The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

  Now Berlin awoke to what was up. The day before the “Winds” message, on November 18, Ribbentrop was somewhat surprised to receive a request from Tokyo asking Germany to sign a treaty in which the two nations would agree not to conclude a separate peace with common enemies. Just which enemies the Japanese meant was not clear, but the Nazi Foreign Minister obviously hoped that Russia was the first of them. He agreed “in principle” to the proposal, apparently in the comforting belief that Japan at last was about to honor its vague promises to hit the Soviet Union in Siberia. This was most welcome and timely, for the resistance of the Red Army on the broad front was becoming formidable and the Russian winter was setting in—much earlier than had been anticipated. A Japanese attack on Vladivostok and the Pacific maritime provinces might provide that extra ounce of pressure which would bring a Soviet collapse.

  Ribbentrop was swiftly disillusioned. On November 23 Ambassador Ott wired him from Tokyo that all indications were that the Japanese were moving south with the intention of occupying Thailand and the Dutch-held Borneo oil fields, and that the Japanese government wanted to know if Germany would make common cause with her if she were to start a war. This information plainly meant that Japan would not strike against Russia but was contemplating “starting a war” with the Netherlands and Britain in the South Pacific which well might embroil her in an armed conflict with the United States. But Ribbentrop and Ott did not grasp the last point. Their exchanges of telegrams during these days show that though they now realized, to their disappointment, that Japan would not attack Russia they believed that her move southward would be against the possessions of the Dutch and British and not those of the United States. Uncle Sam, as Hitler desired, would be kept on the sidelines until his time came.31

  Nazi misapprehensions were due in large part to the failure at this juncture of the Japanese to take the German government into their confidence as to their fateful decisions regarding America. Secretary Hull, thanks to the “Magic” code breaker, was much better informed. As early as November 5 he knew that the new Foreign Minister, Shigenori Togo, had wired Nomura setting a deadline of November 25 for the signing of an agreement—on Japan’s terms—with the American government. The final Japanese proposals were delivered in Washington on November 20. Hull and Roosevelt knew they were final because two days later “Magic” decoded for them a message from Togo to Nomura and Kurusu which said so, while extending the deadline to November 29.

  There are reasons beyond your ability to guess [Togo wired his ambassadors] why we wanted to settle Japanese-American relations by the 25th. But if the signing can be completed by the 29th … we have decided to wait until that date. This time we mean it, that the deadline absolutely cannot be changed. After that things are automatically going to happen.32

  November 25, 1941, is a crucial date.

  On that day the Japanese carrier task force sailed for Pearl Harbor. In Washington Hull went to the White House to warn the War Council of the danger confronting the country from Japan and to stress to the U.S. Army and Navy chiefs the possibility of Japanese surprise attacks. In Berlin that day there was a somewhat grotesque ceremony in which the three Axis Powers, amid much pomp and ceremony, renewed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936—an empty gesture which, as some Germans noted, did absolutely nothing to get Japan into the war against Russia but which afforded the pompous Ribbentrop an opportunity to denounce Roosevelt as the “chief culprit of this war” and to shed crocodile tears for the “truthful, religious … American people” betrayed by such an irresponsible leader.

  The Nazi Foreign Minister seems to have become intoxicated by his own words. He called in Oshima on the evening of November 28, following a lengthy council of war earlier that day presided over by Hitler, and gave the Japanese ambassador the impression that the German attitude toward the United States, as Oshima promptly radioed Tokyo, had “considerably stiffened.” Hitler’s policy of doing everything possible to keep America out of the war until Germany was ready to take her on seemed about to be jettisoned. Suddenly Ribbentrop was urging the Japanese to go to war against the United States as well as Britain and promising the backing of the Third Reich. After warning Oshima that “if Japan hesitates … all the military might of Britain and the United States will be concentrated against Japan”—a rather silly thesis as long as the European war continued—Ribbentrop added:

  As Hitler said today, there are fundamental differences in the very right to exist between Germany and Japan and the United States. We have received advice to the effect that there is practically no hope of the Japanese-U.S. negotiations being concluded successfully because the United States is putting up a stiff front.

  If this is indeed the fact of the case, and if Japan reaches a decision to fight Britain and the United States, I am confident that that not only will be in the interest of Germany and Japan jointly, but would bring about favorable results for Japan herself.

  The ambassador, a tense little man, was agreeably surprised. But he wanted to be sure he understood correctly.

  “Is Your Excellency,” he asked, “indicating that a state of actual war is to be established between Germany and the United States?”

  Ribbentrop hesitated. Perhaps he had gone too far. “Roosevelt is a fanatic,” he replied, “so it is impossible to tell what he would do.”

  This seemed a strange and unsatisfactory answer to Oshima in view of what the Foreign Minister had said just before, and toward the end of the talk he insisted on coming back to the main point. What would Germany do if the war were actually extended to “countries which have been aiding Britain”?

  Should Japan become engaged in a war against the United States [Ribbentrop replied] Germany, of course, would join the war immediately. There is absolutely no possibility of Germany’s entering into a separate peace with the United States under such circumstances. The Fuehrer is determined on that point.33

  This was the flat guarantee for which the Japanese government had been waiting. True, Hitler had given a similar one in the spring to Matsuoka, but it seemed to have been forgotten during the intervening period when he had become vexed at Japan’s refusal to join in the war on Russia. All that remained now, so far as the Japanese were concerned, was to get the Germans to put their assurance in writing. General Oshima joyfully filed his report to Tokyo on November 29. Fresh instructions reached him in Berlin the next day. The Washington talks, he was informed, “now stand ruptured—broken.”

  Will Your Honor [the message directed] therefore immediately interview Chancellor HITLER and Foreign Minister RIBBENTROP and confidentially communicate to them a summary of developments. Say to them that lately England and the United States have taken a provocative attitude, both of them. Say that they are planning to move military forces into various places in East Asia and that we will inevitably have to counter by also moving troops. Say very secretly to them that there is extreme danger that war may suddenly break out between Japan and the Anglo-Saxon nations through some clash of arms and add that the time of the breaking out of that war may come quicker than anyone dreams.*34

  The Japanese carrier fleet was now well on its way to Pearl Harbor. Tokyo was in a hurry to get Germany to sign. On the same day that Oshima was receiving his new instructions, November 30, the Japanese Foreign Minister was conferring with the German ambassador in Tokyo, to whom he emphasized that the Washington talks had broken down because Japan refused to accede to American demands that she abandon the Tripartite Pact. The Japanese hoped the Germans would appreciate this sacrifice in a common cause.

  “Grave decisions are at stake,” Togo told General Ott. “The United States is seriously preparing for war … Japan is not afraid of a breakdown in negotiations and she hopes that in that case Germany and Italy, according to the Three-Power Agreement, will stand at her side.”

  I answered [Ott radioed Berlin] that there could be no doubt about Germany’s future position. Japanese Foreign Minister thereupon stated that he understood from my words that Germany in s
uch a case would consider her relationship to Japan as that of a community of fate. I answered, according to my opinion, Germany was certainly ready to have mutual agreement between the two countries on this situation.35

  ON THE EVE OF PEARL HARBOR

  General Oshima was a great lover of German–Austrian classical music and despite the gravity and tenseness of the situation he took off for Austria to enjoy a Mozart festival. But he was not permitted to listen to the great Austrian composer’s lovely music for long. An urgent call on December 1 brought him rushing back to his embassy in Berlin, where he found new instructions to get busy and sign up Germany on the dotted line. There was no time to lose.

  And now, when cornered, Ribbentrop stalled. Apparently realizing fully for the first time the consequences of his rash promises to the Japanese, the Nazi Foreign Minister grew exceedingly cool and evasive. He told Oshima late on the evening of December 1 that he would first have to consult the Fuehrer before making any definite commitment. The Japanese ambassador returned to the Wilhelmstrasse on Wednesday, the third, to press his case but again Ribbentrop put him off. To Oshima’s pleas that the situation had become extremely critical the Foreign Minister replied that while he personally was for a written agreement the matter would have to wait until the Fuehrer returned from headquarters later in the week. Actually, as Ciano noted in his diary, not without a sign of glee, Hitler had flown to the southern front in Russia to see General von Kleist, “whose armies continue to fall back under the pressure of an unexpected offensive.”

  The Japanese, by this time, had also turned to Mussolini, who was not at any front. On December 3 the Japanese ambassador in Rome called on the Duce and formally asked Italy to declare war on the United States, in accordance with the Tripartite Pact, as soon as the conflict with America should begin. The ambassador also wanted a treaty specifying that there would be no separate peace. The Japanese interpreter, Ciano noted in his diary, “was trembling like a leaf.” As for the Duce, he was “pleased” to comply, after consultation with Berlin.

  The German capital, Ciano found the next day, had grown extremely cautious.

  Maybe they will go ahead [he began his diary on December 4] because they can’t do otherwise, but the idea of provoking American intervention is less and less liked by the Germans. Mussolini, on the other hand, is happy about it.

  Regardless of Ribbentrop’s opinion, which Hitler, surprisingly, still paid some attention to, the decision as to whether Germany would give a formal guarantee to Japan could be taken only by the Nazi warlord himself. During the night of December 4–5 the Foreign Minister apparently got the Fuehrer’s go-ahead and at 3 A.M. he handed General Oshima a draft of the requested treaty in which Germany would join Japan in war against the United States and agree not to make a separate peace. Having taken the fateful plunge and followed his Leader in reversing a policy that had been clung to stubbornly for two years, he could not refrain from seeing that his Italian ally promptly followed suit.

  A night interrupted by Ribbentrop’s restiveness [Ciano began his diary on December 5]. After having delayed two days he now hasn’t a minute to lose in answering the Japanese, and at 3 o’clock in the morning he sends [Ambassador] Mackensen to my house to submit a plan for a Tripartite Pact of Japanese intervention and the promise not to make a separate peace. They wanted me to wake up the Duce, but I did not do it, and the Duce was very pleased.

  The Japanese had a draft treaty, approved by both Hitler and Mussolini, but they did not yet have it signed, and this worried them. They suspected that the Fuehrer was stalling because he wanted a quid pro quo: if Germany joined Japan in the war against the United States, Japan would have to join Germany in the war against Russia. In his telegram of instructions to Oshima on November 30, the Japanese Foreign Minister had given some advice on how to handle this ticklish problem if the Germans and Italians raised it.

  If [they] question you about our attitude toward the Soviet, say that we have already clarified our attitude toward the Russians in our statement of last July. Say that by our present moves southward we do not mean to relax our pressure against the Soviet and that if Russia joins hands tighter with England and the United States and resists us with hostilities, we are ready to turn upon her with all our might. However, right now, it is to our advantage to stress the south and for the time being we would prefer to refrain from any direct moves in the north.36

  December 6 came. Zhukov that very day launched his counteroffensive in front of Moscow and the German armies reeled back in the snow and bitter cold. There was all the more reason for Hitler to demand his quid pro quo. On this question there was great uneasiness in the Foreign Office in Tokyo. The naval task force was now within flying distance of Pearl Harbor for its carrier planes. So far—miraculously—it had not been discovered by American ships or aircraft. But it might be any moment. A long message was being radioed from Tokyo to Nomura and Kurusu in Washington instructing them to call on Secretary Hull at precisely 1 P.M. the next day, Sunday, December 7, to present Japan’s rejection of the latest American proposals, and stressing that the negotiations were “de facto ruptured.” In desperation Tokyo turned to Berlin for a written guarantee of German support. The Japanese warlords still did not trust the Germans enough to inform them of the blow against the United States which would fall the next day. But they were more worried than ever that Hitler would refrain from giving his guarantee unless Japan agreed to take on not only the United States and Great Britain but the Soviet Union as well. In this predicament Togo got off a long message to Ambassador Oshima in Berlin urging him to somehow stall the Germans on the Russian matter and not to give in unless it became absolutely necessary. Deluded though they were about their ability to deal with the Americans and the British, the Japanese generals and admirals retained enough sense to realize that they could not fight the Russians at the same time—even with German help. Togo’s instructions to Oshima on that fateful Saturday, December 6, which are among the intercepted messages decoded by Secretary Hull’s expert decipherers, give an interesting insight into the diplomacy practiced by the Nipponese with the Third Reich at the eleventh hour.

  We would like to avoid … an armed clash with Russia until strategic circumstances permit it; so get the German government to understand this position of ours and negotiate with them so that at least for the present they will not insist upon exchanging diplomatic notes on this question.

  Explain to them at considerable length that insofar as American materials being shipped to Soviet Russia … they are neither of high quality nor of large quantity, and that in case we start our war with the United States we will capture all American ships destined for Soviet Russia. Please endeavor to come to an understanding on this line.

  However, should Ribbentrop insist upon our giving a guarantee in this matter, since in that case we shall have no other recourse, make a … statement to the effect that we would, as a matter of principle, prevent war materials from being shipped from the United States to Soviet Russia via Japanese waters, and get them to agree to a procedure permitting the addition of a statement to the effect that so long as strategic reasons continue to make it necessary for us to keep Soviet Russia from fighting Japan (what I mean is that we cannot capture Soviet ships) we cannot carry this out thoroughly.

  In case the German government refuses to agree with [the above] and makes their approval of this question absolutely conditional upon our participation in the war and upon our concluding a treaty against making a separate peace, we have no way but to postpone the conclusion of such a treaty.37

  The Japanese need not have worried so much. For reasons unknown to the Tokyo militarists, or to anyone else, and which defy logic and understanding, Hitler did not insist on Japan’s taking on Russia along with the United States and Britain, though if he had the course of the war conceivably might have been different.

  At any rate, the Japanese on this Saturday evening of December 6, 1941, were determined to strike a telling blow against the Unit
ed States in the Pacific, though no one in Washington or Berlin knew just where or even exactly when. That morning the British Admiralty had tipped off the American government that a large Japanese invasion fleet had been observed heading across the Gulf of Siam for the Isthmus of Kra, which indicated that the Nipponese were striking first at Thailand and perhaps Malaya. At 9 P.M. President Roosevelt got off a personal message to the Emperor of Japan imploring him to join him in finding “ways of dispelling the dark clouds” and at the same time warning him that a thrust of the Japanese military forces into Southeast Asia would create a situation that was “unthinkable.” At the Navy Department, intelligence officers drew up their latest report on the location of the major warships of the Japanese Navy. It listed most of them as being in home ports, including all the carriers and other warships of the task force which at that very moment had steamed to within three hundred miles of Pearl Harbor and was tuning up its bombers to take off at dawn.