The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

  There is one last paper on the plot in the captured files of the German Foreign Minister. On August 15 the German minister in Lisbon wired Berlin: “The confidant has just received a telegram from the Duke from Bermuda, asking him to send a communication as soon as action was advisable. Should any answer be made?”

  No answer has been found in the Wilhelmstrasse papers. By the middle of August, Hitler had decided to conquer Great Britain by armed force. There was no need to find a new King for England. The island, like all the other conquered territory, would be ruled from Berlin. Or so Hitler thought.

  So much for this curious tale, as told by the secret German documents and added to by Schellenberg, who was the least reliable of men—though it is difficult to believe that he invented his own role, which he admits was a ridiculous one, out of whole cloth.

  In a statement made through his London solicitors on August 1, 1957, after the German documents were released for publication, the Duke branded the communications between Ribbentrop and the German ambassadors in Spain and Portugal as “complete fabrications and, in part, gross distortions of the truth.” Windsor explained that while in Lisbon in 1940, waiting to sail for the Bahamas, “certain people,” whom he discovered to be pro-Nazi sympathizers, made definite efforts to persuade him to return to Spain and not assume his post as governor.

  “It was even suggested to me that there would be a personal risk to the Duchess and myself if we were to proceed to the Bahamas,” he said. “At no time did I ever entertain any thought of complying with such a suggestion, which I treated with the contempt it deserved.”

  The British Foreign Office issued a formal statement declaring that the Duke never wavered in his loyalty to Great Britain during the war.42

  * And to gaze down at the tomb of Napoleon at the Invalides. “That,” he told his faithful photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, “was the greatest and finest moment of my life.”

  † The emphasis is Jodl’s.

  ‡ Jodl also suggested the possibility of “extending the war to the periphery”—that is, attacking the British Empire with the help not only of Italy but of Japan, Spain and Russia.

  * Even so astute a military critic as Liddell Hart neglected always to do so, and this neglect mars his book The German Generals Talk. Talk they did, but not always with very good memories or even very truthfully.

  * German intelligence overestimated British strength on the ground throughout July, August and September by about eight divisions. Early in July the German General Staff estimated British strength at from fifteen to twenty divisions “of fighting value.” Actually there were twenty-nine divisions in England at this time but not more than half a dozen of much “fighting value,” as they had practically no armor or artillery. But contrary to widespread belief at the time, which has lingered to this day, the British Army by the middle of September would have been a match for the German divisions then allocated for the first wave of invasion. By that time it had ready to meet an attack on the south coast a force of sixteen well-trained divisions, of which three were armored, with four divisions plus an armored brigade covering the east coast from the Thames to the Wash. This represented a remarkable recovery after the debacle at Dunkirk, which had left Britain virtually defenseless on land in June.

  British intelligence of the German plans was extremely faulty and for the first three months of the invasion threat almost completely wrong. Throughout the summer, Churchill and his military advisers remained convinced that the Germans would make their main landing attempt on the east coast and it was here that the bulk of the British land forces were concentrated until September.

  * In his diary entry that evening Halder did not quote himself as above. He declared, however, that “the talk led only to the confirmation of an unbridgeable gap.” The Navy, he said, was “afraid of the British High Seas Fleet and maintained that a defense against this danger by the Luftwaffe was impossible.” Obviously by this time the German Navy, if not the Army, had few illusions about the striking power of Goering’s Air Force.

  * Churchill says that neither he nor the chiefs of staff were “aware” that the decisive code word Cromwell had been given. It was sent out by Headquarters of the Home Forces. (Their Finest Hour, p. 312.) But four days later, on September 11, the Prime Minister did broadcast a warning that if the invasion were going to take place it could not “be long delayed. Therefore,” he said, “we must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s Grand Army at Boulogne.”

  † The Germans were greatly impressed by reports from the embassy in Washington, which relayed information received there from London and embroidered on it. The American General Staff was said to believe that Britain couldn’t hold out much longer. According to Lieutenant Colonel von Lossberg (Im Wehrmacht Fuehrungsstab, p. 91) Hitler seriously expected a revolution to break out in Britain. Lossberg was an Army representative on OKW.

  * On September 16, according to a German authority, R.A.F. bombers surprised a large invasion training exercise and inflicted heavy losses in men and landing vessels. This gave rise to many reports in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent that the Germans had actually attempted a landing and been repulsed by the British. (Georg W. Feuchter, Geschichte des Luftkriegs, p. 176.) I heard such a “report” on the night of September 16 in Geneva, Switzerland, where I was taking a few days off. On September 18 and again on the next day I saw two long ambulance trains unloading wounded soldiers in the suburbs of Berlin. From the bandages, I concluded the wounds were mostly burns. There had been no fighting anywhere for three months on land.

  On September 21, confidential German Navy papers recorded that 21 transports and 214 barges—some 12 per cent of the total assembled for the invasion—had been lost or damaged. (Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, p. 102.)

  * The Luftwaffe claimed 134 British craft against a loss of 34. From that date on both sides grossly overestimated the damage they did the other.

  * In London that evening an official communiqué reported 182 German planes shot down and 43 more probably destroyed. This gave a great fillip to British morale in general and to that of the hard-pressed fighter pilots in particular.

  † At this time night defenses had not yet been perfected and the German losses were negligible.

  * R.S.H.A., the initials of the Reich Central Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), which, as has been noted, took over control in 1939 of the Gestapo, the Criminal Police and the Security Service, or S.D.

  * Dr. Six was sentenced in 1948 at Nuremberg as a war criminal to twenty years in prison, but was released in 1952.

  * The famous psychoanalyst had died in London in 1939.

  † A number of Americans are on the arrest list, including Bernard Baruch, John Gunther, Paul Robeson, Louis Fischer, Daniel de Luce (the A.P. correspondent, who is listed under the D’s as “Daniel, de Luce—U.S.A. correspondent”) and M. W. Fodor, the Chicago Daily News correspondent, who was well known for his anti-Nazi writings.

  * Fifty million Swiss francs, deposited in Switzerland, Ribbentrop told Schellenberg, adding that “the Fuehrer is quite ready to go to a higher figure.”

  23

  BARBAROSSA: THE TURN OF RUSSIA

  WHILE HITLER WAS BUSY that summer of 1940 directing the conquest of the West, Stalin was taking advantage of the Fuehrer’s preoccupations by moving into the Baltic States and reaching down into the Balkans.

  On the surface all was friendly between the two great dictatorships. Molotov, acting for Stalin, lost no opportunity to praise and flatter the Germans on every occasion of a new act of aggression or a fresh conquest. When Germany invaded Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940, the Soviet Foreign Commissar hastened to tell Ambassador von der Schulenburg in Moscow that very morning that “the Soviet Government understood the measures which were forced on Germany.” “W
e wish Germany,” said Molotov, “complete success in her defensive measures.”1

  A month later, when the German ambassador called on Molotov to inform him officially of the Wehrmacht’s attack in the West, which Ribbentrop had instructed his envoy to explain “was forced upon Germany by the impending Anglo–French push on the Ruhr by way of Belgium and Holland,” the Soviet statesman again expressed his pleasure. “Molotov received the communication in an understanding spirit,” Schulenburg wired Berlin, “and added that he realized that Germany must protect herself against Anglo–French attack. He had no doubt of our success.”2

  On June 17, the day France asked for an armistice, Molotov summoned Schulenburg to his office “and expressed the warmest congratulations of the Soviet Government on the splendid success of the German Wehrmacht.”

  The Foreign Commissar had something else to say, and this did not sound quite so pleasant in German ears. He informed the German envoy, as the latter wired Berlin “most urgent,” of “the Soviet action against the Baltic States,” adding—and one can almost see the gleam in Molotov’s eyes—“that it had become necessary to put an end to all the intrigues by which England and France had tried to sow discord and mistrust between Germany and the Soviet Union in the Baltic States.”3 To put an end to such “discord” the Soviet government, Molotov added, had dispatched “special emissaries” to the three Baltic countries. They were, in fact, three of Stalin’s best hatchetmen: Dekanozov, who was sent to Lithuania; Vishinsky, to Latvia; Zhdanov, to Estonia.

  They carried out their assignments with the thoroughness which one would expect from this trio, especially the latter two individuals. Already on June 14, the day German troops entered Paris, the Soviet government had sent a nine-hour ultimatum to Lithuania demanding the resignation of its government, the arrest of some of its key officials and the right to send in as many Red Army troops as it pleased. Though the Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum, Moscow deemed its acceptance “unsatisfactory,” and the next day, June 15, Soviet troops occupied the country, the only one of the Baltic States to border on Germany. During the next couple of days similar Soviet ultimatums were dispatched to Latvia and Estonia, after which they were similarly overrun by the Red Army.

  Stalin could be as crude and as ruthless in these matters as Hitler—and even more cynical. The press having been suppressed, the political leaders arrested and all parties but the Communist declared illegal, “elections” were staged by the Russians in all three countries on July 14, and after the respective parliaments thus “elected” had voted for the incorporation of their lands into the Soviet Union, the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of Russia “admitted” them into the motherland: Lithuania on August 3, Latvia on August 5, Estonia on August 6.

  Adolf Hitler was humiliated, but, busy as he was trying to organize the invasion of Britain, could do nothing about it. The letters from the envoys of the three Baltic States in Berlin protesting Russian aggression were returned to them by order of Ribbentrop. To further humble the Germans Molotov brusquely told them on August 11 to “liquidate” their legations in Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn within a fortnight and close down their Baltic consulates by September 1.

  The seizure of the Baltic States did not satisfy Stalin’s appetite. The surprisingly quick collapse of the Anglo–French armies spurred him on to get as much as he could while the getting was good. He obviously thought there was little time to lose. On June 23, the day after the French formally capitulated and signed the armistice at Compiègne, Molotov again called in the Nazi ambassador in Moscow and told him that “the solution of the Bessarabian question brooked no further delay. The Soviet government was determined to use force, should the Rumanian government decline a peaceful agreement.” It expected Germany, Molotov added, “not to hinder but to support the Soviets in their action.” Moreover, “the Soviet claim likewise extended to Bucovina.”4 Bessarabia had been taken by Rumania from Russia at the end of the First World War, but Bucovina had never belonged to it, having been under Austria until Rumania grabbed it in 1919. At the negotiations in Moscow for the Nazi–Soviet Pact, Ribbentrop, as he now reminded Hitler, who had questioned him about it, had been forced to give Bessarabia to the Russian sphere of interest. But he had never given away Bucovina.

  There was some alarm in Berlin, which spread to OKW headquarters in the West. The Wehrmacht was desperately dependent on Rumanian oil and Germany needed the foodstuffs and fodder it also got from this Balkan country. These would be lost if the Red Army occupied Rumania. Some time back, on May 23, at the height of the Battle of France, the Rumanian General Staff had sent an S.O.S. to OKW informing it that Soviet troops were concentrating on the border. Jodl summed up the reac.ion at Hitler’s headquarters in his diary the next day: “Situation in East becomes threatening because of Russian concentration of force against Bessarabia.”

  On the night of June 26 Russia delivered an ultimatum to Rumania demanding the ceding to it of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina and insisting on a reply the next day. Ribbentrop, in panic, dashed off instructions from his special train to his minister in Bucharest telling him to advise the Rumanian government to yield, which it did on June 27. Soviet troops marched into the newly acquired territories the next day and Berlin breathed a sigh of relief that at least the rich sources of oil and food had not been cut off by Russia’s grabbing the whole of Rumania.

  It is clear from his acts and from the secret German papers that though Stalin was out to get all he could in Eastern Europe while the Germans were tied down in the West, he did not wish or contemplate a break with Hitler.

  Toward the end of June Churchill had tried to warn Stalin in a personal letter of the danger of the German conquests to Russia as well as to Britain.5 The Soviet dictator did not bother to answer; probably, like almost everyone else, he thought Britain was finished. So he tattled to the Germans what the British government was up to. Sir Stafford Cripps, a left-wing Labor Party leader, whom the Prime Minister had rushed to Moscow as the new British ambassador in the hope of striking a more responsive chord among the Bolsheviks—a forlorn hope, as he later ruefully admitted—was received by Stalin early in July in an interview that Churchill described as “formal and frigid.” On July 13 Molotov, on Stalin’s instructions, handed the German ambassador a written memorandum of this confidential conversation.

  It is an interesting document. It reveals, as no other source does, the severe limitations of the Soviet dictator in his cold calculations of foreign affairs. Schulenburg sped it to Berlin “most urgent” and, of course, “secret,” and Ribbentrop was so grateful for its contents that he told the Soviet government he “greatly appreciated this information.” Cripps had pressed Stalin, the memorandum said, for his attitude on this principal question, among others:

  The British Government was convinced that Germany was striving for hegemony in Europe … This was dangerous to the Soviet Union as well as England. Therefore both countries ought to agree on a common policy of self-protection against Germany and on the re-establishment of the European balance of power …

  Stalin’s answers are given as follows:

  He did not see any danger of the hegemony of any one country in Europe and still less any danger that Europe might be engulfed by Germany. Stalin observed the policy of Germany, and knew several leading German statesmen well. He had not discovered any desire on their part to engulf European countries. Stalin was not of the opinion that German military successes menaced the Soviet Union and her friendly relations with Germany …6

  Such staggering smugness, such abysmal ignorance leave one breathless. The Russian tyrant did not know, of course, the secrets of Hitler’s turgid mind, but the Fuehrer’s past behavior, his known ambitions and the unexpectedly rapid Nazi conquests ought to have been enough to warn him of the dire danger the Soviet Union was now in. But, incomprehensibly, they were not enough.

  From the captured Nazi documents and from the testimony of many leading German figures in the great drama that was being playe
d over the vast expanse of Western Europe that year, it is plain that at the very moment of Stalin’s monumental complacency Hitler had in fact been mulling over in his mind the idea of turning on the Soviet Union and destroying her.

  The basic idea went back much further, at least fifteen years—to Mein Kampf.

  And so we National Socialists [Hitler wrote] take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement toward the south and west of Europe and turn our gaze toward the lands of the East … When we speak of new territory in Europe today we must think principally of Russia and her border vassal states. Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way to us here … This colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution, and the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.7