It took us just two days to refit our forces, refuel them, and turn them around. Considering their size and the length of the front along which they were spread, doing so was a magnificent achievement. Our armored divisions, covered by the Luftwaffe from the air, rolled south and southeast. The bulk of the forces followed in forced marches. Here and there we encountered some stiff resistance. But the so-called Weygand Line, named after the new Chief of Staff who had replaced Gamelin, hardly existed. Again, the outcome was never in doubt. On 10 June the situation of France became even more difficult when Italy entered the war, sending 300,000 troops to attack, or rather to try to attack, across the Alpine Passes. On the same day Paris was declared an open city, and on the 15th our forces entered it. Meanwhile, farther to the southeast, Army Group C was slowly but methodically chewing its way through the Maginot Line.
In this desperate situation the French government had no choice but to ask for an armistice. Famously, I made sure it would be signed at the very spot, and in the very railway wagon, the French had used to receive our delegation at the end of World War I; later I had it moved to a Berlin Museum. Overlooking the scene was a statue of the then-Allied Commander in Chief, Field-Marshal Ferdinand Foch. A short film was made, showing how perfectly happy I was. With my adjutants looking on, I even performed a few dancing steps! And no wonder, after all the months and months of endless worries. On the next day, the 23rd, I realized an old dream of mine. I had Breker, who had studied in Paris under Aristide Maillol and knew the city well, show me around. In the company were Bormann, Speer, Hoffmann, and a few others. It was very early in the morning, and the streets were almost deserted. The few people who were about and who recognized me behaved as if they had seen a ghost. I also took the opportunity to visit some of the places where, a quarter-century earlier, my comrades and I had fought.
It was a victory of historic dimensions. Other Great Powers before us had gone down to defeat. So, in the end, did we ourselves. But not in six weeks! We set up arrangements for running the occupied territories. For the Netherlands I chose the faithful Seyss-Inquart. Though an Austrian by birth, he was a sincere admirer of Dutch culture. He did what he could for the country and remained at his post right to the end. Belgium’s king had stayed in Brussels and later gave us so much trouble that I was prepared to let him leave for England to meet his mistresses! The country itself came under a military government, as did France. The unoccupied part of France retained a French government under Field-Marshal Philippe Pétain, the elderly but highly respected hero of Verdun, and a former prime minister, Pierre Laval. Pétain’s role was symbolic, whereas Laval held whatever power there was to be had. The French were made to pay a huge indemnity and to bear the cost of our occupation as well. Considering what they had done to us at Versailles, they deserved no better.
There followed the usual victory celebrations. First, I made my official entry into Berlin to the most tumultuous welcome I could desire. Next came the distribution of decorations, promotions, and so on. Seldom had the world seen so much gold leaf concentrated in one building! To satisfy Göring’s vanity, I invented the rank of Reichsmarschall for him. Big boy that he was, did he ever like the specially designed baton he got with it! I also created no fewer than twelve new field-marshals, a number unprecedented in our history. Surely the generals in question had deserved it. But I did not include Halder among them. It is true that he had worked out all the zillion details such a vast operation consists of. Nevertheless, I could not help feeling ambiguous about him. He was as disappointed as Göring was elated.
Forgetting their previous doubts, so many millions of good Germans flocked to see the newsreels that some movie theaters had to run them as many as ten times a day! Goebbels’ film about the campaign, Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West) also proved to be a great international success and was translated into twenty languages. Personally, I felt like a gambler who had staked everything on a single card. Having made a huge but unexpected gain, he wants nothing better than to pocket his money and to leave the building. For a few weeks after the surrender of France we tried to negotiate with the English. That same evening, 19 July, I made them an official peace offer. It was a very generous one, I must say. My efforts were in vain, as it turned out. Instead of changing their attitude, they put their faith in “the New World.” The ensuing life-and-death struggle ended by striking both our countries from the roster of Great Powers. Those who must bear the historical responsibility for this are Churchill, who had replaced Chamberlain in May, and his Jewish puppet masters.
Very much against my wishes, the war would go on.
22. From West to East
Imagine a rivulet of water issuing from an overturned pail. As it advances, it loses momentum until it finally comes to a halt. At that point, it starts to recede. A military offensive behaves in a similar way. It must achieve its objective, i.e. victory. Failing that, it will exhaust itself and turn into its opposite, a defensive. This is what Clausewitz calls the culminating point.
In the summer of 1940 we stood in danger of reaching that point. Yes, our military, especially the Luftwaffe and the army, had more than proven itself. Yes, our victories had been past compare. But they did not succeed in breaking the enemy’s will or enable us to dictate the peace. In fact they did not enable us to make any peace at all. At that moment time started working against us. Not, take note, because of the English. Commanding, as we did, not only our own resources but most of Europe’s as well, we could handle them. But we faced the growing likelihood, indeed near certainty, that both Russia and the U.S. would end up turning against us.
In fact, Russia was already giving clear signs of preparing to do exactly that. In June Stalin occupied the Baltic States. Following up almost immediately, he did the same in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Considering the agreement we had made with him in August 1939, he was formally within his rights. Still, his moves, following as they did upon his war against Finland, could not but make us think. We were even more concerned because the second one brought the Red Army within striking distance of our principal source of oil. We contacted Bucharest, asked for permission, and sent in 100,000 men. As they say, better safe than sorry.
Roosevelt, for his part, was siding up closer and closer to London. True, U.S. public opinion remained isolationist. The American people did not want to be fooled into pulling Whitehall’s chestnuts out of the fire, as had happened in 1917-18. With presidential elections scheduled for November, there were limits to what the President could do. But he made no secret of where his sympathies lay and what, if given the opportunity, he would do.
It was with such considerations in mind that, on 31 July, I summoned my top commanders to the Berghof. The question, I told them, was why England did not give in. To that question I could see just one answer: Churchill was hoping that Russia would stab us in the back. Given Stalin’s character, it was not an unreasonable belief! Therefore, I continued, it was essential to attack Russia so as to finish it off once and for all. Russia’s defeat would also free Japan to resist the U.S. and make Roosevelt think twice before acting against us. With Russia’s resources in our hands, we would no longer need the kind of overseas trade that had preoccupied the Kaiser and his advisers so much. This would enable us to resist the Anglo-Saxons forever if necessary.
Personally, I would have liked to have attacked Russia that very autumn. As so often, though, Halder objected. Preparations for such a vast undertaking would take too long. It was too late in the season—autumn and its rains were coming fast. And so on and so on. I was forced to concede that there was logic in what he said. As a soldier, I had served in the west. But I had had no personal experience with conditions in the east. Consequently, all I did was order some preliminary planning to go ahead. But my decision to postpone the campaign until the next spring left open the question as to how to handle the English. The natural thing would be to mount an invasion of the island. My generals and admirals had already started preparing some plans for it
. I personally never really liked the idea. Though a hero on land, at sea I was a coward; perhaps it was my Austrian background. At any rate, the waves always made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Still, I allowed them to go ahead—pending final authorization, of course.
The problem was that our navy was much too small to stand up to the English one. It could not do so before the Norwegian campaign. And it became much less capable after the massive losses it had suffered during the fighting in that part of the world. Therefore, if our forces were to get across the Channel, the first thing to do was to obtain command of the air. I entrusted this mission to Göring and the Luftwaffe. Starting on the 10th of July, they launched a major offensive against the Royal Air Force. The objective, as Douhet had put it, was to ensure that we could fly and that they could not. Prime targets consisted of airfields, headquarters, communication centers, anti-aircraft defenses, and aircraft and ammunition factories. We also hoped to use our numerical superiority to force the English to take off and to engage in air-to-air combat. All this, let me repeat, meant proceeding well within the limits permitted by the laws of war.
While construction crews built review stands at Berlin’s Pariser Platz in preparation for another victory, our generals and admirals were working on their plan, known as Seelöwe (Sea Lion), for invading England. In fact, working is too grandiose a term. Squabbling would be a more appropriate one. On one side were Halder and the army. They worried about possible counterattacks by the English Army—weaponless, as, following the evacuation at Dunkirk, it was—and demanded a landing on as broad a front as possible. On the other side were Raeder and the Kriegsmarine. Anxious about their (in)ability to protect the transports against the Royal Navy, they wanted to land on as narrow a front as possible. Another problem was that we did not have any specialized landing craft. Hence those transports would have to consist of requisitioned Rhine barges, not exactly ideal vessels for such a purpose. They could have served, if at all, only on the calmest days. In fact some barges were assembled at ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp, and some exercises in embarking and disembarking troops were held. The two services went on arguing, but an agreement was never reached.
The first week of September having arrived, decisions had to be made. One reason for this was that the days were becoming shorter and the storm season closer. Either we acted quickly, or else winter would be on us. More serious still, what the enemy called “the Battle of Britain” was not going as well as we had hoped. Our intelligence had underestimated both the opponent and the magnitude of the task. The English, we discovered, had refused to let their best squadrons participate in the Battle of France but had kept them in reserve instead. Now, fresh, ready and—one must hand it to them—eager, they took off to fight us.
Our losses mounted. Worst hit were the Stukas. Thanks to their precision-bombing capabilities, they had played major roles in the previous campaigns. However, with their fixed undercarriages they proved too slow for modern air combat and had to be withdrawn. Our remaining bombers could not place their loads as accurately as the Stukas did. They also found that they could not cope with the English Hurricanes (Huren-Kannen, as our troops called them) and Spitfires but needed to be protected by friendly fighter squadrons. Our fighters, primarily the single-engine Me-109, were good enough for the task. But they did not have the range to reach all the targets we had in mind. Besides, each time one of our aircraft was brought down, both the machine and the pilot were irretrievably lost. By contrast the RAF, fighting over friendly territory, was able to salvage many aircraft and recover many pilots.
And then there was radar, a new contraption we encountered for the first time. The English, it turned out, had been busily working on a series of stations known as the Home Chain. It was finished just on time and immediately went into action against us. It acted as a “force multiplier”—an expression, of course, that only came into use decades later. Having backed it up with a sophisticated command and control system, our enemies were able to guide their fighter squadrons with unparalleled precision. It did not take our experts totally by surprise; in fact the navy had been working on something similar for a number of years. However, they were slow to realize its importance. Had they done so from the outset, then very likely victory would have been ours. Even so, it was a close-run thing. Though we did not know it at the time, in September the English defenses were tottering. Their production of fighters was still satisfactory; but they had started to run out of pilots.
To avoid defeat Churchill, using as his excuse some of our aircraft that had hit London by mistake, sent his bombers to attack Berlin. His “air pirates,” as Goebbels called them, deprived people of their sleep. But their aim was bad, and the damage they inflicted minimal. Still, I saw myself obliged to respond in kind. To reduce our losses, we switched from day attacks to night ones. The latter were much less precise, forcing us to change our targets. Rather than focus on the Royal Air Force and its supporting facilities, as we had done up to that point, we attacked so-called “infrastructure targets.” That included ports—in a country such as England, which depended on imports for its food, fuel, and raw materials, they were among the most important of all. Next came factories, power plants utilities, and railway stations. Briefly, they are the pillars upon which any industrial economy stands. Many of the targets were located inside cities. Mistakes were made, and many civilians also died. But I can assure you that, on the whole, we did not kill them deliberately. Even Coventry, the city on which we inflicted so much destruction as to turn it into a symbol, was targeted for no other reason than that it was a major industrial center; throughout the war, its plants produced no fewer than a quarter of all the RAF’s aircraft.
The raids, which our enemies called the Blitz, went on throughout the winter and spring. Contrary to the visions of Douhet and so many others, there was no mass panic, no chaos, and no attempt to end the agony by overthrowing the government and suing for peace. People grumbled—how could they not do so?—but put on the stiff upper lip. Later, in the face of much heavier bombardment, our own people behaved in a similar way. Could it be that the reason why Douhet’s visions failed to materialize was because he was an Italian thinking about Italians? Anyhow. The English suffered, but they held their own in the end. The aforementioned factors apart, the main reason that enabled them to do so was that, as I said before, both our doctrine and the limitations of our industry had made us focus on building relatively light two-engine bombers. They simply could not carry the loads we would have needed to bomb England to pieces.
Amidst all this, my decision to postpone Operation Sea Lion until at least the following spring came almost as an afterthought. But it left my fundamental problem—how to bring the war to a victorious end—exactly as it had been. In stepped Grossadmiral Raeder. His navy did not have what it took to invade England. But he did think that, acting in tandem with Italy, we could drive the English out of the Mediterranean and Egypt, much like Napoleon had tried to do in 1798. The outcome would have been to bring down the empire.
Personally, I never found the idea attractive. Not in late 1940, not in the summer and early autumn of 1942 when, with our forces standing a hundred kilometers from Alexandria, it was floated for the second time. I felt this way for good reason, as it turned out, for the most important lines of communication that kept England afloat were those in the North Atlantic, not the ones with India and the Far East. Besides, right from the beginning the military performance of our Italian allies left something to be desired. They tarried in Libya, and they lost the first naval battle at Punto Stilo near the Calabrian coast. Going from bad to worse, they allowed the English to use their torpedo bombers against their fleet at Taranto, sending half of it to the bottom. Still, for lack of a better alternative, I agreed to try it out.
First, we had to make our political preparations. In September we signed the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan, a logical extension of the Anti-Comintern Pact we had signed with the same countries four years earlier. It
was a defensive alliance in the best tradition of such treaties; a step, albeit a fairly modest one, toward containing both Russia and the United States. Over the next few months Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria also joined. Some did so voluntarily; some less so. In particular, keeping the Hungarians and the Romanians, the Romanians and the Bulgarians, off each other’s throats was not easy. Still, the treaty helped consolidate our grip on Eastern Europe.
In the west, things proved more difficult. We needed the cooperation not only of Italy but also of the two other principal Mediterranean countries, France and Spain. France owned quite a few important bases, and, at Toulon, a strong fleet that had remained untouched by the previous events. Only with Spanish help could we hope to capture the key to the Mediterranean, i.e. Gibraltar. All three countries, needless to say, were at loggerheads with one another over Corsica, Nice, Savoy, and Tunisia, among other things. So important did I consider the matter that, on 22 October and with Ribbentrop in tow, I went on an extended railway journey. It took me all the way to Montoire, where I met Laval. His boss, Pétain, was an enormously impressive old man with steely blue eyes, but Laval himself always reminded me of a frog, as, indeed, he was often portrayed in the English press! Then I moved on to Hendaye on the Franco-Spanish border, where I met Franco. So much did his voice irritate me that, as I later told my staff, I would prefer having two or three teeth pulled than to repeat the experience! Franco’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Serrano Suñer, a bigoted Catholic churchgoer, also got on my nerves. It was no wonder I did not succeed in papering over the aforementioned differences. In particular, Franco’s refusal to join us in an attack on Gibraltar was galling. He owed us everything, and now he refused to join us.
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