‘I will go down as the greatest German in history.’
‘In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence… His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power.’
‘I’ll brew them a devil’s potion.’
After Munich things started to move fast. None but the most hopelessly naïve, incurably optimistic, or irredeemably stupid could have imagined that the Sudetenland marked the limits of German ambitions to expand. Certainly, neither the British nor the French governments thought that to be the case. Chamberlain had been rapidly disabused of his initial naïve belief, following his first meeting with the German Dictator, that Hitler was a man of his word, and of any hopes that the Munich Agreement would bring lasting peace. He and the British government were resigned to Germany’s further expansion in south-eastern Europe, but thought that Hitler could be contained for at least two more years.1 Both France and Britain were now rearming furiously. Fears of an imminent strike against Britain most probably stirred up by Colonel Hans Oster — at the hub of Germany’s counter-intelligence service as Chief of Staff at the Abwehr, and a key driving-force in the plot against Hitler that had petered out with the signing of the Munich Agreement — proved groundless.2 But there was serious and growing concern in London at the prospect of a new ‘mad dog act’ by Hitler in the near future. Where and when he might strike were matters of guesswork.3
The diplomatic turmoil in central Europe certainly opened up further opportunities of revisionism — and not just from Germany. Almost before the ink was dry on the Munich Agreement, Hungary — egged on by Poland, looking to its own interests in a strong central European cordon of states between Germany and the Soviet Union — was eyeing up the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia known as Ruthenia (or the Carpatho-Ukraine), a mountainous tract so backward that some of its peasant population had never heard of Hitler.4 Hungary had disappointed Hitler through its hesitancy during the Sudeten crisis. And it suited Germany at this point to encourage the Ukrainian nationalists in the ethnically divided Ruthenian population.5 Hungarian hopes of gaining Ruthenia were, therefore, for the time being firmly vetoed.6 Hitler’s own aims for the total destruction of Czechoslovakia had, as we noted, only been temporarily interrupted, not halted, by the Munich settlement.7 With the dismembered state of Czechoslovakia now friendless and, with its border fortifications lost, exposed, and at Germany’s mercy, the completion of the plans made in 1938 for its liquidation was only a matter of time. As we have seen, that had been Hitler’s view even before he acceded to the Munich Agreement.
Beyond the rump of Czechoslovakia, German attention was immediately turned on Poland. There was no plan at this stage for invasion and conquest. The aim — soon proving illusory — was to bind Poland to Germany against Russia (thereby also blocking any possibility of an alliance with the French). At the same time, the intention was to reach agreement over Danzig and the Corridor (the land which Germany had been forced to cede to Poland in the Versailles Treaty of 1919, giving the Poles access to the sea but leaving East Prussia detached from the remainder of the Reich).8 Already by late October, Ribbentrop was proposing to settle all differences between Germany and Poland by an agreement for the return of Danzig together with railway and road passage through the Corridor — not in itself a novel idea — in return for a free port for Poland in the Danzig area and an extension of the non-aggression treaty to twenty-five years with a joint guarantee of frontiers.9
The proposal met with a predictably stony response from the Polish government.10 Most vehement of all was the refusal to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, which would have been tantamount to admitting to a position as Germany’s puppet.11 The obduracy of the Poles, especially over Danzig, rapidly brought the first signs of Hitler’s own impatience, and an early indication of preparations to take Danzig by force.12 Hitler was nevertheless at this point more interested in a negotiated settlement with the Poles. Misleadingly informed by Ribbentrop of Polish readiness in principle to move to a new settlement of the Danzig Question and the Corridor, he emphasized German-Polish friendship during his speech to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939.13 Some army leaders, a few days earlier, had been more belligerent. In contrast to their overriding fears of western intervention during the Sudeten crisis, a number of generals now argued that Britain and France would remain inactive — a direct reflection of the weakness of the western powers fully revealed at Munich — and that negotiations with the Poles should be abandoned in favour of military measures. A war against Poland, they claimed, would be popular among the troops and among the German people.14
Ribbentrop, aided by Göring, played — for strategic reasons — the moderate on this occasion. For him, the main enemy was not Poland, but Britain. He countered that, through a premature attack in 1939 on Poland and Russia, Germany would become isolated, would forfeit its armaments advantage, and would most likely be forced by western strength to give up any territorial gains made. Instead, Germany needed to act together with Italy and Japan, retaining Polish neutrality until France had been dealt with and Britain at least isolated and denied all power on the Continent, if not militarily defeated.15 War by Germany and Italy to defeat France and leave Britain isolated had been the basis of the military directives laid down by Keitel, in line with Hitler’s instructions, in November 1938.16 The priority which Hitler accorded in January 1939 to the navy’s Z-Plan, for building a big battle-fleet directed squarely at British naval power, indicates that he was looking at this stage to an eventual showdown with the western powers as the prime military objective. The construction at the same time of an ‘East Wall’ — limited defensive fortifications for the event of possible conflict with Poland over Danzig — is a further pointer in that direction.17 Russia, and the eradication of Bolshevism, could wait. But neither Hitler nor anyone in his entourage expected war with Britain and France to come about in the way that it would do that autumn. Hitler had told Goebbels in October 1938 that he foresaw ‘for the more distant future a very serious conflict’, to decide European hegemony. This would be ‘probably with England’.18 Göring — who had lost face with Hitler since helping to engineer the Munich Agreement that had thwarted his intention of taking Czechoslovakia by force, and by this time no longer initiated into his plans — had no expectation of any general war before about 1942.19 Keitel had seen his right-hand man in the High Command of the Wehrmacht, General Jodl, transferred to Vienna at the end of October 1938, a move he later stated he would have prevented had he had any notion that war might have been imminent.20
In the late autumn and winter of 1938–9, differing views about foreign-policy aims and methods existed within the German leadership. The army was more ready to turn to military action against Poland than it had been against Czechoslovakia. But the specific measures adopted, particularly the building of the eastern fortifications, were still defensive in nature. The ‘Ostwall’ comprised little more than basic fortifications — castigated by Hitler as grossly lacking in fire-power and death-traps for those manning them — along a bend in the river Oder some sixty miles east of Berlin.21 Long-term military preparations were directed towards eventual confrontation with the West, but it was well recognized that the armed forces were years away from being ready for any conflict with Britain and France.22 As in 1938, military leaders’ prime fear was confrontation being forced on Germany too soon through impetuous actions and an over-risky foreign policy. Göring and Ribbentrop were advocating diametrically opposed policies towards Britain. Göring’s hopes still rested on an expansive policy in south-eastern Europe, backed for the foreseeable future by an understanding with Britain.23 Ribbentrop, by now violently anti-British, was, as we have noted, pinning his hopes on smoothing the problems on Germany’s eastern front and tightening the alliance with Italy and Japan to prepare the ground for a move against Britain as soon as was feasible. But at this stage, Göring’s star was temporarily on the wane and Ribbentrop’s usually clumsy diplomacy was meeting in most instances with little success.24 Hitler’s thoughts, whether or not influenced by Ribbentrop’s reasoning, were broadly consonant with those of his Foreign Minister. The coming show-down with Bolshevism, prominent in the foreground in 1936, though certainly not displaced in Hitler’s own mind as the decisive struggle to be faced at some point in the future had by now moved again into the shadows. Hitler favoured at this point rapprochement with the Poles, to bring them into the German orbit, and preparations for confrontation with the West (which he continued to indicate would not be before 1943 or 1944).25 But he was, as usual, content to keep his options open and await developments.
The one certainty was that developments would occur, thus providing the opportunity for German expansion. For there was no agency of power or influence in the Third Reich advocating drawing a line under the territorial gains already made. All power-groups were looking to further expansion — with or without war.
Military, strategic, and power-political arguments for expansion were underpinned by economic considerations. By late 1938, the pressures of the forced rearmament programme were making themselves acutely felt. The policy of ‘rearm, whatever the cost’ was now plainly showing itself to be sustainable only in the short term. Bottlenecks were building up in crucial areas of the economy.26 Lack of coherent and comprehensive economic planning exacerbated them. Expansion into Austria, with its well developed industrial areas around Vienna, Steyr, north Styria, and the Sudetenland, a relatively well industrialized part of Czechoslovakia, had eased matters somewhat. The unemployed from these additions to the Reich were swiftly put to work. New sources of skilled labour became available. Existing industrial plant could be extended into armaments factories, as in the huge steel complex erected at Linz by the state-run Reichswerke Hermann Göring. Iron ore from Austria and high-quality lignite from the Sudetenland were valuable for synthetic fuel production. The Sudeten area also yielded stocks of tungsten and uranium ore, which Germany had not previously possessed.27 In economic terms, expansion in 1938 had given German industry a significant boost. But further expansion was necessary if the tensions built into the overheated armaments-driven economy were not to reach explosion point. The Four-Year Plan had been implicitly directed at offloading the costs of German rearmament on to the areas of Europe to be exploited after a successful war.28 By 1938–9, it was absolutely evident that further expansion could not be postponed indefinitely if the economic impasses were to be surmounted.
When Göring met the members of the Reich Defence Council (Reichsverteidigungsrat) at its first meeting on 18 November 1938, he told them: ‘Gentlemen, the financial situation looks very critical.’29 The following month, Goebbels noted in his diary: ‘The financial situation of the Reich is catastrophic. We must look for new ways. It cannot go on like this. Otherwise we will be faced with inflation.’30 Indeed, the massive rearmament programme, stimulating increased demand from full employment, but without commensurate expansion of consumer goods, was intrinsically inflationary.31 Price controls and the threat of draconian punishment had contained inflationary pressures so far. But they could not be kept in check indefinitely. In early January 1939, the Reichsbank Directorate sent Hitler a submission, supported by eight signatories, demanding financial restraint to avoid the ‘threatening danger of inflation’.32 Hitler’s reaction was: ‘That is mutiny!’ Twelve days later, Schacht was sacked as President of the Reichsbank.33
But the Cassandra voices were not exaggerating. Nor would the problem go away by sacking Schacht. The insatiable demand for raw materials at the same time that consumer demand in the wake of the armaments boom was rising had left public finances in a desolate state. By the time of Schacht’s dismissal, the national debt had tripled since Hitler’s takeover of power. The Ministry of Economics concluded that it would simply have to be written off after the war. Hitler was aware of the problem, even if he did not understand its technicalities. He ordered a reduction in the Wehrmacht’s expenditure in the first quarter of 1939 — an order which the army simply ignored.34 A way of addressing the problem through more conventional fiscal policies and a reversal to an export-led re-entry into the international economy could not, of course, be entertained. The decision to reject such a course had been taken in 1936. There was now no turning back.
Beyond the crisis in public finances, the labour shortage which had been growing rapidly since 1937 was by this time posing a real threat both to agriculture and to industry. The repeated plaintive reports of the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, Richard Walther Darré, left no doubt of the severity of the difficulties facing farming.35 There had been a 16 per cent drop in the number of agricultural workers between 1933 and 1938 as the ‘flight from the land’ to better-paid jobs in industry intensified.36 No amount of compulsion or propaganda could prevent the drain of labour. Nor was mechanization the answer: scarce foreign exchange was needed for tanks, guns, and planes, not tractors and combine-harvesters. Signs of falling production were noted. That meant further demands on highly squeezed imports.37 Women, many of them members of the farmer’s household, were already employed in great numbers in agricultural work. Girls’ labour service on the land and drafting the Hitler Youth in to help with the harvest could help only at the margins.38 The only remedy for the foreseeable future was the use of ‘foreign labourers’ that war and expansion would bring. It was little wonder that when the first ‘foreign workers’ were brought back after the Polish campaign and put mainly into farm work, they were initially regarded as ‘saviours in a time of need’ (‘Retter in der Not’).39
Industry was faring no better than agriculture, despite the influx of labour from the land. By 1938, reports were regularly pouring in from all sectors about mounting labour shortages, with serious implications for the productive capacity of even the most crucial armaments-related industries.40 A sullen, overworked, and — despite increased surveillance and tough, state-backed, managerial controls — often recalcitrant work-force was the outcome.41 One indication among many of the dangerous consequences for the regime of the labour shortage was the halt on coal exports and reduction in deliveries to the railways in January 1939 on account of a shortage of 30,000 miners in the Ruhr. By that time, the overall shortage of labour in Germany was an estimated 1 million workers. By the outbreak of war, this had risen still further.42
Economic pressures did not force Hitler into war. They did not even determine the timing of the war.43 They were, as we have noted, an inexorable consequence of the political decisions in earlier years: the first, as soon as Hitler had become Chancellor — naturally, with the enthusiastic backing of the armed forces — to make rearmament an absolute spending priority; the second, and even more crucial one, in 1936 to override the objections of those pressing for a return to a more balanced economy and revived involvement in international markets in favour of a striving for maximum autarky within an armaments-driven economy focused on war preparation. The mounting economic problems fed into the military and strategic pressures for expansion. But they did not bring about those pressures in the first place. And for Hitler, they merely confirmed his diagnosis that Germany’s position could never be strengthened without territorial conquest.
Hitler’s regrets over the Munich Agreement and feeling that a chance had been lost to occupy the whole of Czechoslovakia at one fell swoop had grown rather than diminished during the last months of 1938.44 His impatience to act had mounted accordingly. He was determined not to be hemmed in by the western powers. He was more than ever convinced that they would not have fought for Czechoslovakia, and that they would and could do nothing to prevent Germany extending its dominance in central and eastern Europe. On the other hand, as he had indicated to Goebbels in October, he was certain that Britain would not concede German hegemony in Europe without a fight at some time.45 The setback which Munich had been in his eyes confirmed his view that war against the West was coming, probably sooner than he had once envisaged, and that there was no time to lose if Germany were to retain its advantage.46
Already on 21 October 1938, only three weeks after the Munich settlement, Hitler had given the Wehrmacht a new directive to prepare for the ‘following eventualities’: I. securing the frontiers of the German Reich and protection against surprise air attacks; 2. liquidation of remainder of the Czech state; 3. the occupation of Memelland.’ The third point referred to the district of Memel, a seaport on the Baltic with a largely German population, which had been removed from Germany by the Versailles Treaty. On the key second point, the directive added: ‘It must be possible to smash at any time the remainder of the Czech State should it pursue an anti-German policy.’47 Recognizing the perilous plight they were in, the Czechs in fact bent over backwards to accommodate German interests. In extremis, rather than end their existence as a country, the Czechs were prepared to turn themselves into a German satellite.48 Why, then, was Hitler so insistent on smashing the remnants of the Czech state? Politically it was not necessary. Indeed, the German leadership cannot fail to have recognized that an invasion of Czechoslovakia, tearing up the Munich Agreement and breaking solemn promises given only such a short time earlier, would inevitably have the most serious international repercussions.
Part of the answer is doubtless to be found in Hitler’s own personality and psychology. His Austrian background and dislike of Czechs since his youth was almost certainly a significant element. Yet after occupation, the persecution of the Czechs was by no means as harsh as that later meted out to the conquered Poles. ‘They must always have something to lose,’ commented Goebbels.49 And, following his victorious entry into Prague, Hitler showed remarkably little interest in the Czechs.
More important, certainly, was the feeling that he had been ‘cheated’ out of his triumph, his ‘unalterable wish’ altered by western politicians. ‘That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague,’ he was overheard saying on his return to Berlin after the agreement at Munich the previous autumn.50
His ‘sheer bloody mindedness’ — his determination not to be denied Prague — probably also has to be regarded as part of the explanation.51 And yet, the Goebbels diary entries, which we have noted, indicate plainly that Hitler had decided before Munich that he would concede to the western powers at that point, but gobble up the rest of Czechoslovakia in due course, and that the acquisition of the Sudetenland would make that second stage easier.52 That was Hitler’s rationalization at the time of the position he had been manoeuvred into. But it does indicate the acceptance by that date of a two-stage plan to acquire the whole of Czechoslovakia, and does not highlight vengeance as a motive.
There were other reasons for occupying the rump of Czechoslovakia that went beyond Hitler’s personal motivation. Economic considerations were of obvious importance. However pliant the Czechs were prepared to be, the fact remained that even after the transfer of October 1938, which brought major raw material deposits to the Reich, immense resources remained in Czecho-Slovakia (as the country, the meaningful hyphen inserted, was now officially called) and outside direct German control. The vast bulk of the industrial wealth and resources of the country lay in the old Czech heartlands of Bohemia and Moravia, not in the largely agricultural Slovakia. An estimated four-fifths of engineering, machine-tool construction, and electrical industries remained in the hands of the Czechs.53 Textiles, chemicals, and the glass industry were other significant industries that beckoned the Germans. Not least, the Skoda works produced locomotives and machinery as well as arms. Czecho-Slovakia also possessed large quantities of gold and foreign currency that could certainly help relieve some of the shortages of the Four-Year Plan.54 And a vast amount of equipment could be taken over and redeployed to the advantage of the German army. The Czech arsenal was easily the greatest among the smaller countries of central Europe.55 The Czech machine-guns, field-guns, and anti-aircraft guns were thought to be better than the German equivalents. They were all taken over by the Reich, as well as the heavy guns built at the Skoda factories.56 It was subsequently estimated that enough arms had fallen into Hitler’s possession to equip a further twenty divisions.57 Significantly, Hitler had refused the previous autumn to allow the Poles to occupy the area of Moravská-Ostrava, of importance for its minerals and industries. It was the first area to be taken over by the Germans in March 1939.58
But of even greater importance than direct economic gain and exploitation was the military-strategic position of what remained of Czecho-Slovakia. As long as the Czechs retained some autonomy, and possession of extensive military equipment and industrial resources, potential difficulties from that quarter could not be ruled out in the event of German involvement in hostilities. More important still: possession of the rectangular, mountain-rimmed territories of Bohemia and Moravia on the south-eastern edge of the Reich offered a recognizable platform for further eastward expansion and military domination. The road to the Balkans was now open. Germany’s position against Poland was strengthened. And in the event of conflict in the west, the defences in the east were consolidated.59
By the winter of 1938–9, the Polish Question, its significance growing all the time, was of direct relevance to considerations of how to handle Czecho-Slovakia. According to Below, Hitler regretted not occupying the whole of Czecho-Slovakia the previous autumn because the starting-point for negotiations with the Poles over Danzig and the extra-territorial transit-routes through the Corridor would then have been far more advantageous.60 As we have seen, German hopes of a peaceful revisionism to acquire Danzig and access through the Corridor while bringing Poland into the German orbit were already running into the sand. The future of the rump state of Czecho-Slovakia featured in the diplomatic manoeuvrings. The Poles had seen the possibility blocked of detaching Ruthenia from the Czech heartlands through cession to Hungary (which from the Polish point of view would have undermined the Ukrainian nationalist movement within Ruthenia, with its obvious dangers for inciting trouble among the sizeable Ukrainian minority within Poland). They had consequently turned their attention to Slovakia. Slovakian autonomy from Prague would, so the Poles reasoned, isolate Ruthenia from Bohemia and thereby attain the same effect as would have been achieved by the Hungarian takeover.61
Göring, keen to defend what he could of his waning influence in foreign policy by making the most of his extensive contacts in eastern Europe, was able to persuade Hitler of the advantages of a separate Slovakian state. Goring himself wanted to use Slovakia for German air bases for operations in eastern Europe, especially targeting the Balkans. But the Slovakian solution to Poland’s worries about Ukrainian nationalism in Ruthenia could in his view be used as a bargaining-counter to persuade Poland to accept some territorial adjustments in return for former German areas coming back to the Reich.62 And if the Poles remained intransigent, a Slovakia under German tutelage pursuing an anti-Polish policy could help concentrate their minds.63
As late as December 1938, there was no indication that Hitler was preparing an imminent strike against the Czechs. There were hints, however, that the next moves in foreign policy would not be long delayed. Hitler told the German leader in Memel, Ernst Neumann, on 17 December that annexation of Memelland would take place in the following March or April, and that he wanted no crisis in the area before then.64 Occupation of the Memel, as we noted, had been mentioned in the same military directive in October as the preparations for a strike against Czecho-Slovakia. In mid-January, Hitler indicated to the Hungarian Foreign Minister Count István Csáky that no military action was possible between the previous October and March.65 On 13 February, Hitler let it be known to a few associates that he intended to take action against the Czechs in mid-March. German propaganda was adjusted accordingly.66 The French had already gleaned intelligence in early February that German action against Prague would take place in about six weeks.67
Hitler’s meeting at the Berghof with the Polish Foreign Minister and strong man in the government, Joseph Beck, on 5 January had proved, from the German point of view, disappointing. Hitler had tried to appear accommodating in laying down the need for Danzig to return to Germany, and for access routes across the Corridor to East Prussia. Beck implied that public opinion in Poland would prevent any concessions on Danzig.68 When Ribbentrop returned empty-handed from his visit to Warsaw on 26 January, indicating that the Poles were not to be moved, Hitler’s approach to Poland changed markedly.69
From friendly overtures, the policy moved to pressure. Poland was to be excluded from any share in the spoils from the destruction of the Czech state (though Hungary, having been denied substantial benefits the previous autumn, would in due course be granted Ruthenia). And turning Slovakia into a German puppet-state intensified the threat to Poland’s southern border. Once the demolition of Czecho-Slovakia had taken place, therefore, the Germans hoped and expected the Poles to prove more cooperative.70 The failure of negotiations with the Poles had probably accelerated the decision to destroy the Czech state.71
In January and February 1939, Hitler gave three addresses — not intended for general public consumption — to groups of officers. Partly, he hoped to repair the poor relations with the army that had prevailed since the Blomberg–Fritsch affair. Partly, he wanted to emphasize the type of mentality he expected in face of the conflicts ahead.
On 18 January, before 3,600 recently promoted younger officers assembled in the Mosaic Hall of Speer’s New Reich Chancellery, opened only a few days earlier, in a paean to the virtues of belief, optimism, and heroism in soldiers, Hitler demanded ‘the unconditional belief that our Germany, our German Reich, will one day be the dominant power in Europe’. The size and racial stock of the German population, and the overcoming of the ‘decomposition’ of people and state that had prevailed after 1918, provided the basis for this. Now there was a new spirit in Germany, ‘the spirit of the world-view which dominates Germany today… a deeply soldierly spirit’. The new Wehrmacht had arisen as the guarantor of the military strength of the state. It was his ‘unshakable will’, he declared, ‘that the German Wehrmacht should become the strongest armed force of the entire world’, and it was the task of the young officers to help in constructing it.72 The responsiveness of his audience — frequently breaking into applause, in contrast to the usual military tradition of listening to his speeches in silence, which he did not like — pleased him. Afterwards, he spent some time sitting and talking with groups of officers. He felt the meeting had gone well. He did not even show displeasure at reports that drunken officers, unable to find the toilets in the brand new building, had vomited in the corners of his new splendrous Mosaic Hall.73
A week later, on 25 January, he spoke to 217 officers, including top generals and admirals, underlining his vision of a glorious future, now within reach, built on a return to the heroic values of the past. These had embraced ‘brutality, meaning the sword, if all other methods fail’. They also meant the elimination of ‘the principles of democratic, parliamentary, pacifistic, defeatist mentality’ which had characterized the catastrophe of 1918 and the Republic which had followed Germany’s defeat. The British Empire was put forward as a model; but as an example, too, of how empires were destroyed by pacifism. Hitler concluded by holding out an enticing prospect to the young officers listening: when the work of constructing the new society was consolidated in 100 years or so, producing a new ruling élite, ‘then the people that in my conviction is the first to take this path will stake its claim to the domination of Europe’.74
In a third address, in the Kroll Opera House on 10 February to a large gathering of senior commanders, Hitler forcefully restated his belief that Germany’s future could only be secured by the acquisition of ‘living space’. He expressed disappointment at the attitude of some officers during the crises of 1938, and sought to convince his audience that all his steps in foreign policy (though not their precise timing) had followed a carefully preconceived plan. The events of 1938 had formed part of a chain, reaching back to 1933, and forwards as a step on a long path. ‘Understand, gentlemen,’ he declared, towards the end of his lengthy speech, ‘that the recent great successes have only come about because I perceived the opportunities… I have taken it upon myself… to solve the German problem of space. Note that as long as I live this thought will dominate my entire being. Be convinced, too, that, when I think it possible to advance a step at some moment, I will take action at once and never draw back from the most extreme measures (vor dem Äußersten)… So don’t be surprised if in coming years, too, the attempt will be made to attain some German goal or other at every opportunity, and place yourselves then, I urge you, in most fervent trust behind me.’75
Around this time, according to Goebbels, Hitler spoke practically of nothing else but foreign policy. ‘He’s always pondering new plans,’ Goebbels noted. ‘A Napoleonic nature!’76 The Propaganda Minister had already guessed what was in store when Hitler told him at the end of January he was going ‘to the mountain’ — to the Obersalzberg — to think about his next steps in foreign policy. ‘Perhaps Czechia (die Tschechei) is up for it again. The problem is after all only half solved,’ he wrote.77
By the beginning of March, in the light of mounting Slovakian nationalist clamour (abetted by Germany) for full independence from Prague, the break-up of what was left of the state of Czecho-Slovakia looked to close observers of the scene to be a matter of time. German propaganda against Prague was now becoming shrill. Relations between the Czech and Slovak governments were tense. But for all their pressure the Germans were unable to prise out of the Slovakian leaders the immediate proclamation of full independence and request for German aid that was urgently wanted.78
When the Prague government deposed the Slovakian cabinet, sent police in to occupy government offices in Bratislava, and placed the former Prime Minister, Father Jozef Tiso, under house arrest, Hitler spotted his moment. On 10 March, he told Goebbels, Ribbentrop, and Keitel that he had decided to march in, smash the rump Czech state, and occupy Prague. The invasion was to take place five days later; it would be the Ides of March. ‘Our borders must stretch to the Carpathians,’ noted Goebbels. ‘The Führer shouts for joy. This game is dead certain.’79
Göring, on holiday on the Riviera enjoying the luxury comforts of San Remo, was sent a message telling him not to leave before German troops entered Czecho-Slovakia in order not to stir suspicions abroad.80 On 12 March orders were given to the army and Luftwaffe to be ready to enter Czecho-Slovakia at 6a.m. on the 15th, but before then not to approach within ten kilometres of the border.81 German mobilization was by that stage so obvious that it seemed impossible that the Czechs were unaware of what was happening.82 The propaganda campaign against the Czechs had meanwhile been sharply stepped up.83 Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Hitler discussed foreign-policy issues until deep into the night. Ribbentrop argued that conflict with England in due course was inevitable. Hitler, according to Goebbels, was preparing for it, but did not regard it as unavoidable. Goebbels criticized Ribbentrop’s inflexibility. ‘But the Führer corrects him, for sure.’84
That evening, 12 March, Tiso had been visited by German officials and invited to Berlin. The next day he met Hitler. He was told the historic hour of the Slovaks had arrived. If they did nothing, they would be swallowed up by Hungary.85 Tiso got the message. By the following noon, 14 March, back in Bratislava, he had the Slovak Assembly proclaim independence. The desired request for ‘protection’ was, however, only forthcoming a day later, after German warships on the Danube had trained their sights on the Slovakian government offices.86
Goebbels listened again to Hitler unfolding his plans. The entire ‘action’ would be over within eight days. The Germans would already be in Prague within a day, their planes within two hours. No bloodshed was expected. ‘Then the Führer wants to fit in (einlegen) a lengthy period of political calm,’ wrote Goebbels, adding that he did not believe it, however enticing the prospect. A period of calm, he thought, was necessary. ‘Gradually, the nerves aren’t coping.’87
On the morning of 14 March, the anticipated request came from Prague, seeking an audience of the Czech State President Dr Emil Hácha with Hitler. Hacha, a small, shy, somewhat unworldly, and also rather sickly man, in office since the previous November, was unable to fly because of a heart complaint.88 He arrived in Berlin during the course of the evening, after a five-hour train journey, accompanied only by Foreign Minister Chvalkov-sky, his secretary, and his daughter. Hitler kept him nervously waiting in the Adlon Hotel until midnight to increase the pressure upon him — ‘the old tested methods of political tactics’, as Goebbels put it.89 While Hácha fretted, Hitler amused himself watching a film called Ein hoffnungsloser Fall (A Hopeless Case).90
The fiction of normal courtesies to a visiting head of state was retained. When he arrived at the New Reich Chancellery at midnight, Hácha was first put through the grotesque ceremonial of inspecting the guard of honour. It was around 1a.m. when, his face red from nervousness and anxiety, the Czech President was eventually ushered into the intimidating surrounds of Hitler’s grandiose ‘study’ in the New Reich Chancellery.91 A sizeable gathering, including Ribbentrop, the head of his personal staff Walther Hewel, Keitel, Weizsäcker, State Secretary Otto Meissner, Press Chief Otto Dietrich, and interpreter Paul Schmidt, were present. Göring, summoned back from holiday, was also there. Hácha’s only support was the presence of Chvalkovsky and Dr Voytech Mastny, the Czech Ambassador in Berlin.92
Hitler was at his most intimidating. He launched into a violent tirade against the Czechs and the ‘spirit of Benes’ that, he claimed, still lived on. It was necessary in order to safeguard the Reich, he continued, to impose a protectorate over the remainder of Czecho-Slovakia. Hácha and Chvalkovsky sat stony-faced and motionless. The entry of German troops was ‘irreversible’, ranted Hitler. Keitel would confirm that they were already marching towards the Czech border, and would cross it at 6a.m.93 His Czech ‘guests’ knew that some had in fact already crossed the border in one place.94 Hácha should phone Prague at once and give orders that there was to be no resistance, if bloodshed were to be avoided. Hácha said he wanted no bloodshed, and asked Hitler to halt the military build-up. Hitler refused: it was impossible; the troops were already mobilized.95 Göring intervened to add that his Luftwaffe would be over Prague by dawn, and it was in Hácha’s hands whether bombs fell on the beautiful city. In fact, the 7th Airborne Division detailed for the operation was grounded by snow.96 But at the threat, the Czech President fainted. If anything happened to Hácha, thought Paul Schmidt, the entire world would think he had been murdered in the Reich Chancellery.97 But Hácha recovered, revived by an injection from Hitler’s personal physician, Dr Morell.
Meanwhile, Prague could not be reached by telephone. Ribbentrop was beside himself with fury at the failings of the German Post Office (though it was established that any difficulty was at the Prague end). Eventually, contact with Prague was made. The browbeaten President went immediately to the telephone and, on a crackly line, passed on his orders that Czech troops were not to open fire on the invading Germans. Just before 4a.m., Hácha signed the declaration, placing the fate of his people in the hands of the Leader of the German Reich.98
Overjoyed, Hitler went in to see his two secretaries, Christa Schroeder and Gerda Daranowski, who had been on duty that night. ‘So, children,’ he burst out, pointing to his cheeks, ‘each of you give me a kiss there and there… This is the happiest day of my life. What has been striven for in vain for centuries, I have been fortunate enough to bring about. I have achieved the union of Czechia with the Reich. Hacha has signed the agreement. I will go down as the greatest German in history.’99
Two hours after Hacha had signed, the German army crossed the Czech borders and marched, on schedule, on Prague. By 9a.m. the forward units entered the Czech capital, making slow progress on ice-bound roads, through mist and snow, the wintry weather providing an appropriate back-cloth to the end of central Europe’s last, betrayed, democracy. The Czech troops, as ordered, remained in their barracks and handed over their weapons.100
Hitler left Berlin at midday, travelling in his special train as far as Leipa, some sixty miles north of Prague, where he arrived during the afternoon. A fleet of Mercedes was waiting to take him and his entourage the remainder of the journey to Prague. It was snowing heavily, but he stood for much of the way, his arm outstretched to salute the unending columns of German soldiers they overtook. Unlike his triumphal entries into Austria and the Sudetenland, only a thin smattering of the population watched sullenly and helplessly from the side of the road. A few dared to greet with clenched fists as Hitler’s car passed by. But the streets were almost deserted by the time he arrived in Prague in the early evening and drove up to the Hradschin Castle, the ancient residence of the Kings of Bohemia.101 Little was ready for his arrival. The great iron gates to the castle were locked. No food was on hand for the new occupiers as Hitler sat down with Reich Minister of the Interior Frick and his Secretary of State Stuckart to finalize the decree initiating the German Protectorate. The military escort were sent out in the early hours to find bread, ham, and Pilsner. Hitler, too, was given a glass of beer. He tasted it, pulled a face, and put it down. It was too bitter for him.102 He dictated the preamble to the decree. It stated that ‘the Bohemian and Moravian lands had belonged to the living space of the German people for 1,000 years’.103 The terminology, sounding alien to Prussian ears, hinted at his Austrian origins; the name of the Protectorate was derived from the designations of the old Habsburg imperial crown lands. He spent the night in the Hradschin. When the people of Prague awoke next morning, they saw Hitler’s standard fluttering on the castle. Twenty-four hours later he was gone.104 He showed little further interest in Prague, or the Protectorate. For the Czechs, six long years of subjugation had begun.
Hitler returned to Berlin, via Vienna, on 19 March, to the inevitable, and by now customary, triumphator’s reception. Despite the freezing temperatures, huge numbers turned out to welcome the hero. When Hitler descended from his train at the Görlitzer Bahnhof, Göring, tears in his eyes, greeted him with an address embarrassing even by the prevailing standards of sycophancy. Thousands cheered wildly as Hitler was driven to the Reich Chancellery. The experienced hand of Dr Goebbels had organized another massive spectacular. Searchlights formed a ‘tunnel of light’ along Unter den Linden. A brilliant display of fireworks followed. Hitler then appeared on the balcony of the Reich Chancellery, waving to the ecstatic crowd of his adoring subjects below.105
The real response among the German people to the rape of Czechoslovakia was, however, more mixed — in any event less euphoric — than that of the cheering multitudes, many of them galvanized by Party activists, in Berlin. This time there had been no ‘home-coming’ of ethnic Germans into the Reich. The vague notion that Bohemia and Moravia had belonged to the ‘German living-space’ for a thousand years left most people cold — certainly most north Germans who had traditionally had little or no connection with the Czech lands.106 For many, as one report from a Nazi District Leader put it, whatever the joy in the Führer’s ‘great deeds’ and the trust placed in him, ‘the needs and cares of daily life are so great that the mood is very quickly gloomy again’.107 There was a good deal of indifference, scepticism, and criticism, together with worries that war was a big step closer. ‘Was that necessary?’ many people asked. They remembered Hitler’s precise words following the Munich Agreement, that the Sudetenland had been his ‘last territorial demand’.108 In the industrial belt of Rhineland-Westphalia, according to a report from the Social Democrat underground movement, there was a good deal of condemnation of the invasion while sympathy for the Czechs was openly expressed in coal-pits, workers’ washrooms, and on the streets. The Nazi regime was criticized; but there was also contempt for the way France and Britain had let Hitler do what he wanted.109 Similar sentiments were commonplace among those who detested the Nazis. ‘No shot fired. Nowhere a protest,’ noted one woman in her diary — adding to her comment the forecast of a friend: ‘I bet they now get Danzig and Poland still without war… and if they’re lucky, even the Ukraine.’110 ‘Can’t he get enough?’ murmured the mother of a fourteen-year-old girl in Paderborn. The young girl herself, who had been appalled the previous summer at the ‘outrages’ allegedly perpetrated against the German minority in the Sudetenland, now found herself sympathizing with the Czechs, and at the same time asking what Germany was doing in annexing the territory of ‘an entirely alien people’ who could under no circumstances be ‘germanized’. She consoled herself with the thought that no blood had been shed, that it could even be an advantage for a small country to be under the protection of a great power, and that the German people would be ‘much more generous, tolerant, and fair’ protectors than ‘some Slavic people’.111 It was a reflection of the widespread latent hostility towards Slavs, the impact of propaganda, and of the confused sentiments that continued to accompany Hitler’s expansionism. Even opponents of Hitler recognized that moral scruples carried little weight in the face of another major prestige success. ‘Internal opponents, too, are now declaring that he’s a great man,’ ran a report sent to the exiled Social Democrat leadership in Paris. It indicated the difficulty in challenging those lauding his ‘achievements’. Counterarguments, it was said, were pointless — not least ‘the argument that Czechoslovakia has been invaded and Hitler has done something wrong’.112
Hitler had been contemptuous of the western powers before the taking of Prague. He correctly judged that once more they would protest, but do nothing. However, everything points to the conclusion that he miscalculated the response of Britain and France after the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia. The initial reaction in London was one of shock and dismay at the cynical demolition of the Munich Agreement, despite the warnings the British government had received. Appeasement policy lay shattered in the ruins of the Czecho-Slovakian state. Hitler had broken his promise that he had no further territorial demands to make. And the conquest of Czecho-Slovakia had destroyed the fiction that Hitler’s policies were aimed at the uniting of German peoples in a single state. Hitler, it was now abundantly clear — a recognition at last and very late in the day — could not be trusted. He would stop at nothing. Chamberlain’s speech in Birmingham on 17 March hinted at a new policy. ‘Is this the last attack upon a small State, or is it to be followed by others?’ he asked. ‘Is this, in fact, a step in the direction of an attempt to dominate the world by force?’113 British public opinion was in no doubt. Hitler had united a country deeply divided over Munich. On all sides people were saying that war with Germany was both inevitable and necessary. Recruitment for the armed forces increased almost overnight.114 It was now clear both to the man in the street and to the government: Hitler had to be tackled.
The following day, 18 March, amid rumours circulating that Germany was threatening Romania, the British cabinet endorsed the Prime Minister’s recommendation of a fundamental change in policy. No reliance could any longer be placed on the assurances of the Nazi leaders, Chamberlain stated. The old policy of trying to come to terms with the dictatorships on the assumption that they had limited aims was no longer possible. Chamberlain regarded his Birmingham speech, he told the cabinet, ‘as a challenge to Germany on the issue whether or not Germany intended to dominate Europe by force. It followed that if Germany took another step in the direction of dominating Europe, she would be accepting the challenge.’ Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, underlined the view that ‘the real issue was Germany’s attempt to obtain world domination, which it was in the interest of all countries to resist’. Britain alone, he argued, could organize such resistance — though he admitted that it was hard to see how Britain could effectively attack Germany — if the Germans invaded Romania or whether they turned on Holland. ‘The attitude of the German government was either bluff, in which case it would be stopped by a public declaration on our part; or it was not bluff, in which case it was necessary that we should all unite to meet it, and the sooner we united the better. Otherwise we might see one country after another absorbed by Germany.’ The policy had shifted from trying to appease Hitler to attempting to deter him. In any new aggression, Germany would be faced at the outset with the choice of pulling back or going to war. As the Foreign Secretary’s comments made clear, the geographical thrust of any new move by Hitler was immaterial to this new strategy. But the Prime Minister had little doubt as to where trouble might next flare up. ‘He thought that Poland was very likely the key to the situation… The time had now come for those who were threatened by German aggression (whether immediately or ultimately) to get together. We should enquire how far Poland was prepared to go alone these lines.’115 The British Guarantee to Poland and the genesis of the summer crisis which, this time, would end in war were foreshadowed in Chamberlain’s remarks.
Similar reactions were registered in Paris. Daladier let Chamberlain know that the French would speed up rearmament and resist any further aggression. The Americans were told that Daladier was determined to go to war should the Germans act against Danzig or Poland. Even strong advocates of appeasement were now saying enough was enough: there would not be another Munich.116
Before the Polish crisis unfolded, Hitler had one other triumph to register-though compared with what had gone before, it was a minor one. As we noted, Hitler had referred in his directive of 21 October 1938 to preparation for ‘the occupation of Memelland’.117 The incorporation of Memelland in the German Reich was now to prove the last annexation without bloodshed. After its removal from Germany in 1919, the Memel district, with a mainly German population but a sizeable Lithuanian minority, had been placed under French administration. The Lithuanians had marched in, forcing the withdrawal of the French occupying force there in January 1923. The following year, under international agreement, the Memel had gained a level of independence, but remained in effect a German enclave under Lithuanian tutelage. Trouble had flared briefly in 1935 when the Lithuanians put 128 Memelland National Socialists on trial, sentencing four of them to death. But other than launch a fierce verbal onslaught on the Lithuanians, Hitler had at the time done nothing. The matter died down as quickly as it had arisen. The Memel question was not raised again for another four years. But in March 1938, the German army had prepared plans to occupy the Memel in the event of war between Poland and Lithuania. Then in October Hitler had included the recovery of the Memel in the directive for taking over Czecho-Slovakia. By the end of the year, interested in agreement with Poland, Hitler had insisted that there should be no agitation from the restless Nazis in the Memel. Early in 1939, anxious to avoid any action which might provoke German intervention, the Lithuanians had yielded to all the wishes of the now largely nazified Memel population.118
Politically, the return of the territory to Germany was of no great significance. Even symbolically, it was of relatively little importance. Few ordinary Germans took more than a passing interest in the incorporation of such a remote fleck of territory into the Reich. But the acquisition of a port on the Baltic, with the possibility that Lithuania, too, might be turned into a German satellite, had strategic relevance. Alongside the subordination to German influence of Slovakia on the southern borders of Poland, it gave a further edge to German pressure on the Poles.119
On 20 March, Ribbentrop subjected the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Joseph Urbsys, to the usual bullying tactics. Kowno would be bombed, he threatened, if Germany’s demand for the immediate return of the Memel were not met.120 Urbsys returned the next day, 21 March, to Kowno. The Lithuanians were in no mood for a fight. They sent in a draft communiqué. It did not suffice and had to be redrafted in Berlin. By then the Lithuanian ministers had gone to bed and had to be awakened by the German ambassador, who had been told, figuratively, to put a pistol to their chest. ‘Either-or,’ remarked Goebbels.121 At 3a.m. everything was finally accepted. The revised communiqué arrived about three hours later. A Lithuanian delegation was sent to Berlin to arrange the details. ‘If you apply a bit of pressure, things happen,’ noted Goebbels, with satisfaction.122
Hitler left Berlin that afternoon, 22 March, for Swinemünde, where, along with Raeder, he boarded the pocket-battleship Deutschland. Late that evening, Ribbentrop and Urbsys agreed terms for the formal transfer of the Memel district to Germany. Hitler’s decree was signed the next morning, 23 March. German troops crossed the bridge near Tilsit and entered the Memel. Squadrons of the Luftwaffe landed at the same time. At 1.30p.m., Hitler was put on shore in the new German territory. He gave a remarkably short speech on the balcony of the theatre. In under three hours he was gone. He was back in Berlin by noon next day. This time, he dispensed with the hero’s return.123 Triumphal entries to Berlin could not be allowed to become so frequent that they were routine. Goebbels was aware of ‘the danger that the petty-bourgeois (Spießer) think it will go on like this forever. A lot of quite fantastic ideas about the next plans of German foreign policy are being put about.’124
According to Goebbels, Hitler repeated what he had said a few days earlier. He now wanted a period of calm in order to win new trust. ‘Then the colonial question will be brought up (aufs Tapet).’ ‘Always one thing after another,’ added the Propaganda Minister.125 He did not anticipate things becoming quiet. Hitler, however, was evidently not looking to war with the western powers within a matter of months.
His own pressure on Poland forced the issue. Wasting no time, Ribbentrop had pushed Ambassador Lipski on 21 March to arrange a visit to Berlin by Beck. He indicated that Hitler was losing patience, and that the German press was straining at the leash to be turned loose on the Poles — a threat that German feeling could be as easily inflamed against Poland as it had been against Czecho-Slovakia. He repeated the requests about Danzig and the Corridor. In return, Poland might be tempted by the exploitation of Slovakia and the Ukraine.126
But the Poles were not prepared to act according to the script. Beck, noting Chamberlain’s Birmingham speech, secretly put out feelers to London for a bilateral agreement with Britain.127 Meanwhile, the Poles mobilized their troops.128 On 25 March, Hitler still indicated that he did not want to solve the Danzig Question by force to avoid driving the Poles into the arms of the British.129 He had remarked to Goebbels the previous evening that he hoped the Poles would respond to pressure, ‘but we must bite into the sour apple and guarantee Poland’s borders’.130
However, just after noon on 26 March, instead of the desired visit by Beck, Lipski simply presented Ribbentrop with a memorandum representing the Polish Foreign Minister’s views. It flatly rejected the German proposals, reminding Ribbentrop for good measure of Hitler’s verbal assurance in his speech on 20 February 1938 that Poland’s rights and interests would be respected. Ribbentrop lost his temper. Going beyond his mandate from Hitler, he told Lipski that any Polish action against Danzig (of which there was no indication) would be treated as aggression against the Reich. The bullying attempt was lost on Lipski. He replied that any furtherance of German plans directed at the return of Danzig to the Reich meant war with Poland.131 Hitler’s response can be imagined.132 Goebbels recorded in his diary: ‘Poland still makes great difficulties. The Polacks are and remain naturally our enemies, even if from self-interest they have done us some service in the past.’133 Beck confirmed the unbending attitude of the Poles to the German ambassador in Warsaw on the evening of 28 March: if Germany tried to use force to alter the status of Danzig, there would be war.134
By 27 March, meanwhile, Chamberlain, warned that a German strike against Poland might be imminent, was telling the British cabinet he was prepared to offer a unilateral commitment to Poland, aimed at stiffening Polish resolve and deterring Hitler.135 The policy that had been developing since the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia found its expression in Chamberlain’s statement to the House of Commons on 31 March 1939: ‘In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power.’136
This was followed, at the end of Beck’s visit to London on 4–6 April, by Chamberlain’s announcement to the House of Commons that Britain and Poland had agreed to sign a mutual assistance pact in the event of an attack ‘by a European power’.137
On hearing the British Guarantee of 31 March, Hitler fell into a rage. He thumped his fist on the marble-topped table of his study in the Reich Chancellery. ‘I’ll brew them a devil’s potion,’ he fumed.138
Exactly what he had wanted to avoid had happened. He had expected the pressure on the Poles to work as easily as it had done in the case of the Czechs and the Slovaks. He had presumed the Poles would in due course see sense and yield Danzig and concede the extra-territorial routes through the Corridor. He had taken it for granted that Poland would then become a German satellite — an ally in any later attack on the Soviet Union. He had been determined to keep Poland out of Britain’s clutches. All of this was now upturned. Danzig would have to be taken by force. He had been thwarted by the British and spurned by the Poles. He would teach them a lesson.139
Or so he thought. In reality, Hitler’s over-confidence, impatience, and misreading of the impact of German aggression against Czecho-Slovakia had produced a fateful miscalculation.
The next day, 1 April, speaking in Wilhelmshaven after attending the launch of the Tirpitz (the second new modern battleship, following the Bismarck, intended to spearhead Germany’s challenge to the supremacy of the Royal Navy during the next few years),140 Hitler used the opportunity to castigate what he claimed was Britain’s ‘encirclement policy’, and to voice scarcely veiled threats at both Poland and Britain. He summarized his brutal philosophy in a single, short sentence: ‘He who does not possess power loses the right to life.’141
At the end of March Hitler had indicated to Brauchitsch, head of the army, that he would use force against Poland if diplomacy failed. Immediately, the branches of the armed forces began preparing drafts of their own operational plans. These were presented to Hitler in the huge ‘Führer type’ that he could read without glasses. He added a preamble on political aims. By 3 April the directive for ‘Case White’ (Fall Weiß) was ready.142 It was issued eight days later.143 Its first section, written by Hitler himself, began: ‘German relations with Poland continue to be based on the principles of avoiding any disturbances. Should Poland, however, change her policy towards Germany, which so far has been based on the same principles as our own, and adopt a threatening attitude towards Germany, a final settlement might become necessary in spite of the Treaty in force with Poland. The aim then will be to destroy Polish military strength, and create in the East a situation which satisfies the requirements of national defence. The Free State of Danzig will be proclaimed a part of the Reich territory by the outbreak of hostilities at the latest. The political leaders consider it their task in this case to isolate Poland if possible, that is to say, to limit the war to Poland only.’144 The Wehrmacht had to be ready to carry out ‘Case White’ at any time after 1 September 1939.145
Army commanders had been divided over the merits of attacking Czechoslovakia only a few months earlier. Now, there was no sign of hesitation. The aims of the coming campaign to destroy Poland were outlined within a fortnight or so by Chief of the General Staff Haider to generals and General Staff officers. Oppositional hopes of staging a coup against Hitler the previous autumn, as the Sudeten crisis was reaching its dénouement, had centred upon Haider. At the time, he had indeed been prepared to see Hitler assassinated.146 It was the same Haider who now evidently relished the prospect of easy and rapid victory over the Poles and envisaged subsequent conflict with the Soviet Union or the western powers. Haider told senior officers that ‘thanks to the outstanding, I might say, instinctively sure policy of the Führer’, the military situation in central Europe had changed fundamentally. As a consequence, the position of Poland had also significantly altered. Haider said he was certain he was speaking for many in his audience in commenting that with the ending of ‘friendly relations’ with Poland ‘a stone has fallen from the heart’. Poland was now to be ranked among Germany’s enemies. The rest of Haider’s address dealt with the need to destroy Poland ‘in record speed’ (‘einen Rekord an Schnelligkeit’). The British Guarantee would not prevent this happening. He was contemptuous of the capabilities of the Polish army.147 It formed ‘no serious opponent’. He outlined in some detail the course the German attack would take, acknowledging cooperation with the SS and the occupation of the country by the paramilitary formations of the Party. The aim, he repeated, was to ensure ‘that Poland as rapidly as possible was not only defeated, but liquidated’, whether France and Britain should intervene in the West (which on balance he deemed unlikely) or not. The attack had to be ‘crushing’ (‘zermalmend’). He concluded by looking beyond the Polish conflict: ‘We must be finished with Poland within three weeks, if possible already in a fortnight. Then it will depend on the Russians whether the eastern front becomes Europe’s fate or not. In any case, a victorious army, filled with the spirit of gigantic victories attained, will be ready either to confront Bolshevism or… to be hurled against the West…’148
On Poland, there was no divergence between Hitler and his Chief of the General Staff. Both wanted to smash Poland at breakneck speed, preferably in an isolated campaign but, if necessary, even with western intervention (though both thought this more improbable than probable). And both looked beyond Poland to a widening of the conflict, eastwards or westwards, at some point. Hitler could be satisfied. He need expect no problems this time from his army leaders.
The contours for the summer crisis of 1939 had been drawn. It would end not with the desired limited conflict to destroy Poland, but with the major European powers locked in another continental war. This was in the first instance a consequence of Hitler’s miscalculation that spring. But, as Haider’s address to the generals indicated, it had not been Hitler’s miscalculation alone.