Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

deal. The contours were set for the difficult meeting to follow.

It took place in the salon of Hitler’s train.²⁷³ Franco — little, fat, swarthy in complexion, his droning sing-song voice reminiscent, it was later said, of that of an Islamic prayer-caller — opened by stating his pleasure at the opportunity to meet the Fuhrer and thanked him for all that Germany had done for Spain. Close bonds between the countries had been established during the Civil War, and he hoped they would continue. Spain would gladly fight on the side of Germany during the current war. However, the economic difficulties of the country ruled this out. Unmistakably and disappointingly to Spanish ears, however, Hitler spent much of his rambling address dampening down any hopes Franco might have had of major territorial gains at minimal cost. He began by outlining German military strength. He then pointed to the major problem: the danger of the French colonies going over to de Gaulle and the Allies and of Britain and America occupying the Atlantic islands — the Azores and Canaries — off the African coast. It was necessary, he continued, to bring the war to a speedy end. As long as the fight against Britain went on, Germany needed France as a base and to take up a clear position against England. His wish, Hitler said, was to construct ‘a very big front against England’. But ‘Spanish wishes and French hopes were hindrances’ to this. He then went on — doubtless to Franco’s irritation — largely to talk of his interest in reaching an arrangement with the French. He was prepared to offer France favourable terms and compensate her in a final peace settlement for territorial losses in Africa in return for support to bring the war to a speedy end. It became ever plainer, however, that he had little concrete to offer Spain. He proposed an alliance, with Spanish entry into the war in January 1941, to be rewarded by Gibraltar. But it was evident that none of the colonial territory in north Africa, coveted by Franco, was earmarked for Spain in Hitler’s thinking.²⁷⁴ The Spanish dictator said nothing for a while. Then he unfolded his list of exorbitant demands for foodstuffs and armaments. He added for good measure that in his view the German expectations of an early end to the war — Hitler had begun by claiming that militarily the war was as good as won — were exaggerated, and that the British government and fleet, backed by the USA, would continue the conflict from Canada. At one point, Hitler’s irritation was so great that he got up from the table, stating that there was no point in continuing. But he calmed down and carried on. The talks produced, however, no more than an empty agreement, leaving the Spanish to decide when, if ever, they would join the Axis. Hitler was heard to mutter, as he left the meeting: ‘There’s nothing to be done with this chap (Mit diesem Kerle ist nichts zu machen.)’²⁷⁵ Franco’s comment to his foreign minister was: ‘These people are intolerable. They want us to come into the war in exchange for nothing.’²⁷⁶

Ribbentrop was in a rage at the ‘ungrateful coward Franco’ when he flew the next day to Bordeaux, en route to the meeting with Petain.²⁷⁷ At Florence a few days later, Hitler told Mussolini that he ‘would prefer to have three or four teeth taken out’ than go through another nine hours’ discussion with Franco — ‘a brave spirit’, he said, but not cut out to be a politician or organizer.²⁷⁸ More privately, he raged about ‘Jesuit swine’ and ‘misplaced Spanish pride’.²⁷⁹

The discussions with Petain and Laval in Montoire on 24 October were no more fruitful. After the opening diplomatic niceties, Hitler, as he had done with Franco, underlined German military strength, the weakness of Britain’s position, and his keenness to bring the war to an early end. He sought France’s cooperation in the ‘community’ of countries he was in the process of organizing against Britain. The aged leader of Vichy France was non-committal and unspecific. He assured Hitler that everything would be done to sustain the security of French colonial territories in Africa (following the attempt on Dakar). He could confirm the principle of French collaboration with Germany, which Laval had agreed at his meeting with Hitler two days earlier, but could not enter into detail and needed to consult his government before undertaking a binding arrangement. Laval added that Petain would need to summon the National Assembly — something he would be loath to do — before any declaration of war on Britain. Both Petain and Laval hinted that the extent of French cooperation hinged on generous treatment by Germany and the acquisition of colonial territory after a final peace. Hitler had offered Petain nothing specific. He had in return received no precise assurances of active French support, either in the fight against Britain or in steps to regain the territory lost in French Equatorial Africa to the ‘Free French’ of de Gaulle, allied with Britain.²⁸⁰ The outcome was therefore inconsequential.²⁸¹

Hitler professed himself content at the end of the meeting, and afterwards said he had been impressed by Petain.²⁸² But coming on top of the strained discussion with Franco, and the greater significance thus falling on France’s role in the Mediterranean, it was not surprising that Hitler and Ribbentrop travelled back to Germany with a sense of disappointment at the hesitancy of the French.²⁸³ It was a slow journey, during which Hitler, dispirited and convinced that his initial instincts had been right, told Keitel and Jodl that he wanted to move against Russia during the summer of 1941.²⁸⁴

On crossing the German border Hitler received news that did nothing to improve his mood. He was informed that the Italians were about to invade Greece. He was furious at the stupidity of such a military action to take place in the autumn rains and winter snows of the Balkan hills.²⁸⁵

However, during the meeting of the two dictators and their foreign ministers in Florence on 28 October — essentially a report on the negotiations with Franco and Petain — Hitler contained his feelings about the Italian Greek adventure, and the meeting passed in harmony.²⁸⁶ Hitler spoke of the mutual distrust between himself and Stalin. However, he said, Molotov would shortly be coming to Berlin. (Ribbentrop had earlier that month persuaded Hitler to invite the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs for talks.) It was his intention, he added, to steer Russian energies towards India. This remarkable idea was Ribbentrop’s — part of his scheme to establish spheres of influence for Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia (the powers forming his intended European- Asiatic Bloc to ‘stretch from Japan to Spain’).²⁸⁷ It was an idea with a very short lifetime.

Briefing his military leaders in early November on his negotiations with Franco and Petain, Hitler had referred to Russia as ‘the entire problem of Europe’ and said ‘everything must be done to be ready for the great showdown’. But the meeting with his top brass showed that decisions on the prosecution of the war, whether it should be in the east or the west, were still open. Hitler had seemed to his army adjutant Major Engel, attending the meeting, ‘visibly depressed’, conveying the ‘impression that at the moment he does not know how things should proceed’.²⁸⁸ Molotov’s visit in all probability finally convinced Hitler that the only way forward left to him was the one which he had, since the summer, come to favour on strategic grounds, and to which he was in any case ideologically inclined: an attack on the Soviet Union.

Relations with the Soviet Union were already deteriorating seriously by the time Molotov had been invited to Berlin. Soviet designs on parts of Romania (which had been forced earlier in the summer to cede Bessarabia and northern Bukowina) and on Finland (effectively a Soviet satellite following defeat in the recent war) had prompted direct German involvement in these areas. Anxious about the Ploesti oilfields, Hitler had agreed in September to Marshal Antonescu’s request to send a German military mission comprising a number of armoured divisions and air- force units to Romania, on the face of it to reorganize the Romanian army. Russian protests that the German guarantees of Romania’s frontiers violated the 1939 pact were dismissed. In late November Romania came fully within the German orbit when she joined the Tripartite Pact. The German stance on Finland had altered at the end of July — the time that an attack on the Soviet Union had first been mooted. Arms deliveries were made and agreements allowing German troops passage to Norway were signed, again despite Soviet protests. Meanwhile, the number of German divisions on the eastern front had been increased to counter the military build-up along the southern borders of the Soviet Union.²⁸⁹

Undaunted by the growing difficulties in German-Soviet relations, Ribbentrop impressed upon the more sceptical Hitler the opportunities to build the anti-British continental bloc through including the Soviet Union, too, in the Tripartite Pact. Hitler indicated that he was prepared to see what came of the idea. But on the very day that talks with Molotov began, he put out a directive that, irrespective of the outcome, ‘all already orally ordered preparations for the east [were] to be continued’.²⁹⁰

The invitation to Molotov had been sent on 13 October — before the fruitless soundings of Franco and Petain were made.²⁹¹ On the morning of 12 November Molotov and his entourage arrived in Berlin. Weizsacker thought the shabbily dressed Russians looked like extras in a gangster film.²⁹² The hammer and sickle on Soviet flags fluttering alongside swastika banners provided an extraordinary spectacle in the Reich’s capital. But the Internationale was not played, apparently to avoid the possibility of Berliners, still familiar with the words, joining in. The negotiations, in Ribbentrop’s study in the lavishly redesigned old Reich President’s Palace, went badly from the start. Molotov, cold eyes alert behind a wire pince-nez, an occasional icy smile flitting across his chess-player’s face, reminded Paul Schmidt — there to keep a written record of the discussions — of his old mathematics teacher. His pointed, precise remarks and questions posed a stark contrast to Ribbentrop’s