Thomas had hoped his analysis would deter Germany from war, but actually it did quite the opposite. Germany had a head start over Britain, America and even France, particularly with its air force – and in the 1930s it was air power that was feared above all. It was also ahead of the Soviet Union, whose military capabilities had been greatly affected by Stalin’s purges of 1936–7 in which the Red Army’s command and officer class had been decimated. Yet because of the economic crisis, Germany’s rearmament programme was beginning to slow while everyone else’s seemed to be increasing. Thomas’s figures were particularly alarming for the Luftwaffe. Aircraft production was on the decline, not the rise, and although they had been rapidly expanding ever since 1933, and so had a large material advantage at present, this would not last, particularly since British aircraft production, already in the spring of 1939, matched that of the Luftwaffe. Thus there was no time to lose. Hitler needed to make the most of his air force and army before the Western powers caught up. And despite the chronic ammunition shortages his air force and army were sufficiently powerful and ready to enter into a quick war with Poland.
Many of Hitler’s generals were against war in 1939. Rearmament and military might were seen as weapons of deterrence, whereas war could lead only to disaster. Even Göring was of the same mind. Logic suggested that it was mad to risk throwing everything away with a war that few believed could ultimately be won. Yet, to Hitler, the logical option was war because otherwise the Western powers and the Soviet Union would become too powerful and Germany would be destroyed all over again. Hitler was not under the illusion that Stalin would not one day attack Germany. In this, he was almost certainly right. ‘We have nothing to lose, everything to gain,’ he told a gathering of his commanders at Berchtesgaden on 22 August 1939. ‘Because of our restrictions our economic situation is such that we can only hold out for a few more years. Göring can confirm this. We must act.’
The next day, Hitler was still in Berchtesgaden, at the Berghof, his villa on the Obersalzburg in the Bavarian Alps. After supper, he and his close entourage stepped out on to the balcony. Beyond and above the mountains a rare natural spectacle could be seen. In a particularly intense display, the Northern Lights were casting a deep red light across the Untersberg mountains on the far side of the valley, while the sky above shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. Hitler’s face and hands were bathed in the same red light. He became suddenly pensive. ‘Looks like a great deal of blood,’ he said at last. ‘This time we won’t bring it off without violence.’
How right he was, although most of the blood spilled had not been German. It was a trend that needed to continue, for if Germany was to win it could only be achieved by a single decisive blow, Hitler believed, at the earliest available opportunity. Another whole winter might give Britain, particularly, the edge in the arms race, which was why he had been so determined to strike in the west in the autumn of 1939.
The winter, however, had, ironically, been more beneficial to Germany than to either Britain or France. Large aircraft orders from the USA had not reached them yet; nor had rearmament levels in Britain sufficiently increased to threaten Germany’s head start. However, the winter had enabled Germany to improve its cash flow and improve the critically low production of ammunition. Hitler had demanded that all German resources be channelled towards the one decisive blow and that meant the German people had to shoulder that burden.
Although most Germans had been delighted by the end result in Poland, the war was unpopular, not because of the loss of life that war brought but mainly because of the downturn in the standard of living. Hitler’s urgent need for cash had been resolved by reducing civilian consumption and beefing up the amount of labour, raw materials and industrial capacity that could be directed to the production of arms. By May 1940, the share of national output devoted to military production went to a third, a big increase on an already high proportion. This was why Else Wendel and William Shirer when Christmas shopping found almost nothing to buy. The shops were largely empty, while rationing became more strict. With nothing to spend money on, household consumption dropped massively and the surplus flowed into the German war economy instead. ‘We cannot win the war against England,’ Hitler said, ‘with cookers and washing machines.’ He believed that the German people would soon forget these hardships in the flush of victory.
On top of that, supplies of raw materials were beginning to flow back into the country, largely thanks to the large trade deal made with Russia as part of the non-aggression pact. These benefits did not happen overnight but by the beginning of 1940 were making themselves felt. Furthermore, overall steel production in Germany was increased. It was a risk because it meant Germany would increase the rate at which it exhausted its own stocks of iron ore, but Hitler’s single throw of the dice was a gamble that had to be applied to everything. It was do or die industrially as well as militarily. If Germany won the decisive blow, she could rape the resources of France and Britain and the rest of western Europe. If she lost, the fact that her own resources would be critically depleted would be irrelevant.
How the tables had now turned. In the autumn of 1939, Nazi Germany had been economically and politically isolated as never before, but now, at the end of June 1940, it was a very different picture. Nearly all of Europe was now harnessed to Germany and with it much of the ores essential for Germany’s increased armaments production. From neutral Sweden, iron ore was now arriving in plentiful amounts and thanks to the occupation of Norway, through which Swedish ore flowed, would continue to do so. No less important was a new trade deal with Romania. On 27 May, as the Luftwaffe had pounded Dunkirk and Britain had wavered on the cusp of pursuing terms, Germany had completed a historic oil-for-arms pact. Making the most of Romania’s fear of Soviet aggression, Germany had offered protection, even though it was against an ally. Germany gave Romania large numbers of weapons – mostly taken from the Poles – in return for a monopoly of oil supplies. In many ways it was a double coup. Oil to Britain had accounted for almost 40 per cent of supplies from Romania’s Ploesti oilfields. By the beginning of July, it was all going to Germany instead. From now on, Britain would not get a drop while Germany’s chronic oil shortage had now been considerably eased. Furthermore, ‘reparations’ from Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and especially France also bolstered Germany’s shortage of foreign cash. France was now obliged to pay 20 million Reichsmark a day, a gigantic fund of cash.
No wonder Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy were made giddy by the fruits of their astonishing victory. Hitler’s incredible high-stakes gamble had paid off spectacularly. Victory on the Continent had been achieved; all that remained now was Britain – a Britain that had lost over a thousand aircraft, whose navy had taken a battering in Norway and at Dunkirk, and whose army was in tatters.
Still, now was not the time to take one’s eye off the ball. Logic might suggest Britain would sue for peace, but from her Prime Minister were coming words of defiance. In two speeches that month, Churchill had pronounced that Britain would fight on come what may. Perhaps it was bluff, but it was important Hitler did not wait too long to launch an all-out attack on Britain.
Back in March, Generalmajor Thomas had been talking with Hitler’s new Armaments Minister, Dr Fritz Todt, the man who had built the autobahns. ‘Führer has again emphasized energetically,’ noted General Thomas following that conversation, ‘that everything is to be done so that the war can be ended in 1940 with a great military victory. From 1941 onwards, time works against us (USA potential).’
This war aim still held true. Defeat of Soviet Russia remained Hitler’s principal goal, yet despite Germany’s new-found riches he could not afford to fight a war on two fronts, and neither could he compete, in the long term, with Britain, the Empire and the United States. He still needed to knock out Britain and, with her, the threat from the United States. And soon. His victory had been remarkable but it was not yet complete. For Germany, the stakes were still critically high.
25
All Alone
IN BRITAIN, THE NEWS that France was out of the war prompted mixed reactions. Harold Nicolson, whose principal task at the Ministry of Information was to monitor civilian morale and keep the public informed with advice about the possibility of invasion, was feeling pretty low in morale himself, albeit he was calmly resigned. The prospect of fighting alone filled him – and his colleagues – with gloom. At the Ministry, he had meanwhile helped write a leaflet called If the Invader Comes, which was issued to every household in the country.* It was all commonsense advice, such as not believing rumours or spreading them, staying put, keeping watch, and telling the Germans nothing. ‘Think before you act,’ it concluded. ‘But think always of your country before you think of yourself.’ For a nation already expecting German parachutists to land at any moment, this pamphlet did little to allay fears.
Harold certainly feared the worst. He felt it would be impossible to beat the Germans and that, with France’s surrender, Britain would be bombed and invaded. He and his wife, Vita, had both agreed that should Germans land and Britain fall, they would kill themselves – they had even obtained cyanide capsules for the purpose. ‘I am quite lucidly aware,’ he recorded, ‘that in three weeks from now Sissinghurst may be a waste and Vita and I both dead.’
Olivia Cockett was stunned by France’s capitulation. A south Londoner, Olivia was a bright, intelligent woman of twenty-seven who worked as a payroll clerk at New Scotland Yard for the Ministry of Works. The news had been broadcast on a radio at work and for the rest of the day she could barely speak, let alone concentrate on the job in hand. She felt shaky and tearful and in the evening, still in a state of shock, met up with her ‘man’, Bill Hole. He too was in despair, although calm. ‘He felt we should give in,’ she noted, ‘which had not occurred to me, but which seemed reasonable at the time.’ Bill had to leave her soon after; despite an intense affair that had lasted ten years already, he remained a married man with a family to return to. Still unable to eat, she went home, did some gardening and had a hot bath and slept better than she imagined she would do. The following day her dark mood of despair had gone.
In Surrey, Daidie Penna noticed people seemed more cheerful now that France was finished. ‘Although I will grant a certain amount to the Nazis,’ she heard a man say in the pub, ‘they’ve got to be stopped. And I believe they will be stopped by something which is in the nature and genius of our species.’
‘Spirit,’ suggested Daidie.
‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘spirit. That will win!’
The next day she saw the grocer and they wondered what would happen next. Without France, he wanted to know where the next battlefield would be. Daidie suggested there might be another Battle of Hastings. ‘What, all around our coast?’ he said, then added laconically, ‘Be all right, wouldn’t it?’
A number of the pilots who had flown over France were now being given brief stints of leave. Hugh ‘Cocky’ Dundas was allowed four days. In his own village of Cawthorne in Yorkshire and in every village round about he found all the middle-aged and elderly men formed into units of Local Defence Volunteers. His 63-year-old father was pondering the respective merits of handing over his shotguns to help the local LDV unit or hanging on to them for his own use should it come to it. All the signposts had already been taken down, whilst on the very few flat areas in that part of England, obstacles had been set up to prevent aircraft landings.
Further south, Arthur Hughes, now out of hospital, had gone to spend a week’s leave with his second brother, Dave, and his wife, Joan, at Old Sarum near Salisbury. Dave was also a pilot, but the two of them managed to drive down to Dorchester to take their young cousins out from school. On the way back, with no signposts, they got lost. ‘But this was due solely to the lack of a large map,’ noted Arthur. ‘Any invader would be well provided with these, and probably air photographs as well.’ It was a fair point.
They heard the news of the armistice on the radio. ‘So now it is England versus the rest,’ he wrote. ‘We’ll show them!’ He was due for a medical and fully expected to be passed fit to fly once more. He hoped to get a transfer to fighters, like his brother Dave, who flew Hurricanes with 238 Squadron. At Biggin Hill, Pete Brothers and the men of 32 Squadron had been delighted when they heard France had finally thrown in the towel. ‘I remember cheering when France collapsed,’ he says, ‘and saying, right, thank God, we’re on our own now.’ Like Arthur, he felt confident they would fix the Germans. It was now just a question of waiting for the onslaught to begin.
A man supremely conscious of history, Winston Churchill was keenly aware that he had been given a lead role at a time of deep peril for his country. Britain’s current predicament was as grave as any she had faced. It was a matter of life and death, in which the nation was the last bastion of the world, fighting freedom’s battle against tyranny, the forces of light against those of darkness. ‘Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war,’ he said during his speech to the Commons on 18 June, a stark yet accurate assessment. ‘If we can stand up to him,’ he said, ‘all Europe may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail,’ he added, ‘then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.’ He called upon everyone to do their duty at this momentous time, so that a thousand years hence future generations would look back and say, ‘This was their finest hour.’
It was wonderful rhetoric but Churchill knew as well as anyone that just because their cause seemed a noble one, that did not mean the odds of survival were any better. Britain was staring down the barrel, as he was all too aware. However, brilliant oratory could help galvanize the nation. Not everyone puffed their chests out a little further or stood slightly taller, but many did. And while Churchill led the way, he was ably assisted by the country’s press and media. People grumbled at the classist BBC broadcasters, at the patronizing posters issued by the Ministry of Information, and continued to spread rumours galore, but the message of defiance was getting through. The radio broadcasts of the writer J. B. Priestley were particularly popular, for example, with his observations about the inherent decency of the British character and the evil of the Nazis. The newspapers, too, unfailingly praised the heroism of Britain’s armed forces, while also breathing heart into their readers. On 17 June, for example, the London Evening Standard announced that Britain was to transform itself into a fortress. The sea, it claimed, was still their strength. No-one denied the seriousness of the situation, far from it, but the stoicism and defiance – the spirit – that Daidie Penna was discovering in her Surrey village was beginning to take root.
But while uniting the British was of great importance, so was stirring the United States into action. Churchill had deliberately included America in his speech on 18 June, words of warning that were broadcast and printed throughout Britain and her Dominions as well as the United States. Bringing the US into the fight was still a key part of his strategy despite the cold shoulder Britain had received earlier in May. The President had spoken out against Italy’s entry into the war, and promised all material support for those prepared to defy the Axis and to speed up American rearmament and their own means of defence. ‘I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion, the love of freedom,’ he said in a speech on 10 June. ‘All these are possible.’ This was music to Churchill’s ears, who wasted no time in re-opening a dialogue with the President, and stressing that the fight against Nazism was America’s fight too. ‘I send you my heartfelt thanks,’ he wrote, ‘and those of my colleagues for all you are doing and seeking to do for what we may now indeed call a common cause.’ He once again asked for ‘30 or 40’ American destroyers to be sent over immediately, and also told Roosevelt that US entry into the war was the only possible means of keeping France fighting. This Roosevelt rejected out of hand; on the question of des
troyers, he did not reply.
Churchill’s efforts to wed America to the ‘common cause’ were infuriating the US Ambassador in London. Joe Kennedy had never had much truck with Churchill. He mistrusted him, thought he drank too much and was too prone to cronyism. Since Churchill had become Prime Minister, Kennedy had also felt increasingly snubbed by the new Government, shut out from the kind of access that he enjoyed during Chamberlain’s premiership. He had finally secured an appointment to see Churchill at 7 p.m. on 10 June, but his nose had been put further out of joint when he was kept waiting half an hour. The fact that Churchill was frantically busy with the current crisis, and that Kennedy’s own isolationist and defeatist stance was neither helping British interests nor endearing him to the Prime Minister, did not seem to occur to him.
When he was finally ushered in to see the Prime Minister, Churchill immediately offered him a ‘highball’. Kennedy told him he didn’t drink.
‘England is next on Hitler’s list,’ Churchill said, ‘but we will fight to the end and give him plenty of trouble. How about those destroyers? We need them badly.’
‘The President can’t do anything with Congress lined up against him,’ Kennedy replied, ‘and Congress won’t act unless it feels that the American people are behind it.’
‘The American people will want to come in when they see well-known places in England bombed,’ Churchill retorted. ‘After all, Hitler will not win this war until he conquers us, and he is not going to do that. We’ll hold out until after your election and then I’ll expect you to come in. I’ll fight them from Canada. I’ll never give up the Fleet. But some other government might turn over anything Hitler wanted in order to save England from destruction.’ Inciting a unity of purpose and then posing sinister warnings as to what might happen if Britain lost was very much Churchill’s technique in this latest attempt to lure in America; so too was going straight to Roosevelt and keeping Kennedy at arm’s length as far as possible. Nothing the Prime Minister said, however, could convince Kennedy that Britain was heading for anything other than defeat. ‘To fight the kind of war that Hitler wages,’ Kennedy reported to Washington, ‘Britain’s condition of preparedness appears to be appallingly weak still. Aside from some air defence, it is my opinion that the real defence of England will not be with arms but with courage.’ And that, he was certain, would not be enough.
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