8. Below, 203.

  9. Below, 207.

  10. Halder KTB, i.61; trans. Halder Diary, 50.

  11. Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms. A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994 (= Weinberg III), 51.

  12. Keitel, 216–17; Below, 205.

  13. Keitel, 216, mentions visits to the front every other day from morning until late at night.

  14. Schroeder, 98–9.

  15. Halder KTB, i.80 (20 September 1939). See also Groscurth, 207–8: ‘German blood helped the Russians and Bolshevism to the effortless advance.’ See also Below, 206; Irving, HW, 19.

  16. Below, 206; Irving, HW, 19–20.

  17. Below, 207; Irving, HW, 24.

  18. DRZW, ii.133. Czeslaw Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945, East Berlin, 1987, 4, has 400,000. According to Weinberg III, 57 (no source), a million Polish soldiers had entered either German or Russian captivity.

  19. DRZW, ii.133. Jörg K. Hoensch, Geschichte Polens, Stuttgart, 1983, S.280, has 66,300 dead, and 134,000 wounded. See also Christian Jansen/Arno Weckbecker, ‘Eine Miliz im “Weltanschauungskrieg”: der “Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz” in Polen 1939/40’, in Michalka, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 482–500, here 484. The figures do not include those murdered by the SS Einsatzkom-mandos or the Selbstschutz, etc. Madajczyk, 4, gives 66,000 dead and 133,000 wounded.

  20. DRZW, ii.133. Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 4 (no source), gives figures of 16,000 German dead and 28,000 wounded. On 6 October 1939, Hitler announced 10,572 dead, 30,322 wounded, and 3,409 men missing as of 30 September. (Domarus, 1381. Groscurth, 211 (29 September 1939) gave an interim figure, between 1 and 24 September, of 5,450 dead and 22,000 wounded.)

  21. Groscurth, 265–6; Janßen/Tobias, 248–9. The evidence demonstrates that his death was not, as often surmised (and immediately hinted at by Heydrich), in effect suicide. See also Groscurth, 210–11; Keitel, 219.

  22. Cit. Janßen/Tobias, 247.

  23. Domarus, 1367; Below, 207.

  24. Groscurth, 209–10 (25 September 1939); Janßen/Tobias, 250.

  25. Janßen/Tobias, 251.

  26. RSA, IIA, ‘Außenpolitische Standortbestimmung nach der Reichstagswahl Juni-Juli 1928’ (first published as Gerhard Weinberg (ed.), Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928, Stuttgart, 1961), 37.

  27. See Martin Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, (1961), Fischer paperback edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1965, 11–15.

  28. Halder KTB, i.65 (7 September 1939).

  29. Groscurth, 357; Halder KTB, i.72 (12 September 1939).

  30. Groscurth, 357; Broszat, Polenpolitik, 16.

  31. Domarus, 1362 (speech, 1354–66); Broszat, Polenpolitik, 16.

  32. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 16–17.

  33. Seraphim, Rosenberg-T agebuch, 99 (19 September 1939); Weisungen, 34 (Weisung Nr.5, 30 September 1939).

  34. Domarus, 1391 (text of the speech, 1377–93).

  35. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 29–35.

  36. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 36–41.

  37. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 1074–83, for the War Economy Decree; Max Seydewitz, Civil Life in Wartime Germany. The Story of the Home Front, New York, 1945, 58–9; Steinert, 97.

  38. Shirer, 157.

  39. Shirer, 159.

  40. Shirer, 164.

  41. Shirer, 165.

  42. Shirer, 173.

  43. DBS, vi.965ff.

  44. DBS, vi.1032.

  45. Ortwin Buchbender and Reinhold Sterz (eds.), Das andere Gesicht des Krieges. Deutsche Feldpostbriefe 1939–1945, Munich, 1982, 41.

  46. See Shirer, 173.

  47. MadR, ii.331.

  48. See Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 143–6.

  49. See Broszat, Polenpolitik, 41ff.; Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 14–18, 186ff.

  50. In his discussion with Army Commander-in-Chief Brauchitsch on 22 September, Heydrich agreed to withdraw the order – which had come, it was claimed, directly from Hitler’s train – to shoot insurgents without trial (Groscurth, 360–61).

  51. Heydrich demanded, in his discussion with Brauchitsch on 22 September, that they be immediately arrested and deposited in concentration camps (Groscurth, 361–2).

  52. Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolitzei und des SD 1938–1942, Stuttgart, 1981, 19–106, esp.44ff., 63, 69; Helmut Krausnick, ‘Judenverfolgung’, in Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, Olten-Freiburg im Breisgau, 1965, ii.348–9; Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 14ff., 187; Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopädie, 524 (entry on ‘Intelligenzaktion’). The terror against the Polish population was far from confined to the German zone of occupation. After the Soviet Union had occupied the eastern part of Poland on 17 September, the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police, which sustained links at the time with the SS), arrested and deported to the Arctic or Central Asia an estimated 315,000–330,000 Poles, and in the spring of 1940 perpetrated the infamous massacre of thousands of captured Polish officers, later discovered in the Katyn Forest, near Smolensk (Norman Davies, Europe. A History, Oxford, 1996, 1002–5 (where the number of 1–2 million deportees is given, following the figures claimed by the Polish exiled government during the war)). The most detailed analysis of the expulsions and closest estimates of the numbers involved is provided by Günther Häufele, ‘Zwangsumsiedlungen in Polen 1939–1941. Zum Vergleich sowjetischer und deutscher Besatzungspolitik’, in Dittmar Dahlmann and Gerhard Hirschfeld (eds.), Lager, Zwangs-arbeit, Vertreibung und Deportation. Dimensionen der Massenverbrechen in der Sowjetunion und in Deutschland 1933 bis 1945, Essen, 1999, 515–33, here 526 and 521 for the estimated 11,000 victims of the Katyn ‘executions’.

  53. Helmut Krausnick, ‘Hitler und die Morde in Polen’, VfZ, 11 (1963), 196–209, here 196–7.

  54. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 483.

  55. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 484.

  56. Hilarius Breitinger, Als Deutschenseelsorger in Posen und im Warthegau 1934–1945. Erin-nerungen, Mainz, 1984, 30–38; Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 484.

  57. Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 12–13; Broszat, Polenpolitik, 50–51. The exiled Polish government in London, citing the report of an Englishwoman who had lived in Bromberg and had been there on the so-called ‘Bloody Sunday’ of 3 September, implied that nothing untoward had happened that day and that it had been purely a German invention (The German New Order in Poland, London, n.d. (1941), 131).

  58. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 51.

  59. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 51 and 180 n.78 (for the later claim by Hitler’s Army Adjutant Gerhard Engel that the dictator had personally given the order to exaggerate the number of victims); Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 12–13, and n.23. See also Breitinger, 38–42, and, for a detailed examination of the myth launched by German propaganda, Karol Marian Pospieszalski, ‘The Case of the 58,000 “Volksdeutsche”. An Investigation into Nazi Claims Concerning Losses of the German Minority in Poland before and during 1939’, in Documenta Occupationis, ed. Instytut Zachodni, vol.vii, 2nd edn, Poznan, 1981.

  60. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 484.

  61. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 51.

  62. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 486. A full analysis of the role of the ‘Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz’ is provided in the book by the same authors: Christian Jansen and Arno Weckbecker, Der ‘Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz’ in Polen 1939/40, Munich, 1992, especially, for the atrocities perpetrated by the orga
nization, 111–59.

  63. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 486.

  64. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 487–8; Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 14.

  65. Cit. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 490.

  66. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 32.

  67. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 491.

  68. Jansen/Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 496; Madajczyk, Okkupationspolitik, 14.

  69. Groscurth, 201 (8 September 1939) and n.476, including the recollection that Hitler had made the same complaints as Heydrich on the same day to Keitel.

  70. Halder KTB, i.79 (19 September 1939). See Broszat, Polenpolitik, 20, for the first use of ‘Flurbereinigung’ in the notes of Canaris’s talk with Keitel on 12 September.

  71. Halder KTB, i.67 (10 September 1939); Groscurth, 203 (11 September 1939).

  72. IfZ, Nuremberg Documents, PS-3047, Serie II, Blatt 2, ‘Aktenvermerk über die Besprechung im Führerzug am 12.9.1939 in Ilnau’; Groscurth, 358; also cit. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 20; Jansen-Weckbecker, ‘Miliz’, 494.

  73. Groscurth, 202 (9 September 1939).

  74. IMG, xxvi.255–7, Doc.686-PS; Broszat, Polenpolitik, 22 and 175, n.35.

  75. Broszat, Polenpolitik, 21–2; also printed in Kurt Pätzold (ed.), Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernich-tung. Dokumente des faschistischen Antisemitismus 1933 bis 1942, Leipzig, 1983, 239–40 (misdated to 27 September); and Europa unterm Hakenkreuz: Die faschistische Okkupationspolitik in Polen (1939–1945), Dokumentenauswahl und Einleitung von Werner Röhr et al., East Berlin, 1989, 119–20 (and 120–22 for the instructions issued the same day to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen). The SD’s ‘Jewish Department’ II 112 had already begun collecting detailed data early in May on the Jewish population in Poland, building up a card-index which, in the event of its deployment, could be passed on to an Einsatzkommando. (I am most grateful to Professor Dan Michmann, Bar-Ilan, Israel, for passing to me a copy of the relevant document, taken from BA, R 58/954. See also Dan Michmann, ‘Preparing for Occupation? A Nazi Sicherheitsdienst Document of Spring 1939 on the Jews of Holland’, Studia Rosenthaliana, 32 (1998), 173–80, here 177.)