by Ian Kershaw
306. KTB OKW, i.257–8; Hillgruber, Strategie, 364–5.
307. Below, 259.
308. Halder KTB, ii.283; trans. Halder Diary, 320 (17 February 1941); Hillgruber, Strategie, 365.
CHAPTER 8: DESIGNING A ‘WAR OF ANNIHILATION’
1. Below, 252, 254. He probably exaggerates (259, 279–80) the extent of reservation about the attack on the USSR. See Irving, HW, 181–2, and Irving, Göring, 307–9, for Göring’s initial objections (in November 1940) on economic, not moral, grounds – emphasizing Germany’s dependence on Soviet grain and oil – but rapid capitulation to Hitler’s arguments. Göring’s preferred strategy would have been, acting together with the Italians and Spanish, to force the British out of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and to occupy North Africa and the Balkans.
2. IfZ, F37/3 (1940–41), Kreisleitertagung am 28.11.1940, quotations Fols.290–91 (pp.18–19 of speech). In the earlier part of his speech, Himmler had stated (Fol.277) that Hitler was not interested in destroying the English people and their Empire (‘Dem Führer lag nichts an der Vernichtung des englischen Volkes und Imperiums’), but that the British had refused his offers of peace. The Führer would prefer not to undertake a landing in England, but would do so the following spring if the last resistance was not broken. He saw Britain’s future, after its collapse, residing in a probable merger (‘Fusion’) with America (Fols.279–82). Himmler went on to depict his vision of the future development of the European continent under German domination, before coming to the question of Russia.
3. Hofer, Der Nationalsozialismus, 194.
4. IMG, xxxiv.469, Doc.134-C (Hitler’s comments on 20 January 1941); and, for Hitler’s comments on 20 June 1941 (as noted by General Thomas) on the need to secure all territories needed for the defence economy, IMG, xxvii.220–21, Doc.1456-PS; see also Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims. Vol.1: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion, London, 1973, 207; and Carr, Poland, 122–5.
5. See Breitman, Architect, ch.7.
6. Engel, 92 (18 December 1940).
7. DRZW, iv.244; Leach, 159–65; Hillgruber, Strategie, 501–4.
8. Leach, 140.
9. Halder KTB, ii.261 (28 January 1941); trans. Halder Diary, 314.
10. Leach, 141.
11. Bock, Diary, 197–8 (1 February 1941); Leach, 141.
12. Leach, 142–3.
13. Below, 262.
14. Leach, 143–5.
15. KTB OKW, i.339–40 (1 March 1941); DRZW, iv. 244; Leach, 159–61.
16. Halder KTB, ii.319 (17 March 1941); Leach, 162–3.
17. Engel, 92–3 (entry for 17 January 1941); Hillgruber, Strategie, 504 (where Engel’s entry is misdated to 17 March 1941); Leach, 163.
18. CD, 328–9 (16 January 1941, 18 January 1941), for Mussolini’s unease at the visit; Domarus, 1654.
19. CP, 417–20. For the visit and Mussolini’s reaction, see MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed 1939–1941. Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War, Cambridge, (1982) 1986 paperback edn, 279–81; Milza, 791.
20. CD, 329 (entry dated 18 January 1941 in text, but actually covering the dates 18–21 January 1941, here referring to 19 January 1941). For the authenticity of the diaries, despite some touching up in 1943, see Knox, 291–2.
21. CD, 330 (entry dated 18 January 1941, but relating here to 20 January 1941).
22. IMG, xxxiv.469, Doc. 134-C.
23. CD, 330 (entry dated 18 January 1941, but relating to 21 January 1941).
24. CD, 331 (22 January 1941).
25. For scorn in the population directed at Italian war-efforts in Greece and North Africa, see Steinert, 171.
26. TBJG, I/9, 114 (29 January 1941); see also 153 (22 February 1941) for growing doubts about Mussolini, and 197–8 (21 March 1941) for further complaints about the Italian leadership and military capability.
27. TBJG, I/9, 118 (31 January 1941) for Hitler’s criticism of the Italians.
28. See Gruchmann, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, 107, for the military defeats and numbers of prisoners; and Knox, 251ff., for the disastrous campaigns.
29. Irving, HW, 200.
30. KTB OKW, i.284 (28 January 1941).
31. Domarus, 1666.
32. CP, 421–30 (here 428). See Preston, Franco, 421–2, for the extraordinary ‘shopping-list’ of military equipment put together by the Spanish General Staff – so exorbitant that it was dismissed in Berlin as a pretext to avoid entering the war.
33. TBJG, I/9, 121 (1 February 1941).
34. TBJG, I/9, 119 (31 January 1941), 121 (1 February 1941).
35. TBJG, I/9, 121 (1 February 1941).
36. Domarus, 1661 n.50.
37. TBJG, I/9, 121 (1 February 1941).
38. Domarus, 1663.
39. Domarus, 1663 n.54; and see Jäckel, ‘Hitler und der Mord’, 151–62, here 160–62.
40. Domarus, 1659. He also remarked, in a different context, in his speech, that neither he nor the Duce were Jews or ‘doers of business’ (Geschäftemacher), and that their handshake was genuine (Domarus, 1661).
41. Aly, 269.
42. Hornshøh-Møller, 187; and see 2–3, 18–19, 179–81, 295–6. At a preview for an invited audience on 1 March 1940, the extract of Hitler’s speech, which had only recently been incorporated into the film, provoked a spontaneous burst of applause. The film was first shown in public at the ‘UFA-Palast’ in Berlin on 28 November 1940. (Møller, 18–19, 33.)
43. For the nature of the Engel ‘diary’ entries, only seemingly contemporary, see Engel, 12–13.
44. Engel, 94–5. See Breitman, Architect, 155 n., for reasons to accept this testimony, despite its contentious nature.
45. Aly, 273.
46. See Aly, 268–79.
47. Gerhard Botz, Wohnungspolitik und Judendeportation 1938–1945. Zur Funktion des Antisemi tismus als Ersatz nationalsozialistischer Sozialpolitik, Vienna, 1975, 108–9, 197; IMG, xxix.176, Doc.1950-PS.
48. TBJG, I/9, 193 (18 March 1941).
49. Aly, 212–15; Breitman, Architect, 151–2.
50. Aly, 217–18.
51. Aly, 219–25; Safrian, 96–8.
52. Aly, 269; Breitman, Architect, 152 and 285 n.33.
53. Cit. Aly, 269.
54. Aly, 269.
55. Cit. Aly, 269; Breitman, Architect, 152 and 205 n.33.
56. DTB Frank, 332–3 (17 March 1941), 336–7 (25 March 1941); Breitman, Architect, 156.
57. Breitman, Architect, 156 and 285 n.33.
58. Breitman, Architect, 146.
59. IMG, iv.535–6 (statement of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, 7 January 1946); Krausnick/Wilhelm, 115; Breitman, Architect, 147.
60. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 141.
61. Breitman, Architect, 147–8.
62. Cit. Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945, Stuttgart, 1978, 28. This is the first documentary evidence hinting at the order for annihilation in the eastern campaign.
63. It was taken to Hitler at the Berghof at the end of a quiet month when, according to one who experienced the atmosphere there at first hand, it was scarcely noticeable that Germany was at war (Below, 262).
64. KTB OKW, i.341 (3 March 1941); trans, amended from Warlimont, 150–51; Krausnick/Wilhelm, 115; Breitman, Architect, 148–9; Streit, 30.
65. Warlimont, 152–3; Anatomie, 198–201, here especially 199.
66. Cit. Aly, 270. The GPU was the State Political Executive, the successor body to the Cheka, the notorious secret police of the Tsars, then of the Bolsheviks.
67. Aly, 270–22.
68. In a paper as yet unpublished, ‘From Barbarossa to Wannsee. The Role of Reinhard Heydrich’, Eberhard Jäckel (to whom I am most grateful for the opportunity to consult it) puts a compelling case for viewing Heydrich, not Himmler (as does Richard Breitman in his The Architect of Genocide), as the chief ‘architect’ of the Final Solution.
69. Halder KTB, ii.320 (17 March 1941); trans. Halder Diary, 339.
70.
Streit, 31.
71. Warlimont, 158–60; Anatomie des SS-Staates, ii.172, 202–3 (Doc.2). Negotiations involving the General-Quartermaster Eduard Wagner and the SS leadership about the arrangements for the ‘special commission’ of the Reichsführer-SS in the east were under way in early March (Anatomie, ii.171–2). According to Walter Schellenberg, he himself was involved in deliberations with Wagner, and in turning them into ‘an expression of the Führer’s will’ (Schellenberg, 92; see Streit, 31–2 and 310 n.19 (for contradictions in Schellenberg’s testimony)). Wagner’s meeting with Heydrich turned upon establishing a demarcation line between police and military spheres of responsibility for the liquidation of captured political commissars, and was prompted by the Wehrmacht’s concern that Heydrich would greatly widen the scope of his own powers (Jörg Friedrich, Das Gesetz des Krieges. Das deutsche Heer in Rußland 1941–1945. Der Prozeß gegen das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Munich/Zurich, 2nd edn, 1995, 289–92).
72. DRZW, iv.416–17.
73. Halder KTB, ii.335–7 (30 March 1941); trans. Halder Diary, 345–6. According to Halder’s post-war testimony, Hitler justified his ideological warfare in the East by alluding to the fact that the USSR had not signed the Geneva Convention of 27 July 1928 relating to the treatment of prisoners-of-war. (IMG, vii.396–7 (statement by Halder on 31 October 1945). See also Anatomie, ii.174; and Streit, 36.)
74. IMG, xx.635 (testimony by Brauchitsch on 9 August 1946); see also Leach, 153; and Streit, 35.
75. Warlimont, 162. His explanation, that they had not followed Hitler’s diatribe or grasped the meaning of what he was saying, is scarcely credible.
76. Cit. Domarus, 1683, n.134.
77. Cit. Anatomie, ii.175–6; trans., Anatomy of the SS State, London, 1968, 516.
78. Anatomie, ii.176, 211–12.
79. Anatomie, ii.211.
80. See Jürgen Förster, ‘The German Army and the Ideological War against the Soviet Union’, in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.), The Policies of Genocide. Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany, London, 1986, 15–29, here 17. See also Streit, ch.III; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat. Zeit der Indoktrination, Hamburg, 1969, 390–411; and Helmut Krausnick, ‘Kommissarbefehl und “Gerichtsbarkeitserlaß Barbarossa” in neuer Sicht’, VfZ, 25 (1977), 682–738, especially 717ff, 737.
81. Förster, ‘German Army’, 19; Streit, 36ff
82. Anatomie, ii.178–9, 215–18.
83. Förster, ‘German Army’, 19. See, on its genesis, Streit, 44–9.
84. Anatomie, ii.225–7; trans., Anatomy of the SS State, 532. (Italics in the original.)
85. Streit, 50–51.
86. Engel, 102–3 (10 May 1941); Anatomie, ii.177; DRZW, iv.446; Bodo Scheurig, Henning von Tresckow. Ein Preusse gegen Hitler, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, 1987, 113–14. On reports of the order being implemented by different units, see Krausnick, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, 733–6. According to the most meticulous, if still provisional, statistical analysis yet made, between a half and two-thirds of front divisions implemented the order. (Detlef Siebert, ‘Die Durchführung des Kommissarbefehls in den Frontverbänden des Heeres. Eine quantifierende Auswertung der For schung’. I am most grateful to Detlef Siebert for providing me with a copy of this as yet unpublished paper.)
87. Anatomie, ii.177.
88. Leach, 154–5. It has been surmised, however, with some justification that Bock’s objections were primarily levelled against the decree limiting military jurisdiction, issued a day after the decree on treatment of ‘political functionaries’ (Anatomie, ii.174–5).
89. DRZW, iv. 24, 446. For Küchler’s support of ‘severe measures undertaken’ in Poland (where he had nonetheless criticized the brutality of the SS) in the interests of a ‘final völkisch solution’ of ‘an ethnic struggle raging for centuries on the eastern border’, see Streit, 55–6.
90. DRZW, iv. 24, 446. For a brief sketch of the career of the enigmatic Hoepner, see Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr and Gene Mueller, ‘Generaloberst Erich Hoepner’, in Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), Hitlers militärische Elite. Bd.2, Vom Kriegsbeginn bis zum Weltkriegsende, Darmstadt, 1998, 93–9.
91. See Arno J. Mayer, Why did the Heavens not Darken? The ‘Final Solution’ in History, New York, 1988, 212.
92. As Ulrich von Hassell put it, shortly before the campaign began: ‘Brauchitsch and Halder have already gone along with Hitler’s manoeuvre of transferring the odium of incendiarism (Mordbrennerei) to the army from the SS, which up to now had alone been burdened with it’ (Hassell, 257 (15 June 1941)).
93. CP, 432 (25 March 1941).
94. Staatsmänner I, 234.
95. Staatsmänner I, 236; Irving, HW, 217, for Abwehr reports of growing anti-government feeling in Yugoslavia.
96. Keitel, 260.
97. DRZW, iii.419.
98. Hillgruber, Strategie, 337; DRZW, iii.418.
99. Weisungen, 80.
100. DRZW, iii.421.
101. Weisungen, 94.
102. Weisungen, 95; DRZW, iii. 423.
103. DRZW, iii.422.
104. See Creveld, 96ff.
105. Creveld, 134–5.
106. DRZW, iii.418 n.10; Domarus, 1623–4.
107. Domarus, 1670; Hauner, Hitler, 158.
108. Weinberg, iii.216.
109. DRZW, iii.438–40.
110. DRZW, iii.442.ff.; Creveld, 139ff.
111. Keitel, 261.
112. TBJG, I/9, 210 (29 March 1941).
113. IMG, xxviii.22, Doc.1746-PS (Hitler’s speech to his military leaders); IfZ, ED 100, Sammlung-Irving, Hewel-Diary, entry for 27 March 1941; Irving, HW, 218.
114. Below, 265.
115. Peter Bor, Gespräche mit Halder, Wiesbaden, 1950, 180. See also Heidemarie Schall-Riancour, Aufstand und Gehorsam. Offizierstum und Generalstab im Umbruch. Leben und Wirken von Generaloberst Franz Halder, Generalstabschef 1938–1942, Wiesbaden, 1972, 159. Creveld, 145, points out that preliminary preparations for a preventive attack on Yugoslavia had been undertaken months earlier, so that the army was not caught as unawares as post-war accounts sometimes claimed.
116. Halder KTB. ii.330–31 (27 March 1941); Below, 265. Ribbentrop was also present.
117. IMG, xxviii.23, Doc.1746-PS; KTB OKW, i.368 (27 March 1941).
118. Keitel, 262.
119. Weisungen, 124–6; Below, 265.
120. Keitel, 262; DRZW, iii.44.8ff.
121. DRZW, iii.451. Initially, the attacks on Greece (‘Marita’) and Yugoslavia (‘Directive 25’) were foreseen as separate operations, starting at different dates in early April. On 29 March it was decided to link the operations. According to the new timetable, the bombing of Belgrade and beginning of ‘Marita’ were put back from 1 to 5 April then, on 3 April, postponed for twenty-four hours (Creveld, 154).
122. TBJG, I/9, 211 (29 March 1941). This was the first time that Goebbels had referred to ‘Barbarossa’ in his diary (Tb Reuth, 1546, n.46).
123. Schmidt, 539–40, 542.
124. Schmidt, 536–9.
125. Irving, HW, 220.
126. The thinking in Tokyo differed sharply on this point. It was presumed that an attack on Singapore would be precisely the step to bring the USA into the war in support of Britain (Staatsmänner, I, 255 and n.5). Hitler reckoned with conflict between Germany and the USA – but not before the conquest of the USSR had given him the basis to undertake such a contest (Staatsmänner, I, 256 n.7; and see Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Hitler und die USA’, in Otmar Franz (ed.), Europas Mitte, Göttingen/Zurich, 1987, 125–44, here 134).
127. Carr, Poland, 146.
128. Schmidt, 540–42; Staatsmänner, i., 244 n.16. According to Schmidt, Hitler himself gave a broad hint on Matsuoka’s departure following his return to Berlin that conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union could not be excluded (Schmidt, 548). By this date, American cryptanalysts had broken Japanese diplomatic codes and were able to read the increasing number of messages, following Matsuoka’s visit, passed to Tokyo by the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin, Ge
neral Oshima Hiroshi. By mid-April 1941, US intelligence had detailed information on the forthcoming German invasion of the USSR, and was passing the information to the Russians. (Carl Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant. General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941–1945, Kansas, 1992, 18–21.)
129. Staatsmänner, I, 245 and n.18. At the lunch given for Matsuoka on 28 March, Hitler commented in an aside to the Japanese Ambassador Oshima that should the USSR attack Japan Germany would not hesitate to attack the Soviet Union (Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Japan und der Fall “Barbarossa”. Japanische Dokumente zu den Gesprächen Hitlers und Ribbentrops mit Botschafter Oshima von Februar bis Juni 1941’, Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, 18, 1968, 312–36, here 315–16).
130. Staatsmänner I, 240–47.
131. Staatsmänner I, 248.
132. Staatsmänner I, 262.
133. CP, 436 (20 April 1941).
134. Staatsmänner I, 256–7.
135. TBJG, I/9, 248 (15 April 1941). Stalin had made demonstrative gestures of friendship towards Germany immediately following Matsuoka’s departure from Moscow, embracing the German ambassador and military attaché and declaring that Russia and Germany would march together to their goal (TBJG, I/9, 247 (14 April 1941); Schmidt, 548–9).
136. TBJG, I/9, 230 (6 April 1941).
137. TBJG, I/9, 229 (6 April 1941); Domarus, 1686.
138. Hitler had spoken extensively about this on his visit to Linz in mid-March (TBJG, I/9, 185 (13 March 1941). By mid-May, Goebbels was noting how much the transformation of Linz into a cultural capital was costing. ‘But the Führer attaches so much value to it,’ he added (TBJG, I/9, 318 (17 May 1941). Hitler would often repeat in future his intention of making Linz a cultural centre, and his criticism of Vienna. (See TBJG, II/4, 407 (30 May 1942); Picker, 377 (29 May 1942) and 493–4 (10 June 1942).)