Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

be a significant shift in policy. Chamberlain now fully realized the extent to which he had been duped; how the Munich Agreement, which he regarded as his own achievement, had been no more than a major deception. A balanced assessment of Chamberlain’s attempts to appease then deter Hitler in 1938–9 can be found in R. A. C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement. British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War, London, 1993, here especially 204ff.

137. Domarus, 1128–9. The communique of the meeting between Chamberlain and Beck on 5 April 1939 is in DBFP, Ser.3, V, 35, No. 10 (and see 50, No. 17 n.2, referring to the text of the speech in Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, House of Commons, vol.345, Cols.2996–9). For the firm resolution and false optimism in Warsaw that followed the announcement, see Shirer, 131. British guarantees for Romania, Greece, and Turkey and the beginning of serious negotiations with the Soviets followed (Watt, How War Came, 193; see also Weinberg II, 556).

138. Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, 1946, vol.2, 127: ‘Denen werde ich einen Teufelstrank brauen.’ Gisevius was reporting what he had been told by Admiral Canaris, present when Hitler made the remark.

139. Goebbels anticipated Hitler’s response: ‘So Beck has fallen after all into the Lords’ trap. Poland will perhaps some day have to pay a high price for that.’ — TBJG, I/6, 313 (10 April 1939).

140. See Dirks/Jan?en, 83–4.

141. Domarus, 1119–27, especially 1120, 1125. The speech was not allowed to be transmitted live, presumably to allow the text to be edited if need be (which it was not). The orders, allegedly from Hitler himself, preventing a live broadcast were issued at such short notice that they came through to William Shirer only after Hitler had already begun to speak. The abrupt end to the broadcast of the speech, and its replacement by music, led to immediate queries from New York about whether Hitler had been assassinated (Shirer, 130).

142. Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–45, (1962), Presidio paperback edn, Novato, n.d. (1964), 19–20. For the text: Walther Hubatsch (ed.), Hitlers Weisungen fur die Kriegfuhrung. Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, (1962), Munich, 1965, 19–22 (=Weisungen); and see Muller, Heer, 390–92.

143. Domarus, 1130; Below, 159.

144. DGFP, D, VI, 223–8, Doc.185; Domarus, 1131–3. Weisungen, 22; IMG, xxxiv. 388–91, Doc.120-C (‘Fall-Wei?’), 429–42, Doc.126-C.

145. Weisungen, 22.

146. Hoffmann, 122.

147. Though Poland was aiming to modernize its armed forces, its defence budget in the years 1935–9 amounted to no more than 10 per cent of that of the Luftwaffe alone for the single year of 1939. Andrzej Suchcitz, ‘Poland’s Defence Preparations in 1939’, in Peter D. Stachura (ed.), Poland between the Wars, 1918–1939, London, 1998, 109–36, here 110.)

148. Christian Hartmann and Sergej Slutsch, ‘Franz Halder und die Kriegsvorbereitungen im Fruhjahr 1939. Eine Ansprache des Generalstabschefs des Heeres’, VfZ, 45 (1997), 467–95, quotations 480, 482–3, 488–90, 495; for the dating to the second half of April, 469–70.

CHAPTER 5: GOING FOR BROKE

1. Speer, 163–4; Domarus, 1144; TBJG, I/6, 322 (20 April 1939); Below, 160; Schroeder, 92–4. And see Kurt Patzold, ‘Hitlers funfzigster Geburtstag am 20. April 1939’, in Dietrich Eichholtz and Kurt Patzold (eds.), Der Weg in den Krieg. Studien zur Geschichte der Vorkriegsjahre (1935/36 bis 1939), East Berlin, 1989, 309–43.

2. Domarus, 1146. Henderson, 214, for his recall (and 220 for his return on 25 April).

3. TBJG, I/6, 323 (21 April 1939); Domarus, 1145–6; Below, 161; Schroeder, 94.

4. Fritz Terveen, ‘Der Filmbericht uber Hitlers 50. Geburtstag. Ein Beispiel nationalsozialistischer Selbstdarstellung und Propaganda’, VfZ, 7 (1959), 75–84, here 82.

5. TBJG, I/6, 323 (21 April 1939).

6. DBS, vi.435–54.

7. Ilse McKee, Tomorrow the World, London, 1960, 27.

8. See Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 106, 148–9, 222, for examples.

9. Domarus, 1178; see also Sebastian Haffner, Anmerkungen zu Hitler, Munich, 1978, 43–5.

10. MadR, ii.160–61.

11. MadR, ii.293.

12. GStA, Reichsstatthalter 563, ‘Die Lage der bayerischen Landwirtschaft im Fruhjahr 1939’, Fol. 13; see Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 61.

13. MadR, ii.159, 161, 292, 295.

14. MadR, ii.157.

15. BA/MA, RW19/68, ‘Zusammenfassender Uberblick’, 31 January 1939, Fol.119.

16. BA/MA, RW19/56, Wehrwirtschaftsinspektion VI, June 1939.

17. BA/MA, RW19/56, Wehrwirtschaftsinspektion VI, July 1939.

18. See the references in Ch.5 n. 41. Though it never posed any serious danger to the regime, the illegal oppositional activity of the Left, especially the Communists, never ceased and appears to have intensified in the years immediately before the war. See Klaus Mammach, ‘Widerstandsaktionen und oppositionelles Verhalten’, in Eichholtz and Patzold, 403–34.

19. BA, R43II/194, Fol.103.

20. IfZ, Doc. NG-5428.

21. BA, R43II/528. Lammers also regularly brought the reports of the Reich Labour Minister to Hitler’s attention in the years 1935–7, but ceased to do so after 5 January 1938 (R43II/533).

22. BA, R43II/195,Fol.182.

23. See Speer, 229.

24. See Mason, Sozialpolitik, ch.1.

25. Treue, ‘Hitlers Rede vor der deutschen Presse’, 188–9.

26. Wiedemann, 90.

27. Domarus, 1317.

28. See Below, 162.

29. Schneider, 24 October 1952, 8.

30. See Thies, Architekt; and Jost Dulffer, Jochen Thies, and Josef Henke (eds.), Hitlers Stadte. Baupolitik im Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumentation, Cologne, 1978.

31. See Martin Broszat and Klaus Schwabe (eds.), Die deutschen Eliten und der Weg in den Zweiten Weltkrieg, Munich, 1989, especially 61–71 (Hitler); 133 (industry’s worries about war); 224–5 (role of diplomats); 285–90 (position of the military after Munich); 383ff. (agrarians’ hopes from expansion).

32. See Fritsch’s remark to von Hassell in December 1938: ‘This man — Hitler — is Germany’s fate for better or worse. If it is now into the abyss,’ which Fritsch thought likely, ‘he will drag us all down with him. There’s nothing to be done’ (Hassell, 71). The remarks betray little recognition of the part Fritsch and those like him had played in placing Hitler in such a position.

33. CD 78, for the length of the speech.

34. Domarus, 1137–8.

35. Below, 161.

36. Domarus, 1173.