Litvinov’s sudden dismissal hit me like a cannon shot. I knew I could act—and also that I would have to do so quickly. Serious negotiations between us and the Russians started almost immediately. Again, my point man was Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop, an officer’s son, had married a rich woman and worked for her father, the manager and co-owner of Germany’s largest manufacturer of champagne. Unable to stand up to her, he allowed her to exercise far more influence on policy than she should have. Addicted to pomp—he even added a “von” to his name—he was haughty and arrogant; more than once, he went so far as to keep me waiting on the phone. Talking to people, he liked to close his eyes and turn his face upward. Next, when it was his turn to speak, he would ask his interlocutor what he had said! He was a coward, and during air raids, he set a bad example. No wonder he was unpopular with his fellow bosses as well as his staff, who were terrified of him, and whom he treated like lackeys. After the Anschluss he took over beautiful Schloss Fuschl, near Salzburg, by sending its owner to the Dachau concentration camp, where the man later died.
Unpleasant company as he sometimes was, Ribbentrop was one of the few among my senior associates who was always more radical than I was. I knew I could count on him in this respect, and that, in turn, made him useful to me. In 1935 he had been instrumental in negotiating the naval agreement with England. Much later, on the occasion of one of his birthdays, his staff presented him with a magnificent casket containing copies of all the treaties he had signed. They had been somewhat embarrassed because, by that time, we had violated almost all of them! When I heard the story, I laughed until there were tears in my eyes.
Seriously, Ribbentrop had not succeeded in realizing his original ambition and bringing about a further rapprochement between our two countries. That made him bitter at the English and strengthened his determination to try his luck elsewhere. Whatever his shortcomings, he proved to be a good choice for the mission at hand. The talks were not easy. As late as 4 August, our ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenburg, still believed that a Soviet-Western alliance was about to be signed. Acting in concert with Ribbentrop, I proved him wrong. By 22 August the details had been settled, and everything was ready.
On the same day, 22 August, I had a meeting with my top generals at the Berghof. Having dealt with them for years, I well knew whom I was talking to. Many were afraid of war and were looking for all kinds of reasons why we should not wage one. And almost all were still sticking to ridiculously old-fashioned ideas concerning chivalry, honor, and the like. My aim was to put some backbone into them; but, obviously, I cannot remember every word I said. Clearly, though, some of what my listeners took down, or claimed to have taken down, is pure invention on their part. For example, at that time our triumph over the West, let alone its magnitude, was still so far in the future as to be inconceivable. Hence even I, endowed with supernatural foresight as I supposedly was, could not have threatened to send my “death head squads” to kill men, women, and children in those countries. In fact the record shows that I never did.
Judging by the several different versions of the speech available here in Hell, I must have explained that our strength consisted of our speed and brutality, just as was the case with that great conqueror, Genghis Khan. I did not care what a rotten European civilization would say about me. I had issued my orders and would deal ruthlessly with anyone who dared say a word of criticism. And I was not merely trying to change our borders so as to get our own back. That was simply petit-bourgeois thinking. As I had said so often before, my ultimate goal was to gain the living space we Germans needed. History would forgive us—just as, for example, it had forgiven the Turks’ massacre of the Armenians back in 1915.
That very day Ribbentrop flew to Moscow, where he found the airport decorated with swastikas. On the 23rd he and Molotov signed the agreement in Moscow. Stalin, pipe in hand, was present. He looked on with as benign a gaze as he, half-god, half-monster that he was, was capable of. The agreement consisted of two main parts. First, we undertook not to attack each other. Second, we arranged for an economic exchange under which we would provide them with all sorts of industrial products whereas they would pay us in raw materials and food. There was also a secret protocol. Under its terms we agreed to divide Eastern Europe between us. In case war broke out we would get most of Poland; in return, we recognized his right to annex that country’s eastern provinces, the Baltic States, and part of Romania. This part of the agreement came to light when our archives were captured in 1945. Still, that did not prevent the Russians from denying its existence for another forty-five years.
The agreement was the greatest diplomatic coup we Germans had succeeded in pulling off since the time of Bismarck. Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s success in making the Russians accept the Wende (unification) of 1989-91 and get the hell out of our country notwithstanding, it remains so to the present day. It struck the world like a thunderbolt. For six years the Russians and we had done nothing but oppose each other by every conceivable means short of open warfare. Some even claimed that Heydrich, by feeding Stalin false documents, had played a major role in triggering the great purges of 1937-39 which had decapitated the Red Army. True or false, all of a sudden our two countries turned around. Seen from the German point of view, the most important point was the first. It did away with any hope the English and the French might still have had to make Stalin pull their chestnuts out of the fire for them.
One would expect that the news of the pact would have made the Poles think again and agree to our modest demands so as to escape destruction. However, even at this late hour, they still did not—or would not—understand what was coming at them. At that time we had set the beginning of our invasion of Poland for early in the morning of 26 August, five days earlier than originally planned. Everything was ready, except that all kinds of mediators now presented themselves and tried to find a diplomatic solution. One of those most in favor of such a solution was Göring. Increasingly addicted to morphine, a habit dating to the wound he had suffered during the 1923 Putsch, he had grown so fat that he would never have fitted into a Volkswagen—or a trench, for that matter. And he much preferred life at Karin Hall to fighting.
It was because they had realized this fact that the Italians had contacted Göring in September 1938 to arrange the Munich Conference and, by doing so, to avoid war. Now, in August 1939, Göring himself turned to a Swedish friend of his, Birger Dahlerus. The latter engaged in what, much later, would become known as shuttle diplomacy. His efforts were to no avail. The English, with the French in tow, proved pigheaded. Having convinced themselves that I could not be trusted, they refused to understand and to give way. To the contrary, on 25 August they converted their unilateral declaration into a fully-fledged political and military alliance with Warsaw. Thus encouraged, the Poles, or rather, Herr Beck, were determined not to give an inch. They really believed they could take us on. Chamberlain personally at one point called them “a great and virile nation!” If this was not cloud-cuckoo land, what was?
But that was not the only piece of bad news. Accidentally or not, Mussolini’s announcement that Italy would not honor its word and join us arrived on the very same day. Somewhat shaken, I found myself forced to postpone the invasion in order to consider what to do next. In fact some of our troops had already started moving to their starting positions. It was only with great difficulty that we succeeded in recalling them at the last moment.
Dahlerus, a businessman by trade, loved nothing better than playing at diplomacy. With Göring behind him, he had still not given up. On 27 August he flew to London. There, astonishingly, he was able to see both Chamberlain and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. He brought with him Göring’s proposal that Danzig be handed over to us. The fate of the corridor was to be decided by a plebiscite. In return, we would guarantee Poland’s truncated borders. I myself hesitated. First, having been robbed of a military triumph in the previous year, I did not want something similar to happen again. Second, the World War had brought P
oland not just the corridor but parts of Silesia, too. A new war now had the advantage that it would solve that problem as well. Why content yourself with a slice if you can have the entire sausage? Nevertheless, if only because I knew that the German people wanted peace and to show them I had done what I could to keep it, I gave Göring some leeway. In the event, the English resolved the issue for me. They consulted the Poles and told them to refuse my very decent offer. Or perhaps it was the other way around.
Still, negotiations of a kind continued. On 29 August Ribbentrop, flush from his triumph in Moscow, met with the English Ambassador, Neville Henderson. He presented him with a list of our proposals to Poland, consisting of sixteen points. Our reason for choosing Henderson was because we knew that he had always been in favor of an accommodation with us. This time he claimed that Ribbentrop had spoken too fast and that he himself had not been given a written copy. Supposing the story was true, it would have been typical of Ribbentrop. So Göring, on the next day, gave a copy to Dahlerus who passed it to Henderson. Henderson, in turn, obligingly passed it on to Poland’s Ambassador in Berlin, Jozef Lipski. Lipski said that he had never heard of Dahlerus and that he had received no instructions from Warsaw. But by then I had recovered my nerve. I had also decided that I had had enough of the Poles’ procrastination and would go ahead under any circumstances. One of our sixteen demands was that a Polish plenipotentiary should present himself in Berlin before 1 September. The Poles refused.
Dahlerus did not give up. He proposed that Göring meet Henderson for the second time. That he did at 1700 hours on the 31st, but to no avail. At 2100, to prove to the German people that I had done everything I could to preserve the peace, I had all German radio stations broadcast my proposals. I also had Heydrich stage some “Polish” attacks along our border with Poland. The principal one was launched on a small broadcasting station of ours at Gleiwitz in Silesia. The objective was to convince the world, and our own people, that we were acting in self-defense. And no, I did not worry about “the truth.” In the event the affair did not go very well. “Polish” irregulars dressed in Polish uniforms did in fact take over. They broadcast a few anti-German slogans, fired a few shots, and withdrew, leaving behind a “Polish” corpse. However, someone had blundered: at the time the station was not linked to the main network, with the result that few people knew what had happened. Still, it enabled me to tell the Reichstag the next morning that there had been shooting and that we were shooting back. In other words, that we were at war and that the invasion of Poland had gotten under way.
Even that did not prove to be the end of the attempts, if not to preserve peace, then to prevent the war from spreading. In spite of all their aggressive attitudes, both England and France were desperate to do so. The last thing they wanted was mourir pour Danzig, as the phrase went. Chamberlain in particular moved heaven and earth to get some kind of “negotiations” going. Provided I stopped shooting and withdrew my troops, he told Parliament, he was even prepared to reconsider some of our demands! At this point, for the first time, he met with opposition. The members of his own Conservative Party forced him to desist and to declare war on us, as he and his French colleague did on 3 September. It didn’t matter, of course. I never would have considered what London and Paris asked me to do. Had I given way in this matter, both my regime and I myself would have been done for.
I shall have more to say about our military situation as it was at the time in the next chapter. Here, I want to put it on the record that the German people were not enthusiastic about what was happening. Far from it. In 1914 masses of people, myself included, had celebrated the outbreak of war on every city street and square. This time I was a little disappointed to see that the atmosphere was subdued. To be sure, the reception of my speech in the Reichstag was as enthusiastic as always. But no number of Goebbels’ tricks, no censorship even, could conceal people’s anxiety. My collaborators and I, especially Göring and Ribbentrop, also understood that, with England and France arrayed against us, the road ahead was going to be longer and harder than if we had had our way and waged war on Poland alone.
Whatever does not kill me strengthens me. After all, our entire National Socialist existence since 1919 had been one long struggle, often against what others, and we ourselves, saw as impossible odds. And so, looking into the future, I felt confident that, whatever the difficulties, we would eventually emerge on top.
Part III. The War Years
20. Baptism by Fire
When war broke out in 1914, our armed forces had been ready to the last gaiter-button. In 1939 that was much less the case. Germany is a land power, so I shall start by sketching the condition of the ground forces first. In 1933 we only had 4,000 officers. Even that figure included 450 medical and veterinary personnel. True, the Reichswehr had been constructed with expansion in mind. Consequently we had plenty of excellent NCOs whom we could and did promote.
But that was a stopgap measure. Six years is enough to train a captain, more or less. But we had a problem with our majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels. In other words, the field-grade officers and regimental commanders whose roles in the system were vital. The more so because, owing to the breakneck pace at which the Wehrmacht expanded, our Kriegsakademie, or Staff College, suffered. Less qualified candidates had to be accepted, and the course itself was diluted. The generals were something else again. The most senior ones, as I have already said, tended to be former staff officers with little personal experience of combat. Those directly under them had served as subalterns, but not one of them had heard a shot fired in anger since 1918. To make things worse, the war we were planning bore an entirely different character from the Stellungskrieg, position warfare, of 1914-18. All exercises notwithstanding, how our commanders would adjust to it remained to be seen.
The condition of the rank and file was hardly any better. The quality of the new recruits we inducted was as good as ever, perhaps better. Our NCOs in particular were wonderful; they were tough, professional, and capable of making independent decisions which, in some other forces, had to be made by subalterns. However, the “white” years from 1919 to 1935 had prevented us from making full use of our manpower. As a result, in 1939 approximately 3,250,000 men between ages of twenty and forty had not received any training at all. The proportion of men aged twenty-one to thirty five—those in the prime of life, forming the best human material of all—who had received such training was particularly low. When we went to war, we had an active army of 730,000 men organized into fifty-two active divisions. By calling in the reservists, as, of course, we did, we raised these figures to 3,700,000 and 103, respectively. But of those reservists only about 500,000 were fully trained and fit for frontline service. The value of the rest was limited at best. It was only during the period after the Polish campaign that we were able to resolve this problem.
At the time, our Panzer divisions were the best in the world, but not necessarily because our tanks were technically more advanced. That was the case, if at all, only during the second half of the war. And even then they were not without their problems. But we had a better understanding of the way they should be organized, supplied and maintained, how they should be combined with other arms, and what auxiliary equipment, principally optics and radio, they needed to be effective while on campaign. Perhaps it was no accident that Guderian had started his career as a signals officer. Above all, we knew exactly what we wanted to do with them whereas our opponents, partly because they only thought in defensive terms and partly because they had drawn the false lessons from the war in Spain, did not.
In terms of the number of divisions, our Western enemies and we were fairly evenly matched. The problem was that we did not have enough tanks. The same applied to motor vehicles to carry our infantry, haul our artillery, bring up our supplies, and evacuate our wounded. Intense as our efforts since 1933 had been, in 1939 Germany still remained under-motorized. Thus the great majority of our forces continued to consist of old-fashioned infantry. In the
Heimat (home country) they moved by rail. In enemy territory, they moved on foot.
To be sure, none of our divisions was entirely without motor vehicles. But we never came close to the ratio of one vehicle per six men as was the case in the English and, later, the American armies. Even if we had done so, we could not have provided them with the fuel they needed. Consequently, the bulk of our artillery and supplies had to be hauled by horses or else carried on horse-drawn vehicles. The more prolonged the war became, the greater the shortage. In 1914-18 we mobilized 13,000,000 men and 1,400,000 horses. In 1939-45 we mobilized 18,000,000 and 2,700,000, respectively. Figure out the rest for yourself.
Next, the Luftwaffe. The Treaty of Versailles had prohibited us from having any air force at all. As I said above, we were able to evade some of the restrictions by training glider pilots, disguising our bombers as passenger aircraft, and the like. But so puny were these efforts as to be hardly worth mentioning. In 1933 I put Göring in charge. Draufgänger (go-getter) that he was, he attacked the problem with great energy. Nevertheless, real progress towards rearmament only started in 1935 when we felt strong enough to let the world know what we were doing.
As with the army, the first problem was manpower. Almost to a man, those who had flown for us in 1914-18 were now too old to serve as anything but commanders and, to a limited extent, trainers. However, it lay in the nature of things that the Reichswehr should have few air commanders. Whom and what could they have commanded? Consequently, we had to fill the ranks with army personnel. One such was General Walter Wever whom Göring made the first Luftwaffe Chief of Staff and who was also the first to try and devise a doctrine for it. Unfortunately, he was killed in a crash. Another and more important one was Albert Kesselring. When Kesselring joined the Luftwaffe, he was already 48 years old; the first thing he had to do was to learn to fly. Later, he became one of my best commanders, and I promoted him to field-marshal.
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