How Hitler Could Have Won World War II (38 page)

Germans were evicted from all the lands east of the Oder and from the Sudetenland. Germany lay in rubble with no government and scarcely any economy. Hitler's dreams of world dominance and
Lebensraum
had collapsed. Only the generosity of their former enemies in providing food and fuel kept the German population alive that summer and bitter winter of 1945–1946.

But the most terrible, costly war in history had ended. The world had finally rid itself of Hitler, Nazism, and the Third Reich.

Notes

A note on the Notes: Some references cite only the last name of the author or editor. These works are cited in full in the Selected Bibliography. References not so listed are cited in full where they appear. Numbers refer to pages.

Chapter 1: Germany's Opportunity for Victory

p. 2: “after France fell.” Kimball, 48.

p. 2: “the European continent.” Ian Kersaw in Finney, 132.

p. 3:
“Schutzstaffel
or SS.” Dahms, 332–38.

p. 4: “or were murdered.” This book focuses on the military and political decisions open to Germany in World War II. Nothing in it should be misunderstood as approval for what the Third Reich did in six years of pillage and genocide, carried out by Nazi authorities and private soldiers alike. This book seeks to explore how close we came to losing the war, and how close Adolf Hitler came to creating the unspeakable world he wanted. There is insufficient space to examine the Holocaust and other murderous programs Hitler and Nazi Germany pursued to the very last days of the war. There are many fine books on this aspect of Nazism. Two of the best are
Hitler's Willing Executioners
by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, and an official German study of the
Einsatzgruppen,
or murder units, in eastern Europe from 1939 to 1942:
Die Truppe des
Weltanschauungskrieges (The Troops of the War of Ideology) by Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm. For human losses, see Zabecki, vol. 1, 32–34 (Paul J. Rose); Omer Bartov,
Hitler's Army,
83–84.

p. 6: “kinds of
vehicles.
” Fuller, vol. 3, 379–81.

p. 7: “ ‘had time to react.' ” Rommel, 124.

p. 7: “infantryman could walk.” France had about 3,400 modern tanks, though not all were in organized tank units. Britain sent about 700 tanks to the Continent, mostly Mark VI light tanks, with 14-millimeter armor and armed with two machine guns, the rest Matildas, a powerful, slow (maximum speed 15 mph, but operating even slower) “infantry” tank with 70-millimeter main armor. Most were the Mark I version armed only with a machine gun, and only 50 were Mark IIs with a high-velocity two-pounder (40-millimeter) gun. On May 10, 1940, 2,300 French tanks had been formed into 51 battalions: 12 in three armored divisions, 12 in three light mechanized divisions, 27 in independent battalions. Each French battalion usually had 45 medium or light tanks, or 33 heavy tanks. The French deployed mostly infantry tanks with thick armor (34–60 millimeters), short range, and slow speed. Most had a good 37-millimeter gun, and some had an excellent high-velocity 47-millimeter gun. Either could pierce most German armor. See Goutard, 27–28; Zabecki, vol. 2, 1107–10, 1131–32 (Kenneth J. Swanson, Robert G. Waite, and John Dunn); Ellis, 88–89.

p. 8: “speed of only 240 mph.” This was the 1938 model with a 490-mile range used in the 1940 campaign. In 1941 the Ju-87D came out with a 4,000-pound pay-load and a 950-mile range. The D-model saw heavy and successful service in North Africa and Russia.

p. 8: “on the battlefield.” The German Wehrmacht (armed forces) were the first to develop close tactical or battle cooperation between aircraft and ground troops. A Stuka could drop a bomb within a hundred yards of any target designated by the ground forces. The Luftwaffe sent liaison officers to corps and panzer divisions to relay requests for support. In the campaign in the west, panzer forces could receive air support forty-five to seventy-five minutes after the request was made. See Corum, 271–75.

Chapter 2: The Campaign in the West: 1940

p. 9: “east of Holland.” Dahms, 162;
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
vol. 2, 238–47 (Hans Umbreit).

p. 11: “the French army.” Manstein, 100–102; Cooper, 198–200.

p. 11: “ ‘was inadmissible,' Manstein wrote.” Manstein, 103–104.

p. 12: “ ‘of the German offensive.' ” Ibid., 118.

p. 13: “ ‘had to say,' Manstein wrote later.” Ibid., 121.

p. 15: “vulnerable to ground fire.” Goutard, 32–37.

p. 16: “on only slightly inferior terms.” Zabecki, vol. 2, 962, 964–66, 983–85 (Carl O. Schuster, Philip C. Bechtel).

p. 16: “could be moved forward.” Kiesling, 140–42.

Chapter 3: The Defeat of France

p. 20: “Walther von Reichenau's following 6th Army.” Zabecki, vol. 2, 1471–72 (Kevin Dougherty);
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
vol. 2, 285–87 (Hans Umbreit); Dahms, 166–69; English and Gudmundsson, 61.

p. 21: “to Antwerp, Belgium.” The Allied land forces were divided into the 1st Group of Armies (Billotte), located between the English Channel and Montmédy, and including 7th Army (Giraud), the BEF (Gort), 1st Army (Georges Blanchard), 9th Army (André Corap), and 2nd Army (Charles Huntziger); the 2nd Group of Armies (Gaston Prételat) between Montmédy and Sélestat (thirty miles south of Strasbourg on the Rhine River), and including 3rd Army (Charles Condé), 4th Army (Edouard Réquin) and 5th Army (Victor Bourret); and the 3rd Group of Armies (Georges Besson) between Sélestat and Geneva, Switzerland, with 8th Army ( Joanny J.M. Garchery) and 3rd Army (Robert Auguste Touchon).

p. 22: “to the German panzers.” Goutard, 111–13.

p. 22: “ ‘Victory whatever the cost!' ” Churchill,
The Second World War, Their Finest
Hour,
25–26.

p. 23: “in their thrust westward.” Guderian's three divisions had 276 tanks each, Reinhardt's two divisions 218 each; Hoth's 5th Division had 324 tanks, his 7th Division 218; Hoepner's two divisions had 324 tanks apiece, and the 9th Division (detailed to Holland) 229: total 2,683. Of these, 640 were Mark Is, 825 Mark IIs, 564 Mark IIIs, and 654 Mark IVs. The Mark Is were inadequate for combat and were relegated to reconnaissance. They weighed 6.5 tons, were armed with two machine guns, and had maximum armor 15 millimeters thick. The Mark IIs also were inadequate, weighed 10.5 tons, had only a 20-millimeter gun and 30-millimeter armor. The Mark IIIs carried a 37-millimeter gun and had 57-millimeter maximum armor. The Mark IVs mounted a short-barreled 75-millimeter gun and had maximum of 60-millimeter armor. All four models could travel at about 25 miles per hour. However, the tanks designated Mark IVs in the 6th, 7th, and 8th Panzer Divisions were Czech Skodas. They weighed 11.5 tons, could travel 21 miles an hour, had 25-millimeter maximum armor, and carried a 37-millimeter gun. See Goutard, 27; Chapman, 347; Zabecki, vol. 2, 1111–14, 1133 (Paul W. Johnson and Robert G. Waite).

p. 23: “ ‘think there is any danger?' ” Chapman, 113.

p. 25: “ ‘guns had been abandoned.' ” Ibid., 121.

p. 28: “ ‘boundless shores' (
Uferlose
)
.”
Dahms, 171.

p. 28: “and seized Bouvellement.” Guderian, 108.

p. 31: “attempted no further attack.” Ellis, 90–98.

p. 32: “ ‘and protective movements.' ” Liddell Hart,
The German Generals Talk,
132.

pp. 33–34: “ ‘the liberation of the Old.' ” Churchill,
The Second World War, Their Finest
Hour,
118.

p. 35: “51st Highland Division.” Rommel, 44–67.

p. 35: “ ‘the back of its neighbor.' ” Kimball, 51.

Chapter 4: Hitler's First Great Error

pp. 36–37: “ ‘their finest hour.' ” Churchill,
The Second World War, Their Finest Hour,
225–26.

p. 38: “pick up low-flying aircraft.” One of the greatest British feats in the war was breaking the German Enigma cipher machine's code by the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley, between Oxford and Cambridge. Radio intercepts of Enigma-encoded messages gave the Allies advance warning of many German actions, plans, and dispositions. A Berlin commercial company invented the Enigma machine, and the army adopted it in the late 1920s and other governmental agencies in 1933. The machine mechanically enciphered plain text messages by means of three cipher drums, or rotors, with twenty-six letters along the rims and a fourth stationary reflector or reversing cipher drum. Changing the connections of these four rotors gave almost infinite potential codes. The Germans regarded Enigma transmissions as unbreakable. Polish intelligence turned over one of these machines to the British in late July 1939. Mathematicians at Bletchley began a laborious process of breaking the codes based on the repeated sequence of letters an operator was obliged to preface messages with to show the receiving station how he had geared or set the machine. Luftwaffe keys were the first broken, but Gestapo keys were never broken. The Bletchley operation was code-named Ultra. Its first great victory was in the Battle of Britain, when Ultra was able to give key advance information on Luftwaffe operations to the RAF. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 959–60, 1290–91 (Alexander Molnar, Jr.); Keegan,
Second World War,
163–64, 497–502; Ronald Lewin,
Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story,
London: 1978.

p. 42: “role in deciding the war.” Shirer, 775–82; Dahms, 211; Zabecki, vol. 2 (Robert G. Waite), 1405–9; Liddell Hart,
History of the Second World War,
87–108.

p. 43: “to British Guiana (Guyana).” Hitler made a great strategic error when he signed the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan on September 27, 1940. The alliance was aimed at maintaining American neutrality by raising the prospect of a two-front war, against Germany and Italy in Europe and against Japan in the Pacific. This threat increased the determination of American leaders to arm the nation. But the pact encouraged Japan to risk an attack on the United States in the belief that in a two-front war Americans would be unable to defeat the Japanese navy, leaving control of the Pacific to Japan. This decision probably cost Germany and Japan the war. By seeming to offer Japan the opportunity to exclude the United States from the western Pacific, the pact encouraged Japan to seize the colonies of Britain, France, and the Netherlands in Southeast Asia (the so-called southern strategy). This diverted Japanese attention from its designs on Siberia, and led to a neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union in April 1941.

p. 44: “American entry into the war.” Paul Kennedy points out that the economic power of the United States dwarfed that of every other nation. In 1938, with at least half of its capacity idle because of economic depression, the United States still produced almost 29 percent of the world's manufactured goods, more than twice that of Germany, whose factories were operating at maximum capacity. In 1937 the United States had three times the income of the entire British Empire, almost seven times that of France, four times that of Germany, and sixteen times that of Japan. In 1937, the United States possessed 41.7 percent of the entire world's war-production potential. Germany's share was 14.4 percent, the Soviet Union's 14, Britain's 10.2, France's 4.2, Japan's 3.5, and Italy's 2.5. See Kennedy, 325–33.

p. 44: “a peaceful solution.” Kimball, 69–76; Zabecki, vol. 1, 108–9 (Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr.).

Chapter 5: The Fatal Turn to the East

p. 45: “ ‘the spring of 1941.' ” Hitler's meeting occurred at Berchtesgaden in his
Berghof
(retreat) at Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps. All the top leaders of the armed forces were there.

p. 45: “invaded Russia in 1812.” Liddell Hart,
Strategy,
236.

p. 48: “against the Soviet Union.”
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
vol. 3, 191–200; Shirer, 813–15.

p. 49: “if the United States entered.” Shirer, 829; Kimball, 84.

p. 49: “never counsel Hitler correctly.”
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
vol. 3, 197.

p. 49: “than capture of London.” Fuller, vol. 3, 413.

p. 53: “a single panzer division for Africa.” Alexander, 237. Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov went to Berlin on November 12, 1940, to discuss a four-power entente and “delimitation of spheres of influence.” Joachim von Ribbentrop, German foreign minister, outlined a remarkable proposal for Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union to divide up Eurasia and Africa. But the plan had an air of unreality about it. Hitler had devoted large portions of
Mein Kampf
to describing his hatred of Communists and his desire to eradicate them. It is doubtful whether Joseph Stalin believed Hitler was serious. On November 26, he demanded a base in Bulgaria to secure control of the Dardanelles. This would place Romania under Soviet threat, and Romania's Ploesti oil fields were a matter of life or death for Germany. Hitler abandoned the idea of a four-power alliance, and reached his final decision to attack the Soviet Union.

p. 55: “forced to cede to others.” Close to midnight on November 11, 1940, thirty obsolete Swordfish torpedo bomber biplanes from the British aircraft carrier
Illustrious
sank one and heavily damaged two Italian battleships lying at anchor at Taranto. The British lost two aircraft, and eliminated Italy as a naval competitor in the Mediterranean. The air strikes proved that bombers could sink capital ships. The Japanese learned the lesson, and were the first to realize that thereafter aircraft carriers were to dominate naval warfare. See Zabecki, vol. 2, 1708–9 (Francesco Fatutta).

p. 56: “for a hasty departure.” Beginning January 19, 1941, small British forces struck from Sudan in the north and Kenya in the south to evict the Italians from their East African colonies of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, and from British Somaliland, which they had occupied in 1940. The British were aided by Ethiopians who accompanied Emperor Haile Selassie, exiled by the Italians when they conquered Ethiopia in 1935–1936. The Italians had 160,000 native and 100,000 Italian troops, but they retreated before the much smaller British forces. By April 6, 1941, the British had occupied Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and most other important places in the colonies. The last Italian force surrendered at Gondar, Ethiopia, on November 27. The campaign demonstrated poor leadership by Italian officers and a tendency of Italian soldiers to surrender or run away.