Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  181. Weizsäcker-Papiere, 164: ‘… ware man der peinlichen Entscheidung überhoben, wie man denn England militärisch zu Boden zwingen kann’.

  182. The sixty-five French divisions available for an assault on Germany from the West in September 1939 had massively outnumbered the Wehrmacht units, which were so heavily committed in Poland. But they were never sent into action. (DRZW, ii.18–19, 270. See also Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategic Politik und Kriegführung 1940–1941, (1965), 3rd edn, Bonn, 1993, 34–5, 53.)

  183. See Domarus, 1369–70, for Hitler’s suggestion to the Swedish intermediary Dahlerus on 26 September that he would guarantee security for Britain and France, needed peace to cultivate – a task requiring at least fifty years – the newly-won territories in Poland (a state which would not be allowed to be recreated), and could offer Britain peace within fourteen days without loss of face. As usual, this ‘generosity’ was coupled with threats. He had destroyed Poland within three weeks. The British (Engländer) should reflect on what could happen to them within three months. If they wanted a long war, Germany would hold out and reduce England to a heap of rubble. Some of these sentiments were repeated in Hitler’s Reichstag speech of 6 October. (See Domarus, 1388ff.)

  184. Irving, HW, 25. The British War Cabinet put out the announcement on 9 September that it expected a three-year war to quell rumours that British action depended upon events in Poland (The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 215 and n).

  185. DRZW, ii.240.

  186. Below, 210. He had already learned from Schmundt on 8 September that Hitler was intending to attack France as soon as possible. Hitler, according to Below, spoke about this to his closest military advisers on a number of occasions during the following days and was determined to launch the attack in October or November.

  187. Halder KTB, i.86–90 (27 September 1939); trans. Halder Diary, 62–6.

  188. DRZW, ii.238.

  189. Warlimont, 37.

  190. Seraphim, Rosenberg-Tagebuch, 99 (29 September 1939).

  191. Domarus, 1392.

  192. Domarus, 1390.

  193. Domarus, 1389, 1393.

  194. Domarus, 1393.

  195. Chamberlain asked who stood in the way of genuine peace in Europe, and answered his own rhetorical question: ‘It is the German Government, and the German Government alone’ (cit. Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 223). All unofficial feelers in the following months met with a similar response.

  196. Halder KTB, i. 99 (7 October 1939); Müller, Heer, 475.

  197. Halder KTB, i. 100 (9 October 1939); Müller, Heer, 476.

  198. Cit. Müller, Heer, 476.

  199. Warlimont, 50; Müller, Heer, 476.

  200. Halder KTB, i. 101–3 (10 October 1939); Müller, Heer, 476; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Dokumente zur Vorgeschichte des Westfeldzuges 1939–1940, Göttingen/Berlin/Frankfurt, 1956, 4–20, Nr.3, S.4ff., here, 15, 19. See also DRZW, ii.239; and Hillgruber, Strategie, 45–6. Hitler remained convinced that he had been correct in his views when he referred to the memorandum in December 1944. (Helmut Heiber (ed.), Lagebesprechungen im Führerhauptquartier. Protokoli’fragmente aus Hitlers militärischen Konferenzen 1942–1945, Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft edn, Berlin/Darmstadt/Vienna, 1963 (=LB Darmstadt), 284.)

  201. Halder KTB, i. 101 (10 October 1939).

  202. Weisungen, 37–8.

  203. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 268.

  204. Halder KTB, i. 107 (16 October 1939, mistakenly dated the following day).

  205. Halder KTB, i.iii (22 October 1939); Jacobsen, Vorgeschichte, 41 (for confirmation on 27 October 1939).

  206. TBJG, I/7, 150 (12 October 1939).

  207. TBJG, I/7, 153 (14 October 1939). ‘Die Engländer müssen durch Schaden klug werden.’

  208. TBJG, I/7, 164 (22 October 1939).

  209. Groscurth, 385; and see Müller, Heer, 493.

  210. TBJG, I/7, 180 (3 November 1939).

  211. TBJG, I/7, 184 (7 November 1939). The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) ended the religious and political conflicts of the Thirty Years War, but did so by weakening the central authority of the Holy Roman Empire to the advantage of the individual states. Territorial concessions had also to be made to France and Sweden, while Switzerland and the Netherlands finally established their independence of the Reich. That the settlement was anathema to Hitler is plain to see.

  212. TBJG, I/7, 187 (9 November 1939).

  213. Dülffer, Marine, 541ff.

  214. Goring had continued in the first weeks of the war to put out unofficial feelers through Dahlerus towards a possible settlement with Britain (Irving, Goring, 274–8). The British Foreign Office was dismissive and, on 19 October, diplomatically told Dahlerus to bring the contact to an end (Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 223–6).

  215. Halder KTB, i.105 (14 October 1939).

  216. Müller, Heer, 480 and n.59; Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 269–70.

  217. Müller, Heer, 480.

  218. Müller, Heer, 481.

  219. Müller, Heer, 485.

  220. Müller, Heer, 485–6.

  221. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 167–8; Müller, Heer, 516–17 (with doubts about whether later conspiracy details were not intermingled with the plans of 1939 in the post-war account of this document). For the Abwehr group see Deutsch, 81ff.

  222. Müller, Heer, 490–96.

  223. Deutsch, 16–17.

  224. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 166; Müller, Heer, 500–501.

  225. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 172–3; Müller, Heer, 502, 507–8. On Halder’s ambivalent opposition in autumn 1939, see also Hartmann, Halder, 162–72; Ueberschär, Halder, 35–45.

  226. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 173–4.

  227. Müller, Heer, 518–20.

  228. Deutsch, 226–9; Müller, Heer, 520–21; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 177; Halder KTB, i. 120 (5 November 1939); IMG, xx.628; Groscurth, 224 (5 November 1939); Keitel, 225; Warlimont, 58; Below, 213; Engel, 66–7.

  229. Halder KTB, i. 120 (5 November 1939); trans. Halder Diary, 78.

  230. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178.

  231. Groscurth, 225, 305 (5 November 1939).

  232. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178.

  233. Groscurth, 226, 306 (7 November 1939).

  234. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 178–80,182–3; Müller, Heer, 524–46; Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946 edn, 120–22.

  235. The number of postponements is given in Hauner, Hitler, 147.,

  236. Groscurth, 227 (9 November 1939); Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 393–4 (where Gisevius states that he initially thought Himmler was behind the assassination attempt, and comments that Helldorf, the Berlin Police Chief, knew no more than what he had seen in the newspapers); Hoffmann, Widerstand, 181. Gisevius (396–411) eventually came to the realization that it was the work of a single man.

  237. Zoller, 181.

  238. TBJG, I/7, 188 (9 November 1939).

  239. TBJG, I/7, 197 (17 November 1939), 201 (19 November 1939).

  240. Lothar Gruchmann (ed.), Autobiographie eines Attentäters. Johann Georg Elser. Aussage zum Sprengstoffanschlag im Bürgerbräukeller, München, am 8. November 1939, Stuttgart, 1970, 13–14; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 181.

  241. Most early accounts of the attempt (with the exception of that of Gisevius) took it for granted that Elser had been the ‘front-man’ for a plot. (See, e.g., Bullock, Hitler, 566–7, where it is stated that the attempt was organized by the Gestapo). That Elser had planned and carried out the attempt alone was first convincingly demonstrated by Anton Hoch, ‘Das Attentat auf Hitler im Münchener Bürgerbräukeller 1939’, VfZ, 17 (1969), 383–413. The article presented an accurate description of Elser’s background and motivation, as well as his preparation of the bomb-attack, testing the veracity of Elser’s own statement to the police (printed in Gruchmann, Elser, on which the following account rests).

  242. Gruchmann, Elser, 27. He had been born in 1903 in Hermaringen (Württemberg).

  243. Gruchmann, Elser, 9, 20–22, 76–8, 80–84, 146, 165, n.64.

  244. Gruc
hmann, Elser, 84–101, 104–6, 121–4, 131, 146–53.

  245. Gruchmann, Elser, 9; Domarus, 1404.

  246. Domarus, 1405.

  247. Domarus, 1405–14; see TBJG, I/7, 187–8 (9 November 1939).

  248. Gruchmann, Elser, 9; Domarus, 1414–15. Hitler had travelled to Munich by air, but a return flight could not be guaranteed to leave on time because of weather conditions.

  249. Domarus, 1414–15; Gruchmann, Elser, 8–9.

  250. Zoller, 181; Below, 214.

  251. Der VölkischeBeobachter (=VB), 10 November 1939 (‘Die wunderbareErrettungdesFührers’).

  252. Gruchmann, Elser, 9–10.

  253. Gruchmann, Elser, 7–8, 13ff., 18–20.

  254. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 961ff., 10 50ff., 1196, 1205.

  255. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 1086ff., 1183ff., 1233–4.

  256. Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 298–301.

  257. See Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth,’ 144–5.

  258. Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, Tagebuch eines Verzweifelten, Frankfurt am Main, 1971, 68.

  259. MadR, iii.499. And see HM and n.88.

  260. DBS, vi.1024–5 (2 December 1939).

  261. IMG, xxvi.327–36, D0C.789-PS; Domarus, 1422; DGFP, D, 8, 439–46, here 440, No.384, ‘Memorandum of a Conference of the Führer with the Principal Military Commanders, November 23, 1939’.

  262. Domarus, 1422; DGFP, D, 8, 441, No.384.

  263. Domarus, 1423; DGFP, D, 8, 441, No.384.

  264. Domarus, 1423; DGFP, D, 8, 442, No.384.

  265. Domarus, 1424; DGFP, D, 8, 442, No.384.

  266. Domarus, 1424; DGFP, D, 8, 443, No.384.

  267. Domarus, 1424; DGFP, D, 8, 443, No.384.

  268. Domarus, 1425; DGFP, D, 8, 444, N0.384.

  269. This echoed the comments he had made several weeks earlier, immediately after returning from Poland, on 27 September (Halder KTB, i. 88 (27 September 1939)).

  270. Domarus, 1426; DGFP, D, 8, 445, No.384. See also Hillgruber, Strategie, 28–9.

  271. Domarus, 1425, 1426; DGFP, D, 8, 444–5, No.384.

  272. Domarus, 1426; DGFP, D, 8, 445–6, No.384.

  273. Domarus, 1426; DGFP, D, 8, 446, N0.384.

  274. LB Darmstadt, 287.

  275. Domarus, 1426; DGFP, D, 8, 446, N0.384.

  276. Domarus, 1427; DGFP, D, 8, 446, No.384.

  277. Halder KTB, i.132 (23 November 1939), for Hitler’s reference to the ‘Geist von Zossen’; IMG, xx.628 (statement of von Brauchitsch, 9 August 1946).

  278. Müller, Heer, 547–9, 550.

  279. TBJG, I/7, 228 (12 December 1939).

  280. Halder KTB, i. 154 (10 January 1940), 157 (13 January 1940), 161 (18 January 1940), 165–7 (20 January 1940), 167–9 (21 January 1940); Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Fall Gelb. Der Kampf um den deutschen Operationsplan zur Westoffensive 1930, Wiesbaden, 1957, 93.

  281. See Hilberg, 137ff.; Aly, 29ff.

  282. TBJG, 1/7, 220–21 (5 December 1939).

  CHAPTER 7: ZENITH OF POWER

  1. TBJG, 1/7, 273 (16 January 1940).

  2. Halder KTB, i.93 for the pessimistic report of Major-General Georg Thomas, head of the Defence Economy and Armaments Office at the OKW, on economic shortages and the inability to satisfy the needs of the armed forces for months to come; DRZW, ii.242; Hillgruber, Strategie, 54, referring to the basic plan, aimed at a long war, approved by the British cabinet on 9 September 1939.

  3. DRZW, ii.235–6; Hillgruber, Strategie, 40.

  4. Hillgruber, Strategie, 38–9. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffenführungsstab (Luftwaffe Operations Staff) pressed in autumn 1939 for bombing-raids on Britain to be launched before the end of the year – targeting harbours to damage shipping and supplies – before British aerial defences could be built up (DRZW, ii.333, 336).

  5. DRZW, ii.193.

  6. DRZW, ii.239, 266; Hillgruber, Strategie, 34–40, 48, and (for the Z-Plan, which, on 11 July 1940, Hitler agreed to recommence) 148.

  7. IMT, xv.385–6 (Jodl testimony); Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 4–5; Hillgruber, Strategie, 34, 53. The British Expeditionary Force, initially comprising a mere 152,000 men, began moving to France only on 4 September and was purely defensive in composition – without armoured division, inadequate in communications, equipment, and training, and with little air power (The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, Oxford, 1995, 154–5).

  8. DRZW, ii.236–7. See Staatsmänner, i.45, for Hitler’s account to Mussolini (on 18 March 1940) of how weak the German forces were on the western front at the outbreak of war, though he added that the Westwall would have provided an impenetrable barrier to an allied attack. Germany’s munitions were sufficient for a third of the available divisions for fourteen days of fighting, with reserves sufficient for a further fourteen days (Halder KTB, i.99 (8 October 1939)).

  9. Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 18–21.

  10. Hillgruber, Strategie, 41–5, 48.

  11. Hillgruber, Strategie, 32, 45–6. See also Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Der Faktor Amerika in Hitlers Strategie 1938–1941’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung ‘Das Parlament’, B19/66 (11 May 1966), 3–21, especially 8ff.

  12. DGFP, D, VIII, 604–9 (especially 608), Doc.504; Hillgruber, Strategie, 30 n.13.

  13. DGFP, D, VIII, 871–80 (especially 876), Doc.663; Hillgruber, Strategie, 30 n.13. See William Carr, Poland to Pearl Harbor. The Making of the Second World War, London, 1985, 113–14, for further comments along these lines, which Carr is prepared to see as an indication that Hitler’s views on Russia were undergoing a metamorphosis.

  14. TBJG, 1/7, 269–70 (13 January 1940). A fortnight earlier, he had referred to Stalin as ‘a typical Asiatic Russian’. Bolshevism had eliminated the westernized leadership stratum capable of activating ‘this giant colossus’, he had said. Germany could be content that Moscow had its hands full, but would know how to deal with any attempt by Bolshevism to move westwards (TBJG, 1/7, 250 (29 December 1939)).

  15. Jacobsen, 4–21 (Hitler’s ‘Denkschrift und Richtlinien über die Führung des Krieges im Westen’), here 7.

  16. TBJG, 1/7, 270 (13 January 1940).

  17. See Hillgruber, Strategie, 43–4, for the misreading of British motives, and, for the personalized elements of the conflict, John Lukacs, The Duel. Hitler vs. Churchill: 10 May–31 July 1940, Oxford, 1992; John Strawson, Churchill and Hitler, London, 1997, Ch.5.

  18. Hillgruber, Strategie, 16.

  19. DRZW, ii.193, 195–6.

  20. Hillgruber, Strategie, 49–50.

  21. DRZW, ii.190–92.

  22. For the raid, see Churchill, i.506–8. Norwegian gunboats did not intervene. The Altmark was left grounded in the Jösing Fjord as the Cossack, with the rescued prisoners on board, made good its escape. Norwegian protests at the entry into their territorial waters were brushed aside by the British Government, which could register a needed boost in morale.

  23. Below, 221–2. On the planning of the campaign, see Walther Hubatsch, ‘Weserübung’. Die deutsche Besetzung von Danemark undNorwegen 1940, Göttingen/Berlin/Frankfurt, 2nd edn, 1960, ch.2, 39ff.; and Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1935–1945, Bd.I: 1935–1941, Frankfurt am Main, 1970, 176ff.; Lagevorträge des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler 1939–1945, ed. Gerhard Wagner, Munich, 1972, 82, 85ff.

  24. DRZW, ii.197–8; Weisungen, 54–7.

  25. DRZW, ii.198; see Halder KTB, i.218 (3 March 1940).

  26. Weisungen, 57; DRZW, ii.200.

  27. Churchill had suggested the mining operation as early as the previous September. Problems about infringement of Scandinavian neutrality and divisions within the British government and between the British and the French had led to the postponement of any action before – without realizing the imminence of ’ Weser Exercise’ – the decision to mine Narvik was taken in early April. The British aim had been both to interrupt the iron-ore supplies to Germany, and also to provoke German retaliation thereby justifying British landings in Scandinavia (DRZW, ii
.204–11).

  28. DRZW, ii.202.

  29. TBJG, 1/8, 41–2 (9 April 1940). Two days later, Hitler was talking of the aim being a ‘nordgermanischer Staatenbund’ – effectively with Denmark and Norway as German puppet states under military ‘protection’ (TBJG, 1/8, 47 (11 April 1940)).

  30. Churchill, i.524 for the Swedish reports.

  31. Lothar Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg. Kriegführung und Politik, (1967), 4th edn, Munich, 1975, 56.

  32. Based on: DRZW, ii.212–25; Weinberg III, 116–19; Lukacs, Duel, 32–5; Gruchmann, Zweiter Weltkrieg, pt.I, Ch.4; R. A. C. Parker, Struggle for Survival. The History of the Second World War, Oxford, 1990, 25; Churchill, i.528–92.

  33. Warlimont, 75–8.

  34. Warlimont, 76, 79–80.

  35. DRZW, ii.247–8.

  36. A point made by Lukacs, Duel, 22.