Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

over Poland had brought a growth in prestige. But, he went on, ‘all historical successes come to nothing when they are not continued’. Meanwhile, Germany’s enemies were improving their military capacity. If they were to reach the borders of the Reich, it would be too late for a counter-attack. They could destroy the Ruhr. ‘Therefore, no delay until the enemy arrives, but, should peaceful efforts fail, direct assault in the West.’ He derided the French who, he said, ‘have less value than the Poles’. The British, however, ‘are deciders’. It was, therefore, ‘essential that immediate plans for an attack against France be prepared’. The defeat of France, it was plainly inferred, would force Britain to terms. Hitler brought out obvious objections to an early strike. The rainy season would arrive within a few weeks. The air-force would be better in spring. ‘But we cannot wait,’ he insisted. If a settlement with Chamberlain were not possible, he would ‘smash the enemy until he collapses’. The goal was ‘to bring England to its knees; to destroy France’.¹⁸⁷ His favoured time for carrying out the attack was the end of October.¹⁸⁸ The Commanders-in-Chief — even Goring — were taken aback. But none protested. Hitler casually threw his notes into the fire when he had finished speaking.¹⁸⁹

Two days later, Hitler told Rosenberg that he would propose a major peace conference (together with an armistice and demobilization) to regulate all matters rationally. Rosenberg asked whether he intended to prosecute the war in the West. ‘Naturally,’ replied Hitler. The Maginot Line, Rosenberg recorded him saying, was no longer a deterrent. If the English did not want peace, he would attack them with all means available ‘and annihilate (vernichten) them’ — again, his favourite phrase.¹⁹⁰

Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag on 6 October indeed held out, as he had indicated to Rosenberg, the prospect of a conference of the leading nations to settle Europe’s problems of peace and security.¹⁹¹ But a starting-point was that the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union was to remain. There would be no re-creation of the Poland of the Versailles settlement.¹⁹² It would be peace on Hitler’s terms, with no concessions on what he had won. He painted a lurid picture of death and destruction if the western powers should decline his ‘offer’. He blamed the warmongering on ‘a certain Jewish-international capitalism and journalism’, implying in particular Churchill and his supporters.¹⁹³ If Churchill’s view should prevail, he concluded, then Germany would fight. Riding one of his main hobby-horses, he added: A November 1918 will never be repeated in German history.’¹⁹⁴ The speech amounted to an olive-branch clenched in a mailed fist.

Hitler’s ‘offer’ was dismissed by Chamberlain in a speech in the House of Commons six days later.¹⁹⁵ It was what Hitler had expected. He had not waited. On the very day of his Reichstag speech, he stressed to Brauchitsch and Haider that a decisive move in the north-west was necessary to prevent a French advance that autumn through Belgium, threatening the Ruhr.¹⁹⁶ Two days later Brauchitsch was informed that Hitler had provisionally set 25 November as the date of attack.¹⁹⁷ One general, Colonel-General Ritter von Leeb, noted in his diary that day that there was evidently a serious intent to carry out ‘this mad attack’, breaching the neutrality of Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg, which meant that the Reichstag speech had been ‘merely lying to the German people’.¹⁹⁸ On this same day, 9 October, Hitler completed a lengthy memorandum that he had worked on for two nights, outlining and justifying his plans for an attack on the West. He had specifically prepared it because of his awareness of opposition to the idea in the army leadership.¹⁹⁹ Again, he emphasized that time was of the essence. The attack could not begin soon enough. The aim was the complete military defeat of the western powers.²⁰⁰ He read out the memorandum at a meeting with his military leaders on 10 October.²⁰¹ Its contents were embodied in ‘Directive No.6 for the Conduct of War’ issued later that day (though dated 9 October), stating Hitler’s determination ‘without letting much time pass by’ to take offensive action.²⁰²

When Hitler heard on 12 October of Chamberlain’s rejection of his ‘peace offer’, he made no effort — as Weizsacker thought might still have been possible — to probe for feasible openings to defuse the situation, but lost no time in announcing, even without waiting for the full text of Chamberlain’s speech, that Britain had spurned the hand of peace and that, consequently, the war continued.²⁰³ On 16 October Hitler told Brauchitsch he had given up hope of coming to an agreement with the West. ‘The British,’ he said, ‘will be ready to talk only after defeats. We must get at them as quickly as possible.’ He reckoned with a date between 15 and 20 November.²⁰⁴ Within a matter of days, Hitler had brought this date forward and now fixed ‘Case Yellow’, as the attack on the West had been code-named, for 12 November.²⁰⁵

Speaking to his generals, Hitler confined himself largely to military objectives. To his trusted circle, and to Party leaders, he was more expressive. Goebbels found him high in confidence on 11 October. Germany’s defeat in the last war, he stated, was solely attributable to treachery. This time traitors would not be spared.²⁰⁶ He responded to Chamberlain’s dismissal of his ‘peace offer’ by stating that he was glad that he could now ‘go for England’ (‘gegen England losgehern’). He had given up almost all hope of peace. ‘The English will have to learn the hard way,’ he stated.²⁰⁷

He was in similar mood when he addressed the Reichs — and Gauleiter in a two-hour speech on 21 October. He reckoned war with the West was unavoidable. There was no other choice. But at its end would be ‘the great and all-embracing (umfassende) German people’s Reich (Volksreich)’²⁰⁸ He would, Hitler told his Party leaders, unleash his major assault on the West — and on England itself — within a fortnight or so. He would use all methods available, including attacks on cities. After defeating England and France he would again turn to the East. Then — an allusion to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages — he would create a Germany as of old, incorporating Belgium and Switzerland.²⁰⁹ Hitler was evidently still thinking along such lines when he told Goebbels a few days later he had earmarked Burgundy for the resettlement of the South Tyroleans. ‘He’s already distributing French provinces,’ noted the Propaganda Minister. ‘He hurries far ahead of all steps of development. Just like every genius.’²¹⁰

On 6 November Goebbels was again listening to Hitler’s views on the war. ‘He’s of the opinion that England has to get a knock-out blow. That’s right. England’s power is now simply a myth, not a reality any longer. All the more reason why it must be smashed. Before then there will be no peace in the world. The military say we’re not ready. But no army will ever be ready. That’s not the point. It’s a question of being more ready than the others. And that’s the case… The strike against the western powers will not have to wait much longer.’ ‘Perhaps,’ added Goebbels, ‘the Fuhrer will succeed sooner than we all think in annulling the Peace of Westphalia. With that his historic life will be crowned.’²¹¹ Goebbels thought the decision to go ahead was imminent.²¹²

All the signs are that the pressure for an early strike against the West came directly from Hitler, without initiation or prompting from other quarters. That it received the support of Goebbels and the Party leadership was axiomatic. Within the military, as Goebbels’s comments hinted, it was a different matter. Hitler could reckon with the backing — or at least lack of objection — of Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.²¹³ And whatever his private anxieties, Goring would never deviate in public from Hitler’s line.²¹⁴ But, as Hitler recognized, the decision to attack the West already in the autumn set him once more on a collision course with the army leadership, spearheaded by Brauchitsch and Haider. On 14 October, primed by Weiz-sacker about Hitler’s reaction to Chamberlain’s speech rejecting his ‘peace offer’, the head of the army and his Chief of Staff met to discuss the consequences. Haider noted three possibilities: attack, wait, ‘fundamental changes’. None offered prospects of decisive success, least of all the last one ‘since it is essentially negative and tends to render us vulnerable’.²¹⁵ The qualifying remarks were made by Brauchitsch. The weak, ultra-cautious, and tradition-bound Commander-in-Chief of the army could not look beyond conventional attempts to dissuade Hitler from what he thought was a disastrous course of action. But he was evidently responding to a suggestion floated by Haider, following his discussions with Weizsacker the previous day, to have Hitler arrested at the moment of the order for attack on the West.²¹⁶ The cryptic third possibility signified then no less than the extraordinary fact that in the early stages of a major war the two highest representatives of the army were airing the possibility of a form of coup d’etat involving the removal of Hitler as head of state.²¹⁷

The differences between the two army leaders were nonetheless wide. And nothing flowed from the discussion in the direction of an embryonic plan to unseat Hitler. Brauchitsch attempted, within the bounds of orthodoxy, to have favoured generals such as Reichenau and Rundstedt try to influence Hitler to change his mind — a fruitless enterprise.²¹⁸ Haider went further. By early November he was, if anything, still more convinced that direct action against Hitler was necessary to prevent the imminent catastrophe. In this, his views were coming to correspond with the small numbers of radical opponents of the regime in the Foreign Ministry and in