Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  116. Halder, KTB, 2, 15 April 1941.

  117. Lagevorträge, 227ff.

  118. ADAP D 12, Nos 167 and 210.

  119. Hillgruber, Strategie, 398ff.; Saul Friedländer, Auftakt zum Untergang. Hitler und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika 1939–1941 (Stuttgart, 1965), 104ff. and 136ff.; Lagevorträge, 20 April 1941.

  120. KTB Seekriegsleitung, 25 April 1941; ADAP D 12, No. 608; Lagevorträge, 21 June 1941.

  121. Salewski, Seekriegsleitung 1, 449ff.

  122. Although the original draft was not signed by Hitler, it was regarded by the Wehrmacht branches as an instruction and later directives from Hitler referred to it. The draft of 19 June received its final and authoritative form on 30 June (discussed by Hubatsch in Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, 133f.)

  123. Hillgruber, Strategie, 378ff.

  124. Ciano, Diary, 31 May 1941.

  125. Schmidt, Statist, 550; Ciano, Diary, 1 and 2 June 1941; ADAP D 12, No. 584.

  126. Ibid., No. 603.

  127. Archiv der Gegenwart 1941, 5063.

  128. Report in the VB, 8 June 1941. There is no account of the meeting from the German side.

  129. Schmidt, Statist, 550; ADAP D 12, No. 614; Balta, Rumänien, 186ff.

  130. ADAP D 12, No. 644.

  131. Below, Adjutant, 267f.; Halder, KTB, 2, 14 June 1941.

  132. Goebbels TB, 16 June 1941.

  Operation Barbarossa

  1. Goebbels TB, 22 June 1941.

  2. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania.

  3. Domarus, 2, 1726ff.

  4. ADAP D 13, No. 664; for a report on this meeting see Schmidt, Statist, 550ff.

  5. ADAP D 13, No. 659; text of the German note in Monatshefte für Auswärtige Politik 1941, 551ff.

  6. ADAP D 13, No. 662.

  7. Ibid., No. 660.

  8. Ciano, Diary, 22 June 1941.

  9. OA Moscow, 1363–3, Conference of ministers, 23 June 1941; see also Goebbels TB, 24 June 1941.

  10. Decisive for his change of mind was his meeting with Hitler on 8 July (ibid., 9 July); but see also his entry for 3 July 1941.

  11. The argument, which keeps appearing in the literature and is in line with contemporary Nazi propaganda, that Hitler was preempting an attack by the Soviet Union cannot be adequately proved on the basis of Soviet documents. Moreover, this line of argument ignores an essential point, namely that, as has been extensively outlined in the previous chapters, Hitler’s decision to attack was made not in response to an immediate threat from the Soviet Union, but in the context of an overall strategy. See Gerd R. Ueberschär and Lev A. Bezymenskij (eds), Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion 1941. Die Kontroverse um die Präventivkriegsthese (Darmstadt, 2011), in particular the contribution from Nicolaj M. Romanicev, ‘Militärische Pläne eines Gegenschlags der UdSSR’, who shows that the Soviet Union was not planning a preemptive strike; see also Gabriel Gorodetsky, Die große Täuschung. Hitler, Stalin und das Unternehmen ‘Barbarossa’ (Berlin, 2001), 298ff. From the extensive literature see Bianca Pietrow-Ennker (ed.), Präventivkrieg? Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Frankfurt a. M., 2000); Bernd Wegner, ‘Präventivkrieg 1941? Zur Kontroverse um ein militärhistorisches Scheinproblem’, in Jürgen Elvert and Susanne Krauss (eds), Historische Debatten und Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundwert. Jubiläumstagung der Ranke-Gesellschaft in Essen, 2001 (Stuttgart, 2003), 206–19; Rainer F. Schmidt, ‘Appeasement oder Angriff? Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme der sog. Präventivkriegsdebatte über den 22. Juni 1941’, in Elvert and Krauss (eds), Historische Debatten, 220–33; Bogdan Musial, Kampfplatz Deutschland. Stalins Kriegspläne gegen den Westen (Berlin, 2008) also reject the preventive war thesis. By contrast, the argument is supported by, among others, Joachim Hoffmann, Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1945. Planung, Ausführung und Dokumentation (Munich, 2000).

  12. Seidler and Zeigert, Führerhauptquartiere, 193ff. On the gloomy atmosphere prevailing there see Schmidt, Statist, 555ff.; Picker, Tischgespräche, 18ff.; Schroeder, Chef, 111ff.; Alfons Schulz, Drei Jahre in der Nachrichtenzentrale des Führerhauptquartiers (Stein am Rhein, 1996), 39f.; Below, Adjutant, 281; Warlimont, Hauptquartier, 188ff.

  13. Klink, ‘Landkriegsführung’, 321; Boog, ‘Die Luftwaffe’ in Boog et al., Angriff, 362.

  14. Halder, KTB, 2, Appendix 2.

  15. Ibid., 26 July and 5 August 1940; on the plan of the Chief of the General Staff of the 18th Army, Marcks, see Ingo Lachnit and Friedhelm Klein, ‘Der “Operationsentwurf Ost” des Generalmajors Marcks vom 5. August 1940’, in Wehrforschung 2 (1972), 114–23; KTB OKW 1, 208f.; Ernst Klink, ‘Heer und Kriegsmarine’ in Boog et al., Angriff, 541ff.; Hartmann, Halder, 224ff., esp. 237.

  16. Klink, ‘Heer’, 550ff. and 557ff.

  17. See Halder, KTB 3, 28 June and 2 July 1941; Heinz Guderian, Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Stuttgart, 1996), 143f.; for the advance on Bobrujsk, which was reached on 28 June, see Klink, ‘Heer’, 543f. The crossing of the Dnieper by Guderian’s panzer group east of Bobrujsk did not take place until 10 and 11 July 1941 (Guderian, Erinnerungen 154).

  18. Halder, KTB, 3, 3 July 1941.

  19. Hitler emphasized right from the start that he did not want primarily to conquer the enemy’s capital city but to destroy their main forces. See KTB OKW 1, 1019f.

  20. Halder, KTB, 3, 30 June 1940, on Hitler’s comments.

  21. However, because of the changed situation resulting from further directives issued by Hitler in July the memorandum was not sent. See KTB OKW 1, 5, 1031ff.

  22. Halder KTB, 3, 3 July 1941; KTB OKW 1, 1020.

  23. Ibid., No. 67, 1020.

  24. Halder, KTB, 3, 8 July 1941. Hitler did not exclude the possibility that Panzer Group 3 might later be deployed to surround Moscow.

  25. On 12 July Halder told Brauchitsch, that he was ‘by no means committed to the two panzer groups continuing to charge eastwards’ and could imagine diverting them to the north and south. On 13 July, at a meeting with Hitler he argued that the two panzer groups should ‘decide not to charge ahead . . . towards Moscow’ and first of all surround and destroy the enemy forces in front of Army Group Centre. While Hitler agreed with this view in principle, he proposed that Panzer Group 3 provide support for Army Group North (ibid.). See also Klink, ‘Heer’, 547ff.

  26. Halder, KTB, 3.

  27. Hubatsch (ed.),Weisungen, No. 33. See also comments by Hitler during his visit to Army Group North on 21 July 1941, which were along the same lines, in KTB OKW 1, 1029f. See Klink, ‘Heer’, 576ff.

  28. He subordinated Panzer Group 3 temporarily to Army Group North; after the conclusion of the operations there it was ‘expected’ to return to AG Centre in order to advance towards the Volga. Panzer Group 2, which in the meantime had been attached to the 4th Panzer Army, was meant to advance towards the south-east and, after conquering the industrial area round Kharkov, over the Don towards the Caucasus. See Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, No. 33a.

  29. KTB OKW 1, 1030f. and 1034f.; Halder, KTB, 3, 23 July 1941, with sceptical comments about Hitler’s aims. For the contents of his presentation to Hitler on 23 July see ibid.

  30. Klink, ‘Heer’, 579, discusses the ‘working papers’ that Halder gave to the Army groups before the meeting. During a meeting with the Army Group chiefs on 25 July he tried to prepare them for dealing with ‘spanners in the works from on high’ (by which he meant Hitler’s interventions): ‘Have patience but also resist in time’. They should send suitable front line officers to report to HQ because he ‘believes the front more than he does us’ (Halder, KTB, 3).

  31. Ibid., 26 July 1941.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Bock, commander of AG B, prompted by Brauchitsch, declared that, if Panzer Group 2 were diverted towards Gomel, it would be too weak to mount the decisive attack on Moscow. See Bock, Pflicht, 231ff.; Halder, KTB, 3, 28 July 1941; Klink, ‘Heer’, 581. At the end of July Jodl too advocated an advance on Moscow, above all because that was where ‘the only forces that the enemy can concentrate are
likely to be found’; this action would after all correspond to ‘the principle which the Führer has always maintained of first of all destroying the enemy’s strength’. See KTB OKW 1, 1036f.

  34. Ibid., 1040f.

  35. Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, No. 34. Halder saw a ‘ray of hope’ in the directive (Halder, KTB, 3, 30 July 1941). For an assessment see Klink, ‘Heer’, 583.

  36. Field-Marshal Bock strongly supported this proposal because such an advance could prove ‘decisive’. See KTB OKW 1, 1041ff. ‘The Führer has been covertly persuaded, on the basis of his own tactical principles, to move towards our operational goals. For the moment that is a relief’ (Halder, KTB, 3, 5 August 1941). See also ibid., 6 and 7 August 1941; KTB OKW 1, 1043f.; Warlimont, Hauptquartier, 201.

  37. Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen. Halder’s comments, KTB, 3, 13 and 14 August 1941.

  38. Ibid., 14 August 1941. However, Halder could not get his way (ibid., 15 and 16 August 1941). On the whole issue see Klink, ‘Heer’, 586ff.

  39. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.

  40. KTB OKW 1, 1045.

  41. Ibid., 1055ff.; Halder, KTB, 3, 18 August 1941.

  42. KTB OKW 1, 1054f.

  43. Ibid., 1061ff.

  44. Ibid., 1063ff.

  45. Halder, KTB, 3, 22 August 1941.

  46. That was how Halder assessed it. See ibid., 30 August 1941.

  47. Ibid., 23 August 1941; Guderian, Erinnerungen, 179f.; Bock, Pflicht, 256f.

  48. Halder, KTB, 3, 24 August 1941; Guderian, Erinnerungen, 180ff.; Bock, Pflicht, 257.

  49. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.

  50. Halder, KTB, 3, 11 August 1941.

  51. Klink, ‘Heer’, 594.

  52. See above p. 738f.

  53. Halder, KTB, 3, 8 July 1941.

  54. Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, No. 32b.

  55. These included the Allied awareness of the provisioning of submarines at sea, the torpedoing of the cruiser ‘Lützow’ in June, and the stagnation of the U-boat war during the summer. See Salewski, Seekriegsleitung 1, 436ff. and 449ff. The naval high command’s attempt to re-launch the campaign in the North Atlantic with capital ships failed, in the first instance because of a shortage of oil.

  56. KTB OKW 1, 1041ff.

  57. ADAP D 13, No. 265; see Schreiber, Politik, 586f. Hitler’s approval is clear from Keitel’s covering letter of 1 September 1941.

  58. OKH reached this conclusion in October 1942: KTB OKW 1, 1072f.

  59. Lagevorträge, 9 July 1941.

  60. See above p. 727.

  61. ADAP, D 13, No. 89; see also Friedländer, Auftakt, 156ff. and 183ff.

  62. Hillgruber (ed.), Staatsmänner 1, 292ff., esp. 299 and 302.

  63. Picker, Tischgespräche, 10 September 1941: He would no longer be there to see it, but one day Great Britain and Germany would wage war on the USA; ADAP, D13, No. 424: ‘A later generation would have to get to grips with the problem of Europe-America’, Hitler told Ciano on 25 October 1941.

  64. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.

  65. Lagevorträge, 17 September 1941.

  66. Goebbels TB, 24 September, 4 October, and 22 November 1941,

  67. ADAP D 13, Nos 35f., 53, 63–65, 89, 105, 239, and Appendix IV.

  68. Japan decided in August not to take part in the war in the East (Hillgruber, ‘Japan’, 234).

  69. Goebbels TB, 9 July and 19 August 1941; Lagevorträge, 26 August 1941.

  70. ADAP D 13, No. 291.

  71. Halder, KTB 3, 10 September 1941; Goebbels TB, 24 September and 22 November 1941.

  72. Hitler, Monologe, 5 July 1941.

  73. Werner Koeppen, Herbst 1941 im ‘Führerhauptquartier’. Berichte Werner Koeppens an seinen Minister Alfred Rosenberg, ed. Martin Voigt (Coblenz, 2002), 24 September 1941.

  74. Hitler, Monologe, 17 September 1941.

  75. Koeppen, Herbst, 24 September 1941.

  76. Hitler, Monologe, 27 July 1941. In fact, the line that was supposed to mark the border with the east was intended to run 200 to 300 kilometres east of the Urals.

  77. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.

  78. Koeppen, Herbst, 10 September 1941; Hitler, Monologe, 25/26 September, 29 October 1941, and 6 August 1942.

  79. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.

  80. Ibid., 24 September 1941.

  81. Speech of 8 November 1941 in the Munich Löwenbräukeller (Domarus, 2, 1775).

  82. KTB Seekriegsleitung, 29 September 1941.

  83. Hitler, Monologe, 5/6 July 1941.

  84. Koeppen, Herbst, 24 September 1941. On the Urals as the frontier see Hitler, Monologe, 5/6 July and 25 September 1941; on the qualification that the actual line of demarcation would have to be a few hundred kilometres east of the mountains see ibid., 27 July 1941.

  85. Ibid., 25 September 1941.

  86. Goebbels TB, 9 July, 19 August, 24 September, and 4 October 1941.

  87. Koeppen, Herbst, 24 September 1941. The same line of thought appears in Hitler, Monologe, 23 September 1941.

  88. Ibid., 10 October 1941.

  89. Ibid., 17 September 1941.

  90. So Koeppen, Herbst, 18 October 1941; Hitler, Monologe, 17 October 1941.

  91. Ibid., 13 October 1941.

  92. Eugen Kreidler, Die Eisenbahnen im Machtbereich der Achsenmächte während des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Einsatz und Leistung für die Wehrmacht und Kriegswirtschaft (Göttingen, Frankfurt a. M., and Zurich , 1975), 204 and 281; Anton Joachimsthaler, Die Breitspurbahn Hitlers. Eine Dokumentation über die geplante transkontinentale 3-Meter Breitspureisenbahn der Jahre 1942 bis 1945 (Freiburg i. Br., 1981).

  93. Hitler, Monologe, 8/9–10/11 August 1941.

  94. Ibid., 17 October 1941, evening. On 4 October he spoke of 5 million peasant farms that would have to have been settled there in fifty years’ time. See Koeppen, Herbst, 5 October 1941.

  95. Ibid., 18 October 1941.

  96. Hitler, Monologe, 5/6 July 1941.

  97. Ibid., 27 July 1941; Goebbels TB, 30 November and 13 December 1941 (on Hitler’s speech to the Gauleiters on 12 December).

  98. Hitler, Monologe, 27 July 1941 (quote); Koeppen, Herbst, 5 October 1941. Hitler also referred to the future role of the defeated in his speech of 12 December. See Goebbels TB, 13 December 1941.

  99. Hitler, Monologe, 27 July 1941.

  100. Ibid., 8/9–10/11 August 1941 and 17 September 1941.

  101. Ibid., 17 October 1941, evening. See also Koeppen, Herbst, 18 October 1941, on this monologue.

  102. Hitler, Monologe, 1/2 August 1941.

  103. Ibid., 8/9–10/11 August 1941.

  104. Ibid., 19/20 August 1941.

  105. Ibid., 17 September 1941.

  106. Ibid., 22/23 September 1941.

  107. Ibid., 26/27 October 1941, similarly on 17 September 1941.

  108. IMT 38, 221-L, S. 86ff. There is another detailed account in the shape of the new edition of the Rosenberg diaries (Rosenberg, Tagebücher, 20 July 1941).

  109. In mid-July, on Himmler’s instructions, his chief settlement planner, Meyer, had produced a ‘General Plan for the East’, which, in contrast to previous plans, included not only the annexed Polish territories but also the whole of the General Government and the neighbouring territories to the east. See Madajczyk, Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan (Munich, 1994); Isabel Heinemann, ‘Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut’. Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas (Göttingen, 2003), 362f.

  110. If Z, 2718-PS, 2 May 1941. See, in particular, Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg, 1999), 46ff.; Alex J. Kay, ‘“Germany’s Staatssekretäre”, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History 41 (2006), 685–700.

  111. ‘Führer-Erlasse’, No. 99. At the beginning of April Rosenberg was already envisaged for this role as a result of Hitler’s assignment to him to establish an office for ‘eastern questions’. See Piper, Rosenberg, 509.


  112. Rosenberg had at first proposed Lohse for ‘Eastland’, while Göring had proposed Koch. After lengthy discussion Hitler decided – ‘Solomonically’ as Rosenberg put it – to appoint Lohse for Eastland and Koch for the Ukraine. See Rosenberg, Tagebücher, 20 July 1941.

  113. According to his own account, Rosenberg had argued on the 16th that, instead of ‘making 120 million people into enemies through indiscriminate, albeit necessary, harsh treatment’ it would be better to win over half of them as allies by ‘differentiating between them according to their relative value’; ‘thus we should confiscate more where the people were less valuable as allies and less where they would be more so’ (ibid., 20 July 1944, emphasis in the original). On Rosenberg’s ideas about occupation see Piper, Rosenberg, 509ff.

  114. ‘Führer-Erlasse’, No. 100.

  115. Himmler to Lammers, 10 June 1941 (BAB, R 6/21). See also If Z, 3726-NO, Rosenberg statement, 14 June 1941, and memorandum.

  116. See Stahlecker (commander of Einsatzgruppe A) to Heydrich, 10 August 1941 (StA Riga, 1026-1-3), in which he points out that ‘dealing with the Jewish question is part of the policing of the newly occupied eastern territories, so that, according to paragraphs I and II of the Führer edict concerning the policing of the occupied eastern territories of 18 July 1941, the Reichsführer SS is entitled to give directives to the Reich commissar’.

  117. See above pp. 730ff.

  118. Longerich, Holocaust, 255.

  119. See above, p. 753.

  120. ZStL, Doc. UdSSR, No. 401.

  121. Meldungen, 7, 2426f.; Goebbels TB, 23 June 1941.

  122. Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939–1945 (Munich, 1985), 1, 23–28 June 1941; Goebbels TB, in particular 27 June 1941.

  123. Meldungen, 7, 2440f.

  124. Goebbels TB, 29 June 1941.

  125. Wehrmachtberichte, 1, 29 June 1941.

  126. Meldungen, 7, 2458f.

  127. Goebbels TB, 5 July 1941.

  128. OA Moscow, 1363–3, Conference of Ministers, 5 July 1941.

  129. BAK, ZSg. 102/33, 5 July 1941, The daily instruction supplemented by the Vertrauliche Information of 5 July 1941; ZSg. 102/35, 7 July 1941. The VB (B) of 6 July 1941 was entirely focused on this propaganda campaign. See also Der Angriff, 6 July 1941, ‘Viehische Bluttaten der GPU-Kommissare’. Goebbels prescribed the tone of the campaign in an article in the VB of 7 July 1941 with the title ‘The veil is lifted’.