Read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Online
Authors: William L. Shirer
Their orders, we now know, were to attack at 4:30 on Saturday morning, August 26.
*
And up until 6
P.M
. on the twenty-fifth nothing that had happened during the day, certainly not the personal assurances of Ambassadors
Henderson
and Coulondre that Britain and France would surely honor their commitments to Poland, had budged Adolf Hitler from his resolve to go ahead with his aggression on schedule. But about 6
P.M.
, or shortly afterward, there arrived news from London and Rome that made this man of apparently unshakable will hesitate.
It is not quite clear from the confidential German records and the postwar testimony of the Wilhelmstrasse officials at just what time Hitler learned of the signing in London of the formal Anglo–Polish treaty which transformed Britain’s unilateral guarantee of Poland into a pact of mutual assistance.
†
There is some evidence in
Halder
’s diary and in the German
Naval Register that the Wilhelmstrasse got wind at noon on August 25 that the pact would be signed during the day. The General Staff Chief notes that at 12 noon he got a call from OKW asking what was the latest deadline for postponement of the decision to attack and that he replied: 3
P.M
. The Naval Register also mentions that news of the Anglo–Polish pact and of “information from the Duce” was received at noon.
7
But this is impossible. Word from Mussolini did not arrive, according to a German notation on the document, until “about 6
P.M
.” And Hitler could not have learned of the signing of the Anglo–Polish treaty in London until about that time, since this event only took place at 5:35
P.M
.—and, at that, barely fifteen minutes after the Polish ambassador in London, Count Edward Raczyński, had received permission from his Foreign Minister in Warsaw over the telephone to affix his signature.
*
Whatever time he received it—and around 6
P.M
. is an accurate guess—Hitler was moved by the news from London. This could well be Britain’s answer to his “offer,” the terms of which must have reached London by now. It meant that he had failed in his bid to buy off the British as he had bought off the Russians. Dr. Schmidt, who was in Hitler’s office when the report arrived, remembered later that the Fuehrer, after reading it, sat brooding at his desk.
8
His brooding was interrupted very shortly by equally bad news from Rome. Throughout the afternoon the German dictator had waited with “unconcealed impatience,” as Dr. Schmidt describes it, for the Duce’s reply to his letter. The Italian ambassador, Attolico, was summoned to the Chancellery at 3
P.M.
, shortly after
Henderson
had departed, but he could only inform the Fuehrer that no answer had been received as yet. By this time Hitler’s nerves were so strained that he sent Ribbentrop out to get Ciano on the long-distance telephone, but the Foreign Minister was unable to get through to him. Attolico, Schmidt says, was dismissed “with scant courtesy.”
9
For some days Hitler had been receiving warnings from Rome that his Axis partner might go back on him at the crucial moment of the attack on Poland, and this intelligence was not without foundation. No sooner had Ciano returned from his disillusioning meetings with Hitler and Ribbentrop on August 11 to 13, than he set to work to turn Mussolini against the Germans—an action which did not escape the watchful eyes of the German Embassy in Rome. The Fascist Foreign Minister’s diary traces the ups and downs of his efforts to make the Italian dictator see the light and disassociate himself, in time, from Hitler’s war.
10
On the evening of his return from Berchtesgaden on August 13, Ciano saw the
Duce and after describing his talks with Hitler and Ribbentrop tried to convince his chief that the Germans “have betrayed us and lied to us” and “are dragging us into an adventure.”
The Duce’s reactions are varied [Ciano noted in his diary that night]. At first he agrees with me. Then he says that honor compels him to march with Germany. Finally, he states that he wants his part of the booty in
Croatia
and Dalmatia.
August 14
.—I find Mussolini worried. I do not hesitate to arouse in him every possible anti-German reaction by every means in my power. I speak to him of his diminished prestige and his playing the role of second fiddle. And, finally, I turn over to him documents which prove the bad faith of the Germans on the Polish question. The alliance was based on premises which they now deny; they are traitors and we must not have any scruples in ditching them. But Mussolini still has many scruples.
On the next day, Ciano talked it out with Mussolini for six hours.
August 15
.—The Duce … is convinced that we must not march blindly with the Germans. However … he wants time to prepare the break with Germany … He is more and more convinced that the democracies will fight … This time it means war. And we cannot engage in war because our plight does not permit us to do so.
August 18
.—A conversation with the Duce in the morning; his usual shifting feelings. He still thinks it possible that the democracies will not march and that Germany might do good business cheaply, from which business he does not want to be excluded. Then, too, he fears Hitler’s rage. He believes that a denunciation of the pact or something like it might induce Hitler to abandon the Polish question in order to square accounts with Italy. All this makes him nervous and disturbed.
August 20
.—The Duce made an about-face. He wants to support Germany at any cost in the conflict which is now close at hand … Conference between Mussolini, myself, and Attolico. [The ambassador had returned from Berlin to Rome for consultations.] This is the substance: It is already too late to go back on the Germans … The press of the whole world would say that Italy is cowardly … I try to debate the matter but it is useless now. Mussolini holds very stubbornly to his idea …
August 21
.—Today I have spoken very clearly … When I entered the room Mussolini confirmed his decision to go along with the Germans. “You, Duce, cannot and must not do it … I went to
Salzburg
in order to adopt a common line of action. I found myself face to face with a
Diktat.
The Germans, not ourselves, have betrayed the alliance … Tear up the pact. Throw it in Hitler’s face! …”
The upshot of this conference was that Ciano should seek a meeting with Ribbentrop for the next day at the Brenner and inform him that Italy
would stay out of a conflict provoked by a German attack on Poland. Ribbentrop was not available for several hours when Ciano put in a call for him at noon, but at 5:30 he finally came on the line. The Nazi Foreign Minister could not give Ciano an immediate answer about meeting on the Brenner on such quick notice, because he was “waiting for an important message from Moscow” and would call back later. This he did at 10:30
P.M.
August 22
.—Last evening at 10:30 a new act opened [Ciano recorded in his diary]. Ribbentrop telephoned that he would prefer to see me in
Innsbruck
rather than at the frontier, because he was to leave later for Moscow to sign a political pact with the Soviet Government.
This was news, and of the most startling kind, to Ciano and Mussolini. They decided that a meeting of the two foreign ministers “would no longer be timely.” Once more their German ally had shown its contempt for them by not letting them know about the deal with Moscow.
The hesitations of the Duce, the anti-German feelings of Ciano and the possibility that Italy might, crawl out of its obligations under Article III of the
Pact of Steel
, which called for the automatic participation in war of one party if the other party “became involved in hostilities with another Power,” became known in Berlin before Ribbentrop set off for Moscow on August 22.
On August 20, Count Massimo Magistrati, the Italian chargé d’affaires in Berlin, called on Weizsaecker at the Foreign Office and revealed “an Italian state of mind which, although it does not surprise me,” the State Secretary informed Ribbentrop in a confidential memorandum,
11
“must in my opinion definitely be considered.” What Magistrati brought to the attention of Weizsaecker was that since Germany had not adhered to the terms of the alliance, which called for close contact and consultation on major questions, and had treated its conflict with Poland as an exclusively German problem, “Germany was thus forgoing Italy’s armed assistance.” And if contrary to the German view the Polish conflict developed into a big war, Italy did not consider that the “prerequisites” of the alliance existed. In brief, Italy was seeking an out.
Two days later, on August 23, a further warning was received in Berlin from Ambassador Hans Georg von Mackensen in Rome. He wrote to Weizsaecker on what had been happening “behind the scenes.” The letter, according to a marginal note in Weizsaecker’s handwriting on the captured document, was “submitted to the Fuehrer.” It must have opened his eyes. The Italian position, following a series of meetings between Mussolini, Ciano and Attolico, was, Mackensen reported, that if Germany invaded Poland she would violate the Pact of Steel, which was based on an agreement to refrain from war until 1942. Furthermore, contrary to the German view, Mussolini was sure that if Germany attacked Poland both Britain and France would intervene—“and the
United States too after a few months.” While Germany remained on the defensive in the west the French and British,
in the Duce’s opinion, would descend on Italy with all the forces at their disposal. In this, situation Italy would have to bear the whole brunt of the war in order to give the Reich the opportunity of liquidating the affair in the East …
12
It was with these warnings in mind that Hitler got off his letter to Mussolini on the morning of August 25 and waited all day, with mounting impatience, for an answer. Shortly after midnight of the day before, Ribbentrop, after an evening recounting to the Fuehrer the details of his triumph in Moscow, rang up Ciano to warn him, “at the instigation of the Fuehrer,” of the “extreme gravity of the situation due to Polish provocations.”
*
A note by Weizsaecker reveals that the call was made to “prevent the Italians from being able to speak of unexpected developments.”
By the time Ambassador Mackensen handed Mussolini Hitler’s letter at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome at 3:20
P.M
. on August 25, the Duce, then, knew that the German attack on Poland was about to take place. Unlike Hitler, he was certain that Great Britain and France would immediately enter the war, with catastrophic consequences for Italy, whose Navy was no match for the British
Mediterranean
Fleet and whose Army would be overwhelmed by the French.
†
According to a dispatch which Mackensen got off to Berlin at 10:25
P.M
. describing the meeting, Mussolini, after carefully reading the letter twice in his presence, declared that he was “in complete agreement” about the Nazi–Soviet Pact and that he realized that an “armed conflict with Poland could no longer be avoided.” Finally—“and this he emphasized expressly,” Mackensen reported—“he stood beside us unconditionally and with all his resources.”
13
But this was not what the Duce wrote the Fuehrer, unbeknownst to the German ambassador, the text of which was hurriedly telephoned by Ciano to Attolico, who had returned to his post in Berlin and who “about 6
P.M
.” arrived at the Chancellery to deliver it in person to Adolf Hitler.
It struck the Fuehrer, according to Schmidt, who was present, like a bombshell. After expressing his “complete approval” of the Nazi–Soviet Pact and his “understanding concerning Poland,” Mussolini came to the main point.
As for the
practical
attitude of Italy in case of military action [Mussolini wrote, and the emphasis is his], my point of view is as follows:
If Germany attacks Poland and the conflict remains localized, Italy will afford Germany every form of political and economic assistance which is requested of her.
If Germany attacks Poland
*
and the latter’s allies open a counterattack against Germany, I inform you in advance that it will be opportune for me not to take the
initiative
in military operations in view of the
present
state of Italian war preparations, of which we have repeatedly and in good time informed you, Fuehrer, and Herr von Ribbentrop.
Our intervention can, nevertheless, take place at once if Germany delivers to us immediately the military supplies and the raw materials to resist the attack which the French and English would predominantly direct against us.
At our meetings the war was envisaged for 1942, and by that time I would have been ready on land, on sea and in the air, according to the plans which had been concerted.
I am furthermore of the opinion that the purely military measures which have already been taken, and other measures to be taken later, will immobilize, in Europe and Africa, considerable French and British forces.
I consider it my bounden duty as a loyal friend to tell you the whole truth and inform you beforehand about the real situation. Not to do so might have unpleasant consequences for us all. This is my view, and since within a short time I must summon the highest governmental bodies, I beg you to let me know yours.
So though Russia was in the bag as a friendly neutral instead of a belligerent, Germany’s ally of the
Pact of Steel
was out of it—and this on the very day that Britain had seemed to commit herself irrevocably by signing a mutual-assistance pact with Poland against German aggression. Hitler read the Duce’s letter, told Attolico he would answer it immediately and icily dismissed the Italian envoy.