The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (58 page)

At this meeting Raeder also pointed out that the new shipbuilding
program (not to mention the tripling of naval personnel) would take more money than he had available, but Hitler told him not to worry. “In case of need, he will get Dr. Ley to put 120–150 million from the
Labor Front
at the disposal of the Navy, as the money would still benefit the workers.”
⁹
Thus the dues of the German workers were to finance the naval program.

Goering too was busy those first two years, establishing the Air Force. As Minister of Aviation—supposedly
civil
aviation—he put the manufacturers to work designing warplanes. Training of military pilots began immediately under the convenient camouflage of the
League for Air Sports
.

A visitor to the
Ruhr
and Rhineland industrial areas in those days might have been struck by the intense activity of the armament works, especially those of Krupp, chief German gunmakers for three quarters of a century, and
I. G. Farben
, the great chemical trust. Although Krupp had been forbidden by the Allies to continue in the armament business after 1919, the company had really not been idle. As Krupp would boast in 1942, when the German armies occupied most of Europe, “the basic principle of armament and turret design for tanks had already been worked out in 1926 … Of the guns being used in 1939–41, the most important ones were already fully complete in 1933.” Farben scientists had saved Germany from early disaster in the First World War by the invention of a process to make synthetic nitrates from air after the country’s normal supply of nitrates from Chile was cut off by the British blockade. Now under Hitler the trust set out to make Germany self-sufficient in two materials without which modern war could not be fought: gasoline and rubber, both of which had had to be imported. The problem of making synthetic gasoline from coal had actually been solved by the company’s scientists in the mid-Twenties. After 1933, the Nazi government gave I. G. Farben the go-ahead with orders to raise its synthetic oil production to 300,000 tons a year by 1937. By that time the company had also discovered how to make synthetic rubber from coal and other products of which Germany had a sufficiency, and the first of four plants was set up at
Schkopau
for large-scale production of
buna
, as the artificial rubber became known. By the beginning of 1934, plans were approved by the Working Committee of the Reich Defense Council for the mobilization of some 240,000 plants for war orders. By the end of that year rearmament, in all its phases, had become so massive it was obvious that it could no longer be concealed from the suspicious and uneasy powers of Versailles.

These powers, led by Great Britain, had been flirting with the idea of recognizing a
fait accompli
, that is, German rearmament, which was not nearly so secret as Hitler supposed. They would concede Hitler complete arms equality in return for Germany’s joining in a general European settlement which would include an Eastern Locarno and thus provide the Eastern countries, especially Russia,
Poland
and
Czechoslovakia
, with the same security which the Western nations enjoyed under the Locarno Treaty—and, of course, furnish Germany with the same guarantees of
security. In May of 1934 Sir John Simon, the British Foreign Secretary, who was to be a good forerunner of Neville Chamberlain in his inability to comprehend the mind of Adolf Hitler, actually proposed equality of armaments to Germany. The French sharply rejected such an idea.

But the proposals for a general settlement, including equality of armaments and an Eastern Locarno, were renewed jointly by the British and French governments early in February 1935. The month before, on January 13, the inhabitants of the
Saar
had voted overwhelmingly—477,000 to 48,000—to return their little coal-rich territory to the Reich and Hitler had taken the occasion to publicly proclaim that Germany had no further territorial claims on France, which meant the abandoning of German claims on Alsace and Lorraine. In the atmosphere of optimism and good will which the peaceful return of the Saar and Hitler’s remarks engendered, the Anglo–French proposals were formally presented to Hitler at the beginning of February 1935.

Hitler’s reply of February 14 was somewhat vague—and, from his viewpoint, understandably so. He welcomed a plan which would leave Germany free to rearm in the open. But he was evasive on Germany’s willingness to sign an Eastern Locarno. That would be tying his hands in the main area where, as he had always preached, Germany’s
Lebensraum
lay. Might not Britain be detached in this matter from France, which with its mutual-assistance pacts with
Poland
,
Czechoslovakia
and
Rumania
, was more interested in Eastern security? Hitler must have thought so, for in his cautious reply he suggested that bilateral discussions precede general talks and invited the British to come to Berlin for preliminary discussions. Sir John Simon readily agreed, and a meeting was arranged for March 6 in Berlin. Two days before that date the publication of a
British White Paper
caused a great deal of simulated anger in the Wilhelmstrasse. Actually the White Paper struck most foreign observers in Berlin as a sober observation on Germany’s clandestine rearmament, the acceleration of which had moved Britain to a modest increase of her own. But Hitler was reported furious with it. Neurath informed Simon on the very eve of his departure for Berlin that the Fuehrer had a “cold” and the talks would have to be postponed.

Whether he had a cold or not, Hitler certainly had a brain storm. It would be embarrassing to have Simon and Eden around if he transformed it into a bold act. He thought he had found a pretext for dealing the Versailles
Diktat
a mortal blow. The French government had just introduced a bill extending military service from eighteen months to two years because of the shortage of youth born during the First World War. On March 10, Hitler sent up a trial balloon to test the mettle of the Allies. The accommodating Ward Price was called in and given an interview with Goering, who told him officially what all the world knew, that Germany had a military Air Force. Hitler confidently awaited the reaction in London to this unilateral abrogation of Versailles. It was just what he expected. Sir John Simon told the Commons that he still counted on going to Berlin.

On Saturday, March 16—most of Hitler’s surprises were reserved for Saturdays—the Chancellor decreed a law establishing universal military service and providing for a peacetime army of twelve corps and thirty-six divisions—roughly half a million men. That was the end of the military restrictions of Versailles—unless France and Britain took action. As Hitler had expected, they protested but they did not act. Indeed, the British government hastened to ask whether Hitler would still receive its Foreign Secretary—a query which the dictator graciously answered in the affirmative.

Sunday, March 17, was a day of rejoicing and celebration in Germany. The shackles of Versailles, symbol of Germany’s defeat and humiliation, had been torn off. No matter how much a German might dislike Hitler and his gangster rule, he had to admit that the Fuehrer had accomplished what no republican government had ever dared attempt. To most Germans the nation’s honor had been restored. That Sunday was also Heroes’ Memorial Day (
Heldengedenktag
). I went to the ceremony at noon at the State Opera House and there witnessed a scene which Germany had not seen since 1914. The entire lower floor was a sea of military uniforms, the faded gray uniforms and spiked helmets of the old Imperial Army mingling with the attire of the new Army, including the sky-blue uniforms of the Luftwaffe, which few had seen before. At Hitler’s side was Field Marshal von Mackensen, the last surviving field marshal of the Kaiser’s Army, colorfully attired in the uniform of the Death’s-Head Hussars. Strong lights played on the stage, where young officers stood like marble statues holding upright the nation’s war flags. Behind them on an enormous curtain hung an immense silver-and-black
Iron Cross
. Ostensibly this was a ceremony to honor Germany’s war dead. It turned out to be a jubilant celebration of the death of Versailles and the rebirth of the conscript German Army.

The generals, one could see by their faces, were immensely pleased. Like everyone else they had been taken by surprise, for Hitler, who had spent the previous days at his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, had not bothered to apprise them of his thoughts. According to General von Manstein’s later testimony at Nuremberg, he and his commanding officer, of Wehrkreis III (the Third Military District) in Berlin, General von Witzleben, first heard of Hitler’s decision over the radio on March 16. The General Staff would have preferred a smaller army to begin with.

There now took place a series of empty gestures of warning to Hitler by the other powers. The British, the French and the Italians met at
Stresa on April 11, condemned Germany’s action and reiterated their support of Austria’s independence and the Locarno Treaty. The Council of the
League of Nations
at Geneva also expressed its displeasure at Hitler’s precipitate action and duly appointed a committee to suggest steps which might impede him the next time. France, recognizing that Germany would never join an Eastern Locarno, hastily signed a pact of mutual assistance with Russia, and Moscow made a similar treaty with Czechoslovakia.

In the headlines this closing of ranks against Germany sounded somewhat ominous and even impressed a number of men in the German Foreign Office and in the Army, but apparently not Hitler. After all, he had gotten away with his gamble. Still, it would not do to rest on his laurels. It was time, he decided, to pull out the stops again on his love of peace and to see whether the new unity of the powers arrayed against him might not be undermined and breached after all.

On the evening of May 21
^*
he delivered another “peace” speech to the Reichstag—perhaps the most eloquent and certainly one of the cleverest and most misleading of his Reichstag orations this writer, who sat through most of them, ever heard him make. Hitler was in a relaxed mood and exuded a spirit not only of confidence but—to the surprise of his listeners—of tolerance and conciliation. There was no resentment or defiance toward the nations which had condemned his scrapping of the military clauses of Versailles. Instead there were assurances that all he wanted was peace and understanding based on justice for all. He rejected the very idea of war; it was senseless, it was useless, as well as a horror.

The blood shed on the European continent in the course of the last three hundred years bears no proportion to the national result of the events. In the end France has remained France, Germany Germany, Poland Poland, and Italy Italy. What dynastic egotism, political passion and patriotic blindness have attained in the way of apparently far-reaching political changes by shedding rivers of blood has, as regards national feeling, done no more than touched the skin of the nations. It has not substantially altered their fundamental characters. If these states had applied merely a fraction of their sacrifices to wiser purposes the success would certainly have been greater and more permanent.

Germany, Hitler proclaimed, had not the slightest thought of conquering other peoples.

   Our racial theory regards every war for the subjection and domination of an alien people as a proceeding which sooner or later changes and weakens the victor internally, and eventually brings about his defeat … As there is no longer any unoccupied space in Europe, every victory … can at best result in a quantitative increase in the number of the inhabitants of a country. But if the nations attach so much importance to that they can achieve it without tears in a simpler and more natural way—[by] a sound social policy, by increasing the readiness of a nation to have children.

No! National Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe … The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation …

Germany needs peace and desires peace!

   He kept hammering away at the point. At the end he made thirteen specific proposals for maintaining the peace which seemed so admirable that they created a deep and favorable impression not only in Germany but in all of Europe. He prefaced them with a reminder:

   Germany has solemnly recognized and guaranteed France her frontiers as determined after the
Saar
plebiscite … We thereby finally renounced all claims to
Alsace-Lorraine
, a land for which we have fought two great wars … Without taking the past into account Germany has concluded a nonaggression pact with Poland … We shall adhere to it unconditionally…. We recognize Poland as the home of a great and nationally conscious people.

   As for Austria:

   Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an
Anschluss
.

   Hitler’s thirteen points were quite comprehensive. Germany could not return to Geneva until the League divested itself of the Versailles Treaty. When that was done and full equality of all nations recognized, he implied, Germany would rejoin the League. Germany, however, would “unconditionally respect” the nonmilitary clauses of the Versailles Treaty, “including the territorial provisions. In particular it will uphold and fulfill all obligations arising out of the Locarno Treaty.” Hitler also pledged Germany to abide by the demilitarization of the Rhineland. Though willing “at any time” to participate in a system of collective security, Germany preferred bilateral agreements and was ready to conclude nonaggression
pacts with its neighbor states. It was also prepared to agree to British and French proposals for supplementing the Locarno Treaty with an air accord.