completed in early 1939.22. ‘The Fuhrer’s birthday’: Hitler is amused, on his forty-ninth birthday, 20 April 1938, when Ferdinand Porsche presents him with a model of the Volkswagen, pointing out that the engine is in the boot. None of the 336,000 Germans who ordered and paid for a car partly or in full ever took delivery of a Volkswagen. The vehicles were produced during the war exclusively for military purposes.23. ‘The Fuhrer’s birthday’: Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, gives Hitler his present — a valuable equestrian portrait of Frederick the Great by Adolf von Menzel — on the Fuhrer’s fiftieth birthday, 20 April 1939, watched by Sepp Dietrich commander of the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, and Karl Wolff, chief of Himmler’s personal staff.24. Hitler, in evening dress, walks with Winifred Wagner past cheering crowds during the last Bayreuth Festival before the war, in July 1939.25. Molotov signs the Non-Aggression Pact of the Soviet Union with Germany in the early hours of 24 August 1939, watched by Red Army Chief of Staff Marshal Boris S. Shaposhnikov, adjutant to Ribbentrop Richard Schulze, a smug-looking German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Joseph Stalin.26. Hitler in his temporary field-headquarters during the Polish campaign, together with his Wehrmacht adjutants, Captain Nicolaus von Below (Luftwaffe), Captain Gerhard Engel (Army), and Colonel Rudolf Schmundt (chief adjutant). Martin Bormann is on Hitler’s left.27. Hitler reviewing troops in Warsaw on 5 October 1939 at the conclusion of the victory over Poland.28. Hitler during his address to the Party’s ‘Old Guard’ in the Burgerbraukeller in Munich on 8 November 1939. Only minutes after he had left the building, a time-bomb placed by a Swabian joiner, Georg Elser, exploded close to where he had been speaking, killing eight and injuring more than sixty of those present.29. Arthur Greiser, the fanatical Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Reichsgau Wartheland, the annexed part of western Poland, at the celebration for the ‘liberation’ of the area on 2 October 1939.30. Albert Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia, a rival to Greiser in the brutal attempt to ‘germanize’ the annexed parts of Poland.31. An ecstatic Hitler at his headquarters ‘Wolfsschlucht’ (Wolf’s Gorge), near Bruly-de-Pesche in Belgium, on hearing the news on 17 June 1940 that France had requested an armistice. Walther Hewel, Ribbentrop’s liaison at Fuhrer Headquarters, is on Hitler’s right.32. Hitler visiting emplacements on the Maginot Line in Alsace, during his short stay at his headquarters ‘Tannenberg’, near Freudenstadt in the Black Forest, on 30 June 1940.33. Hitler in Freudenstadt on 5 July 1940, the last day he was based at ‘Tannenberg’.34. An immense crowd gathered on Wilhelmplatz in Berlin on 6 July 1940, wildly cheering the conquering hero on Hitler’s return from the triumph over France. Goring is beside Hitler on the balcony of the Reich Chancellery.35. Hitler bids farewell to Franco following their talks at Hendaye, on the borders of France and Spain, on 23 October 1940. The smiles concealed the dissatisfaction felt by each of the dictators at the outcome of the talks.36. Hitler meets the French head of state, Marshal Petain, at Montoire on 24 October 1940 for talks which produced little tangible result.37. Ribbentrop talking to Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, at a reception in the Hotel Kaiserhof during the latter’s visit to Berlin, 12–14 November 1940. The tough talks with Molotov confirmed to Hitler that he was right to plan for an attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.38. Hitler and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Matsuoka, in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on 27 March 1941. Foreign Ministry official and interpreter Dr Paul Schmidt, who compiled the record of the meeting, is on the left. Matsuoka remained non-committal about Japanese intentions. Hitler had earlier that day given directions to his military leaders about the invasion of Yugoslavia.39. Hitler at his headquarters at Monichkirchen near Wiener Neustadt in mid-April 1941, during the Balkan campaign, talking to General Alfred Jodl head of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff. Nicolaus von Below, his Luftwaffe adjutant, is behind Hitler.40. A thoughtful Hitler, accompanied by head of the Wehrmacht High Command Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, travelling by train on 30 June 1941 to the headquarters of Army High Command in Angerburg, not far from his own new Fuhrer Headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair, near Rastenburg, in East Prussia.41. An Anti-Bolshevik Poster: ‘Europe’s victory is Your Prosperity’. With Britain destroyed, the mailed fist of Nazi Germany smashes Stalin’s Bolshevism.42. Field-Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch the weak Commander-in-Chief of the Army between February 1938 and his dismissal in December 1941, in a briefing with General Franz Haider, Chief of the General Staff from 1938 to 1942.43. Field-Marshal Keitel discussing military matters with Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair soon after the invasion of the Soviet Union.44. Reichsfuhrer-SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler alongside his right-hand man SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Head Office. With Hitler’s authorization, the steps were taken under their aegis in 1941–2 to implement the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’.45. ‘Should the international Jewish financiers succeed once again in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will be not the victory of Jews but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’ — Adolf Hitler. The ‘prophecy’ that Hitler had announced to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939. The poster was produced in September 1941 as a ‘Slogan of the week’ by the central office of the Nazi Party’s Propaganda Department and distributed to Party branches throughout the Reich.46. Hitler salutes the coffin of Reinhard Heydrich, who had been assassinated by Czech patriots
