Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  111. Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. 3, p. 219 (10.9.41); Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 75; Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, p. 268 (6.9.41).

  112. DGFP, 13, doc. 316, p. 505; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 75.

  113. Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall, p. 280.

  114. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, Munich, 1966, pp. 136, 149 (18, 21. 10.41), quotation p. 136.

  115. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, pp. 140, 145 (19–20.10.41); Bailey and Ryan, p. 202.

  116. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, pp. 216 (quotation), 223 (1–2.11.41).

  117. Domarus, p. 1778.

  118. Fuehrer Conferences, p. 239 (13.11.41); see also Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall, p. 294.

  119. William Carr, Poland to Pearl Harbor. The Making of the Second World War, London, 1985, p. 143.

  120. Dr Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1942, ed. Percy Ernst Schramm, Stuttgart, 1963, p. 145 (10.9.41); Staatsmänner, p. 319 (conversation with Ciano, 25.10.41); Hillgruber, ‘Amerika’, pp. 4, 18.

  121. DieWeizsäcker-Papiere, p. 274 (21.10.41); Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 326.

  122. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 180 (26.10.41).

  123. DGFP, 13, doc. 434, p. 717; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 75.

  124. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 240 (6.11.41).

  125. Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 75. See also DGFP, 13, p. 745 n. 3.

  126. DGFP, 13, doc. 480, p. 799; cited also in Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 76, with slightly varying translation; see also Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall, p. 306; and Gerhard Krebs, ‘Deutschland und Pearl Harbor’, Historische Zeitschrift, 253 (1991), pp. 341–2. Krebs (pp. 327–47) offers a thorough account of the Japanese efforts to secure a guarantee of German assistance.

  127. DGFP, 13, doc. 487, pp. 806–7; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 76; Friedländer, p. 306; Klaus Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler, Stuttgart, 1995, pp. 762–3. Unsurprisingly, Ott interpreted Ribbentrop’s answer as approval to support for Japan in circumstances not covered by the Tripartite Pact, namely Japanese aggression. This prompted great relief in the Japanese leadership (Krebs, p. 342).

  128. DGFP, 13, doc. 492, p. 813; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 77.

  129. Staatsmänner, pp. 256–7 (4.4.41).

  130. Nobutaka Ike (ed.), Japan’s Decision for War. Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, Stanford, Calif., 1967, pp. 241–2 (12.11.41).

  131. Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, p. 277 (23.11.41).

  132. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 308 (18.11.41).

  133. Possibly preparation for Hitler’s involvement for three days, from 27 to 29 November, in a series of talks with foreign dignitories in Berlin to celebrate the extension of the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 delayed matters. See Milan Hauner, Hitler. A Chronology of his Life and Time, 2nd edn., Basingstoke/New York, 2005, p. 171.

  134. DGFP, 13, doc. 506, pp. 847–8; Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop, paperback edn., London, 1994, p. 346.

  135. The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 4, Washington, 1978, appendix, p. A383; DGFP, 13, doc. 512, p. 870, n. 4; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 79. See Krebs, pp. 346–7, and Syring, pp. 688–9, for the question of the authenticity of the evidence on Hitler’s quoted words. Krebs, p. 369, cites Oshima’s telegram of 29 November to Tokyo as stating: ‘I have found to be confirmed that he [Hitler] will support Japan with all his might if a conflict should arise in Japanese-American relations.’

  136. IMT, vol. 31, doc. 2898-PS, p. 268. Friedländer, p. 306, mistakenly gives the date as 10 November, and places Ott’s conversation with Tojo.

  137. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, United States Government, vol. 6, Washington, 1946, doc. 3598-PS; also quoted in John Toland, Adolf Hitler, London, 1977, p. 694.

  138. The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 4, appendix, pp. A387–8; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 80. See also Carl Boyd, Hitler’s Japanese Confidant. General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941–1945, Lawrence, Kan., 1992, p. 36. Syring, p. 689 (and see p. 695 n. 57), leaves open the question, disputed by historians, whether the date was 1 or 2 December. Little hinges on the point.

  139. Krebs, pp. 352–3; Jäckel, Hitler in History, pp. 80–81; Bloch, p. 346.

  140. Ciano’s Diary, pp. 405–6 (3, 5.12.41).

  141. DGFP, 13, doc. 546, pp. 958–9; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 81; Krebs, pp. 352–3.

  142. Die Weizsacker-Papiere, p. 279 (6.12.41).

  143. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 327; Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 468 (10.12.41).

  144. Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, pp. 278–9 (6.12.41).

  145. Halder, Kriegstagebuch, vol. 3, p. 332 (7.12.41); trans. Halder War Diary, p. 582.

  146. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 439 (6.12.41).

  147. Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall, p. 307.

  148. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 328. Jodl’s own surprise was, he thought, shared by Hitler (IMT, vol. 15, p. 397).

  149. Schmidt, p. 553.

  150. Ciano’s Diary, p. 407 (8.12.41).

  151. Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, pp. 279–80 (8.12.41).

  152. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 453 (8.12.41).

  153. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, ED 100, Diary of Walther Hewel (8.12.41); also quoted in David Irving, Hitler’s War, London, 1977, p. 352.

  154. Franz von Papen, Memoirs, London, 1952, p. 484.

  155. Generalfeldmarschall Keitel: Verbrecher oder Offizier? Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente des Chefs OKW, ed. Walter Görlitz, Göttingen, 1961, p. 285. Otto Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, Munich, 1955, p. 85, also recalled the immediate change in Hitler’s demeanour when given the news of Pearl Harbor.

  156. Warlimont, pp. 207–8.

  157. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, pp. 469 (10.12.41).

  158. Below, p. 296.

  159. Unpublished notes and tape-recording of an interview of Wolfgang Brocke by Hans Mommsen, 25.4.97. I am most grateful to Professor Mommsen for access to this material.

  160. Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, p. 285.

  161. Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms. A Global History of World War II, Cambridge, 1994, p. 262; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 82; Friedländer, p. 308.

  162. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, pp. 464–5 (10.12.41).

  163. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Washington, 1948, supplement B, p. 1199; with slightly different wording, also in IMT, vol. 10, p. 298; and The Ribbentrop Memoirs, p. 160.

  164. See Domarus, pp. 1806–7.

  165. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 494 (13.12.41).

  166. Domarus, p. 1807.

  167. Friedländer, Prelude to Downfall, p. 308.

  168. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 476 (11.12.41).

  169. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, p. 468 (10.12.41).

  170. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, supplement B, p. 1199; the same sentiments in slightly different wording in The Ribbentrop Memoirs, p. 160.

  171. The Ribbentrop Memoirs, pp. 160, 167.

  172. DGFP, 13, doc. 569, p. 994; Friedländer, p. 308.

  173. DGFP, 13, doc. 562, p. 982; Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 82.

  174. Domarus, pp. 1809–10.

  175. A point made by Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 86.

  176. Syring, p. 691.

  177. Jäckel, Hitler in History, p. 83; Syring, p. 688.

  178. See Syring, p. 692; Gassert, p. 317.

  179. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 328.

  180. Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, p. 280 (10.12.41).

  181. See Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 2, pp. 433, 439 (5–6.12.41).

  182. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, par
t II, vol. 2, p. 468 (10.12.41).

  183. Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, p. 554.

  184. Dönitz, pp. 202–6. Even so, Dönitz lamented how few U-boats were placed at his disposal as the needs of submarine warfare in the Mediterranean and to protect Norway made competing claims.

  185. Kahn, pp. 83–4.

  186. See Hitler’s comments to Oshima on 3 Jan. 1942, that if Japan and Germany act together so that ‘England loses India, an entire world collapses. India is the heart of the English Empire’ (quoted in Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 764).

  187. Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, p. 762.

  188. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1099–100.

  189. Freidel, p. 408.

  190. Dallek, p. 312.

  191. Freidel, p. 407.

  192. David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear. The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, New York/Oxford, 1999, pp. 565–9.

  193. Weinberg, A World at Arms, p. 330.

  194. This differs from the implication in Kennedy, p. 524, that ‘in the absence of such a legal declaration, Roosevelt might well have found it impossible to resist demands to place the maximum American effort in the Pacific, against the formally recognized Japanese enemy, rather than in the Atlantic, in a nondeclared war against the Germans’.

  195. Kennedy, p. 543; I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, Oxford/New York, 1995, p. 860.

  196. Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, London, 1995, p. 15, writes that ‘on the face of things, no rational man in early 1942 would have guessed at the eventual outcome of the war’. ‘On the face of things’, that may have been the case. But Churchill, to go from his later account, recognized that, after Pearl Harbor and with the United States drawn into the conflict, ‘we had won the war…Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force’ (Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3: The Grand Alliance, London, 1950, p. 539).

  197. Staatsmänner, p. 329 (Hitler’s meeting with the Danish Foreign Minister, Erik Scavenius, 27.11.41). He repeated similar sentiments to his own entourage on 27.1.42 (Picker, p. 171). Both are quoted by Hillgruber, ‘Amerika’, p. 20.

  CHAPTER 10. BERLIN/EAST PRUSSIA, SUMMER–AUTUMN 1941

  1. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, part II, vol. 2, Munich, 1996, pp. 498–9 (13.12.41).

  2. Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942, Stuttgart, 1981, p. 619.

  3. Dimension des Völkermords. Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Wolfgang Benz, Munich, 1991, p. 17.

  4. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham (eds.), Nazism 1919–1945. A Documentary Reader, vol. 3, Exeter, 1988, p. 1130; Mark Roseman, The Villa, the Lake, the Meeting. Wannsee and the Final Solution, London, 2002, pp. 111–12. The target figure included Jews in England, as well as in neutral countries such as Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden, Ireland and Spain.

  5. Donald Bloxham, ‘The Armenian Genocide of 1915–16. Cumulative Radicalization and the Development of a Destruction Policy’, Past and Present, 181 (2003), pp. 141–3, 146, 186–91; Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge, Mass./London, 2001, pp. 18–36.

  6. Also pointed out by Robert S. Wistrich, Hitler and the Holocaust, New York, 2001, p. 238.

  7. Naimark, p. 35.

  8. Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy. Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 140, 145; Bloxham, p. 152. And see Naimark, pp. 28–30.

  9. Max Domarus (ed.), Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, Wiesbaden, 1973, p. 1058; trans. Noakes and Pridham, vol. 3, p. 1049.

  10. Werner Maser (ed.), Hitlers Briefe und Notizen. Sein Weltbild in hand-schriftlichen Dokumenten, Düsseldorf, 1973, pp. 360–61; trans. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, United States Government, Washington, 1946–8, vol. 6, p. 260.

  11. Eberhard Jäckel and Axel Kuhn (eds.), Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, Stuttgart, 1980, pp. 89–90; trans. Noakes and Pridham, vol. 1, Exeter, 1983, pp. 12–14.

  12. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 876–880th reprint, Munich, 1943, p. 772; trans. Ralph Mannheim, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, with an Introduction by D. C. Watt, London, 1973, p. 620.

  13. IMT, vol. 28, pp. 538–9.

  14. On the development of Eichmann’s career, see David Cesarani, Eichmann. His Life and Crimes, London, 2004, chs. 1–3.

  15. See, especially, Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes, Hamburg, 2002, specifically on career opportunities, pp. 163–89.

  16. Otto Dov Kulka, ‘Die deutsche Geschichtsschreibung über den Nationalsozialismus und die "Endlösung”. Tendenzen und Entwicklungsphasen 1924–1984’, Historische Zeitschrift, 240 (1985), pp. 628–9; and Otto Dov Kulka, ‘Critique of Judaism in European Thought. On the Historical Meaning of Modern Antisemitism’, Jerusalem Quarterly, 52 (1989), pp. 128–9. See also Saul Friedländer. Nazi Germany and the Jews. The Years of Persecution, 1933–39, London, 1977, pp. 84, 87–90, for the notion of ‘redemptive antisemitism’.

  17. IMT, vol. 29, pp. 145–6; trans. Noakes and Pridham, vol. 3, pp. 1199–1200.

  18. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, vol. 3, Munich, 1994, p. 561 (27.3.42).

  19. This is not, however, to support the controversial claims of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, New York, 1996, p. 77, emphasizing Germany’s specific path to genocide by asserting that ‘eliminationist antisemitism’ had throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries been ‘extremely widespread in all social classes and sectors of German society, for it was deeply embedded in German cultural and political life and conversation, as well as integrated into the moral structure of society’.

  20. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936. Hubris, London, 1998, pp. 33–5.

  21. Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, vol. 4: Suicidal Europe, 1870–1933, Oxford, 1977, pp. 52–7.

  22. Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, vol. 2: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie, Munich, 1992, p. 295.

  23. Nipperdey, pp. 299, 305; George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology. Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, London, 1966, pp. 93–7, 112. Hitler’s claim to have studied Fritsch was made in a letter he wrote to the antisemitic author on 28 November 1930. He said he was convinced that Fritsch’s book had paved the way for the Nazi antisemitic movement (Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen. Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 4, part 1, Munich/London/New York/Paris, 1994, p. 133).

  24. See Nipperdey, pp. 290, 303, and his balanced account, pp. 289–311.

  25. Jäckel and Kuhn, p. 89.

  26. Otto Dov Kulka, ‘Richard Wagner und die Anfänge des modernen Antisemitismus’, Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts, 4 (1961), pp. 281–300, locates an early manifestation of messianic, redemptive antisemitism as the basis of a revolutionary ideology in Wagner’s writings.

  27. Ulrich Herbert, ‘ "Generation der Sachlichkeit”. Die völkische Studentenbewegung der frühen zwanziger Jahre in Deutschland’, in Werner Johe and Uwe Lohalm (eds.), Zivilisation und Barbarei, Hamburg, 1991, pp. 115–44; and, extensively, in Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten.

  28. Peter Gay, ‘In Deutschland zu Hause…Die Juden der Weimarer Zeit’, in Arnold Paucker (ed.), Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933–1943, Tübingen, 1986, pp. 31–43.

  29. Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier, ed. Werner Jochmann, Hamburg, 1980, p. 108.

  30. See Martin Broszat, ‘Soziale Motivation und Führer-Bindung des Nationalsozialismus’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 18 (1970), p. 403.

  31. For the term, see Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936, pp. 529–30.

  32. See Karl A. Schleunes, The
Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy toward German Jews 1933–1939, Urbana, Ill., 1970.

  33. Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel (eds.), Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten 1933–1945, Düsseldorf, 2004, pp. 372–3 (from the SD’s report on German Jewry for 1938).

  34. Michael Wildt, Die Judenpolitik des SD 1935 bis 1938. Eine Dokumentation, Munich, 1995, pp. 32–3.

  35. Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zur ‘Entjudung’. Der wirtschaftliche Existenzkampf der Juden im Dritten Reich 1933–1943, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, p. 156.

  36. Peter Longerich (ed.), Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden. Eine umfassende Dokumentation des Holocaust 1941–1945, Munich/Zurich, 1989, p. 45; Noakes and Pridham, vol. 3, p. 566.

  37. See the reports from the regime’s own agencies in Kulka and Jäckel, pp. 304–78; a thorough analysis has been conducted by Martin Korb, ‘Deutsche Reaktionen auf die Novemberpogrome im Spiegel amtlicher Berichte’, unpubl. Magisterarbeit, Technische Universität Berlin, 2004.

  38. Kulka and Jäckel, pp. 367–8, 372–3.

  39. Glówna Komisa Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce [Archive of the Central Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland, Ministry of Justice, Poland], Process Artura Greisera, vol. 27, fol. 167.

  40. Christopher R. Browning, with contributions by Jürgen Matthäus, The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942, Lincoln, Nebr., 2004, pp. 26–7.

  41. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, pp. 36–43.

  42. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p. 47.

  43. Quoted in Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p. 45.

  44. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p. 62.

  45. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p. 71.

  46. Magnus Brechten, ‘Madagaskar für die Juden’. Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885–1945, Munich, 1997, p. 16.

  47. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p. 57.

  48. Helmut Krausnick, ‘Denkschrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten (Mai 1940)’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 5 (1957), p. 197; trans. Noakes and Pridham, vol. 3, p. 932.