Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  Hitler was thereby conceding the fact that, a year after the launching of the Four-Year Plan, Germany’s own sources of raw materials, essential to the expansion of the Wehrmacht, had not been significantly increased. On the contrary, the rearmament programme had stalled during 1937, forcing the three branches of the Wehrmacht, which had originally been gearing their rearmament planning to achieve full-scale mobilization by 1940, to extend the schedule. The main reason was the shortage of steel in Germany, which in February 1937 had, among other things, required the introduction of a quota system and prompted Göring to establish his own steel concern. The ‘Hermann Göring Works’ were designed to exploit the (comparatively low-grade) deposits of German iron ore. However, all these efforts had failed to solve the steel crisis. On 3 September, Blomberg had told Göring that ‘there [is] no way that either the plan or the schedule for the Wehrmacht to be totally prepared for action, in accordance with the directives issued by the Führer and Reich Chancellor, . . . can be achieved’.34

  Thus, in his address Hitler was obliged to deal with the political consequences stemming from the altered schedule for the rearmament programme. Basically, Hitler stated, German policy must reckon with two ‘hate-inspired opponents’, Britain and France, for whom ‘a strong German colossus in the middle of Europe was a thorn in their side’. Neither country would accommodate the establishment of German bases overseas nor willingly give up former German colonies. After thereby conceding the failure of his previous British policy, he attempted to downplay the strengths of this new ‘hate-inspired opponent’ by asserting that Britain could not maintain power over the Empire in the long run ‘on the strength of 45 million English’. France’s position by comparison was relatively favourable, but it was faced with massive ‘domestic problems’.

  Finally, Hitler came to the main point of his address. The ‘lack of space’, of which he complained, ‘could only be solved through the use of force’, which, however, ‘was never without attendant risk’. Taking this into account, the only remaining issues to be decided were ‘when’ and ‘how’. The latest date for a German war of conquest was during the years 1943–45, in other words after the completion of rearmament; after that, time would be working against Germany. In addition to this first scenario, however, there were two other possible ones that would justify striking earlier: if the French armed forces were tied up by either a serious domestic crisis (scenario 2) or a war against Italy (scenario 3). In both cases ‘the time for action against Czechoslovakia [would have] come’. If France was embroiled in a war then Austria should be simultaneously ‘crushed’. However, it was quite possible that this eventuality might already occur during 1938. And that was the decisive message of this conference of 5 November: the extension of the rearmament period by no means implied that the move towards expansion was being postponed into the distant future.

  Thus, the speech revealed Hitler’s short-, medium-, and long-term foreign policy ideas. In the first place, Hitler told his military leaders that, in the short term and under certain favourable conditions, he had decided to move against Austria and Czechoslovakia through surprise military attacks. When Henlein decided to subordinate himself to Hitler and, on 19 November, wrote to him offering the assistance of his party in incorporating the ‘whole of the Bohemian-Moravian-Silesian area’ into the Reich, the dictator failed to respond. Evidently, at this stage, Hitler was still thinking of a purely military move against Czechoslovakia. He only accepted Henlein’s offer the following spring. Secondly, Hitler made it clear in his address of 5 November that he was absolutely determined to deal with the ‘space issue’ by 1943–45, in other words during his lifetime, and to do so through the incorporation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. On this occasion, however, he did not refer to the realization of far-reaching plans for conquests in eastern Europe, such as he had developed in the 1920s, or to a great ‘world conflict’, which he had predicted for the period 1942–43 in a conversation with Goebbels in 1937.35

  Hitler’s limitation of his plans to Czechoslovakia and Austria resulted from the fact that he was engaged in a comprehensive analysis of the attitude of powers that might potentially intervene during the 1943–45 war scenario, referring specifically to the positions of Russia and Poland. In his view it was unlikely that they would intervene in a German war against Czechoslovakia and Austria. Thus, Hitler was concerned to develop a future scenario in which a war against Russia and Poland could be avoided rather than one involving the conquest of these states.36

  Had he, therefore, postponed or given up his plans for acquiring living space in eastern Europe? He certainly gave his audience the impression that these plans would no longer be realized during his lifetime, but at best in the distant future after a period of between one and three generations. However, it would be a serious mistake to interpret Hitler’s address of 5 November 1937 in the first instance against the background of his far-reaching plans for living space for that would be to confuse his utopia with his actions as a politician. For Hitler’s aim in making this speech was not primarily to provide insights into his far-reaching plans for conquest. Rather, in view of the growing shortage of resources for rearmament, as a practising politician he was faced with the need to present his military leaders with more or less realistic short- and medium-term goals, and he did this by ordering them to prepare for aggressive action against Czechoslovakia and Austria, at the latest by 1943–45, and at the earliest during the following year. For the moment this task offered a political goal that would provide the context for further rearmament measures. As he evidently did not intend to stop full-scale rearmament after a war in the coming year, he was in fact keeping all his options open.

  However, Hitler’s address provoked misgivings and objections from his audience, not to the extent of fundamentally challenging his aim of going to war, but in questioning some of his premises. Blomberg and Fritsch argued ‘that we should not let England and France become our opponents’; in the event of a war with Italy France would only have limited forces tied down on the Alpine frontier and would be able to direct its main forces against Germany. At the same time, the strength of Czech fortifications should not be underestimated. Neurath argued that a conflict between Italy and France and Britain was ‘not yet so close . . . as the Führer seems to assume’, to which Hitler responded that he was thinking of summer 1938 as ‘the possible time’. He was ‘convinced’, and this was aimed at Blomberg and Fritsch, that ‘England would not take part’ and for that reason did not believe ‘in military action by France against Germany’. Since he had not absolutely committed himself to a war during the following year, but had linked it to various conditions, he was able to calm the misgivings that had been expressed.37

  The second part of the meeting was concerned with the armaments bottlenecks, which had been the real reason why it had been convened. The content was not recorded in as much detail as the first part. We know, however, that Blomberg gave a comprehensive account of the Wehrmacht’s raw materials and armaments situation followed by attacks by Blomberg and Fritsch on Göring.38 Thus it was Göring, as the main person responsible for the distribution of the limited amount of raw materials, who was in the firing line and not Hitler, who in his address had modified his aims to the extent that he had not been forced to admit failure as far as the armaments bottlenecks were concerned.

  However, the generals soon overcame their misgivings. In the new version of the deployment order for ‘Operation Green’ of 21 December 1937 Blomberg took account of Hitler’s statements of 5 November. The previous military plans for a two-front war against France and Czechoslovakia had been purely defensive and in his basic directive for the Wehrmacht’s war preparations of June 1937 Hitler himself had still been operating on the assumption that Germany was not threatened and did not intend to launch a European war.39 Now the new version stated that when Germany had achieved complete readiness for war in all spheres ‘the military preconditions will have been created for an offensive wa
r against Czechoslovakia, so that the solution of Germany’s problem of space can be carried to a victorious conclusion even if one or other of the great powers intervenes against us’. The assumption was that the war against Czechoslovakia would occur ‘simultaneously with the resolution of the Austrian question, in the sense of incorporating Austria into the German Reich’. However, the directive also envisaged a war against Czechoslovakia (and Anschluss with Austria) before Germany had achieved its full wartime strength, if intervention by the Western powers was not anticipated, either as a result of a lack of interest (Great Britain) or because of involvement in other conflicts (France).40

  On 19 November, two weeks after the meeting with the military leadership, Hitler received an important member of the British cabinet in Berchtesgaden in the shape of the Lord President of the Council and future Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.41 Halifax put forward the idea of closer cooperation between the four main European powers, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany, in order to lay the foundations for lasting peace in Europe. Hitler would have seen in this proposal the first step towards a revival of a system of collective security, which he had been strongly resisting since 1933. Thus, his response to Halifax was sceptical verging on aggressive. In particular, he pointed out to his British guest that, since 1919, Germany had not been treated as an equal by the Western powers, but rather had been humiliatingly discriminated against. The main point dealt with in the further discussions was the German demand for colonies. While Halifax cautiously indicated a willingness to discuss the issue, he referred in what was more of an aside to Germany’s wish for a revision of the frontiers in Central Europe. He noted ‘possible alterations in the European order, which might be destined to come about with the passage of time. Amongst these questions were Danzig, Austria, and Czechoslovakia’. His government was ‘interested to see that any alterations should come through the course of peaceful evolution and that methods should be avoided which might cause far-reaching disturbances that neither the Chancellor nor other countries desired’. Hitler only responded briefly to these comments and declared that the agreement with Austria reached in July 1936 would lead to the ‘removal of all difficulties’, while it was up to the Czech government to deal with the existing problems by treating the German minority well. He did not refer to the question of Danzig.42 However, the signal that Hitler had received from Halifax was clear: a revision of the German borders was possible provided it occurred through ‘evolution’, in other words not by Germany using force without the agreement of other powers.43

  Two days later, at the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the founding of the Rosenheim Nazi Party local branch, Hitler significantly and after a long interval once again used a public speech to demand living space. ‘Our people’s living space is too small,’ he insisted: ‘One day the world will have to respect our demands. I have not the slightest doubt that, just as we were able to raise up our nation domestically, in foreign affairs we shall be able to gain the same rights to live as those possessed by other nations.’ After that he once again dropped the subject for a long time.

  It is clear from the Hossbach memorandum and his behaviour during his meeting with Halifax that, during the course of 1937, Hitler had finally given up the idea of an alliance with Britain. The reception of the Duke of Windsor at the Berghof in October, officially described as ‘private’, represented for Hitler an opportunity to reconcile himself to the idea that an alliance with Britain was impossible, as in the past he had vested great hopes in the British monarch, who had abdicated in December 1936.44 The notion that he had still had at the beginning of 1937 of forcing Britain to make an alliance by threatening naval rearmament and demanding colonies had, in the meantime, been reduced to the aim of keeping Britain from intervening in a war in central Europe.

  In his detailed ‘Note for the Führer’ of 2 January 1938 Ribbentrop, who had been sent as ambassador to Britain in the summer of 1936 in order to clinch the alliance with Britain,45 reinforced Hitler’s decision to move away from the idea of an alliance. Indeed, Ribbentrop went a step further. He proposed that, while ‘outwardly our declared policy should be an understanding with England’, in fact Germany should construct ‘secretly, but with absolute determination’ ‘a network of alliances against England’ by ‘strengthening our friendship with Italy and Japan’ and also by ‘drawing in all states whose interests either directly or indirectly coincide with our own’.46 In other words, the German alliance with Italy and Japan, which according to Hitler’s original ideas was supposed to be open to future British membership, was to be built up into an anti-British alliance. Slightly more than a month later, Hitler appointed Ribbentrop as his Foreign Minister.47

  After his meeting with Halifax had confirmed Hitler’s view that Britain had no fundamental objections to a revision of the German–Czech border, in November 1937 he set about approaching a number of governments that were also interested in destroying Czechoslovakia, for that, rather than ‘liberating the Sudeten Germans’, was his real aim.

  At a reception in the Reich Chancellery on 25 November he recommended to the Hungarian Prime Minister Kálmán Darányi and his Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya that Hungary should not dissipate its policy but rather concentrate it on one target and this target was Czechoslovakia. Kánya agreed with this in principle, but emphasized that Hungary had a considerable interest in winning back Slovakia and also Carpatho-Ukraine, where there was a significant Hungarian minority that until 1918 had belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary.48

  On 14 January 1938, Hitler received the Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, in Berlin. He expressed the fear that ‘a Bolshevik infection would almost automatically spread from a Red Spain to France and then would grip Belgium and Holland, and so a new and powerful centre of Bolshevik activity’ would be created. Germany, Hitler emphasized, did not want a change to the status quo in Danzig. He was anxious to develop further Germany’s relationship with Austria in a peaceful fashion. The only case in which he would intervene immediately and without considering the attitude of France and Britain would be in the event of a ‘Habsburg restoration’. As far as Czechoslovakia was concerned, the Germans were seeking ‘initially only better treatment of the German minority’. Apart from that, ‘the Czech state was, in terms of its whole construction, an aberration and, because of the mistaken policy of the Czechs in Central Europe, it too was in danger of becoming a source of Bolshevism’. Beck agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with this view. Poland was above all interested in annexing the Olsa region with its Polish-speaking majority and was, therefore, pursuing the plan of removing Slovakia from the state of Czechoslovakia and placing it under a Polish protectorate. Hitler’s soundings had begun to pay off.49 Shortly afterwards, Göring left the impression in Warsaw that the Reich was willing to coordinate a move against Czechoslovakia with Poland and would respect its interests in the Olsa region.50

  At the beginning of 1938, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Milan Stojadinovic´ was anxious to move his country closer to Italy and Germany, and paid a visit of several days to Germany. On 17 January, Hitler warned him of the danger of a ‘slow Bolshevization of Europe’. Czechoslovakia was a ‘source of trouble’, but nevertheless he ‘still had hopes that Prague would come to its senses’. As far as Austria was concerned, he would ‘crush with lightning speed any attempt by the Habsburgs to return to Vienna’. Göring interjected: ‘Yugoslavia could rely on the fact that if Austria one day joined Germany and so Germany became Yugoslavia’s neighbour, it would never make any territorial claims on Yugoslavia’. Hitler expressly confirmed this remark.51

  Thus, in terms of foreign policy, 1937 was entirely dominated by Hitler’s move away from the idea of an alliance with Great Britain, while he increasingly turned towards Italy, thereby putting added pressure on Austria. It now seemed to him feasible to ‘crush’ Czechoslovakia the following year if France became paralysed domestically or as a result of conflict with Italy, thereby creating the opportunity for a surprise military interv
ention.

  * Translators’ note: Adapted from a line in Schiller’s poem ‘Resignation’.

  25

  From the Blomberg–Fritsch Crisis to the Anschluss

  Hitler’s intensive preparations for war during the last months of 1937 took place against a background of accelerating decline in morale in the Reich. The reports of the Social Democratic Party agents (Sopade reports) for 1937 show that the mood had significantly deteriorated during 1937. As far as the population was concerned, the old problems persisted: rising prices and low wages, shortages of raw materials, leading to repeated interruptions to production and to shortages and often to a decline in the quality of goods. Blatant corruption among Nazi Party functionaries continued, and the aggressive policy towards the Churches, in particular during the first half of the year, annoyed many.1 Above all, however, the continuing unstable international situation, hectic rearmament, and sabre-rattling propaganda resulted in a growing fear of war among the majority of the population. On the other hand, the reports showed that hard-line supporters of the regime, particularly among young people, as well as diehard opponents welcomed the prospect of war.2

  According to the Sopade reports for November, after almost five years of Nazi rule, it was ‘impossible to establish an even vaguely uniform assessment of Hitler on the part of the population’. Support and rejection also ‘do not correspond to the groups of supporters or opponents of the National Socialist regime. Indeed, it is precisely among the ranks of the “old fighters” that a significant number of opponents are to be found’. Many reports emphasized that the practice hitherto of expressly excluding Hitler from criticism (‘if only the Führer knew . . .’) was in decline; on the contrary, now Hitler too was ‘included in criticisms of the regime’.3