Hitler
Page 92
In contrast to his low-key Paris visit, a big show was put on for Hitler’s entry into Berlin. Indeed, the reception of the ‘victorious Führer’ in the Reich capital on 6 July was one of the most striking mass demonstrations in the history of the Third Reich. The Propaganda Minister surpassed himself and the event was minutely planned. Factories and shops shut at midday and the employees were directed along carefully planned routes to their assigned places in the heart of the city; 8,000 people had been involved in decorating the streets and houses, and boys from the Hitler Youth and girls from the BDM turned Hitler’s route into a sea of flowers.34 On 7 July, Hitler explained the point of the spectacle to his Italian guest, Ciano: he had ‘come to the Reich capital’ in order, with his entry, ‘to demonstrate to the rest of the world what the German people think of me.’ Contrary to reports on British radio, they were not ‘crushed and demoralized’, but ‘fighting fit’. 35
The fact that the campaign in the West had not resulted in another lengthy war with enormous casualties, which many people had feared, but had ended within a few weeks in a triumphant victory, undoubtedly produced an enormous sense of relief, consolidating Hitler’s reputation as a decisive statesman and a ‘Führer’ with exceptional abilities. It appears doubtful, however, whether the fear of war that marked the pre-war years had suddenly been transformed into enthusiasm for war. The very reserved response of the German people to the attack on the Soviet Union the following year suggests that the much-described euphoric mood of the summer of 1940 derived instead from the expectation of a quick end to the war. It is, at any rate, going much too far to interpret the jubilation of the Berlin crowds as an unambiguous expression of enthusiasm for Hitler and the war.36
On 8 July, still in the euphoric state induced by his success, Hitler outlined his future occupation policies to Goebbels. In Norway he wanted to found ‘a great German city, probably named “Nordstern” [Northern Star]’, and to link it to Klagenfurt with an autobahn traversing the whole of the Reich. France, on the other hand, must ‘never again become a military power’ and must ‘be reduced to a subordinate position’. As far as Britain was concerned, he was ‘not yet ready to deliver the final blow’. At the beginning of July, he had decided to give a speech to the Reichstag, which would ‘offer London a last chance’; if Britain rejected it, ‘then, immediately afterwards, it will be dealt a devastating blow’. He had made a number of similar statements to Goebbels from 24 June onwards.37 A ‘boundless Germanic empire’ would be created under his leadership; the tasks for the future, Goebbels noted, would be ‘of grandiose dimensions’.38
On 9 July, Hitler withdrew to the Obersalzberg, to work on his Reichstag speech. Having originally planned to give it on 8 July, he postponed it several times, in order to await developments in Anglo–French relations. These had been severely damaged when, on 3 July, the Royal Navy sank part of the French fleet in its Algerian base of Mers-el-Kébir, in order to prevent it from falling into German hands.39 In addition, he wanted to push on with preparations for the war against Britain. On 2 July, even before his ceremonial entry into Berlin, he had given the military a directive to prepare an invasion of Britain under the code name ‘Seelöwe’ [Sea Lion].40
During his stay at the Berghof, Hitler was very preoccupied with this topic as, so to speak, an alternative to his plan for a ‘peace offer’. On 11 July, he conferred with Keitel and Raeder about the possibility of an invasion. Hitler and Raeder, who had already discussed this in May and June,41 were in agreement that it could be considered only as ‘a last resort’, in order to force Britain ‘to make peace’. On this occasion, Hitler agreed in principle to Raeder’s proposal to revive the large naval construction programme (on the basis of the Z plan), which had not been further pursued since the start of the war.42 On 13 July, Hitler instructed Halder to begin the actual planning for Sea Lion and made certain practical suggestions. However, one gets the sense from Halder’s notes that Hitler was primarily concerned with the question of ‘why England is not prepared to make peace’. ‘He sees the answer’, Halder noted, ‘as we do, in the fact that England still has hopes of Russia. Thus, he reckons that he will have to compel England to make peace by force. But he does not like the idea. Reason: “If we smash England’s military power, the British Empire will collapse. That is of no use to Germany. German blood would be shed to achieve something of which America and others would be the beneficiaries.”’43 Nevertheless, on 16 July, Hitler issued Directive No. 16 ‘to prepare and, if necessary, carry out a landing operation against England’. He had previously politely turned down Italy’s offer to participate.44
Hitler was also preoccupied with the future relationship with the Soviet Union, for Stalin had used the period when German troops were engaged in western Europe to secure for Russia the territorial gains that had been agreed in the Nazi–Soviet pact. In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States, which were part of its ‘sphere of influence’, and prepared to annex them. Then, at the end of the month, it moved against Romania, occupying both the former Russian territory of Bessarabia, in which, in the secret protocol attached to the Hitler–Stalin pact, Ribbentrop had declared Germany’s ‘complete lack of political interest’, and northern Bukovina.45 This move did not come as a surprise to the German government,46 particularly since it had been warned about it beforehand by Molotov.47 Thus Hitler responded coolly to King Carol, advising him to accept the Soviet territorial demands and reminding him of ‘the anti-German attitude’ that Romania had maintained ‘for decades’.48 In order to prevent an outbreak of hostilities, Hitler also persuaded Romania to make territorial concessions to Hungary and Bulgaria, which occurred in August and September.49
Not least as a result of the impression made by the Soviet moves against the Baltic States and Romania, Germany began a fundamental reappraisal of its policy towards the Soviet Union. The idea of attacking and crushing the Soviet Union, the only remaining major power on the continent that did not belong to the Axis, loomed ever larger. Soviet actions during recent weeks had made it abundantly clear that Russia was still a power to be reckoned with. This reappraisal will have occurred to a large extent during Hitler’s stay in the Berghof during July. The question of whether the initiative came from him – the view of traditional ‘intentionalist’ scholarship – or from the military, as recent German military scholars maintain, appears to be of secondary importance, bearing in mind Hitler’s normal way of dealing with his subordinates. It is conceivable that Hitler sent out certain signals, to which the military then responded with proposals and memoranda or which, in the spirit of ‘working towards the Führer’, they even anticipated. The lack of relevant sources prevents us from reaching a definitive conclusion. The war against the Soviet Union being contemplated in July 1940 was, in any event, not the war of racial extermination of 1941; it was envisaged as a short campaign, leading to the annexation of a considerable amount of territory in the west of the Soviet Union, and to a significant limitation of the power of what was left of Russia.50
This reappraisal of German policy can be reconstructed from a number of references, indicating that a decision-making process of far-reaching significance was taking place. At the end of June, following a meeting with state secretary Weizsäcker, Halder had noted: ‘Eyes focused on the East’, also commenting that Britain needed another ‘demonstration of our military power . . . before it will give way, thereby protecting our rear for a move East’. It is not clear from the minutes whether these remarks were Weizsäcker’s own views, or whether he was informing Halder about Hitler’s thinking.51 In any case, at the beginning of July, Halder noted in a conversation with the head of his operations department that the ‘central question with regard to the East’ was, ‘How can a military campaign against Russia be mounted in order to force it to recognize Germany’s dominant role in Europe?’52. During July, operational plans for a war against Russia were also being prepared in the OKH and the OKW, which we shall look at in more detail.
/> On 19 July, Hitler returned to Berlin. He told Goebbels, who found him to be in an ‘excellent mood and health’, that he would make a ‘brief, terse offer to England, without a precise proposal’, although ‘with a clear message that this was his last word’.53 He then made his speech to the Reichstag the same day in the pose of the triumphant military victor. He began by announcing a series of promotions: Göring became ‘Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich’, a newly created military rank; he also promoted twelve generals to the rank of field-marshal and promoted a number of other generals. Only then did he move on to the political core of his speech. He stated that the German–Russian relationship was ‘permanently fixed’; it was determined by a ‘cool balancing of mutual interests’. If Britain was hoping for a deterioration in the German–Russian relationship, then this was a ‘mistake’. At the end, he made a brief and imprecise appeal to ‘reason in England’, pointing out that he was ‘after all not appealing to them as the defeated one, but as the victor, who was only speaking in the name of reason’.54 This ‘appeal to reason’ was intended to be understood as Britain agreeing, as the precondition for peace, to recognize the situation on the continent created by his military success; as a quid pro quo, he was offering to respect the integrity of the British Empire. Like Hitler’s ‘appeal for peace’ in October 1939, this ‘offer’ was motivated primarily by domestic political considerations. Since his speech on the occasion of the Heroes’ Memorial Day in March he had not spoken to the German people, and now had to address the still open question of how he was planning to carry on the war. If it failed to see ‘reason’, the enemy was now to be blamed for the continuation of the war and the German population was finally going to have to get used to the inevitability of a lengthy war.
Three days later, Hitler had to face the fact that Britain had officially rejected his ‘peace offer’, as Lord Halifax made clear in a radio address.55 Even before this definitive rejection, Hitler had already indicated that he rated the chances of his approach as being very slim. At any rate, on 21 July, during a meeting with Brauchitsch (Halder produced detailed minutes), he said that Britain would continue the war, as it was pinning its hopes on the one hand on the United States, and, on the other, on the Soviet Union. He considered an invasion to be a ‘major risk’; it would be an option only if all other possibilities ‘of coming to terms with England’ were ruled out. If Britain decided to fight on, then they would have to try to confront her with a solid political front: Spain, Italy, Russia. ‘If we decide to attack, Britain must be finished off by mid-September.’ Stalin was ‘flirting’ with England, in order to exploit Germany’s being tied down by her military engagement in western Europe, and ‘to take what he wants, and what he won’t be able to take when peace comes’. However, Hitler continued, at the moment there was ‘no sign of Russian activity directed against us’. And so they must ‘get to grips with the Russian problem’. It is clear from Halder’s minutes that in the preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union referred to in this conversation Hitler could rely on preliminary work already being carried out by the OKH.56 This had reached the following conclusions: the deployment would last four to six weeks; the military goal would be to defeat the enemy or at least to ‘capture sufficient Russian territory’ to prevent air attacks on Berlin and the Silesian industrial region. The political aim was: ‘a Ukrainian empire, a Baltic confederation. White Russia – Finland. Baltic states – a thorn in the flesh.’ They reckoned on needing 80–100 divisions for the attack, against which Russia would have only 50–75 ‘good’ divisions.57
Thus, Hitler’s attitude to the Soviet Union at this stage was decidedly ambivalent. On the one hand, in order to counter Stalin’s territorial ambitions, he had let the military prepare war plans; on the other hand, he toyed with the idea of utilizing his ally for the continuing war with Britain. During the next ten days, however, after further discussions with his generals, Hitler made a fundamental decision with far-reaching consequences. On 25 July – in the meantime, he had made a trip to the Bayreuth festival58 – he once again discussed the possibility of an invasion of Britain with Keitel, Jodl, Raeder, and Todt. When, at the end of July, Hitler asked Jodl whether it would be possible to mount a successful attack on the Soviet Union during the current year, Jodl dismissed the idea. Jodl’s staff had, however, already prepared a preliminary plan for such an attack,59 and planning for a war in the East continued in the OKH as well. There was now a consensus that the operation should be postponed to the following spring.60 At the end of the month, both Brauchitsch and Halder agreed that neither the invasion of Britain nor an attack on the Soviet Union should receive priority. At a meeting on 30 July, both the commander-in-chief of the army and the chief of the general staff came to the conclusion that an invasion of Britain in the autumn was unlikely to succeed, whereas, were it postponed to the following spring, the enemy would be stronger. A solution to this dilemma would be to shift the focus of the war to the Mediterranean, in order to attack Britain in Gibraltar or Egypt; or another option: ‘Russia could be prodded towards the Persian Gulf’. Both generals were basically sceptical about the idea that if Britain could not be beaten, the Soviet Union, as its potential ally, should be attacked first. In their view a two-front war should be avoided and it would be better to ‘remain friends with Russia’.61
On 31 July, Hitler discussed the options for continuing the war against Britain with his senior generals. Among the topics covered were: the prospects for an invasion of Britain, involving Spain in the war, reinforcing the Italians in North Africa with German panzer divisions, and the continuation of the sea war.62 Finally, Hitler made the order for an invasion of Britain dependent on the progress of the air war. However, the army should definitely prepare for an invasion on 15 September. Then, as is clear from Halder’s brief notes, Hitler got to the main point of his deliberations: ‘England’s hopes are pinned on Russia and America. If they can no longer hope for help from Russia, then America too will fall by the wayside because, with Russia gone, Japan would be hugely strengthened in the Far East. Russia is England’s and America’s Far Eastern sword pointed at Japan. Here an ill wind is blowing for England. Like Russia, Japan has her own agenda, which she wants to carry out before the end of the war. . . . With Russia smashed, England’s last hope would be crushed. Germany will then be the master of Europe and the Balkans.’ His ‘decision’ was fixed. ‘Russia’s destruction must therefore be made a part of this struggle. Spring ’41. The sooner Russia is crushed the better.’ The aim of the operation was the ‘destruction of Russia’s vital strength’ through an offensive in two main directions. On the one hand, towards Kiev, on the other through the ‘border states’ in the direction of Moscow. Hitler named the political goals as: ‘Ukraine, White Russia, Baltic States to us. Finland extended up to the White Sea.’63 While the army leadership thought they would need 80–100 divisions, Hitler reckoned on 120 divisions for the offensive, in other words two-thirds of the number of major units that would be available in the coming spring.
The meetings with his generals during July reveal that, having taken on board that, for the moment, the war against Britain could not be concluded, Hitler was responding with a megalomaniacal strategy of expansion. He was now developing a global scenario for continuing the war.
Madagascar
In the summer of 1940, after the victory over France and anticipating a peace agreement with Britain, Hitler considered the situation ripe for pursuing another territorial solution of the ‘Jewish problem’. Instead of Poland he now considered the French colony of Madagascar as a suitable target area.64 This was by no means an original idea. The notion that large numbers of European Jews could be resettled in tropical Madagascar had been very popular in anti-Semitic circles since the end of the nineteenth century.65
During the war against France, this idea received important encouragement from Himmler, who had submitted a memorandum on the ‘Treatment of Ethnic Aliens in the East’ to Hitler on 25 May 19
40. In it he had announced his intention66 of ‘seeing the “Jew” as a concept completely extinguished . . . through the possibility of a substantial emigration of all Jews to Africa or to some other colony’. Hitler agreed with the memorandum in principle, suggesting that Himmler should show it to Governor General Frank ‘in order to tell him that the Führer considers it the right thing to do’.67 During the summer, he often spoke of the Madagascar project with approval, for example (via Ribbentrop) to Ciano on 18 June, on 20 June to Raeder, the commander-in-chief of the navy, at the beginning of August to Otto Abetz, the German ambassador in Paris, and, in the middle of the month, to Goebbels.68
Backed by such unequivocal statements from the ‘Führer’, during the summer of 1940, various bodies began to work out the details of the project. On 3 July 1940, Franz Rademacher, the new head of the desk for ‘Jewish affairs’ in the Foreign Ministry, proposed in a memorandum that France must place Madagascar at Germany’s disposal as a mandate ‘for the solution of the Jewish question’. ‘The part of the island that has no military importance will be placed under the administration of a German police governor, who will be subordinate to the Reichsführer SS. The Jews will be able to run their own administration within this territory.’ The aim was for ‘the Jews to become bargaining counters to guarantee the future good behaviour of their racial comrades in America’. The Madagascar project was thus intended to act as a form of ‘hostage taking’, as had also been the case with the ‘Polish reservation’.69 Another document of Rademacher’s, dated 2 July, contains further information about his intentions: from the German point of view Madagascar represented ‘the creation of a huge ghetto’. Only the Security Police was capable of coping with such a project; it had ‘experience in carrying out such appropriate punishment measures as may become necessary in the event of hostile actions against Germany by Jews in the USA’.70