strength. There was no time to lose.
It was a bizarre mentality. But in the summer of 1939, such a mentality was driving Germany towards European war. All along the way, Hitler had pushed at open doors. Revanchism and revisionism had given him his platform. Foreign Ministry mandarins, captains of industry, and above all the leaders of the armed forces had done everything — in their own interest — to ‘work towards the Fuhrer’ in destroying Versailles and Locarno, pushing for economic expansion, building up a war machine. The weakened and divided western powers had given way at every step. They had provided the international backcloth to the expansion of Hitler’s power, to the diplomatic triumphs cheered to the echo by millions. The exalting of Hitler’s prestige had in turn elevated him to a position where he was held in awe even by his close entourage. The Fuhrer cult removed him more and more from criticism, undermined opposition, inordinately strengthened his own hand against those who had done everything to build him up but now found themselves sidelined or bypassed. The traditional national-conservative power-elites had helped to make Hitler. But he now towered above them.31 The major shifts in personnel in the army leadership and Foreign Ministry in February 1938, and the great foreign-policy triumphs that followed, had removed the last possible constraining influences. Surrounded by lackeys, yes-men, and time-servers, Hitler’s power was by this time absolute. He could decide over war and peace.32
I
Hitler made public the abrupt shift in policy towards Poland and Great Britain in his big Reichstag speech of 28 April 1939.
The speech, lasting two hours and twenty minutes, had been occasioned by a message sent by President Roosevelt a fortnight earlier.33 Prompted by the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia, and in direct response to the German dictator’s aggressive speech in Wilhelmshaven on 1 April, the President had appealed to Hitler to give an assurance that he would desist from any attack for the next twenty-five years on thirty named countries — mainly European, but also including Iraq, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Iran. Were such an assurance to be given, the United States, declared Roosevelt, would play its part in working for disarmament and equal access to raw materials on world markets.34 Hitler was incensed by Roosevelt’s telegram. That it had been published in Washington before even being received in Berlin was taken as a slight. Hitler also thought it arrogant in tone.35 And the naming of the thirty countries allowed Hitler to claim that inquiries had been conducted in each, and that none felt threatened by Germany. Some, such as Syria, however, had been, he alleged, unable to reply, since they were deprived of freedom and under the military control of democratic states, while the Republic of Ireland, he asserted, feared aggression from Britain, not from Germany.36 Roosevelt’s raising of the disarmament issue (out of which Hitler had made such capital a few years earlier) handed him a further propaganda gift. With heavy sarcasm, he tore into Roosevelt, ‘answering’ his claims in twenty-one points, each cheered to the rafters by the assembled members of the Reichstag, roaring with laughter as he poured scorn on the President.37
He returned to the Reich Chancellery drenched in sweat, ready for the hot bath that had been prepared for him.38 Civil servants in the Foreign Ministry thought he had ‘lashed out’
Preceding the vaudeville, Hitler had chosen the occasion to renounce the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland and the Naval Agreement with Britain. Memoranda to this effect had been handed over by the German embassies in Warsaw and London to coincide with the timing of the speech. Hitler, repeating his admiration for the British Empire, his search for an understanding, and that his only demand on Britain was the return of the former German colonies, blamed the renunciation of the naval pact on Britain’s ‘encirclement policy’.41 In reality, he was complying with the interests of the German navy, which felt its construction plans restricted by the pact and had been pressing for some time for Hitler to renounce it.42 The intransigence of the Poles over Danzig and the Corridor, their mobilization in March — in Hitler’s eyes almost as big an affront as the Czech mobilization the previous May — and the alignment with Britain against Germany were given as reasons for the ending of the Polish pact.43 The reasons were scarcely regarded as compelling outside Germany.
Since the end of March, which had brought the British guarantee for Poland, followed soon afterwards by the announcement that there was to be a British-Polish mutual assistance treaty, Hitler had, in fact, given up on the Poles. The military directives of early April were recognition of this. The Poles, he acknowledged, were not going to concede to German demands without a fight. So they would have their fight. And they would be smashed. Only the timing and conditions remained to be determined.
Hitler’s new aggressive stance towards Poland was certain of a warm welcome throughout the regime’s leadership, even among those who had opposed the high risk on Czecho-Slovakia the previous summer, and among broad swathes of the German population. The traditional anti-Polish sentiment in the Foreign Ministry was reflected in the relish with which Weizsacker had conveyed the news to the Poles in early April that Germany was ending all negotiations.44 Anti-Polish feeling in the military was also rampant. Military leaders — even those with little time for Hitler — were enthusiastic about a revision of the disputed borders with Poland where they had been cool about Czecho-Slovakia. Ordinary soldiers were raring to be let loose at the Poles.45 The commanders of the armed forces’ branches were, moreover, better integrated from the outset into the military planning on Poland than they had been in the early stages of the Sudeten crisis.46 Despite the British guarantee, they had greater confidence than the previous year in Hitler pulling off yet another coup, and fewer fears of western involvement.47
At a meeting in his study in the New Reich Chancellery on 23 May, Hitler outlined his thinking on Poland and on wider strategic issues to a small group of top military leaders. The main points of his speech were noted down by his Wehrmacht Adjutant Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Schmundt. It was a frank address, even if some points (according to the noted record) were left ambiguous. It held out the prospect not only of an attack on Poland, but also made clear that the more far-reaching aim was to prepare for an inevitable showdown with Britain. Unlike the meeting on 5 November 1937 that Ho?bach had recorded, there is no indication that the military commanders were caused serious disquiet by what they heard. As on that occasion, the meeting had been called to deal with questions of raw materials allocation, arising from the priority that had been given in January to the naval Z- Plan.48 As then, Hitler did not deal with such specifics, but launched into a broad assessment of strategy, this time regarding Poland and the West. Other countries, including the Soviet Union, were scarcely touched upon.
Significantly — and an indication that reports of the mounting difficulties had not passed him by — Hitler began by emphasizing the need to solve Germany’s economic problems. His answer was the one he had been rehearsing for over fifteen years, though it was now more plainly stated than it had been in his first speech to military leaders on being appointed Chancellor, over six years earlier. ‘This is not possible without “breaking in” to other countries or attacking other people’s possessions,’ he baldly stated. In characteristic vein he continued: ‘Living space proportionate to the greatness of the State is fundamental to every Power. One can do without it for a time, but sooner or later the problems will have to be solved by hook or by crook. The alternatives are rise or decline. In fifteen or twenty years’ time the solution will be forced upon us. No German statesman can shirk the problem for longer.’
He turned to Poland. The Poles would always stand on the side of Germany’s enemies. The Non-Aggression Treaty had not altered this in the least. He made his intentions brutally clear. ‘It is not Danzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our living space in the East and making food supplies secure and also solving the problem of the Baltic States. Food supplies can only be obtained from thinly populated areas. Over and above fertility, thorough German cultivation will tremendously increase the produce. No other openings can be seen in Europe.’ Colonies were no answer, he averred, since they were always subject to blockade by sea. In the event of war with the West, the territories in the East would provide food and labour.
