Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  240. Koeppen, Fol. 72 (26 October 1941).

  241. Below, 294.

  242. TBJG, II/2, 215 (1 November 1941).

  243. Halder KTB, iii.58 (9 July 1941), 142 (2 August 1941); E. Wagner, 206–7 (letters of 12 and 20 October). Trains with winter equipment had been standing in sidings near Breslau and Cracow since the end of August, but frozen engines and shortage of wagons were among the reasons why supplies to the front could not be sustained. (E. Wagner, 206n., 266–7. See also Irving, HW, 333, 851; Leach, 212.)

  244. TBJG, II/2, 213 (1 November 1941).

  245. TBJG, II/2, 214–18 (1 November 1941).

  246. DRZW, iv.578 for military optimism in mid-October, 584–5 for unrealistic expectations. See also Irving, HW, 339.

  247. DRZW, iv.585.

  248. Domarus, 1771–81 for the text of the speech. The Bürgerbräukeller had still not been repaired since the attack on Hitler’s life there two years earlier (Domarus, 1771 n.446).

  249. TBJG, II/2, 259 (10 November 1941).

  250. Domarus, 1775.

  251. Domarus, 1776.

  252. Domarus, 1778.

  253. TBJG, II/2, 261–2 (10 November 1941); Orlow, ii.270–71; Johannes Volker Wagner, Hakenkreuz über Bochum, Bochum, 1983, 206.

  254. Hitler had declared in his speech the previous day that ‘a November 1918 will never repeat itself in Germany! It cannot repeat itself. Everything is possible except one thing: that Germany will ever capitulate!’ (Domarus, 1778).

  255. TBJG, II/2, 262 (10 November 1941).

  256. TBJG, II/2, 262–3 (10 November 1941), quotation 263.

  257. The journey took so long because the Special Train did not travel at night (Koeppen, Fol. 80 (6 November 1941)).

  258. Guderian, 245–8.

  259. DRZW, iv.586, gives losses of 277,000 men by 16 October, with a replacement available of 151,000 men.

  260. Guderian, 247.

  261. DRZW, iv.586–7, 591–2.

  262. DRZW, iv.587–8. See also Hartmann, 292–3.

  263. See Engel, 113–16 (12 November 1941, 16 November 1941, 22 November 1941, 24 November 1941) for Hitler’s uncertainty.

  264. DRZW, iv.590–91.

  265. Engel, 116 (25 November 1941).

  266. TBJG, II/2, 336–7 (22 November 1941). The British Army had begun its counter-offensive on 18 November.

  267. TBJG, II/2, 337 (22 November 1941).

  268. TBJG, II/2, 338 (22 November 1941).

  269. TBJG, II/2, 364 (25 November 1941).

  270. MadR, ix.3120 (5 January 1942).

  271. TBJG, II/2, 403 (30 November 1941).

  272. Halder KTB, iii.315 (28 November 1941); KTB OKW, i.781 (28 November 1941); Irving, HW, 342.

  273. TBJG, II/2, 398–9 (30 November 1941).

  274. TBJG, II/2, 399–401 (30 November 1941).

  275. TBJG, II/2, 401 (30 November 1941).

  276. TBJG, II/2, 403 (30 November 1941).

  277. Seidler, Fritz Todt, 356. This contrasted with Hitler’s view, as expressed to Goebbels on 21 November, that the entry of the USA into the war posed no acute threat and could not alter the situation on the Continent (TBJG, II/2, 339 (22 November 1941)).

  278. Walter Rohland, Bewegte Zeiten. Erinnerungen eines Eisenhüttenmannes, Stuttgart, 1978, 78; Seidler, 356–7.

  279. TBJG, II/2, 404 (30 November 1941). By this time, the casualties – dead, wounded, missing – on the eastern front had risen sharply, now amounting since the starting of ‘Barbarossa’ to 743,112 persons, or 23 per cent of the eastern army (Halder KTB, iii.318 (30 November 1941)).

  280. Halder KTB, iii.319 (30 November 1941).

  281. Halder KTB, iii.322 (1 December 1941).

  282. Halder KTB, iii.322 (1 December 1941).

  283. Halder KTB, iii.325 (3 December 1941); Domarus, 1787.

  284. Irving, HW, 349–50.

  285. Guderian, 258–60.

  286. Irving, HW, 350.

  287. Irving, HW, 352, has (without source) Heinz Lorenz, a press officer in FHQ, bursting in with the news – just announced on an American radio station – towards midnight. The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor took place in the early morning of Sunday, 7 December, local time, and was over by 9.45a.m. – evening in central Europe. Churchill heard of the attack shortly after 9p.m. (Churchill, iii.537). A junior officer in FHQ at the time stated from memory many years later that an orderly had brought a telegram from Berlin with the news during the evening meal, shortly before 8p.m. (though the date given, 9 December, is plainly erroneous). (Unpublished notes (25 April 1997) and taped interview with Hans Mommsen of Wolfgang Brocke, a Leutnant in the Technischer Kriegsverwaltungsrat who had served on the staff of the Führer-Begleitbataillon in FHQ since 22 June 1941. I am grateful to Hans Mommsen for giving me access to this material.

  288. TBJG, II.2, 455 (9 December 1941). The Japanese Embassy in Berlin had initially reported the sinking of two battleships (Virginia and Oklahoma) and two cruisers (KTB OKW, i.803). In fact, the attack proved less of a military disaster in the long run than imagined at the time. The battleship Arizona was blown up, seven others grounded, and ten other ships sunk or damaged. Over 2,400 American servicemen were killed and a further 1,100 wounded. But the two aircraft carriers with the Pacific fleet were not in the harbour at the time and escaped. Most of the ships could be repaired. All the battleships except the Arizona returned to service (and contributed to later American naval victories). Most of the crew members survived and continued in service (Weinberg III, 260–61).

  289. Weinberg III, 261.

  290. Churchill, iii. 537–43 (quotation 538).

  291. IfZ, ED 100, Hewel-Tagebuch, entry for 8 December 1941: ‘Wir können den Krieg garnicht verlieren. Wir haben jetzt einen Bundesgenossen, der in 3 000 Jahren nicht besiegt worden ist…’ Hitler remarked, a few days later (entry for 16 December 1941): ‘Strange, that with the help of Japan we will destroy the positions of the white race in East Asia and that England fights against Europe with the Bolshevik swine.’ (‘Seltsam, daβ wir mit Hilfe Japans die Positionen der weiβen Rasse in Ostasien vernichten und daβ England mit den bolshewistischen Schweinen gegen Europa kämpft.’)

  292. See Eberhard Jäckel, ‘Die deutsche Kriegserklärung an die Vereinigten Staaten von 1941’, in Friedrich J. Kroneck and Thomas Oppermann (eds.), Im Dienste Deutschlands und des Rechts: Festschrift für Wilhelm G. Grewe, Baden-Baden, 1981, 117–37, here 137.

  293. TBJG, II.2, 457 (9 December 1941).

  294. Saul Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United States, 1939–1941, New York, 1967,285.

  295. Friedländer, Prelude, 304.

  296. Friedländer, Prelude, 304–5.

  297. TBJG, II/2, 339 (22 November 1941).

  298. Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 126.

  299. DGFP, D, 13, 806, N0.487.

  300. DGFP, D, 13, 813–14, No.492.

  301. IMG, xxxv. 320–23, Doc. D-656; Friedländer, Prelude, 306; Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 127–8. Oshima concluded, from his discussion with Ribbentrop, that ‘there are indications at present that Germany would not refuse to fight the United States if necessary’ (Boyd, 35).

  302. Friedländer, Prelude, 306.

  303. Staatsmänner I, 256–7 and n.9; and see CP, 436 (20 April 1941). Hitler had commented in May that Japan held the key to the USA (IfZ, ED 100, Hewel diary, entry for 22 May 1941).

  304. Eberhard Jäckel, Hitler in History, Hanover/London, 1984, 80. In the original German version of the essay, Jäckel dates Ribbentrop’s comment to Oshima to 2 December (‘Kriegserklärung’, 30). Ribbentrop again expressed the willingness of the German government to fight the USA (Boyd, 36).

  305. Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 130–31; Domarus, 1788–9.

  306. DGFP, D, 13, 958–9, No.546; Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 131–2; Jäckel, Hitler in History, 81.

  307. Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 132–4.

  308. TBJG, II/2, 346 (22 November 1941). He intended to follow it with a
few weeks of recuperation at the Berghof. Given the situation on the eastern front, he evidently abandoned all thoughts of this.

  309. TBJG, II/2, 453 (8 December 1941). See Below’s comment, after speaking with Hitler on 9 December: ‘He trusted that America in the foreseeable future, also compelled by the conflict with Japan, would not be able to intervene in the European theatre of war’ (Below, 296).

  310. IMG, xxxv.324, DoC.657-D; Friedländer, Prelude, 308.

  311. TBJG, II/2, 468 (10 December 1941); 476 (11 December 1941).

  312. TBJG, II/2, 476 (11 December 1941).

  313. Domarus, 1793; TBJG, II.2, 463 (10 December 1941); Below, 295.

  314. TBJG, II/2, 463–4 (10 December 1941). Halder had learned from Dr Hasso von Etzdorf, Ribbentrop’s liaison man at the OKH, on 7 December, the very day of Pearl Harbor, that Japanese conflict with the USA was ‘possibly imminent’ (‘Möglich, daβ Konflikt mit Amerika bevorsteht’) (Halder KTB, iii.332 (7 December 1941); trans. Halder Diary, 582). Despite the growing awareness that war between Japan and the USA could be imminent, the Japanese had not revealed any operational plans. Ribbentrop was still hoping, two days before Pearl Harbor, that the Americans would instigate it with some act of aggression (Friedländer, Prelude, 307; and see Carr, Poland, 169).

  315. TBJG, II/2, 469 (10 December 1941).

  316. TBJG, II/2, 463,468 (10 December 1941).

  317. TBJG, II/2, 476 (11 December 1941).

  318. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 328.

  319. Weinberg II, 262; Friedländer, Prelude, 308; TBJG, II/2, 464 (10 December 1941). According to Wolfgang Brocke, then an officer attached to FHQ, though commenting more than fifty years after the events, declaring war on the USA was Hitler’s immediate reaction on hearing the news of Pearl Harbor (Brocke, unpubl. notes (25 April 1997) and taped interview; see above n.287).

  320. Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 136–7.

  321. Friedländer, Prelude, 309.

  322. Weizäcker, Erinnerungen, 328.

  323. TBJG, II/2, 485 (12 December 1941). Text in Domarus, 1794–2111.

  324. TBJG, II/2, 485 (12 December 1941); Domarus, 1800 and n.533.

  325. Halder gave figures for total losses on the eastern front by 30 November (not counting sick) as 743,112 men, including 156,475 dead. Halder KTB, iii.318 (30 November 1941) and (iii.319) mentions a shortage of 340,000 men for the eastern army. On 5 January 1942 (iii.374), he states that total losses in the east between 22 June and 31 December 1941 numbered 830,903 men (173,722 dead), 26 per cent of the eastern army complement of 3.2 million men.

  326. Domarus, 1801ff., here 1804. See also 1803, 1808 for specific allegations of Jews behind Roosevelt.

  327. Domarus, 1808–10.

  328. TBJG, II/2, 504 (14 December 1941).

  329. See Philipp Gassert, Amerika im Dritten Reich. Ideologie, Propaganda und Volksmeinung 1933–1945, Stuttgart, 1997, 316–22; and Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 176.

  330. See, for example, his revealing remarks in TBJG, II/2, 477 (11 December 1941), and 482–3, 486 (12 December 1941).

  331. TBJG, II/2, 465 (10 December 1941). Three days later, Hitler was voicing similar sentiments. Naturally, the events in the east were painful, was his assessment, but ‘nothing could be changed about that’, and he hoped to reach the prescribed line of defence without serious losses (TBJG, II/2, 493 (13 December 1941)).

  332. TBJG, II/2, 466 (10 December 1941).

  333. TBJG, II/2, 467 (10 December 1941).

  334. TBJG, II/2, 468 (10 December 1941).

  335. TBJG, II/2, 475–6 (11 December 1941).

  336. See TBJG, II/2, 483 (12 December 1941).

  337. TBJG, II/2, 475–6 (11 December 1941).

  338. TBJG, II/2, 494 (13 December 1941).

  339. TBJG, II/2, 494–5 (13 December 1941).

  340. TBJG, II/2, 495–7 (13 December 1941).

  341. TBJG, II/2, 497 (13 December 1941).

  342. TBJG, II/2, 498 (13 December 1941).

  343. TBJG, II/2, 499 (13 December 1941).

  344. TBJG, II/2, 499–500 (13 December 1941).

  345. TBJG, II/2, 500 (13 December 1941); Domarus, 1812. Goebbels was amused that Hitler, in presenting the award to Oshima, forgot its name (TBJG, II/2, 506 (14 December 1941)). Oshima told Hitler of Japan’s aims to strike at India after taking Singapore. Hitler, repeating in general terms much of what he had said to Goebbels and the Gauleiter about a spring offensive, spoke of a German advance to the Caucasus on account of oil, and then into Iraq and Iran, but did not commit himself to the synchronized attack on India which Oshima had hinted at. Hitler repeated that Moscow was for him of little significance. (Staatsmänner I, 337–43).

  346. Below, 298, for Hitler’s arrival back in the Wolfsschanze.

  347. Halder KTB, iii. 335 (8 December 1941).

  348. Halder KTB, iii.336 (9 December 1941); DRZW, iv.606.

  349. DRZW, iv.609.

  350. DRZW, iv.609–10.

  351. DRZW, iv. 610.

  352. Halder KTB, iii.346 (15 December 1941); DRZW, iv.608.

  353. DRZW, iv.608.

  354. Halder KTB, iii.348 (15 December 1941); Warlimont, 212.

  355. Halder KTB, iii.332 (7 December 1941).

  356. Bock, 391 (13 December 1941); DRZW, iv.611. Bock’s diary entry suggests, however, that he was taken aback by Hitler’s order to prohibit a withdrawal, and regarded his exhortation to close gaps by use of reserves as illusory, since he had no reserves (Bock, 394–5 (16 December 1941)).

  357. Bock, 395 (16 December 1941); DRZW, iv.610.

  358. Guderian, 262–3.

  359. DRZW, iv.612.

  360. Halder KTB, iii.350 (16 December 1941).

  361. DRZW, iv.607 n.592.

  362. Bock, 396–9 (16–19 December 1941); Halder KTB, iii.354 (18 December 1941); Below, 298 (referring to 18 December 1941); DRZW, iv.612 and n.608. Within weeks Bock, evidently having made a remarkable recovery, was given the command of Army Group South (DRZW, iv.612 n.608, 646).

  363. Engel, 115 (22 November 1941).

  364. Halder KTB, iii.285 (10 November 1941).

  365. Halder KTB, iii.322 (1 December 1941).

  366. Engel, 115 (22 November 1941).

  367. Engel, 117 (6 December 1941); Halder KTB, iii.332 (7 December 1941).

  368. Engel, 117 (6 December 1941); Irving, HW, 351, 854.

  369. Engel, 115 (22 November 1941); 117 (7 December 1941); Below, 297 (referring to 9 December 1941).

  370. See Bock, 395 (16 December 1941). Three months later, speaking to Goebbels, Hitler attributed much of the blame for the winter crisis to Brauchitsch. He showed nothing but contempt for his former Army Commander-in-Chief, whom he described as a ‘coward’ and wholly incapable (TBJG, II/3, 510 (20 March 1942)). Why he had retained such an unsatisfactory army chief so long in post, Hitler did not explain.

  371. Below, 298; Engel, 115 (22 November 1941); 117 (6 December 1941). For biographical sketches of Kesselring, see Samuel J. Lewis, ‘Albert Kesselring – Der Soldat als Manager’, in Smelser/Syring, 270–87; Elmar Krautkrämer, ‘Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’, in Ueberschär, Hitlers militärische Elite, i.121–9; Shelford Bidwell, ‘Kesselring’, in Correlli Barnett (ed.), Hitler’s Generals, London, 1989, 265–89. In The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, (1953), London, 1997, the change of army leadership in December 1941 is not mentioned.

  372. Franz Halder, Hitler als Feldherr. Der ehemalige Chef des Generalstabes berichtet die Wahrheit, Munich, 1949, 45: ‘Das biβchen Operationsführung kann jeder machen.’

  373. See Halder KTB, iii.354 and n.3 (19 December 1941); DRZW, iv.613 n.610, 614; Hartmann, 303.

  374. Domarus, 1813–15.

  375. A point also made in DRZW, iv.619.

  376. Domarus, 1815.

  377. TBJG, II/2, 554 (21 December 1941); Tb Reuth, 1523, n.224.

  378. Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 176.

  379. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Der Weg zur Teilung der Welt, Politik und Strategie von 1
939–1945, Koblenz/Bonn, 1977,134–5; Wolfgang Michalka (ed.), Das Dritte Reich. Bd.2: Weltmachtanspruch und nationaler Zusammenbruch 1939–1945, Munich, 1985, 66–7; trans. (slightly amended) N & P, iii.827–8.

  380. DRZW, iv.614.

  381. DRZW, iv.614–15; Guderian, 264, and 269–70 for conflict with Kluge; see also Below, 298, for Kluge’s influence. Bock and Guderian had also clashed in early September, to the extent that Bock had asked on 4 September for the tank commander’s replacement. See Bock, 298–306 (31 August-6 September 1941). Bock thought Guderian an ‘outstanding and brave commander’, but ‘headstrong’ (Bock, 304–5 (4–5 September 1941)).

  382. Guderian, 265–8.

  383. Guderian, 270.

  384. Halder KTB, iii.369 (29 December 1941), iii.376–7 (8 January 1942), iii.386 (15 January 1942); Warlimont, 223.

  385. See Irving, HW, 366; and also Leach, 225–6.

  386. For the constant conflict between Hitler and Kluge during this period, see Halder KTB, iii.370–385 (30 December 1941–14 January 1942).

  387. Schroeder, 126–8; Irving, HW, 354–5.

  388. Halder KTB, iii.385, 388 (14 January 1942, 19 January 1942); KTB OKW, ii.1268–9 (15 January 1942).

  389. Willi Boelcke (ed.), Deutschlands Rüstung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942–1945, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, 126–30, here 127.

  390. Warlimont, 223; TBJG, II/3, 511 (20 March 1942), 517 (21 March 42); CD, 461 (29 April 1942).

  391. Halder, Hitler als Feldherr, 46–7; Guenther Blumentritt, ‘Moscow’, in The Fatal Decisions, London, 1956, 29–74, here 67; John Strawson, Hitler as Military Commander, London, 1971, 147. Alan Clark, Barbarossa. The Russian-German Conflict 1941–45, (1965) New York, 1985, 182–3, exaggerates the point in describing the ‘stand-still’ order as ‘Hitler’s finest hour’, when his ‘complete mastery of the detail even of a regimental action’ saved the German army.

  392. The most thorough analysis of the winter crisis, Klaus Reinhardt, Die Wende vor Moskau. Das Scheitern der Strategie Hitler im Winter 1941/42, Stuttgart, 1972, 221–2, acknowledges that Hitler’s decision corresponded with the views of Bock and his subordinate commanders, and that ‘the claim that Hitler’s order initially saved the eastern front is as such correct (die Behauptung, daβ Hitlers Befehl die Ostfront zunächst gerettet habe, an sich richtig [ist])’. He adds, however, that the inability to provide reinforcements meant that the rigidity of the order, given the existing troop placements, also proved a weakness, and that more flexibility would have allowed the consolidation of a more defensible position.