Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  In January, a special staff N was established in the OKW and, on 27 January, Keitel told the chiefs of the three Wehrmacht branches that Hitler wanted the ‘N Study’ to be produced under his personal and direct influence, and to be coordinated as far as possible with the overall conduct of the war’. Thus the order was clearly intended, on the principle of divide et impera, to exclude the top military leadership as far as possible from the planning process involved in extending the war to the north.67 The ‘Altmark’ incident of 16 February, in which a British commando operation in Norwegian waters captured a German naval supply ship, freeing three hundred imprisoned British sailors on board, once again made it clear how important control of the Norwegian coast was for Germany’s conduct of the war.68

  On 21 February, Hitler appointed General Nikolaus von Falkenhayn to command ‘Weserübung’; the army general and his staff were directly subordinated to the OKW (rather than the OKH), probably primarily in order to exclude the army leadership from the operation and to secure Hitler’s ‘personal and direct influence’ on it.69 On 1 March, he signed the directive for ‘Operation Weserübung’70 and, on 5 March, conferred with the commanders-in-chief of the Wehrmacht branches about it at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery. According to Jodl, Göring ‘was furious’, as he had not been ‘previously consulted’, and pushed through some changes in the plan of attack.71

  In the middle of March, the Finnish–Russian war surprisingly came to an end, removing the motive for Allied intervention.72 However, Hitler was now determined to create a situation in Scandinavia favourable to Germany. Apart from wanting to secure Germany’s supplies of iron ore and extend the basis for the war against Britain, he appears to have had far-reaching plans for the region. The involvement of Quisling and the Norwegian National Socialists offered the prospect of politically coordinating Norway and incorporating it into a future ‘Greater Germanic Reich’.73 On 26 March, Hitler fixed 9 April as the date for the invasion of Denmark and Norway. He did not inform Goebbels about the impending operation until 8 April, giving him little time to prepare German propaganda for the new situation.74

  The Wehrmacht began the invasion early on the morning of 9 April. A coordinated, large-scale operation involving army, navy, and Luftwaffe was a new experience for the German armed forces and carried considerable risk. Whereas the German troops took control of Denmark on the same day, events in Norway did not develop as expected. The plan for a surprise takeover of Oslo failed, giving the Norwegian government sufficient time to organize military resistance and escape capture. The landings in the other Norwegian ports largely succeeded, but with the navy suffering heavy losses.

  The Goebbels diaries show that Hitler allowed himself to be dazzled by the Wehrmacht’s initial military successes. On 9 April, he was positively euphoric. At midday on the first day of the invasion, he considered the whole operation a success; it would go down ‘as the most daring piece of impudence in history’.75 On the following day, he told Goebbels he was thinking of a north German ‘confederation . . . not a protectorate, more an alliance. A unified foreign, economic, and customs policy. We shall acquire the most important military bases, take on the military defence, and the two states will give up having any kind of military capability.’76 He informed Mussolini about the invasions only on 10 April.77

  However, during the next few days it became clear that Hitler had been too optimistic in his assessment of developments. On 13 April, a Royal Navy task force succeeded in sinking ten German destroyers in the Narvik fjord, or forcing them to scupper.78 Germany had been clearly put on the defensive. Hitler had already decided to evacuate German troops from Narvik; Jodl was talking about ‘chaotic leadership’.79 At a small gathering in the Reich Chancellery to celebrate Hitler’s 51st birthday, the ‘Führer’ studiously avoided this issue, preferring to discuss the coming war with the West. On 24 April, Hitler appointed the Gauleiter of Essen, Josef Terboven, as Reich Commissar in Norway. It was only at the end of the month that the military situation gradually improved for Germany. German troops were able to advance from the Oslo region towards Trondheim, where a German invasion force had meanwhile been trapped by an Anglo-French pincer movement; these Allied forces were now compelled to withdraw and re-embark. However, there was still concern about the situation in Narvik in the north, where, at the end of April, Anglo–French forces had landed and were soon reinforced.80

  Viewed in the round, the surprise attack on Norway had failed. The expedition force had become involved in battles that continued until June and could be successfully concluded only because of military victories in western Europe. The navy suffered relatively high losses and the large Norwegian merchant fleet joined the Allies. Despite gaining bases on the Norwegian coast, Weserübung had, therefore, not secured any significant strategic advantages for the conduct of the war against Britain.

  31

  War in the West

  The war in the West had been repeatedly postponed. In February, the preparations for the war in Scandinavia had influenced the plans for western Europe. Then, at the beginning of March, Hitler, who had hitherto been inclined not to start Weserübung until there had been some initial successes in the war in the West, decided to reverse the order, by first launching the campaign in Scandinavia before attacking in the West a few days later.1 The difficulties encountered in Norway, however, made it seem advisable once again to postpone the campaign in the West.2 Then, the weather intervened until, finally, on 9 May, the irrevocable decision was taken to attack the following day.3

  The Wehrmacht began the war on 10 May. On the same morning, memoranda were sent to the governments in Brussels, The Hague, and Luxemburg, justifying the attacks on the grounds of alleged violations of their neutral status by Belgium and the Netherlands.4 The first ‘special operations’ against airfields and bridges in the Netherlands and the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael were largely successful. However, the attempt to take over the Dutch seat of government in The Hague from the air failed.5 The 18th Army, which invaded the north of the Netherlands, secured the capitulation of the Dutch armed forces on 15 May. The 6th Army, which together with the 18th formed Army Group B, tied down large Allied forces in northern Belgium. Meanwhile Army Group A, which with three of its armies managed to achieve a surprising breakthrough in the Ardennes, succeeded as early as 13 May in breaching the French defensive lines on the Meuse near Sedan and advancing westwards in a sickle-shaped manœuvre.

  Hitler had already moved to his headquarters, the Felsennest (Rock Eyrie) near Münstereifel, on 10 May.6 He had made it clear in Directive No. 11 that, by contrast with the war against Poland, he intended this time to take over direction of the operations in the West himself.7 During the following days, when the campaign reached decisive stages, the first major clash occurred between Hitler and the army leadership over the right way forward. It became apparent that Hitler judged the risks of too rapid and extensive an operation to be much greater than did the commander-in-chief of the army, Brauchitsch, or the chief of the general staff, Halder.

  Twice, on 17 and 24 May, Hitler intervened massively in the operations of Army Group A, both times halting its advance. The army leadership had wanted to press on with rapid thrusts, in order to decide the outcome of the war there and then.8 Hitler’s first order to halt, made when visiting Army Group A headquarters at Bastogne, was prompted by his desire to protect the Army Group’s southern flank against possible French counterattacks. Halder noted that Hitler had ‘an incomprehensible anxiety about the southern flank. He shouts and screams that we are about to ruin the whole operation and are risking defeat.’9 The second order to halt of 24 May resulted in the British and French being able to consolidate their bridgehead at Dunkirk.10 There has been speculation that, by intervening in this way, Hitler wanted to preserve the British expeditionary corps, the core of their professional army, from destruction, in order to keep alive the prospects for peace through this generous gesture. However, if his decision of 24 May is viewed against t
he background of the clash between the army leadership and Hitler that had been going on since 17 May, a completely different picture emerges.

  Hitler and the army leadership were still disagreeing about the question of whether the German panzer units should advance southwards to the east of Paris (Hitler) or in a big sweep to the west of Paris (army leadership),11 when Hitler, visiting Army Group A on 24 May, learnt of an order issued by Brauchitsch a few hours earlier. According to this, the 4th Army, in which all the panzer units of Army Group A were concentrated, was to be subordinated to Army Group B, in order to surround and destroy the enemy forces in the Dunkirk–Ostend region.12 Hitler summoned Brauchitsch and countermanded the order.13 Moreover, he backed the decision of the commander of Army Group A, Gerd von Rundstedt, who was in command of all the panzer forces on the western front, to conserve the panzers and not to deploy them for the destruction of the Allied bridgehead at Dunkirk–Ostend. However, Hitler left the decision to Rundstedt, who did indeed hold back the panzers from engaging on terrain that did not appear suitable for tank operations. This order to halt backed by Hitler’s authority was in force for two days.

  Hitler’s decision was designed above all to demonstrate his power. He was making it clear that he was in a position to give direct orders to lower ranking commanders, in this case the commander of Army Group A, bypassing Brauchitsch and Halder. His message was that, in the event of a dispute, as supreme commander he had the authority to take control of the panzer forces, the army’s spearhead, and would make use of it, if the army leadership failed to do what he wanted.

  On 26 May, Hitler gave the go-ahead for the panzers’ advance towards Dunkirk to continue,14 Belgium capitulated on 28 May, and Dunkirk fell at the beginning of June, albeit only after the enemy had succeeded in evacuating more than 300,000 British and French soldiers across the Channel.15 On 30 May, the Italian ambassador Alfieri conveyed a note from Mussolini to the effect that Italy was now ready to enter the war on 5 June, or later if Hitler wanted it.16 The ‘Führer’ then told the ‘Duce’ that he preferred a somewhat later entry, since they were preparing a major operation against French air force bases,17 whereupon Mussolini postponed Italy’s entry until 11 June.18

  In the second phase of the campaign, on 4 June Army Group B first advanced towards Rouen and the lower Seine, and, five days later, Army Group A moved in the direction of the Marne. Finally, on 14 June, Army Group C crossed the frontier near Saarbrücken, breaching the Maginot line. Once again there was disagreement between Hitler and the army leadership. While Halder and Brauchitsch proposed a second expansive sickle movement in central France, Hitler feared the risks and was initially content with occupying the Lorraine iron ore region, but then, a few days later, came round to the army’s plan.19 On 5 June, he summoned Goebbels to his headquarters to explain his further plans. He wanted ‘if possible to spare Britain’ and a ‘generous peace would be best’. Belgium ‘should disappear as a state, not Holland, otherwise we would lose its colonies’. The aim should be to have ‘a kind of protective relationship’. He hoped to have dealt with France within four to six weeks and its future looked ‘very gloomy’; it would be ‘severely cut back’. ‘As far as the Jews are concerned,’ he explained, ‘we’ll soon sort them out after the war’, and ‘then it will be made immediately and brutally clear to the Churches that there is only one authority in the state, the source of all authority, and that is the state itself’.20

  Paris fell on 14 June,21 and Hitler ordered ‘flags to be flown and bells to be rung for three days’.22 On 12 June, Marshall Pétain took over the French government and requested an armistice. Hitler was now concerned above all to portray the end of the war as his personal triumph and to place his ally, Mussolini, one step below him on the victors’ podium. Thus, on 18 June, during an encounter in Munich, at which Mussolini made only too clear his wish to partake in the booty of victory, he informed the ‘Duce’ only in very general terms about the armistice, and opposed Ciano’s suggestion that they should hold parallel armistice negotiations. He would, however, only sign the German–French armistice agreement after the conclusion of the Franco–Italian negotiations.23

  Hitler gave orders that the armistice negotiations should take place in Compiègne in northern France,24 where, on 11 November 1918, the armistice ending the First World War had been signed in Marshall Foch’s railway carriage. The negotiations began on 21 June in the same famous forest clearing. To begin with, Hitler himself was present in the historic railway carriage, which had been specially retrieved from the museum that had been built in the 1920s and brought to the historic November 1918 location. Hitler, who was accompanied by Göring, Raeder, Brauchitsch, Ribbentrop, and Hess, left the announcement of the armistice conditions to Keitel.25 There was a preamble to the document composed by Hitler himself,26 making it clear what he intended to achieve. He wanted ‘an act of restorative justice’, in order ‘once and for all to erase a memory that was not exactly the most glorious episode in France’s history, and was felt by Germans to be the deepest disgrace of all time’. After Keitel had read out the preamble, Hitler departed with his entourage, leaving it to Keitel to inform the French delegation, led by Colonel Hunzinger, of the conditions of the armistice. The same day, he ordered the carriage, the memorial stone displayed in Compiègne, and the ‘monument to Gallic triumph’ to be brought to Berlin and the rest of the site to be destroyed. The monument to Marshall Foch, however, was left untouched.27

  The negotiations continued until the evening of the following day, until Keitel ended them by issuing an ultimatum. The agreement that was finally signed imposed on France – in contrast to the humiliating circumstances of the signing in Compiègne – what were, from the German point of view, relatively moderate conditions, raising French hopes for a later peace treaty. It was envisaged that the south of France would be excluded from the occupation and that a French government should be allowed to continue to exist. The French armed forces were to be largely demobilized and dissolved; the French navy, by contrast, was to remain partly intact and the compulsorily decommissioned units left in French hands. This was intended to prevent French ships from joining the enemy.28 The Germans refrained from making colonial demands, fully aware that the overseas territories could easily transfer their support to the enemy.

  Under Hitler’s leadership, the Wehrmacht had succeeded in only six weeks in winning decisive victories over the western powers in the European theatre of war. Given the more or less identical strengths of the two sides, this was unexpected. However, Germany’s rapid military success is entirely explicable. It was due above all to the effectiveness of German military leadership, which applied the operational theories developed by the Prussian general staff to the modern war of movement, aiming to bring about a decisive battle where the enemy least expected it. The main elements of this type of warfare involved a willingness to take significant risks, the element of surprise, the speed of operations, the courage to concentrate one’s forces at particular points, the aim of achieving a breakthrough with massed forces, subsequent deep thrusts at the risk of exposing flanks, and rapid enveloping movements. All of this was feasible only because officers were given great freedom of action through ‘mission-type tactics’ [Auftragstaktik] and were used to leading from the front. Moreover, they had learnt to apply traditional principles of leadership to modern panzer tactics, where panzers with accompanying armoured, or at least motorized, forces cooperated in wide-ranging operations with the concentrated tactical support of the Luftwaffe.29

  After the victory in the West, Hitler found himself in a political and strategic situation that provided him with completely new options for continuing the war. With France’s Channel and Atlantic coast he had conquered a platform for the war against Britain; with the take-over of France he had changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean; he could now make use of the economic resources of a highly developed western Europe, and so survive a lengthy war. His authority over the military, which had been so
sceptical about his preparations for a war in the West, was now unchallengeable.

  From ‘Sea Lion’ to ‘Barbarossa’

  On 23 June, two days before the armistice came into effect, Hitler fulfilled a long-held dream: he visited Paris, not as a conqueror but instead secretly, in the pose of a cultured tourist. He was accompanied by his architects, Giesler and Speer, his favourite sculptor, Arno Breker, General Karl-Heinrich Bodenschatz, his doctor, Karl Brandt, Bormann, and his adjutants, Engel, Brückner, and Schaub.30 This bizarre sightseeing tour in a city that, in the aftermath of the war, was dead, took place in the early morning and covered the major sights at speed so that, in the case of most buildings, Hitler had to content himself with a view of the exterior. The only interiors he was able to look at were of the Opera and Les Invalides, where he spent a short time in front of Napoleon’s tomb. At the Trocadero, the group left their vehicles and Hitler viewed the site of the 1936 World Fair and, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower. Newspapers and the newsreels only reported the visit some time later.31

  This flying visit by the ‘supreme commander’ at the height of his triumph, which was intended to remind people of his true ‘artistic’ nature, had a lasting effect on the ‘Führer’. During his later table talk, he kept referring to the impression Paris had made on him. He compared the French capital (unfavourably) with Vienna and Rome, commenting that one day Berlin must surpass Paris.32 Immediately after his return from Paris, he ordered work on the rebuilding of Berlin – the ‘most important current building project in the Reich’ – to begin again, and gave instructions that the building work in Munich, Linz, Hamburg, and on the site of the Party Rallies in Nuremberg should continue.33