After the destruction of Czechoslovakia, however, all Hitler’s plans to compel Poland, his partner since 1934, to accept his terms for the settlement of the Danzig question and to join an anti-Soviet alliance failed. Instead, Poland preferred the safety of the Anglo-French guarantee. As in the previous year vis-à-vis Czechoslovakia, and strengthened by the Pact of Steel with Italy in May, Hitler fixed a specific date, 1 September 1939, for military action against Poland. This time he was certain that no new ‘Munich’ would get in the way of his military triumph. The coup of the Non-Aggression Pact with Moscow of August 1939 seemed to him, in all probability, to rule out a military intervention by the western powers.
Hitler’s approach was, as so often when it came to important decisions in his career, ambivalent. On the one hand, he counted on being able to keep the western powers out of the war at the last minute through a combination of assertions of strength and generous offers. On the other hand, he was quite prepared to accept the possibility of a major war, in which case he assumed that, by ostentatiously showing his willingness to negotiate, he would be able to place the blame for the war on his opponents. During these decisive days, this dual-track approach enabled him to behave towards the western powers sometimes as if he were cynically determined to go to war and, at other times, as if he were hesitant and concerned to preserve peace, while allowing him also to take account of the different views among the military and political leadership. He led his regime by means of a dramatic decision-making process, at the end of which a result emerged that was irrevocable and was accepted by those who had been sceptical about going to war.
Within a period of one and a half years, his policy of conquest had brought him to the brink of a major European war. Reviewing the most important stages in this process, one is compelled to conclude that Hitler was the decisive, driving force in this process. He was not dragged into war by either the political or the military leadership, nor was he the victim of a rearmament dynamic that finally left him with no other option than war.186
Analysis of the SD and Sopade situation reports for the years 1938/39 shows that the Germans were far removed from forming a great, united Nazi national community. On the contrary, the sources at our disposal show a picture of a decidedly disunited society suffering under great burdens imposed by an accelerated rearmament programme. The various sections of society were particularly sensitive to perceived social injustices placing great emphasis on preserving their social status. Clashes between the interests of particular social groups were often publicly expressed, such as between employees and employers, producers and consumers, country and city. Above all, German society was far from becoming a united, national ‘community of struggle’, willing to make great sacrifices in order to restore Germany to great power status, if necessary through war. However, this had been the main aim of Hitler’s domestic policy since 1933, and, in this respect at least, the majority of the population had failed to follow him.
The decisive point about the national enthusiasm generated by his foreign policy successes was that it was always overshadowed by the fear of war caused by his risky policies. Jubilation over the Anschluss with Austria broke out only when it was evident that there were not going to be any serious international repercussions. During the critical diplomatic situation between May and October 1938, it became clear that the regime was having difficulty in imposing great material burdens on the population, while simultaneously keeping it in a constant state of tension. When the crisis reached its climax at the end of September 1938, the population reacted with an obvious lack of enthusiasm for war, while applauding the preservation of peace following the Munich Agreement.
Slightly more than five weeks later, the Nazi activists unleashed their frustration at the German population’s lack of enthusiasm for war, for which they blamed ‘the Jews’, in the November pogrom. Hitler, who played the key role in launching the pogrom, used the orgy of violence to initiate a general change of course in the field of propaganda. The population was to be gradually got ready for war. In his Reichstag speech on 30 January, Hitler put down an important marker for the new course by combining the themes of war and anti-Semitism in his threat that a world war would lead to the annihilation of the ‘Jewish race’ in Europe. His anti-British ‘encirclement’ speech of 1 April, referring to the outbreak of the First World War, as well as his Reichstag speech of 28 April, in which he abrogated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the Non-Aggression pact with Poland, determined the course of propaganda, which was now intended to prepare the population for a new war. During the months that followed, Hitler tended, however, to keep a low profile, and handed the role of chief agitator to his Propaganda Minister, Goebbels. Although it proved impossible to whip up enthusiasm for war during the August crisis, by this time the population had evidently come to accept what appeared likely to be a limited war.
part vi
Triumph
29
The Outbreak of War
The attack on Poland began as planned at 4.45 a.m. on the morning of 1 September. The pretext was provided by Polish border provocations – in fact, incidents organized by the SS. The most notorious was the ‘attack’ on the Gleiwitz radio transmitter. At the same time, the German battle cruiser ‘Schleswig-Holstein’ opened fire on the Westerplatte, the fortified Polish arms depot at the entrance to Danzig harbour.1 Hitler announced in a proclamation to the Wehrmacht read out over the radio at 5.40 a.m. that, because of the persecution of Germans in Poland with ‘bloody terror’ and, in view of the ‘intolerable border violations’, he had had ‘no alternative other than, from now onwards, to meet force with force’.2 He offered the same justification in a speech to the Reichstag on the morning of 1 September that culminated in the statement: ‘Since 5.45 fire has been returned.’
He outlined his goals as follows: ‘I am determined: to solve 1. the Danzig question, 2. the Corridor issue, and 3. to ensure that a change occurs in Germany’s relationship with Poland, thereby securing peaceful cooperation.’3 He reiterated that he had made no demands on France or Britain; the border with France was ‘final’; he had repeatedly offered Britain ‘friendship’ and the ‘closest cooperation’. However, he solemnly continued, ‘love is not a one-sided affair; it must elicit a response from the other person’.4 He then made public the directive he had already issued at the end of 1934, but had not published at the time: if anything were to happen to him, Göring would be his ‘first successor’. And, in a vital addition to his directive, if Göring were no longer available, Hess should take over his offices. If anything should happen to Hess as well, the succession should be decided by a senate, which he now wished to establish by legislation, although in fact this never happened. He told the deputies that he had ‘once again put on the uniform that has always been most sacred and dear to me’. In fact he had appeared for his speech not in his usual Party uniform, but, for the first time, in a grey military style uniform, and he used this occasion to make an emotional promise: ‘I shall not take it off until after victory – or – I shall no longer live to see the end!’5 The Reichstag then passed a law legalizing Gauleiter Forster’s unilateral annexation of Danzig.6
Immediately after the Reichstag session, Hitler wrote to Mussolini once more, outlining the reasons for his actions – Poland’s rigid attitude, the frontier violations and so forth – and trying to explain to him why he had not accepted the latter’s offer to mediate.7 Hitler now undertook a last attempt to try to prevent Britain from entering the war. He instructed Dahlerus to convey to Britain his willingness to negotiate; however, the response merely confirmed Britain’s preconditions.8 On the evening of 1 September, Ribbentrop then received Henderson, who handed over a British ultimatum: if Germany did not immediately halt its attacks on Poland, Britain would fulfil its treaty obligations towards Poland. On the following morning, the French ambassador gave Ribbentrop an identical message from his government.9 On 2 September, Mussolini, in an effort to mediate, repeated his proposal of a fo
ur-power conference, which, however, the British government was only prepared to accept provided there was an immediate withdrawal of German troops. Hitler naturally refused.10 The same was true of further mediation attempts by the Italians.
The upshot was inevitable. On 3 September, the British and French governments issued ultimatums to the effect that, unless they received assurances that Germany was prepared to withdraw from Poland by a certain time, a state of war would exist between their countries and Germany.11 According to his interpreter, Schmidt, when Hitler received the news he was ‘thunderstruck’ and said to Ribbentrop: ‘What now?’, but he still remained composed. Around midday, Goebbels even thought Hitler appeared ‘very confident’.12 During the following days, Goebbels gained the impression that ‘Hitler could do without a long war’ and, after defeating Poland, was hoping for a quick peace with the West.13
War and terror in Poland
On the evening of 3 September, Hitler left Berlin in a special train that was to be his headquarters for the following weeks. Apart from two secretaries and his immediate personal staff, he was accompanied by various adjutants, an OKW military staff led by Keitel and Jodl, liaison officers with the three branches of the Wehrmacht and the SS, liaison staff from the Foreign Ministry, as well as Hess’s deputy, Martin Bormann, who had become increasingly indispensable to him, and, finally, his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.14 The train was, initially, parked at various places in Pomerania, later moving to Silesia. Hitler left his headquarters roughly every other day to visit military staffs or units by car or air; these visits were reported by the propaganda machine as ‘trips to the front’.15
In terms of troops and equipment, the Wehrmacht possessed a clear superiority over the Polish forces. Poland was surrounded by Reich territory and by Slovakia, which also took part in the attack, in a pincer-like grip. On 3 September, troops from Pomerania had already established a land bridge with East Prussia through the Corridor. Strengthened by these troops, the 3rd Army, stationed in East Prussia, could reinforce its attack southwards, while simultaneously three armies advanced eastwards and north-eastwards from Silesia. On 8 September, German units reached the outskirts of Warsaw, which, by the 15th, was completely surrounded. During the following siege, the city was largely destroyed by artillery and bombing. On 17 September, under German pressure, the Soviet Union began occupying the territory in eastern Poland that it had been promised under the Nazi–Soviet Pact.16 Poland’s situation had now become completely hopeless.
Only two days later, Hitler moved his headquarters to the Casino Hotel in the Danzig seaside resort of Zoppot. The following day he made a speech in the Danzig Artushof, the first since his Reichstag speech of 1 September and broadcast by every radio station, in which he declared himself the victor.17 Poland had been ‘crushed in a matter of barely 18 days’, thereby ‘creating a situation that may perhaps make it possible to speak calmly and sensibly with representatives of this nation. . . . The final political arrangements in this large territory will, in the first instance, depend on the two countries that have engaged their most vital interests here.’ However, he insisted he had no war aims as far as Britain and France were concerned. On 26 September, Hitler returned to Berlin.18
Right from the start, the Germans fought the war against Poland with extreme brutality; indeed, in embryo, this war already bore the hallmarks of a campaign of racial annihilation. It is important to recall in this context the directives given by Hitler to his generals on 22 August: ‘destruction of Poland’, ‘elimination of the active forces’, ‘close your hearts to compassion’, ‘proceed brutally’. The most important instruments for the ‘elimination of the active forces’ were the Einsatzgruppen [task forces] of the Security Police created for this war. The five Einsatzgruppen (two more were established after the start of the war) were each assigned to one of the armies.19 These units, which comprised in total around 2,700 men, officially had the task, agreed with the Army High Command (OKH) at the end of July, of ‘combatting elements hostile to the Reich and to Germans in enemy territory operating behind the troops engaged in combat’.20 In fact, the tasks of the Einsatzgruppen were far wider in scope. It is clear from post-war interrogations of Einsatzgruppen leaders that they were already being told by Himmler and Heydrich at a briefing in August that it was up to them to decide how the Polish intelligentsia should be neutralized.21
During the war, these directives from the SS leadership were duly implemented. On 3 September, Himmler told the Einsatzgruppen to shoot armed Polish insurgents out of hand and, where such insurgents appeared, to take the heads of the local Polish administration hostage.22 On 7 September, Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Security Police and SD, gave instructions to a meeting of heads of department that ‘the leading circles in the Polish population should be rendered harmless as far as possible’,23 and he told the same audience at a meeting on 14 October that the ‘liquidation of the Polish elite’ that was already under way should, if possible, be completed by 1 November.24 On 29 September, Halder noted à propos a conversation between the Quartermaster General, Eduard Wagner, and Heydrich: ‘A general clearing of the ground: Jewry, intelligentsia, clergy, nobility.’25
In a memo of July 1940 Heydrich reflected that, before the war, the Einsatzgruppen had received instructions that were ‘extraordinarily radical (e.g. the order to liquidate numerous Polish ruling circles, which affected thousands)’. He stated there had been problems cooperating with the army because, at the time, they had not been able to reveal that the brutal actions engaged in by the Einsatzgruppen were not arbitrary; on the contrary, as Heydrich’s comments make unmistakably clear, these exceptionally radical orders came directly from Hitler himself.26
Figure 10. Decidedly unenthusiastic: Members of fighter squadron Hindenburg 1 listen to Hitler’s declaration of war on Poland on 1 September 1939.
Source: bpk / Benno Wundshammer
Right from the start of the war, they led to the mass shooting of members of the intelligentsia, the clergy, the nobility, as well as Jews, the mentally ill, and those suspected of being ‘guerillas’.27 The pretext for these murders was the alleged Polish atrocities perpetrated on ethnic Germans, which, according to German propaganda, had cost the lives of more than 50,000 people. In fact the number of ethnic German civilian victims who lost their lives during the war, either in riots such as the ‘Blomberg Bloody Sunday’ or in the course of military operations, had been multiplied by a factor of ten.28 The Einsatzgruppen were supported by ‘Ethnic German Self-Defence’ units, a force that had been rapidly created by the SS after the start of the war from members of the German minority.29 During the month of September alone, the Einsatzgruppen and ‘Self-Defence’ units, but also the uniformed police,30 Waffen SS,31 and, last but not least, Wehrmacht units32 had shot over 16,000 Polish civilians.33 These murders were systematically encouraged and backed by Hitler.
On 9 September, thanks to his knowledge of the attitude of the top leadership, General Halder had already concluded that it was Hitler’s and Göring’s intention ‘to annihilate and exterminate the Polish people’.34 On 12 October, Hitler pressed the army commanders to issue a decree concerning the possession of weapons that would order all scattered soldiers who were continuing the struggle against the Wehrmacht behind the front to be treated as ‘guerillas’ and executed.35 When, on 12 September, Admiral Canaris, the head of military intelligence, asked the head of OKW, Keitel, about ‘extensive shootings’ in Poland, Keitel replied that ‘this matter [had] already been decided by the Führer’. Hitler had made it clear that ‘if the Wehrmacht did not want to have anything to do with this, it would have to put up with the SS and the Gestapo working alongside it’.36 After a meeting with Hitler on 20 September, the commander-in-chief of the army, Brauchitsch, informed the commanders of the army groups and armies that, on Hitler’s orders, the Einsatzgruppen would be ‘carrying out certain tasks relating to ethnic politics in Poland’ lying outside the Wehrmacht’s area of respons
ibility.37
However, as various members of the SS had been court martialled for their actions, on 4 October Hitler issued a (secret) decree ordering that offences ‘that were committed from bitterness at the atrocities carried out by the Poles’ were not to be pursued by the courts and, if necessary, to be amnestied.38 On 12 October, he went a step further and ordered the SS and police to be removed from civil and military jurisdiction. Crimes committed by members of the SS and police were in future to be tried within Himmler’s sphere of jurisdiction, and would either be punished or not in accordance with the principles of the ‘ethnic struggle’ that prevailed there.39
Mobilization for war and ministerial decisions
In the meantime, Hitler’s regime had begun to adjust the living conditions in Germany to wartime requirements. This manifested itself, on the one hand, in increased repression, on the other in a reduction in private consumption. At the same time, the SD had resumed keeping careful watch on the ‘voice of the people’ throughout the Reich, a practice which had been stopped in 1936. The regime’s official situation reports, together with many individual reports from the first weeks of the war, were in agreement that, while the population showed no signs of enthusiasm about the war, it was none the less in a calm and confident mood. Naturally, the general fear of war, which had been so ubiquitous in recent years, had not disappeared overnight; however, in a public sphere that it dominated, the regime succeeded in keeping the expression of negative feelings under control and in interpreting the population’s resignation, apathy, and paralysing fear as sober-mindedness and calm.40 It was no accident that in his Reichstag speech of 1 September Hitler had told the Party functionaries: ‘I don’t want anybody telling me morale’s bad in his Gau, or in his district, or in his local branch or cell. You’re the ones responsible for morale!’41 Goebbels frequently intervened in the reporting of the national mood when it seemed to him ‘wrongheaded’.42
Hitler Page 86
