Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

Bolsheviks were to be driven back to Asia. European Russia must be won for Europe.’ Hitler saw 1942 as difficult, but a far better situation developing in 1943. Foodstuffs and raw materials were now available from the occupied European parts of the Soviet Union. Once the exploitation of the area was properly organized, ‘our victory can no longer be endangered’.²⁷⁶

Hitler’s show of optimism was put on to delude Goebbels — or himself. On the very same day that he spoke with the Propaganda Minister, he was told by Walter Rohland — in charge of tank production and just back from a visit to the front — in the presence of Keitel, Jodl, Brauchitsch, Leeb, and other military leaders, of the superiority of the Soviet panzer production. Rohland also warned, in the light of his own experience gleaned from a trip to the USA in 1930, of the immense armaments potential which would be ranged against Germany should America enter the war. The war would then be lost for Germany.²⁷⁷ Fritz Todt, one of Hitler’s most trusted and gifted ministers, who had arranged the meeting about armaments, followed up Rohland’s comments with a statement on German armaments production. Whether in the meeting, or more privately afterwards, Todt added: ‘This war can no longer be won militarily.’ Hitler listened without interruption, then asked: ‘How, then, should I end this war?’ Todt replied that the war could only be concluded politically. Hitler retorted: ‘I can scarcely still see a way of coming politically to an end.’²⁷⁸

As Hitler was returning to East Prussia on the evening of 29 November, the news coming in from the front was not good.²⁷⁹ Over the next days things were to worsen markedly.

Immediately on his return to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler fell into ‘a state of extreme agitation’ about the position of Kleist’s panzer army, thrown back from Rostov. Kleist wanted to move back to a secure defensive position at the mouth of the Bakhmut river. Hitler forbade this and demanded the retreat be halted further east. Brauchitsch was summoned to Fuhrer Headquarters and subjected to a torrent of abuse. Browbeaten, the Commander-in-Chief, an ill and severely depressed man, passed on the order to the Commander of Army Group South, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt. The reply came from Rundstedt, evidently not realizing that the order had come from Hitler himself, that he could not obey it, and that either the order must be changed or he be relieved of his post.²⁸⁰ This reply was passed directly to Hitler. In the early hours of the following morning, Rundstedt, one of Hitler’s most outstanding and loyal generals, was sacked — the scapegoat for the setback at Rostov — and the command given to Field-Marshal Walter von Reichenau.²⁸¹ Later that day, Reichenau telephoned to say the enemy had broken through the line ordered by Hitler and requested permission to retreat to the line Rundstedt had demanded. Hitler concurred.²⁸²

On 2 December, Hitler flew south to view Kleist’s position for himself. He was put fully in the picture about the reports, which he had not seen, from the Army Group prior to the attack on Rostov. The outcome had been accurately forecast. He exonerated the Army Group and the panzer army from blame. But he did not reinstate Rundstedt.²⁸³ That would have amounted to a public acceptance of his own error.

By that same date, 2 December, German troops, despite the atrocious weather, had advanced almost to Moscow. Reconnaissance troops reached a point only some twelve miles from the city centre.²⁸⁴ But the offensive had become hopeless. In intense cold — the temperature outside Moscow on 4 December had dropped to — 32 degrees Fahrenheit — and without adequate support, Guderian decided on the evening of 5 December to pull back his troops to more secure defensive positions. Hoepner’s 4th Panzer Army and Reinhardt’s 3rd, some twenty miles north of the Kremlin, were forced to do the same.²⁸⁵ On 5 December, the same day that the German offensive irredeemably broke down, the Soviet counter-attack began. By the following day, 100 divisions along a 200-mile stretch of the front fell upon the exhausted soldiers of Army Group Centre.²⁸⁶

VI

Amid the deepening gloom in the Fuhrer Headquarters over events in the east, the best news Hitler could have wished for arrived. Reports came in during the evening of Sunday, 7 December that the Japanese had attacked the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.²⁸⁷ Early accounts indicated that two battleships and an aircraft carrier had been sunk, and four others and four cruisers severely damaged.²⁸⁸ The following morning President Roosevelt received the backing of the US Congress to declare war on Japan.²⁸⁹ Winston Churchill, overjoyed now to have the Americans ‘in the same boat’ (as Roosevelt had put it to him), had no difficulty in obtaining authorization from the War Cabinet for an immediate British declaration of war.²⁹⁰

Hitler thought he had good reason to be delighted. ‘We can’t lose the war at all,’ he exclaimed. ‘We now have an ally which has never been conquered in 3,000 years.’²⁹¹

This rash assumption was predicated on the view which Hitler had long held: that Japan’s intervention would both tie the United States down in the Pacific theatre, and seriously weaken Britain through an assault on its possessions in the Far East.²⁹² Goebbels echoed the expectations: ‘Through the outbreak of war between Japan and the USA, a complete shift in the general world picture has taken place. The United States will scarcely now be in a position to transport worthwhile material to England let alone the Soviet Union.’²⁹³

Relations between Japan and the USA had been sharply deteriorating throughout the autumn. With the collapse of any rapprochement by mid-October over the loosening of the economic sanctions which were biting hard in Japan, the government of Prince Konoye had resigned and been replaced by an administration headed by General Tojo.²⁹⁴ Since then, the hardliners and warmongers in the military had been increasingly in the ascendant. Early in November they had fixed a deadline for agreement with the Americans. If none could be reached, they had stipulated, there would be war.²⁹⁵ Though kept in the dark about details, the German Ambassador in Tokyo, General Eugen Ott, informed Berlin early in November of his impressions that war between Japan and the USA and Britain was likely. He had also learned that the Japanese administration was about to ask for an assurance that Germany would go to Japan’s aid in the event of her becoming engaged in war with the USA.²⁹⁶ Such information doubtless lay behind Hitler’s optimism, when speaking to Goebbels in the middle of the month, that Japan would ‘actively enter the war in the foreseeable future’.²⁹⁷

The Japanese leadership had, in fact, taken the decision on 12 November that, should war with the USA become inevitable, an attempt would be made to reach agreement with Germany on participation in the war against America, and on a commitment to avoid a separate peace. Any insistence by Germany on Japan’s involvement in the war against the Soviet Union would be met with the response that Japan did not intend to intervene for the time being. Should Germany then delay her entry into the war against the USA, this would have to be taken on board.²⁹⁸

On 21 November Ribbentrop had laid down the Reich’s policy to Ott: Berlin regarded it as self-evident that if either country, Germany or Japan, found itself at war with the USA, the other country would not sign a separate peace.²⁹⁹ Two days later, General Okamoto, the head of the section of the Japanese General Staff dealing with foreign armies, went a stage further. He asked Ambassador Ott whether Germany would regard itself as at war with the USA if Japan were to open hostilities.³⁰⁰ There is no record of Ribbentrop’s replying to Ott’s telegram, which arrived on 24 November. But when he met Ambassador Oshima in Berlin on the evening of 28 November, Ribbentrop assured him that Germany would come to Japan’s aid if she were to be at war with the USA. And there was no possibility of a separate peace between Germany and the USA under any circumstances. The Fuhrer was determined on this point.³⁰¹

For the Japanese, little depended on the agreement with Germany. Already two days before Ribbentrop met Oshima, Japanese air and naval forces had set out for Hawaii. And on 1 December, the order had been given to attack on the 7th.³⁰²

Ribbentrop’s assurances were fully in line with Hitler’s remarks during Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin in the spring, that Germany would immediately draw the consequences should Japan get into conflict with the USA.³⁰³ But at this point, before entering any formal agreement with the Japanese, Ribbentrop evidently deemed it necessary to consult Hitler. He told Oshima this on the evening of 1 December.³⁰⁴ The next day, Hitler flew, as we have seen, to visit Army Group South following the setback at Rostov. Bad weather forced him to stay overnight in Poltava on the way back, where he was apparently