A World at Arms (194 page)

220
There is an important file of German documents on the invasion plans from the records of the German headquarters for the planned invasion, von Leeb’s Army Group C, in the Imperial War Museum in London, MI14/570/2, Box E 356. A useful survey in Hans Rudolf Kurz,
Operationsplanung Schweiz: Die Rolle der Schweizer Armee in zwei Weltkriegen
(Thun: Otto, 1974), pp. 36ff. Documents which the Germans had captured in France were to be used to justify the invasion when the time for it came, Georg Kreis,
Auf den Spuren von La Charite: Die schweizerische Armeef Uhrung im Spannungsfeld des deutschjranzijsischen Gegensatzes 1936–1941
(Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1976), pp. 7–10, 207;
ADAP
, D, 11, Nos. 11. 138, 301. On the Italian role in this project, see also Knox,
Mussolini Unleashed
, pp. 138, 140.

221
The Swiss had been greatly alarmed by the German invasions of various neutrals and their victory over France which left them isolated. Their willingness to defend themselves, however, especially by blowing up the key railways tunnels, protected them only as long as other powers kept Germany occupied. Liechtenstein would have followed in Switzerland’s wake into oblivion; a survey of the whole subject of German-Liechtenstein relations in Joseph Walk, “Liechtenstein 1933–1945: Nationalsozialismus im Mikrokosmos,” in Ursula Buttner (ed.),
Das Unrechtsregime
, 2 vols. (Hamburg: Christians, 1986), 2: 376–425.

222
Werner Jochmann (ed.),
Adolf Hitler: Monologe im Führerhauptquartier, 1941–1944
(Hamburg: Albrecht Knaus, 1980), 26 Aug. 1942, p. 366. See also Hitler’s comment to Mussolini on 2 June 1941,
ADAP
, D, 12, No. 584, p. 792.

223
Rich,
Hitler’s War Aims
, 2: 401–2; Jürg Fink,
Die Schweiz aus der Siehl des Dritten Reiches 1933–1945
(Zurich: Schulthess, 1985), pp. 91–92, also stresses Switzerland as a place for the exchange of gold.

224
Sweden allowed hundreds of German “medical” personnel to go across Sweden to Narvik and permitted submarine crews and the officers and men of the German destroyers sunk at Narvik to return to Germany across Sweden; not one was interned. See
ADAP
, D, 9, Nos. 108, 153, 154, 171, 179, 183,259,268,348; KTB Skl A 8, 26 Apr. 1940, BA/MA, RM 7/11, f. 287; KTB Skl A 10, 30 June 1940, RM 7/13, f. 311.

225
ADAP
, D, 9, Nos. 306, 351,386.

226
Lutzhöft,
Deutsche Militärpolitik
, pp. 75ff.

227
Ibid., pp. 81–108. A survey of the transport and related services Sweden had provided to the German war effort in the period July 1940–1 Nov. 1941 was handed to the German military attache by the Swedes and is summarized in KTB Skl A 28, 14 Dec. 194I, RM 7/31, f. 215–16.

228
Wittmann,
Schwedens Wirtscha Jtsbeziehungen
, pp. 204–7, 235–40.

229
See ibid., pp. 221–28;
ADAP
, D, 9, NO.510.

230
Ley to Ribbentrop, 10 June 1940, NA, RG 238, PS-1223.

231
ADAP
, D, 10, Nos. 200, 243.

232
Ibid., No. 17.

233
Wagner,
Lagevortrdge
, pp. 108–9; Salewski,
Deutsche Seekriegsleitung
. 1: 237–38; Andreas Hillgruber, “Noch einmal: Hitlers Wendung gegen die Sowjetunion 1940,"
Geschichte in Wissenschafi und Unterricht
33 (1982), p. 218; Weinberg,
World in the Balance
, p. 113 n 47. Information on the future German navy provided by Raeder to the Japanese on 2I Apr. 1941 is in Japanese naval attache Berlin to Tokyo “N” Serial 12, No. 1905 of 23 Apr. 1941, NA, RG 457, SRNA 38–39.

Before World War I there had been some detailed planning for an invasion of the United States
in Germany; it is summarized in Holger Herwig,
The Politics of Frustration: The United States in Gennan Naval Planning, 1889–1941
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), pp. 42–54, 57–66. The absence of similar planning activity before and during World War II - no one this time debated whether to give priority to landing on Cape Cod or on Long Island–has misled some historians into thinking war with the United States was no part of Hitler’s intentions. The real dif Terence was in the status of German naval construction–on which Hitler was very well informed–not in intent.

234
DRu ZH
’, 2: 345; Sadkovich, “Understanding Defeat,” p. 49; KTB Skl A 11, 24 July 1940, BA/MA, RM 7/14, f. 282–83; documents on Italian-German cooperation in the submarine war in the Atlantic in PRO, ADM 223/3.

235
On the Trondheim project, see Thies,
Architekt der Welthemchaft
, p. 131; Wagner,
Lagevorträge
, pp. 108, 263; Salewski,
Deutsche Seekriegsleitung
, 1: 193–94; Alfred Speer,
Erinnerungen
(Berlin: Propy Hien, 1969), p. 196; Admiral Werner Fuchs, “Geschichtliche Entwicklung des Baues einer Grosswerft in Drontheim,” BA/MA, RM 7/98, f. 85; Admiral Boehm’s adjutant to Raeder, 1 July 1940, BA/MA, Nachlass Boehm, N 172/3. The naval facilities were to accommodate 55,000 families of navy crews and workers, make possible the construction of one battleship annually, and the simultaneous repair of 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, and 24 submarines. See the Raeder material on the Trondhefm project in RM 6/74, f. 238, 239, 243. Hitler explained part of the scheme to Mussolini on 4 Oct. 1940
ADAP
, D, 11, No. 149).

236
Speer,
Erinnerungen
, p. 196; Winston G. Ramsay,
The War in the Channel Islands
(London: Battle of Britain Prints, 1981); Charles Cruikshank,
The German Occupation of the Channel Islands
(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979); Note for the CIGS, “Operations against the Channel Islands 1940–1945,” May 1947, PRO, WO 106/3017.

237
German naval leaders also advocated additional bases all over the globe, but there is no clear evidence that these projects ever became the basis of official policy.

238
The German plans for these bases are most thoroughly explored in Goda, “Germany and Northwest Africa.”

239
For signs that Franco seriously intended to go to war, see
ADAP
, D, 10, Nos. 3, 88. Goda demonstrates Franco’s clear preference for war ifhis conditions–which he himself believed reasonable–were met. On Spain’s bad economic situation, see Smyth,
British Policy and Franco’s Spain
, pp. 77–83.

240
ADAP
, D, 9, No. 488; 10, No. 16.

241
Most recently,
DRuZW, 2:34.

242
Weinberg,
World in the Balance
, pp. 120–23; Goda, “Germany and Northwest Africa”; Smyth,
British Policy and Franco’s Spain
, pp. 84–93, 98.

243
Thies,
Architekt der Weltherrschafi
, pp. 138ff.

244
Nicolaus von Below,
Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937–1945
(Mainz: Hase & Koehler, 1980), p. 217.

245
Note Hitler’s comments to Goebbels recorded in the latter’s diary on 14 Nov. and 29 Dec. 1939 and 13 Jan. 1940. Translations of the first two of these may be found in the generally unreliable English edition of Fred Taylor,
The Goebbels Diaries 1939–1941
(New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 48, 77. A devastating analysis of this edition is in the
Bulletin of the Gennan Historical Institute, London
, Autumn 1983, pp. 16–19. It should be noted that in his 29 Dec. comments Hitler repeated his view about the fortunate (for Germany) removal of the capable Germanic elite by the bolsheviks.

246
A useful summary of the evidence in Hillgruber, “Noch einmal," pp. 218–19.

247
See Hitler’s comments to Raeder on July 21, 1941, in Wagner,
Lagevorträge
, pp. 120–21; a somewhat more detailed account of the same conference is in BA/MA, RM 7/14, f. 236–39. The argument of Hartmut Schustereit,
Vabanque: Hitlers Angriffaufdie Sowjetunion
1941
als Versuch, durch den Sieg im Osten den Westen zu Bezwingen
(Herford: Mittler, 1988), is not convincing in this regard.

248
31 July 1940, from the Halder Diary,
ADAP
,
D, 10, No. 73.

249
This summarizes the position of Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union;
Hillgruber, “Noch einmal”; and
DRuZW,
4. On Hitler’s views on fighting in winter, see
ADAP
,
D, 8, No. 591. As late as July 28, 1940, it was assumed in the high command of the German navy that the attack was scheduled for the fall of 1940; see “Betrachtungen tiber Russland,” 28 July 1940, BA/MA, RM 6/66, f. 36–42. Jodl explained at an internal meeting in OKW on July 29 that the” attack was to take place in 1941.

250
DRuZW,
4: 114–16; Andreas Hillgruber, “Das Russland-Bild der ftihrenden deutschen Militars vor Beginn des Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion,” in Alexander Fischer
et al.
(eds.),
Russland-Deutschland-Amerika
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), pp. 296–310.

251
Dr. med. Erwin Giesing, “Bericht tiber meine Behandlung bei Hitler,” Institut flir Zeitgeschichte, pp. 85–86. See also KTB Skl A 10, 18 June 1940, BA/ MA, RM 7/13, f. 186.

252
The economic considerations mentioned in
DRuZW
, 4: 111–13, appear to me to have been more important in a later stage of the preparations.

253
Its Chief of Staff, General Marcks, prepared one of the first of the plans for an attack on the Soviet Union. See
DRuZW
, 4: 216–19,226–27; Ingo Lachnit and Friedhelm Klein (eds.), “Der ‘Operationsentwurf Ost’ des Generalmajors Marcks vom 5. August 1940,”
Wehrf Orschung
, No. 4(1972), pp. 114–23.

254
The draft of this order had been reviewed in the high command of the armed forces on 2 Aug. 1940, see KTB OKW, 1: 5. The date shows the close connection with the internal discussions of 29–31 July.

255
DRu ZW
4: 708.

256
Rolf-Dieter Muller, “Die deutschen Gaskriegsvorbereitungen,” pp. 42–43.

257
This point is repeatedly and correctly stressed in
DRuZW
, 4: 168–89, and elsewhere.

258
OKW, Abt. L, Keitel, “349/40 g Kdos. Chefs.” of 14 June 1940 in BA/MA, Case 422, PG 32019.

259
Hillgruber, “Noch einmal,” pp. 219–20.

260
Ueberschar,
Hitler und Finnland
, pp. 170–79.

261
The earlier discussions, especially of July 21, also assumed the involvement of Finland on Germany’s side, but it is not absolutely certain that this reflects Hitler’s (as contrasted with Halder’s) views.

262
Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union
, pp. 126–26; Ueberschar, pp. 202–17 (but without any comprehension of the tie to the 31 July decision).

263
See
ADAP
, D, 10, No. 171; Mackensen (Rome) tel. No. 1356 of 15 July 1940, AA, St.S., “Der Krieg 1939,” Bd. 8, fr. 232269–71. In explaining the German guarantee of Romania to Goebbels, Hitler took the opposite view, that is, that Germany absolutely needed the oil (Fröhlich,
Goebbels Tagebucher
, 4 Sept. 1940, 4: 307).

264
ADAP
, D, 9, No. 545; 10, No. 119. Hungary and the Soviet Union had resumed diplomatic relations in the fall of 1939.

265
Ibid., 10, No. 73;
I Documenti diplomatici italiani
, 9th series, Vol. 5, No. 161. The reference was to information in documents seized by the Germans in France.

266
KTB Halder, 13 July 1940.

267
ADAP
, D, 10, Nos. 63, 75, 81, 105, 146,393.

268
On the negotiations leading to the award, see Juhäsz,
Hungarian Foreign Policy
, pp. 17275; Hillgruber,
Hitler, Kijnig Carol
, pp. 89ff; Nandor F. Dreisziger, “The Hungarian General Staff and Diplomacy,”
Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies
7, No. 1 (1980), 11–14.

269
It was a great convenience for the Germans that Romanian King Carol had originally invited a German military mission (
ADAP
, D, 10, Nos. 80, 161), but at first Hitler had held back (ibid., No. 196).

270
Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union
, p. 134; Gerhard L. Weinberg, “Der Deutsche
Entschluss zum Angriff auf die Sowjetunion,”
VjZ
1 (1953), 318, 2 (1954) 254;
ADAP
,
0, 1I, Nos. 236,376.

271
Knox,
Mussolini Unleashed,
pp. 141–42.

272
DRuZW,
Vol. 3, is one of the few books which clearly recognizes the importance of this framework for all German actions in the period Sept. 1940 to May 1941.

4: THE EXPANDING CONFLICT

1
Thus Hitler’s letter to Mussolini of 5 Dec. 1940 asserting that the German divisions to be used in Spain were needed back in April at the latest because they were required for the war against England (
ADAP
, D, I I, No. 452) has to be read as really referring to the attack on the oviet Union about which Hitler had not yet informed his Italian ally. On June 21, 1941, Hitler told Goebbels that he had been working on the preparations since July 1940 (Fröhlich,
Goebbels Tagebucher
, 4: 710).

2
The planning is surveyed in
DRuZW
, 4: 119–326; the directive of 18 Dec. 1940 is in
ADAP
, D, I I, No. 532. See also Schustereit,
Vabanque
.

3
David Thomas, “Foreign Armies East and German Military Intelligence in Russia 194145,’
JGH
22 (1987), 261–302.

4
DRuZW
, 4: 188–89;
KTB OKW
, 1: 72; Boog,
Luftwaf Jenj Uhrung
, pp. 85 n 413, 109–10. In the spring of 1941, the Soviets began to complain about the systematic overflights
ADAP
, D, 12, No. 381).

5
Ueberschar,
Hitler und Finnland
, pp. 162–65.

6
Domarus,
Hitler
, 1: 642.

7
This has been demonstrated particularly carefully in Christian Streit,
Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945
(Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978). A good example of the careful obscuring of the import of criminal orders at the time they were given is the entry on a situation conference in the high command of the German navy on 20 Mar. 1941 in KTB Skl A 19, BA/MA, RM 7/22, f.280.