Hitler (155 page)

137. W. L. Shirer,
Rise and Fall,
p. 545.

138. From notes by Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, Sir Orme Sargent, and Lord Halifax, cited in Gilbert and Gott, pp. 320 ff.

139. Birger Dahlerus,
The Last Attempt,
pp. 104–05; also notes by Sir Nevile Henderson dated August 31, 1939, quoted in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
III, pp. 372 f.

140. Note by Paul Schmidt concerning a conversation between Hitler and Attolico on August 31, 1939, 7
P.M.,
cited in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
III, p. 391. For Directive Number 1 see ADAP VII, pp. 397 ff.

141. In the negotiations with England France expressed the desire not to begin military operations until September 4: to be precise, as Bonnet stressed to Halifax, on Monday evening; cf. M. Freund,
Weltgeschichte
III, pp. 412 f.

142. Speech of September 1, 1939, The New York
Times,
September 3, 1939, p. 3.

143. Schmidt,
Statist,
pp. 463 f.

144. Stehlin,
Auftrag,
p. 234; also ADAP VII, p. 445. Shirer,
Rise and Fall,
p. 617, points out this noteworthy difference.

145. Gilbert and Gott, pp. 284 f.; see also p. 274 for the following episode.

146. IMT XV, pp. 385 f.

147. Nolte,
Krise,
p. 205.

148. C. J. Burckhardt, p. 351.

149. Karl Dönitz,
Zehrt Jahre und zwanzig Tage
, p. 45.

 

INTERPOLATION III

 

1.
Hitler's Table Talk,
p. 661; also Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
I, p. 388.

2. Rauschning,
Gespräche,
p. 12; also
Tischgespräche,
p. 172.

3. Rauschning,
Gespräche,
p. 16.

4. Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
I, pp. 102 f. In the same conversation Hitler remarked that he would wait until the fall of 1940 before committing the U-boats “with full energy,” but that he hoped “by then to have finished with his enemies” (pp. 92 f.).

5. Thus in a strategy conference of July 31, 1944; cf. Heiber,
Lagebesprechungen,
p. 587; also Ernst von Weizsäcker,
Erinnerungen,
p. 258.

6. Thus to the members of the Bulgarian regency council during a conversation at Klessheim Palace on March 16, 1944, cited by Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
II, p. 377. In the same conversation Hitler remarked that “this war can be waged all the more resolutely the less we imagine that there are any other ways to end it”;
ibid.,
p. 376.

7. The order was couched in the form of a letter that read as follows: “Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility of extending the authorization of physicians to be specified by name so that patients reasonably considered to be incurably ill may, after the most serious consideration of the state of their sickness, be granted a mercy death. Adolf Hitler.” Cf. IMT XXVI, p. 169. However, the euthanasia program could not be carried out to the extent intended, chiefly because of the protests from the churches that soon began.

8. Report of the Security Service (SD) for Domestic Questions dated January 8, 1940, cited in Heinz Boberach, ed.,
Meldungen aus dem Reich,
pp. 34 f.

9. Address to the divisional commanders, December 12, 1944; cf. Heiber,
Lagebesprechungen,
p. 718. Also
Hitlers zweites Buch,
p. 138. Hitler's various efforts before the outbreak of the war to provide himself with an alibi against the charge of war guilt were so transparent that they proved worthless. Later, explaining his offers for a solution to the questions of Danzig and the Polish Corridor during the last days of August, Hitler himself said bluntly: “I needed an alibi, especially for the German people, to show them that I had done everything possible to preserve peace.” Cf. Schmidt,
Statist,
p. 469.

10. According to
Statistisches Handbuch des Deutschen Reiches
the expenditures for armaments during the years of Nazi rule in peacetime were as follows:

 

 

11. Cf. IMT XV, pp. 385 f. (General Jodi's testimony, with the remark about the “ridiculous'' reserves; in the same context Jodi also stated that “actual rearmament had to be carried out after the war began.”) Also Hans-Adolf Jacobsen,
Fall Gelb,
pp. 4 ff. On the munitions situation cf. i.a. Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
I, p. 99. On September 1, 1939, the strength of the Luftwaffe was: 1,180 bomber planes, 771 single-engine fighter planes, 336 dive bombers, 408 twin-engine fighters, 40 ground attack planes, 552 transport planes, 379 reconnaissance planes, and 240 naval aircraft. By the end of 1939 an additional 2,518 aircraft were built; in 1940, 10,392; in 1941, 12,392; in 1942, 15,497; in 1943, 24,795; in 1944, 40,953; and even in 1945, 7,541 planes were produced. See Hillgruber,
Strategie,
p. 38
n.

12. Alan S. Milward, in his
German Economy at War,
was the first to show that the concept of blitzkrieg arose out of more than merely tactical considerations, that it was a method of waging modern war that took account of Germany's specific situation. Cf. also
Le Testament politique de Hitler,
pp. 106 ff.

13. This is the explicit or implicit thesis of Fritz Fischer and his school; see particularly Fischer,
Griff nach der Weltmacht
and
Krieg der Illusionen;
Helmut Böhme,
Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht;
Klaus Wernecke,
Der Wille zur Weltgeltung.
But see also, for in some cases highly controversial views: Egmont Zechlin, “Die Illusion vom begrenzten Krieg,” in:
Die Zeit,
September 17, 1965; Fritz Stern, “Bethmann Hollweg und der Krieg,” in:
Recht und Staat,
Heft 351/352; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, “Die deutsche Kriegszielpolitik 1914–1918,” in
Juli 1914,
the German edition of the
Journal of Contemporary History,
Munich, 1967; and, above all, Karl Dietrich Erdmann in the introduction to: Kurt Riezler,
Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente,
pp. 17 ff.

14. Heinrich Himmler in one of his speeches in Posen (October 4, 1943); Himmler was unquestionably reflecting Hitler's view as it emerged around this time in, for example, the table talk, and was expressing it in concentrated form; IMT XXIX, p. 172 (1919-PS).

15. Otto Hintze to Friedrich Meinecke; cf.
Die deutsche Katastrophe,
p. 89.

 

BOOK VII

 

1. IMT XXXVII, pp. 466 if. (052-L).

2. Franz Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
I, p. 98; cf. also pp. 93 ff. General von Leeb, commander of an army group, spoke of the “insanity of an attack.” See Jacobsen,
Fall Gelb,
pp. 50 f. Von Leeb also commented on Hitler's “appeal for peace”: “So the Führer's speech in the Reichstag was only lying to the German people.” For the alternative of “putting the war to sleep,” cf. the sketch that General Jodi wrote in Nuremberg on “Hitler as a Strategist,” printed in:
Kriegstagebuch des OKW
(KTB/OKW) IV, 2, p. 1717. For the officers' opposition during this period as a whole cf. Harold C. Deutsch,
Verschwörung gegen den Krieg,
pp. 71 ff.

3. Heinz Guderian,
Erinnerungen eines Soldaten,
p. 76. The Hitler speech cited here has been preserved in several largely consonant versions. One of the two versions used here is Nuremberg Document PS-789 (IMT XXVI, pp. 327 ff.); the other is N 104/3 in the Freiburg im Breisgau military archives; its probable author is Helmuth Groscurth.

4. Churchill,
The Second World War
II, p. 74.

5. F. Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
I, p. 302.

6. Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, quoted in Arthur Bryant,
The Turn of the Tide,
p. 147.

7. Cf. Gibson,
The Ciano Diaries,
pp. 191, 192, 225, 332. For the following letter from Mussolini to Hitler see
Hitler e Mussolini, Lettere e Documenti,
p. 35.

8. Gibson,
The Ciano Diaries,
pp. 235–36.

9.
Ibid.,
p. 267. The preceding remark is cited in Raymond Cartier,
La seconde guerre mondiale
I, p. 137; cf. also Michaelis and Schraepler, XV, p. 150.

10. So Albert Speer has informed the author; cf. also the above-mentioned sketch by Jodi in KTB/OKW IV,
2,
pp. 1718 f., who also, incidentally, credits Hitler with the timely development of a 7.5-centimeter antitank gun.

11. Heiber,
Lagebesprechungen,
p, 30.

12. Gibson,
The Ciano Diaries,
p. 266.

13. Cf. the description in Shirer,
Berlin Diary,
p. 331.

14. Nolte,
Epoche,
p. 435.

15. Meinecke,
Briefwechsel,
pp. 363 f. The Opposition went into a deep depression. Ulrich von Hassell's diary (
Vom anderen Deutschland,
pp. 156ff.) speaks of “badly shaken minds” among Oster, Dohnanyi, Guttenberg, and also Goerdeler. Von Kessel, he says, was “wholly resigned and would like to study archaeology.” An anonymous acquaintance in the Opposition camp proved to be representative of a widespread mood: he was “inclined to believe that a man who achieved such successes must be walking with God.” Von Hassell himself summed up the inner conflict of many conservative Oppositionists in the phrase: “One might feel desperate under the tragic burden of being unable to rejoice in such successes.” For the following episode at Bruly-le-Pêche see Speer,
Inside the Third Reich,
pp. 170 f.

16. This was Article 8 of the agreement, stating: “The German government solemnly declares to the French government that it does not intend to employ for its purposes those vessels of the French navy now in ports under German control.”

17. Winston Churchill, speech in House of Commons, May 13, 1940.

18. Winston Churchill,
Blood, Sweat and Tears,
p. 334 (speech of July 14, 1940).

19. Hitler,
My New Order,
pp. 836 ff.

20. Karl Klee,
Dokumente zum Unternehmen ‘Seelöwe,'
pp. 441 f. For Admiral Raeder's report—which, however, gave the navy a chance for a successful landing “only on the assumption that command of the air is achieved”—see KTB/OKW I, p. 63.

21. Speaking on June 6, 1940, to Sir Edward Spears; quoted in Michaelis and Schraepler XV, p. 261. On November 28, 1940, in a speech to the French Chamber of Deputies, Alfred Rosenberg attempted to. interpret what had happened in the same light: “The decadent successors of the French Revolution have clashed with the first troops of the great German Revolution. With that... this era of 1789 is now approaching its end. In a triumphal victory it has been... crushed when, already rotten, it still arrogantly attempted to go on dominating the destiny of Europe in the twentieth century as well.” Rosenberg,
Gold und Blut,
p. 7.

22. This fear of American intervention, always present, had been given renewed impetus by Roosevelt's tough speech of July 19, 1940, which could only be interpreted as a resolute challenge; cf. the notes of Dieckhoff, the German ambassador in Washington, of July 21, 1940, in: ADAP X, pp. 213 f.; also Halder, KTB II, p. 30 (July 22, 1940). From that moment on this fear affected almost all discussions on strategy; cf., for example, Raeder,
Mein Leben
II, pp. 246 f.; also KTB/OKW I, pp. 88 ff. For an overall view see Friedländer,
Prelude to Downfall.

23. Tagebuch Engel, November 4, 1940, quoted in Hillgruber,
Strategie,
p. 354n.

24. Thus at the headquarters of Army Group A (von Rundstedt's) in Charle-ville; cf. Klee,
Das Unternehmen “Seelöwe,”
pp. 189 f.

25. KTB/ OKW I, p. 996. There is a great deal of controversy on the question of when Hitler definitively decided to attack the Soviet Union; cf. particularly Gerhard L. Weinberg, “Der deutsche Entschluss zum Angriff auf die Sovjetunion,” in: VJHfZ 1953:2, pp. 301 ff., and the replies of H. G. Seraphim and A. Hillgruber,
ibid.,
1954:2, pp. 240 ff.

26.
Le Testament politique de Hitler,
pp. 93 ff. In conclusion Hitler also cited Germany's dependence on deliveries of Russian goods, which Stalin could at any time use for purposes of blackmail, especially in regard to Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Hitler then continued: “It would not have been fitting for the Third Reich, as the representative and protector of Europe, to sacrifice these friendly countries on the altar of Communism. That would have dishonored us, and moreover we would have been punished for it. From the moral as well as from the strategic point of view it would therefore have been a wrong decision.”
Ibid.,
p. 96. On June 12, 1941, Hitler gave a similar justification in speaking to Marshal Antonescu, the Rumanian Chief of State; cf. Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
I, pp. 588 ff. Another indication that the war against the Soviet Union was Hitler's “real” war may be found in his remark of July, 1940, that he must fight the war in the East before finishing the war in the West because he could “hardly ask the people to undertake a new war against Russia, given the mood that would prevail after a victory over England.” Cf. Bernhard von Lossberg,
Im Wehrmachtsführungsstab.

27. The men involved were chiefly Admiral Raeder, General Rommel, Baron von Weizsäcker, Count von der Schulenburg, the German Ambassador in Moscow, and General Köstring, the military attaché at the Embassy in Moscow. On the idea of the offensive in the Near East cf. Bullock, p. 639. Bullock believes that barely a fourth of the forces provided for the attack on the Soviet Union would probably have sufficed to deliver a fateful blow to British rule in the Near East.