A World at Arms (10 page)

Whether or not either these internal preparations or the external ones
still to be discussed could be completed quickly, Hitler already thought of himself under great time pressure. Both material and personal considerations made him think of war not only as an essential tool for the conquests he intended, but as preferable sooner rather than later. The material consideration was simple. Once Germany had by her rapid rearmament gained a headstart over her neighbors, the sooner she struck, the greater the chances for success. The longer war was postponed, the more likely it would be that rearmament programs inaugurated by others in response to the menace from Germany could catch up with and surpass that of the Third Reich. Lacking within her original borders the economic resources for the repeated replacement of one set of weapons by more modern ones, Germany could either strike while she still had an advantage over others or see the balance of strength shift in favor of her potential adversaries. The very advantage of Germany’s headstart would become a disadvantage as other powers brought into production on their greater economic bases more recently developed and more numerous weapons. Germany would therefore have to strike before such a situation developed, a point which Hitler had repeatedly explained to his associates, and which indeed represents an essentially accurate assessment of the situation if Germany were to have even the slightest hope of succeeding in even a portion of the preposterously ambitious schemes of conquest Hitler intended.

The personal element was Hitler’s fear of an early death for himself or, alternatively, the preference for leading Germany into war while he was still vigorous rather than aging. Identifying Germany’s fate and future with his personal life and his role in its history, Hitler preferred to lead the country into war himself, lest his successors lack the will to do so. He also thought of his age as a factor of importance; it is impossible to ignore his repeated extraordinary assertions in 1938 that he preferred to go to war at the age of forty-nine and in 1939 that he would rather lead his nation at the age of fifty than go to war when fifty-five or sixty years old.
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In this regard one enters a realm yet to be seriously and reliably explored by psychohistorians, but one can no more overlook references to his personal role and age in the final war crisis of 1939 than the fact that his earlier decision to begin his first war against Czechoslovakia in 1938 was taken in early May of that year–a few days after fear of cancer had induced him to write his last will.
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Here, too, one must accept a certain tragic accuracy in Hitler’s perception; whether any other German leader would indeed have taken the plunge is surely doubtful, and the very warnings Hitler received from a few of his advisors can only have reinforced his belief in his personal role as the one man able, willing, and even eager to lead Germany and
drag the world into war. Under these circumstances, what counted in 1939 was that the propaganda effort and the new program to redouble the armament effort had been launched, not the degree to which they were in reality falling short of their objectives, or required far more time for their completion than Hitler’s personal clock allowed.

In foreign affairs, German preparations for the war against Britain and France moved along two parallel lines. Certain major powers were to be brought in as allies, while minor powers on Germany’s eastern border were to be induced to accept a position sufficiently subservient to Germany to assure the latter of a quiet Eastern Front when the attack was launched in the West. Both lines of policy were pursued simultaneously, and in both Germany had, or appeared to have, a success and a failure.

The major powers scheduled to be Germany’s allies were Italy and Japan. With their navies helping to make up for the deficiency in the naval armaments she needed for war with England and France but had not yet remedied herself, and with their strategic position threatening British and French colonies and communications in the Mediterranean, the Near East, Africa, and East Asia, the two adherents to the proposed new Triple Alliance could either assist Germany directly in war with the Western Powers or at the very least force a major diversion of strength on the latter. In lengthy negotiations, the Germans succeeded in persuading the Italians to accept an offensive and defensive alliance, signed in May of 1939; but in even lengthier negotiations the Japanese balked at the prospect.

The government in Tokyo was divided on the proper course to follow, but even those who favored an alliance with Germany wanted one directed against the Soviet Union, not one against the Western Powers. There had been fighting with the Soviets in the preceding year and there was further fighting in 1939. Not only those in the government inclined toward an aggressive policy toward Russia, but even those who favored a more restrained attitude thought that a closer alignment, with Germany and Italy directed against Russia, could help Japan either to fight the Soviet Union or to make that country more amenable in negotiated settlements of outstanding differences between Moscow and Tokyo. But almost no one among the contending factions at that time wanted to risk war with Britain and France, especially because of the real possibility that such a conflict meant war with the United States as well. In spite of strong urgings from the Germans, who were vigorously supported in this regard by the Japanese ambassadors in Berlin and Rome, the Japanese government simply would not agree to an alliance against Britain and France.

From the perspective of Berlin, the interest of Japan in an anti-Soviet instead of an anti-British and anti-French alliance was utterly silly. At a future time of her own choosing, Germany would seize what she wanted from the Soviet Union, an operation Hitler thought of as simple to carry out once he had cleared his Western Front by crushing Britain and France. It made no sense at all to drive the Russians into supporting Germany’s main and immediate enemies by joining with Japan in an anti-Soviet alliance. If the Japanese did not want to join with Germany in an alliance directed against the West, that was a reflection of their short-sightedness and their unsuitability as an ally in the immediate situation. A possible substitute for Japan in Hitler’s perception could in fact be provided by the Soviet Union itself. He had earlier regularly rejected Soviet suggestions for closer relations, but now that country could be helpful because it might both replace Japan in threatening Britain and in addition assist in dealing with the portion of his other foreign policy preparation for war which was not working out quite the way he had hoped.

In order to consider an attack in the West safe, Hitler wanted his eastern border buffered during that attack by the subordination of Germany’s eastern neighbors to her. Czechoslovakia had been effectively subordinated; three other countries bordered Germany on the east: Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary.

It was obvious to the German government that Lithuania would do out of fear whatever Germany wanted, and at a time chosen by Berlin; that portion of Hitler’s program was accordingly entirely subordinated to his assessment of appropriate tactics in regard to Poland.
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Germany annexed the portion of Lithuania which Germany had lost in 1919 and did so under circumstances designed to put maximum pressure on Poland; thereafter she intended to annex all of Lithuania by agreement with the Soviet Union-only to trade most of it and later sell the rest to Moscow during the war.

The Hungarians had annoyed Hitler by refusing in 1938 to join in an attack on Czechoslovakia because they were certain that such an attack would lead to a general war, and a losing one at that. Their continued interest in sharing in any partition of Czechoslovakia and their fear of the implications for their own ambitions of better relations between Germany and Romania led to a reorientation in Hungarian policy in the winter of 1938-39. Accompanied by major personnel changes in the government, this reorientation made the Hungarian government completely dependent on Germany; the reluctant partner became, or at least became for the time being, a dependable subordinate.
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The symbolic gesture of obeisance to Germany made by Hungary but refused by Poland–was adherence to the Anti-Comintern Pact. Originally devised by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Japanese military attaché General Oshima Hiroshi as a means of tying Japan to Germany, and accompanied by a whole series of self–contradicting secret agreements,
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this pact had become for the Germans a sort of performance bond to be exacted as a test of distance from the Western Powers and subordination to herself. It was, of course, known in Berlin that the Hungarian, like the Polish leaders of the time, were vehemently, even violently, anti-Communist; adherence to a German-sponsored Anti-Comintern Pact could not make them any more so. It could however be recognized as a sign of willingness to take orders from Berlin–and it was so regarded at the time.

The leaders of Poland, however, saw themselves as the guardians of her regained independence. They had repeatedly, and at times by extraordinary and disturbing gestures during the 1920S and 1930S, made clear their insistence that Poland would not compromise either her independence or her right to be consulted about issues they saw as directly affecting that independence.
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When the Germans in the winter of 1938–39 demanded from Poland territorial and transport concessions, concessions they had earlier promised not to ask for, and also insisted that Poland adhere to the Anti-Comintern Pact, the Warsaw government was willing to consider some compromises on the first two points, but it flatly refused the ritual of obeisance.

For five months, from late October 1938 to late March 1939, the Berlin authorities hoped for and tried to obtain Polish surrender by alternating offers and threats, promises and pressure. The Warsaw government was for obvious reasons interested in a peaceful settlement by negotiations on problems in German-Polish relations, but unwilling to acquiesce in a voluntary relinquishment of the country’s independent and sovereign status. As this was precisely the key point for the German government, Hitler decided, and so informed his associates, that the sequence of German steps would have to be altered. First Poland would be destroyed by war, and then Germany could safely attack in the West. If the Western Powers came in on Poland’s side right away, then a wider war would come sooner rather than later; but since a war with the West would come anyway, and since an attack in the West without a prior crushing of Poland would involve leaving large German forces to guard against Poland, it was preferable to run the risk of general war now.

In the context of this revised concept for 1939, the immediate focus of military planning would be on an attack on Poland delivered in the fall of 1939, with enough time to defeat that country before the autumn
rains softened the generally unpaved roads and runways. Lithuania and the newly created puppet state of Slovakia would be invited to join in the attack on Poland from the north and the south; and, if they were agreeable, they would be rewarded with suitable pieces of the conquered state. Italy would be invited to join; and if Japan turned out to be too cautious or too stupid to do likewise, then the Soviet Union was an obvious new partner.

Since Germany’s attack on Poland was from Berlin’s perspective the necessary preliminary to an attack on Britain and France-with the Soviet Union’s turn coming later–an agreement with Moscow would isolate Poland and either discourage the British and French from joining the obviously doomed Poles or alternatively break any Allied blockade of Germany even before it could be imposed. Under these circumstances Berlin welcomed and reciprocated hints of agreement from Moscow and developed an economic and political agreement with the Soviet Union while moving towards a war against Poland.

This would be the lovely little war of which Hitler felt he had been cheated in 1938. Propaganda about the poor persecuted Germans in Poland would consolidate opinion in Germany and isolate Poland from Britain and France the way similar propaganda–sometimes using identical stories–had been utilized in 1938. Germany’s allies and supporters in other countries would either deter the Western Powers from aiding Poland or assist in the conflict.

If in these respects the pattern of 1938 was to be repeated, in others it was deliberately changed. In 1938 Germany had been involved in negotiations practically the whole year and at the last moment had not been able to break out of them into hostilities. This time there would be no negotiations with Poland after the Poles had declined German demands for subservience on March 26.
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As the Germans stepped up their propaganda campaign, they prepared with meticulous care the incidents which would be staged to justify the attack on Poland. Unlike 1938 when this project had been entrusted first to the German army and later to recruits from the German minority in Czechoslovakia, this time the show would be arranged by the German security service itself and staged on German soil, not inside the country to be attacked. To avoid the risk of becoming entangled in last-minute diplomatic negotiations, the German ambassadors in London and Warsaw were recalled from their posts and not allowed to return to them in the final critical weeks. Demands on Poland designed to influence public opinion inside Germany for war and outside Germany against it were formulated, but Hitler would take no chance on these demands being either accepted or made the basis of new negotiations. He personally instructed his
Foreign Minister not to let them out of his hands; the demands were to be produced after war had started as a justification to the German public at home and any gullible souls abroad for the German attack. As Hitler explained to his generals on August 22, his only worry was that at the last minute some S.Q.B.-the German term used was
Schweinehund-
would come along and try to deprive him of war by compromise.
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When Hitler provided the leaders of Germany’s armed forces with this insight into his evaluation of what had gone wrong in 1938 and what he therefore intended to avoid in 1939, he knew that there would be an agreement with the Soviet Union. Such an agreement would divide Eastern Europe between the Third Reich and Russia, and would either discourage the Western Powers from intervening in support of an isolated Poland, or dramatically weaken all their hopes of blockading Germany and of obliging her to disperse her armed forces among several fronts if they went to war all the same. He could count on the reassuring effect this situation would have on his generals, and he could also count on their vehement anti-Polish attitudes to produce a considerable degree of enthusiasm for a war against Poland.
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