Rather than stand aside as he predicted, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later.. Still, Hitler’s armies overran Poland and then, far more surprisingly, conquered Fran
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wrong right from the start Rather than stand aside as he predicted, Britain and
France declared war on Germany two days later Hitler was fl abbergasted He had
not expected that the West would fi ght for Poland Still, Hitler’s armies overran
Poland and then, far more surprisingly, conquered France and the Low Countries
and thus gained for him control of continental Europe Time to correct errors
of planning and strategy was bought for Hitler, the OKW, and the German war
economy by the brilliant operational successes of FALL WEISS (1939) and FALL
GELB (1940) Hitler and the killers of the SS instead used that time to launch the
fi rst death squads eastward: the SS Einsatzgruppen commenced “extermination” of
the Jews of Europe, and of Roma, Communists, homosexuals, or anyone else they
deemed socially undesirable
Yet, Britain still stood unbowed offshore Along with its Empire, it set out to
choke off the German economy via naval blockade and to hammer the German
homeland from the air The British were determined not merely on survival but on
fi nal victory, and readied for a protracted war for which Germany was unprepared
Hitler was right to differ from his top military advisers in believing that Britain,
not France, was the main enemy in the west That was why he struck at Denmark,
Norway, and the Low Countries as well as France in 1940: to deny Britain access to
the Atlantic coastline and prepare air bases from which the Luftwaffe would cross
the Channel to destroy the island empire from the air Stymied by the Channel and
by Royal Navy and RAF strength and Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe weakness, his
basic need to force Britain to seek terms caused him to turn his legions eastward:
Hitler determined to invade the Soviet Union in good measure to knock out
Brit-ain’s last potential continental ally, and thereby force London to accept Berlin’s
domination of the continent He said as much at the time in his “table talk.” He
confi rmed that was his “grand strategy” in his fi nal “Testament,” dictated before he
killed himself amidst the ruin of all his strategies and plans It is key to note that
he was enthusiastically supported in the military turn to the east by nearly all his
top military advisers For two years Hitler let his generals lead the Wehrmacht to
triumph upon triumph, while he provided general strategic direction and timing
Yet, neither moral nor strategic distance between Hitler and most of his generals
should be exaggerated, as most surviving German commanders did after the war in
mendacious memoirs and oral histories In Hitler’s grand strategic idea of
break-ing the Soviet Union to brbreak-ing Britain to heel, and in operational plannbreak-ing for the
invasion of the Russias, Hitler’s generals were almost all in enthusiastic accord
with their Führer
Increasing war production and the growing killing power fi elded by Great
Brit-ain was supported by mid-1941 by thinly veiled American hostility, active USN
involvement in the war at sea, and Roosevelt’s preparations for a possible
anti-German war by the United States Those facts alone threatened to overturn Hitler’s
fi rst victories, to frustrate his grand strategic concept and schedule for conquest,
to block Germany’s economic absorption of conquered territory, and to prohibit
further expansion In invading the Soviet Union, Hitler therefore made an
all-or-nothing gamble to force the British to terms By then, it was not a wholly irrational
decision, given the geostrategic situation he had created around Germany Still