A World at Arms (191 page)

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Authors: Gerhard L. Weinberg

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78
See the files C 7074/5/18, PRO, FO 371/24383, and C 6828/5/18, FO 371/24382 on the period 16 May-26 June 1940 and Hankey’s minute of 18 June 1940 on what had been done since May 27 in FO 800/312. Cf. Bell, pp. 48–52.

79
See also War Cabinet 6(39) of 6 Sept. 1939, PRO, CAB 65/1, f. 40.

80
A full report in Alfred Draper,
Operation Fish: The Race to Save Europe’s Wealth 1939–1945
(London: Cassell, 1979). Draper was able to utilize the collected materials of Leland Stowe, whose article, “The Secret Voyage of Britain’s Treasure,”
Reader’s Digest
34 (Nov. 1955), 17–26, first provided an account of this episode. Draper’s book also discusses the evacuation of the Yugoslav, Norwegian, and Dutch gold. Through the cooperation of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau the Papal gold was moved to the United States in late May, 1940 (Chadwick,
Britain and the Vatican
, pp. 117–18).

81
See Dilks, “Twilight War,” pp. 82–84; Gilbert,
Churchill
, 6: 332, 425–26, 474; Halifax to Samuel Hoare, 11 June 1940, PRO, FO 800/323, f. 98–100. In December 1940 Lloyd George also declined an offer of the embassy in Washington (Gilbert, 6: 442–43, 946, 953). For a sympathetic account of Lloyd George’s ideas in 1940, see Paul Addison, “Lloyd George and a Compromise Peace in the Second World War,” in AJ.P. Taylor (ed.),
Lloyd George - Twelve
Essays (New York: Atheneum, 1971), pp. 361–84.

82
See, e.g.,
ADAP
, D, 8, Nos. 580, 621, 648. Examples of the sort of information to which the Duke had access as a result of trips of inspection and attendance at conferences with French army leaders in the period Oct. I 939-Feb. 1940 may be found in PRO, WO/l06.

83
See Samuel Hoare to Halifax, 26 June 1940, PRO, FO 800/323, f. 115–18. Already on 19 June extricating the Duke–then still in France–had been mentioned in the Cabinet; see WM(40) War Cabinet 172(40), CAB 65/7. Many of the relevant documents in the papers of Lord Halifax (FO 800/326, f. 185–215) are closed until 2016, that is, for 75 years!

84
ADAP
, D, 10, NO.9.

85
Note Franklin Mott Gunther (US Minister to Romania) to Sumner Welles, 26 June 1940, FDRL, PSF Box 90, State, June-Dec. 1940. Cf. Boelcke,
Kreigspropaganda
, p. 242; Fröhlich,
Goebbels Tagebücher
, 17 July 1940, 4: 242.

86
See Weinberg,
Foreign Policy
, 1933–36, p. 281. Hitler had given Lloyd George an interview in 1936; each had favorably impressed the other. Note Hitler’s comments to Mussolini on 2 June 1941 in
ADAP
, D, 12, No. 584, p. 786.

87
This part of the tempest in the Windsor teapot is best followed in the files A 3532, 3580, 4271/434/45, PRO, FO 371/24249, f. 146–248. Churchill got the Duke to accept the appointment on July 4 and informed Roosevelt on July 9. Like the other available papers, these show the Duke in a rather shabby light, worried about his medals, his valet, etc.,
etc.
- everything except his country in its desperate situation.

88
Gilbert,
Churchill
, 6: 613–14, 698–709, 984.

89
The account in Peter Allen, The Crown and the Swastika: Hitler, Hess and the Duke of Windsor
(London: Hale, 1983), chaps. 11–13, is useful but contains some dubious details and assertions. The documents published in
ADAP
, D, 10, supplement chap. 11 in Walter Schellenberg,
Hitler’s Secret Seroice
(New York: Pyramid Books, 1958). See also Stohrer (Madrid) tel. of 28 July 1940, marked “Fuhrer vorgelegt,” in BA, NS 10/18, f. 89; John Costello,
Ten Days to Destiny
(New York: William Morrow, 1991), chap. 14.

90
This is especially obvious from any reading of the Cabinet meetings of 12 and 16 June 1940 in PRO, CAB 65/19’ See also the documents in AIR 20/296.

91
A useful summary in Bell,
Britain and the Fall of France,
chap. 7; added details in Gilbert,
Churchill,
6; Ferro,
Pitain,
pp. 57–61; Hervé Coutau-Bégarie and Claude Huan,
Darlan
(Paris: Fayard, 1989), chap. 10. Very critical of Churchill’s decision, Richard Lamb,
Churchill as War Leader - Right or Wrong?
(London: Bloomsbury, 1991), chap. 6. The British then had to consider the possibility of a French declaration of war, but Vichy limited itself to an air attack on Gibraltar (cf. PRO, CAB 104/211).

92
The full text is in Robert Rhodes James (ed.),
Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches
, 1897–1963 (New York: Bowker, 1974), 6: 6247–50 (the quotation is from p. 6250).

93
See Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman,
A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Chemical and Biological Warfare
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1982), pp. 101–15. There is a brief discussion in Peter Fleming,
Operation Sea Lion
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), pp 293–94; see also Gilbert,
Churchill
, 6: 434, 617–18, 762. The account in Gunther W. Gellermann,
Der Krieg der nicht stattfand
(Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1986), pp. 140–42, is very poor; the book has been demolished in a review by Rudibert Kunz in
MGM
, 44, No.2 (1988), 201–5. The volume in the British official history, Basil Collier,
The Defence of the United Kingdom
(London: HMSO, 1957), contains no reference to the intended use of gas.

94
See the notes by General Hans Reinhardt on his role in the preparations for the invasion in BA/MA, N 245/7, f.26. Reinhardt’s ideas and activities are described in Walter Ansel,
Hitler Confronts England
(Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1960), but there is no reference to gas in the book.

95
On the intended employment of horses in the assault, see
KTB Halder
, 26 July 1940; Fleming, pp. 249–50 (with an appropriate cartoon); Karl Klee,
Das Unternehmen “Seelowe”
(Gottingen: Musterschmidt, 1958), p. 87. Horses were being put on barges to accustom them to their anticipated use. At the other extreme of technology, the Germans were experimenting with submersible tanks; see Paul W. Zieb, Logistische Probleme der Marine (Neckargemünd: Scharnhorst, 1961), pp. 96–99.

96
John P. Duggan,
Neutral Ireland and the Third Reich
(Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1985), pp. 136–37. Although not always reliable and confused chronologically, this book does contain some interesting details.

97
Although Fisk (
In Time of War
) describes such attitudes, he never recognizes the impact of the antics of those who were eager to welcome the Germans (e.g. pp. 373–77), combined with the massive IRA thefts of weapons, on the British government of the time.

98
On the pro-Nazi sympathies of General Hugo Mac Neill, see Duggan,
Neutral Ireland
, chap. 8. A more balanced account, though still strongly biased in favor of the Irish and against the British perspective, is that of Fisk.

99
Fisk, pp. 201–7, 214–16.

100
The various German contacts with the IRA as well as with the official Irish government are discussed by Fisk, Duggan, and Carol J. Carter,
The Shamrock and the Swastika: German Espionage in Ireland in World War 2
(Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific Books, 1977), but still await a definitive treatment. Particularly important are the as yet unclarified plots of the IRA with Edmund Veesenmayer, von Ribbentrop’s subversion expert, for the overthrow of the de Valera government and the extent of de Valera’s knowledge of these machinations.

Aspects of the British offers of June 1940 and Dec. 1941 to negotiate an end to partition in exchange for Irish participation in the war also remain unclear. The accounts in Fisk, pp. 158ff, and Duggan, pp. 173–74, are a beginning. De Valera used these offers in his negotiations with the Germans (
ADAP
, D, 9, No. 506); see also Gilbert,
Churchill
, 6: 433.

101
Important examples of such aid were the relatively rapid release of Allied airmen who landed in the Free State and allowing Allied planes from the base at Lough Foyle to fly
to their patrol stations in the Atlantic across Irish territory, the “Donegal Corridor,” rather than detouring around Malin Head and thereby using up flying time that could have been spent on patrol.

102
See War Cabinet 170(40) of 17 June 1940, PRO, CAB 65/7.

103
Note Churchill’s 7 July 1940 minute for Lindemann calling for weekly reports on the status of each of England’s thirty divisions and the progress of arming the Home Guard at least with rifles, in PRO, PREM 3/54/1 I.

104
There is a general survey of the “auxiliary units” in David Lampe,
The Last Ditch
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1968); a report by one of those involved, in Fleming,
Sea Lion
, pp. 268–73; a discussion of the broader context, in Gerhard Schulz (ed.), “Zur englischen Planung des Partisanenkrieges am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges,”
VjZ,
30, No.2 (1982), 329–30. The official history by Basil Collier,
Defence,
refers to the subject briefly, pp. 130, 297.

105
Most of those interned were themselves refugees from the Nazis and were later released.

106
ADAP
,
D, 9, No. 394; cf. Halifax to Hoare, 19 June 1940, and Hoare to Halifax, 26 June 1940, PRO, FO 800/323’ Sir Samuel Hoare had been sent to Madrid to work on keeping Spain out of the conflict (Woodward,
British Foreign Policy
, 1: 435–37; Smyth,
British Policy and Franco’s Spain,
pp. 26–29); Churchill, who had fought Hoare tooth and nail over the plan to allow steps toward Dominion status for India, was not about to appoint him to the position of Viceroy (where Hoare would surely have done a far better job than Linlithgow).

For contingency planning to seize the Cape Verde and Azore Islands if either Spain or Portugal or both came into the war or were obviously about to do so, see Smyth, pp. 66–67; CAB 104/210, WO 106/2947–48.

107
The account in Collier,
Defence,
should be supplemented by Murray,
Luftwaffe,
pp. 43–65;
DRuZW,
2: 375–408.

108
Murray’s assertion that it was the whole RAF and not merely Fighter Command which the Germans saw as their opponent (p. 47) seems to me entirely correct and also helpful in explaining the German battle program. For very serious errors in estimates and predictions by German air force intelligence, see Boog,
Luftwaffenführung,
pp. 95–100, 105–8.

109
Boog, p. 104; Dr. Kausch, “Streng vertraulicher Informationsbericht," BA, Brammer ZSg. 101/36, f. 219–25. Goebbels at first believed all the German reports of success; only on Oct. 4 does there appear in his diary (4: 350) a sense that things were not going perfectly according to plan. The Germans employed the approach they had used on Warsaw, Rotterdam, London and other British cities again in 1941 with their attack on Belgrade to accompany the invasion of Yugoslavia.

110
The article on this by Harvey B. Tess, “Churchill, the First Berlin Raids, and the Blitz: A New Interpretation,” MGM, No.2, (1982) pp. 65–78, is entirely unconvincing.

111
See Fleming,
Sea Lion
, pp. 276–78;
DRu ZW
, 2: 386–87.

112
The victor in the Battle of Britain, Sir Hugh Dowding, was rewarded by prompt retirement; an extraordinary action which Churchill, though critical of it, did not reverse (on this, see now Reginald V. Jones
Reflections on Intelligence
[London: Heineman, 1989], pp. 288–89). See also Weinberg,
World in the Balance
, p. 17 n 28; documents in PRO, PREM 4/68/9.

113
Murray again makes an important point: the night attacks in the winter also produced a very high German accident rate (
Luftwaffe
, p. 59).

114
Gilbert,
Churchill
, 6: 580–84, 609–13, 655, 687–88. The term “ultra” for readings of German enigma machine ciphers did not come into use until later. The beam system was called “Knickebein" by the Germans. The assertion that measures were not taken against the Nov. 14, 1940, raid on Coventry to avoid compromising ultra has been shown to be entirely false (ibid., 912–16; Hinsley,
British Intelligence
, 6: Appendix 9).

115
See David Stafford,
Britain and European Resistance: A Survey of the Special Operations
Executive, with Documents
(Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1980), and his articles, esp. “Britain Looks at Europe 1940: Some Origins of the SOE,”
Canadian Journal of History
10, No.2 (Aug. 1975) 231–48, and “The Detonator Concept: British Strategy, SOE and European Resistance after the Fall of France,”
JCH
10 (1975) 185–217, on the assumptions and hopes underlying the establishment of SOE.

116
Robert H. Keyserlingk, “Die deutsche Komponente in Churchills Strategie der nationalen Erhebungen 1940–1942: Der Fall Otto Strasser,”
VjZ
31 (Oct. 1983), 614–45.

117
See Churchill to Mackenzie King, 5 June 1940 (clearly meant for President Roosevelt) in David Re Ynolds,
Lord Lothian and Anglo-American Relations, 1939–1940
(Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 73, Part 2, 1983), p. 20.

118
On Cripps, see Gabriel Gorodetsky,
Staff Ord Cripps’ Mission to Moscow,
1940–42
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984), p. 61; on O’Malley (Budapest), see his No. 298 of 18 July 1940, C 7729/5/18, PRO, FO 371/24384.

119
All the evidence now points in this direction; see C 7324, 7377, 7542, 7578/89/18, PRO, FO 371/24407; C 7825, 7828/5/18, FO 371/24384; C 8015/89/18, FO 371/24408. On the approach via Malcolm Lovell to Lord Lothian, see War Cabinet 201
40
of 22 July 1940 and 209
40
of 24 July 1940, CAB 65/8; Re Ynolds, Lord Lothian, pp. 22–23; Chadwick,
Britain and the Vatican
, pp. 137–39;
ADAP
, D, 10, No. 188; Ansel,
Hitler Confronts England
, pp. 153–57; Kelly (Bern) to London No. 365 of8July 1940, in CAB 65/8. The supposed statement by Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs R.A.B. Butler to Swedish Minister in London, Björn Prytz, on a possible peace turns out to have no basis in reality; see Thomas Munch-Petersen, “‘Common Sense not Bravado’: The Butler-Prytz Interview of 17 June 1940,”
Scandia
52, No. 1 (1986) 73–114; N 6894, 6968, 7788/865/42, FO 371/43509;
The Times
, 11 Sept. 1965 and
Düsseldorfer Nachrichten, 10
Sept. 1965; relevant documents in Fa 800/322f. 272–74, 277–82; C 8837, 8974, 9092, 9598, 13302/89/18, FO 371/24408; the Halifax-Lothian exchange of Sept. 1940 communicated to Roosevelt, in FDRL, PSF Box 4, Safe, File Great Britain. Costello,
Ten Days
, Appendix 10, is not convincing; generally reasonable is the account in Kettenacker, Krieg zur
Friedenssicherung
, pp. 77–83.

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