Read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Online
Authors: William L. Shirer
This last military powwow on June 14 lasted from 11
A.M
. until 6:30
P.M
. It was broken by lunch at 2
P.M
., at which Hitler gave his generals yet another of his fiery, eve-of-the-battle pep talks.
110
According to Halder, it was “a comprehensive political speech,” with Hitler stressing that he had to attack Russia because her fall would force England to “give up.” But the bloodthirsty Fuehrer must have emphasized something else even more. Keitel told about it during direct examination on the stand at Nuremberg.
The main theme was that this was the decisive battle between two ideologies and that the practices which we knew as soldiers—the only correct ones under international law—had to be measured by completely different standards.
Hitler thereupon, said Keitel, gave various orders for carrying out an unprecedented terror in Russia by “brutal means.”
“Did you, or did any other generals, raise objections to these orders?” asked Keitel’s own attorney.
“No. I personally made no remonstrances,” the General replied. Nor did any of the other generals, he added.
*
It is almost inconceivable but nevertheless true that the men in the Kremlin, for all the reputation they had of being suspicious, crafty and hardheaded, and despite all the evidence and all the warnings that stared them in the face, did not realize right up to the last moment that they were to be hit, and with a force which would almost destroy their nation.
At 9:30 on the pleasant summer evening of June 21, 1941, nine hours before the German attack was scheduled to begin, Molotov received the
German ambassador at his office in the Kremlin and delivered his “final fatuity.”
*
After mentioning further border violations by German aircraft, which he said he had instructed the Soviet ambassador in Berlin to bring to the attention of Ribbentrop, Molotov turned to another subject, which Schulenburg described in an urgent telegram to the Wilhelmstrasse that same night:
There were a number of indications [Molotov had told him] that the German Government was dissatisfied with the Soviet Government. Rumors were even current that a war was impending between Germany and the Soviet Union … The Soviet Government was unable to understand the reasons for Germany’s dissatisfaction … He would appreciate it if I could tell him what had brought about the present situation in German–Soviet relations.
I replied [Schulenburg added] that I could not answer his questions, as I lacked the pertinent information.
111
He was soon to get it.
For on its way to him over the air waves between Berlin and Moscow was a long coded radio message from Ribbentrop, dated June 21, 1941, marked “Very Urgent, State Secret, For the Ambassador Personally,” which began:
Upon receipt of this telegram, all of the cipher material still there is to be destroyed. The radio set is to be put out of commission.
Please inform Herr Molotov at once that you have an urgent communication to make to him … Then please make the following declaration to him.
It was a familiar declaration, strewn with all the shopworn lies and fabrications at which Hitler and Ribbentrop had become so expert and which they had concocted so often before to justify each fresh act of unprovoked aggression. Perhaps—at least such is the impression this writer gets in rereading it—it somewhat topped all the previous ones for sheer effrontery and deceit. While Germany had loyally abided by the
Nazi–Soviet Pact
, it said, Russia had repeatedly broken it. The U.S.S.R. had practiced “sabotage, terrorism and espionage” against Germany. It had “combated the German attempt to set up a stable order in Europe.” It had conspired with Britain “for an attack against the German troops in Rumania and
Bulgaria
.” By concentrating “all available Russian forces on a long front from the Baltic to the
Black Sea
,” it had “menaced” the Reich.
Reports received the last few days [it went on] eliminate the last remaining doubts as to the aggressive character of this Russian concentration … In addition, there are reports from England regarding the negotiations of Ambassador
Cripps
for still closer political and military collaboration between England and the Soviet Union.
To sum up, the Government of the Reich declares, therefore, that the Soviet Government, contrary to the obligations it assumed,
1. has not only continued, but even intensified its attempts to undermine Germany and Europe;
2. has adopted a more and more anti-German foreign policy;
3. has concentrated all its forces in readiness at the German border. Thereby the Soviet Government has broken its treaties with Germany and is about to attack Germany from the rear in its struggle for life. The Fuehrer has therefore ordered the German Armed Forces to oppose this threat with all the means at their disposal.
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“Please do not enter into any discussion of this communication,” Ribbentrop advised his ambassador at the end. What could the shaken and disillusioned Schulenburg, who had devoted the best years of his life to improving German–Russian relations and who knew that the attack on the Soviet Union was unprovoked and without justification, say? Arriving back at the Kremlin just as dawn was breaking, he contented himself with reading the German declaration.
*
Molotov, stunned at last, listened in silence to the end and then said:
“It is war. Do you believe that we deserved that?”
At the same hour of daybreak a similar scene was taking place in the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. All afternoon on June 21, the Soviet ambassador, Vladimir Dekanozov, had been telephoning the Foreign Office asking for an appointment with Ribbentrop so that he could deliver his little protest against further border violations by German planes. He was told that the Nazi Foreign Minister was “out of town.” Then at 2
A.M
. on the twenty-second he was informed that Ribbentrop would receive him at 4
A.M
. at the Foreign Office. There the envoy, who had been a deputy foreign commissar, a hatchetman for Stalin and the troubleshooter who had arranged the taking over of
Lithuania
, received, like Molotov in Moscow, the shock of his life. Dr. Schmidt, who was present, has described the scene.
I had never seen Ribbentrop so excited as he was in the five minutes before Dekanozov’s arrival. He walked up and down his room like a caged animal …
Dekanozov was shown in and, obviously not guessing anything was amiss, held out his hand to Ribbentrop. We sat down and … Dekanozov proceeded to put on behalf of his Government certain questions that needed clarification. But he had hardly begun before Ribbentrop, with a stony expression, interrupted, saying: “That’s not the question now” …
The arrogant Nazi Foreign Minister thereupon explained what the question was, gave the ambassador a copy of the memorandum which Schulenburg at that moment was reading out to Molotov, and informed him that German troops were at that instant taking “military countermeasures” on the Soviet frontier. The startled Soviet envoy, says Schmidt, “recovered his composure quickly and expressed his deep regret” at the developments, for which he blamed Germany. “He rose, bowed perfunctorily and left the room without shaking hands.”
113
The Nazi–Soviet honeymoon was over. At 3:30
A.M
. on June 22, 1941, a half hour before the closing diplomatic formalities in the Kremlin and the Wilhelmstrasse, the roar of Hitler’s guns along hundreds of miles of front had blasted it forever.
There was one other diplomatic prelude to the cannonade. On the afternoon of June 21, Hitler sat down at his desk in his new underground headquarters, Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair), near Rastenburg in a gloomy forest of East Prussia, and dictated a long letter to Mussolini. As in the preparation of all his other aggressions he had not trusted his good friend and chief ally enough to let him in on his secret until the last moment. Now, at the eleventh hour, he did. His letter is the most revealing and authentic evidence we have of the reasons for his taking this fatal step, which for so long puzzled the outside world and which was to pave the way for his end and that of the Third Reich. The letter, to be sure, is full of Hitler’s customary lies and evasions which he tried to fob off even on his friends. But beneath them, and between them, there emerges his fundamental reasoning and his true—if mistaken—estimate of the world situation as the summer of 1941, the second of the war, officially began.
D
UCE!
I am writing this letter to you at a moment when months of anxious deliberation and continuous nerve-racking waiting are ending in the hardest decision of my life.
The situation:
*
England has lost this war. Like a drowning person, she grasps at every straw. Nevertheless, some of her hopes are naturally not without a certain logic … The destruction of France … has directed the glances of the British warmongers continually to the place from which they tried to start the war: to Soviet Russia.
Both countries, Soviet Russia and England, are equally interested in a
Europe … rendered prostrate by a long war. Behind these two countries stands the North American Union goading them on….
Hitler next explained that with large Soviet military forces in his rear he could never assemble the strength—“particularly in the air”—to make the all-out attack on Britain which would bring her down.
Really, all available Russian forces are at our border … If circumstances should give me cause to employ the German Air Force against England, there is danger that Russia will then begin its strategy of extortion, to which I would have to yield in silence simply from a feeling of air inferiority … England will be all the less ready for peace for it will be able to pin its hopes on the Russian partner. Indeed this hope must naturally grow with the progress in preparedness of the Russian armed forces. And behind this is the mass delivery of war material from America which they hope to get in 1942 …
I have therefore, after constantly racking my brains, finally reached the decision to cut the noose before it can be drawn tight … My over-all view is now as follows:
1.
France
is, as ever, not to be trusted.
2.
North Africa
itself, insofar as your colonies, Duce, are concerned, is probably out of danger until fall.
3.
Spain
is irresolute and—I am afraid—will take sides only when the outcome of the war is decided …
5. An attack on
Egypt
before autumn is out of the question …
6. Whether or not
America
enters the war is a matter of indifference, inasmuch as she supports our enemy with all the power she is able to mobilize.
7. The situation in England itself is bad; the provision of food and raw materials is growing steadily more difficult. The martial spirit to make war, after all, lives only on hopes. These hopes are based solely on two assumptions: Russia and America. We have no chance of eliminating America. But it does lie in our power to exclude Russia. The elimination of Russia means, at the same time, a tremendous relief for
Japan
in East Asia, and thereby the possibility of a much stronger threat to American activities through Japanese intervention.
I have decided under these circumstances to put an end to the hypocritical performance in the Kremlin.
Germany, Hitler said, would not need any Italian troops in Russia. (He was not going to share the glory of conquering Russia any more than he had shared the conquest of France.) But
Italy
, he declared, could “give decisive aid” by strengthening its forces in North Africa and by preparing “to march into France in case of a French violation of the treaty.” This was a fine bait for the land-hungry Duce.
So far as the air war on England is concerned, we shall, for a time, remain on the defensive …
As for the war in the East, Duce, it will surely be difficult, but I do not entertain a second’s doubt as to its great success. I hope, above all, that it will then be possible for us to secure a common food-supply base in the
Ukraine
which will furnish us such additional supplies as we may need in the future.
Then came the excuse for not tipping off his partner earlier.
If I waited until this moment, Duce, to send you this information, it is because the final decision itself will not be made until 7 o’clock tonight …
Whatever may come, Duce, our situation cannot become worse as a result of this step; it can only improve … Should England nevertheless not draw any conclusions from the hard facts, then we can, with our rear secured, apply ourselves with increased strength to the dispatching of our enemy.
Finally Hitler described his great feeling of relief at having finally made up his mind.
… Let me say one more thing, Duce. Since I struggled through to this decision, I again feel spiritually free. The partnership with the Soviet Union, in spite of the complete sincerity of our efforts to bring about a final conciliation, was nevertheless often very irksome to me, for in some way or other it seemed to me to be a break with my whole origin, my concepts and my former obligations. I am happy now to be relieved of these mental agonies.
With hearty and comradely greetings,
Your
A
DOLF
H
ITLER
114
At 3 o’clock in the morning of June 22, a bare half hour before the German troops jumped off, Ambassador von
Bismarck
awakened
Ciano
in Rome to deliver Hitler’s long missive, which the Italian Foreign Minister then telephoned to Mussolini, who was resting at his summer place at
Riccione
. It was not the first time that the Duce had been wakened from his sleep in the middle of the night by a message from his Axis partner, and he resented it. “Not even I disturb my servants at night,” Mussolini fretted to Ciano, “but the Germans make me jump out of bed at any hour without the least consideration.”
115
Nevertheless, as soon as Mussolini had rubbed the sleep from his eyes he gave orders for an immediate declaration of war on the Soviet Union. He was now completely a prisoner of the Germans. He knew it and resented it. “I hope for only one thing,” he told Ciano, “that in this war in the East the Germans lose a lot of feathers.”
116
Still, he realized that his own future now depended wholly on German arms. The Germans would win in Russia, he was sure, but he hoped that at least they would get a bloody nose.