Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  In accordance with Hitler’s directives of 3 March, on the 13 March Jodl issued the ‘Guidelines for the Special Areas relating to Barbarossa’, in which he stated: ‘The Führer has given the Reichsführer SS special tasks within the zone of army operations to prepare for its political administration, tasks deriving from the necessity of finally resolving the conflict between two opposing political systems. In carrying out these tasks the Reichsführer SS will be acting independently and on his own responsibility’.88 What was envisaged by these ‘special tasks’ is clear from Jodl’s instructions for finalizing the guidelines of 3 March. Referring to the directives given him by Hitler, they emphasized the need ‘immediately to neutralize all Bolshevik chiefs and commissars’.89

  On 17 March, Hitler made himself equally clear in a meeting with Halder and the Quartermaster General, Wagner: ‘The intelligentsia installed by Stalin will have to be liquidated. The Russian Empire’s leadership apparatus must be destroyed. We shall have to use force of the most brutal kind in Greater Russia.’90 On 30 March Halder noted very similar key points made by Hitler at a meeting with generals: ‘Clash of two ideologies. Devastating assessment of Bolshevism, equivalent of social delinquency. Communism is a huge threat for the future. We must get away from the idea of comradeship among soldiers. The communist is from first to last no comrade. This is a war of annihilation. If we don’t see it in these terms, we may beat the enemy, but in 30 years’ time we shall again be facing the communist enemy. We’re not waging war to preserve the enemy. . . . Battle against Russia: annihilation of Bolshevist commissars and of the communist intelligentsia. . . . The struggle must be fought against the poison of disintegration. This isn’t a matter for military courts. . . . Commissars and GPU people are criminals and must be dealt with as such. . . . This struggle will be very different from the fight in the West. In the East being harsh today means being mild in the future.’ At the same time, Hitler indicated, at least in outline, how he envisaged reorganizing the area he was planning to conquer: ‘Northern Russia will go to Finland. Protectorates for the Baltic states, Ukraine, White Russia. . . . The new states must be socialist states, but without their own intelligentsias.’91

  Hitler’s statement that military justice would not apply in Russia was quickly put into writing. The ‘Edict on the Application of the Law and on Special Measures carried out by the Army’ was initially drafted by the OKH, tightened by the OKW, and finally signed off by Hitler on 13 May. It ordered that criminal offences perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht against civilians would no longer be automatically subject to disciplinary measures, but only in exceptional cases. In the case of offences committed by enemy civilians, the Wehrmacht’s judicial system should not become involved at all; instead, punishment should be carried out by the troops on the spot. Localities where the Wehrmacht had been attacked ‘in an insidious and underhand manner’ should be subject to ‘collective measures’ if ‘circumstances [prevent] the rapid identification of the individual perpetrators’.92

  In tandem with the edict on military justice and in accordance with Hitler’s requirement of 30 March (‘annihilation of Bolshevist commissars and the communist intelligentsia’), by the beginning of May the OKH had prepared guidelines for the systematic murder of political functionaries of the Communist Party. When Rosenberg opposed the murder of all the functionaries on the grounds that it would complicate the administration of the occupied territories, the OKH sought a Führer decision. The result was contained in the ‘Guidelines for the Treatment of Soviet Commissars’ signed by the chief of the OKW, Keitel, on 6 June, which took account of Rosenberg’s concerns. Commissars in the Red Army were ‘to be finished off’ by the troops; civilian commissars who opposed the troops were to be ‘dealt with’ in accordance with the Edict on Military Justice; the fate of those who were not guilty of any hostile act would be decided after the establishment of the occupation regime. On the question of ‘guilty or not guilty’ ‘the impression a person makes . . . must be considered more important than the facts, which may prove impossible to verify’.93 The ‘Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia’ of 19 May, demanding ‘ruthless and energetic measures against Bolshevist agitators, irregulars, saboteurs, Jews’, and the ‘total elimination of all forms of resistance’, clearly indicate Hitler’s radical views on the way to conduct the war in the East. The guidelines were distributed in sealed envelopes down to battalion level and were to be given to the troops ‘on the arrival of the order to attack’.94

  A week before the start of the invasion, Hitler reiterated his general views on the war in the East at a meeting of the commanders of the army groups and armies. In his statement to the Nuremberg Tribunal Keitel mentioned the key points, which are familiar from Hitler’s previous remarks: it was a struggle between two conflicting ideologies, so that the traditional form of warfare governed by military justice had to be abandoned and all types of resistance be dealt with ruthlessly.95 In addition, during the months preceding Barbarossa, a ‘division of labour’ was established between the army and the SS. This was in response to the guidelines of 13 March, which had been substantially altered at Hitler’s request. The execution of civilians not involved in combat operations was, to a large extent, to be left to the SS murder squads. For this purpose the Army High Command and the Reichsführer SS came to an agreement, contained in the OKH order of 18 April 1941, to deploy ‘special commandos of the Security Police and SD within the area of operations’, which were to perform ‘their tasks under their own responsibility’.96 They were entitled, ‘within the remit of their assignment, to carry out executive measures involving the civilian population’. This formula ensured that, unlike during the war with Poland, the SS special commandos were no longer subordinate to the OKW, and, although supported by the military, could operate independently of it.

  On 21 May, Himmler announced that ‘to implement the special orders that I have received from the Führer’ (he was using the formula from the edict of 13 March) I intend to appoint Higher SS and Police Leaders in the territories that are to be conquered’, to whom Einsatzgruppen [task forces], order police battalions, and units of the Waffen SS would be subordinated. ‘They will carry out tasks specifically assigned to me.’97 During the following months, these units received unequivocal orders, involving the murder of a vaguely defined Jewish leadership cadre in the Soviet Union, as well as communist functionaries and all those who appeared in the least suspect.98

  Victory and beyond: Hitler’s plans for world power

  As we have seen, by the end of 1940, Hitler’s plan to establish a base in North-West Africa and to cut off the Mediterranean from the west by occupying Gibraltar had failed, after he had been unable to achieve the necessary agreement of Spain or Vichy France. However, in 1941, alongside the preparations for Barbarossa, the German government began to consider how they could exploit the expected rapid military success in the East in order to weaken Britain’s position in the Mediterranean (though not only there). For they now understood that an invasion of Britain during this year was as unrealistic as it had been in the previous one, and a naval blockade would not prove decisive.99

  At the end of February, Hitler once again gave orders for the conquest of Gibraltar; the final plan was ready on 10 March. The attack was to be carried out in October (in other words after Barbarossa) with troops brought over from the East.100 At the beginning of May, he also ordered ‘Operation Isabella’, a German counter measure against a possible British invasion of Spain and Portugal, which was to be undertaken by the German occupation forces in France.101 However, Hitler had even more far-reaching ideas: in February, he ordered the OKW ‘to prepare a study covering an advance from Afghanistan into India’ after Barbarossa.102 In response to these initiatives, at the beginning of April, Halder produced a plan, according to which, after Barbarossa, the army would be reduced to 136 divisions, of which only thirty-six would remain in the East as an army of occupation, a
further eight in Scandinavia, thirty in the West, and six in the Balkans. In addition, seven would be assigned for an operational group in Spanish Morocco, eight for the advance in North Africa–Egypt, seventeen for the Afghanistan operation, and, assuming Turkey entered the war, fourteen for Anatolia, in order to intervene in the Near East from here as well.103 The remaining ten, of which no details were given, were evidently intended as a reserve. They believed they had already secured a partner for their Afghanistan project in the Afghan economics minister, Abdul Majid Khan, who was sympathetic to the Nazi regime and was staying in Germany during the spring and early summer, allegedly for medical treatment. In May he declared that he was willing to collaborate with the Axis by supporting a partisan war across the Indian frontier. But, under the impression of the debacle suffered by the Axis in Iraq, to which we shall soon return, he quickly distanced himself from the plan.104

  Hitler, however, had by no means given up the idea of deploying German forces to Afghanistan. After defeating the Soviet Union, he reckoned there would be plenty of willing partners in this region.105 His aim was not, of course, the ‘liberation’ of India, but rather to threaten the British position in India, forcing Britain to make peace on his terms. The Indian nationalist leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, who had fled to Berlin, requested Hitler to issue a proclamation in favour of a ‘Free India’. Although the ‘Führer’ had approved it in the spring, he was not in the end prepared to issue it.106

  Rommel’s successful offensive and the German campaign in south-east Europe also had an impact on the Arab world. In April, King Farouk of Egypt approached Hitler directly with a message that he was ‘at one with his people in looking forward to seeing the German troops victorious in Egypt as soon as possible and as liberators from the intolerably brutal English yoke’. Hitler’s reply was non-committal: Germany wanted the ‘independence of Egypt and of the whole of the Arab world’. 107 In Iraq, from which Britain had transferred troops to Libya and Crete, there was a change in the balance of power in favour of the Axis. The former prime minister of Iraq, Raschid Ali al-Gailani, who had been overthrown at the end of January 1941, managed to regain power through a coup at the beginning of April. Hitler now got state secretary von Weizsäcker to reply to a letter which had been sent to him in January by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. The Grand Mufti was one of the central figures in anti-British resistance in the Arab world and was now living in Baghdad. Hitler promised in general terms to provide the assistance requested by Husseini for their common struggle with the ‘English and the Jews’, assuring him that he recognized the Arab states’ struggle for independence.108 Much encouraged by Hitler’s support, in April Gailani resisted British pressure to allow the permanent stationing of substantial British forces in Iraq. This prompted a military confrontation at the beginning of May, as Britain was determined to eliminate this nascent Axis outpost. The German attempts to support the Iraqis by sending a few aircraft and weapons, in particular from Syria, which was under a French mandate, could not prevent Britain from bringing the whole country under its control by the end of the month.109 Hitler had made it clear in his directive that the Iraq operation could have, at best, symbolic significance: ‘whether and how’ the British position in the Near East could be eliminated would only become apparent after Barbarossa.110

  The weapons deliveries from Syria, which was under the control of Vichy France, had been made possible only after lengthy negotiations with Admiral Darlan, who had been Deputy Prime Minister since February. Darlan hoped that this concession (together with the sale of a large number of lorries to the German forces in North Africa) would re-establish direct contact with the German leadership, thereby improving Franco–German relations, which had been frozen since the end of 1940.111 In fact, his concession did indeed secure him an invitation to Berchtesgaden. On 11 May, at the Berghof, Hitler agreed limited military cooperation with Darlan.112 In the subsequent negotiations between the two countries’ military authorities, French support for Iraq from Syria was confirmed and the prospect was raised of granting the use of the port of Bizerta in Tunisia for supplying the German forces in North Africa and the use of Dakar in Senegal for German naval operations in the Atlantic.113 However, the agreement did not come into force because Germany was unwilling to respond to the French request for a peace agreement. Here too Hitler was working on the assumption that, after the impending victory over the Soviet Union, his position vis-à-vis France would have radically changed to his advantage. The support given to Iraq by the French mandate administration in Syria prompted Britain to attack Syria with the help of Free French troops and, despite resistance from Vichy forces, they managed to occupy it by the middle of July.114 This demonstrated to Vichy France only too clearly that cooperating with the Axis carried a high risk.

  The post-Barbarossa planning and, in particular, the idea of continuing to ‘besiege’ Britain by cutting off its access to the Mediterranean once again increased the importance of the navy in Germany’s overall conduct of the war. In his address to the generals on 30 March Hitler had announced that, after Barbarossa, the programme of constructing capital ships would be renewed. The naval leadership did its best to emphasize the value of a high seas fleet. Since the autumn of 1940, the navy had begun using not only U-boats to attack merchant shipping, but also capital ships. The first were the cruisers ‘Hipper’ and ‘Scheer’; they were followed in February by the battleships ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’; and then, in May, the largest German battleship, the ‘Bismarck’, arrived in the North Atlantic.115 Its sister ship, the ‘Tirpitz’, which had come into service a few months before, was intended to perform the same role.116 Raeder told Hitler on 22 May that the naval high command considered that the use of Dakar would significantly enhance the conduct of naval warfare in the Atlantic. Hitler also approved Raeder’s proposal to support the Spanish navy in building up their defences on the Canary Islands, so that they could be held ‘at all times against the English and Americans’. When Hitler raised the possibility of occupying the Azores, Raeder told him that, even if they deployed the whole of the navy, they would still be unable to hold them. Nevertheless, Hitler stuck to the idea of using the islands, from autumn 1941 onwards, as a base ‘for attacking the United States with long-range bombers’.117

  It was, in fact, becoming increasingly clear that Germany would soon be confronted by an Anglo-American alliance and a strategic partnership between the two countries. The Lend-Lease law of 11 March gave the American President the power to supply Britain with considerably increased amounts of armaments. In response, Hitler extended the area of operations round the British Isles as far as Iceland.118 The United States responded by sequestering all German ships in American ports and declaring the Atlantic west of 30 degrees longitude to be a security zone, subject to regular American patrols. On 20 April, Hitler ordered the navy to abide by this American move affecting the North Atlantic.119 During these critical months before Barbarossa, he wanted at all costs to avoid an American entry into the war as a result of incidents on the high seas, an attitude he stuck to during the first months of the war in the East.120 In any case, the sinking of the ‘Bismarck’ by the Royal Navy on 27 May and the destruction of the floating German supply bases in the Atlantic by the British produced a change in Germany’s conduct of naval warfare. The naval high command had to abandon its idea of fighting a war in the Atlantic with capital ships.121

  In his Directive No. 32 of 11 June Hitler once again clearly set out his goals for the period after the eastern campaign.122 He was working on the assumption that, after the Soviet Union had been destroyed, Germany and Italy would no longer face a significant threat from hostile land forces on the continent of Europe. Thus, the army could be significantly reduced to the benefit of the navy and Luftwaffe. The increase in ‘Franco–German cooperation’ would enable the Atlantic coast of North and West Africa to be protected against ‘Anglo-Saxon attacks’; in other words, the possible threat from the United States was alr
eady being taken account of. Thus, in the first place, the British positions in the Mediterranean and in the Near East could already be eliminated in the autumn of 1941 or during the following winter by a ‘concentric attack’ from three directions: first, through a continuation of the German–Italian attack from Libya towards Egypt, through a second offensive via Bulgaria and Turkey towards Suez, as well as ‘in certain circumstances a further offensive through Transcaucasia and Iran towards Iraq’. Secondly, after victory in the East, it would be easy to overcome Spanish resistance to a military operation in Gibraltar. Afterwards, German forces would have to go over to Spanish Morocco, whereas they would leave the defence of the Atlantic coast of North-West Africa and the elimination of the British and Free French bases in West Africa to the French. The German navy and Luftwaffe would then use the French bases on the West African coast and contemplate occupying the islands in the Atlantic. Thirdly, the ‘siege of England’ would continue. An invasion of the island should be prepared in order to ‘provoke and complete . . . England’s collapse, which is already under way’.123