A World at Arms (185 page)

46
On the transit issue, see Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union,
pp. 65–75;
ADAP,
D8, No. 320. On transit shipments of rubber and tin from East Asia, see Berlin tel. to Tokyo, zu W VII 74 of 12 Jan. 1940; Berlin tel. to Tokyo, zu W 543/40g II of 7 Feb. 1940; Tokyo tels. No. 108 of 10 Feb. 1940 and No. 124 of IS Feb. 1940, all in AA, Ha Pol, Clodius, “Japan,” Bd. 3. On early development of the transit trade in soybeans (critical for Germany’s need for vegetable fats for human and animal consumption), see the Reichschancellory, “Vermerk, betreffend Oeutschlands Versorgung mit Sojabohnen,” 13 Feb. 1940, BA, R 43 II/1422. There are detailed statistics on the transit trade and its importance for Germany in BA, R 2/17315. The German press was prohibited from mentioning the transit trade, see Reichspropagandaamt Berlin, “Geheim! Presse-Rundschreiben Nr. 11/9/40,” 9 Jan. 1940, BA, Nadler, ZSg. 115/19, f. 23.

47
Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union,
pp. 75–85;
ADAP,
0, 8, Nos. 195, 248, 257; Moscow tel. 273 of 5 Sept. 1939, AA, St.S. “Der Krieg 1939,” Bd. 3, fr. 35657; KTB Skl A 1, 11 and 25 Sept. 1939, BA/MA, RM 7/4, f. 59,162; KTB Skl A 2, 7, 11, 17, 23, 25, 30 Oct. 1939, BA/MA, RM 7/5, f. 68, 94–95, 135–37, 191–92, 203, 247–48. The British learned about the provision of naval facilities by the Soviet Union to Germany in north Russia by April 8, 1941, at the latest and were greatly worried about this; see N 4087/283/38, PRO, FO 371124852. The war diary of the German navy for January 1940 also contains extensive material on Soviet assistance for the transfer of an auxiliary cruiser to the Pacific by the northern sea route (BA/MA, RM 718, passim).

Obviously Soviet assistance to Germany also enabled the latter to divert naval forces from the Baltic to the Atlantic to prey on Allied shipping; a point the German navy had recognized as soon as the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed (KTB Skl A 1, 23 Aug. 1939, BA/MA, RM 7/4, f. 8).

The Soviet government also had meteorological information provided for the German air force, but the details of this remain to be investigated.

48
Cripps to Halifax, 18 Sept. 1939, N 4571/57/38, PRO, FO 371/23678. The British government hoped to keep Moscow as far apart from the Germans as possible (Salisbury
to Halifax, 28 Oct. 1939, Halifax to Salisbury, 31 Oct. 1939, PRO, FO 800/325, f. 12933, 147–49); but Stalin at this time was obviously interested primarily in accommodating Berlin.

49
See Hochman,
Soviet Union and Collective Security,
chap. 5.

50
Donald C. Watt, “Stalin’s First Bid for Sea Power 1933–1941,”
Naval Institute Proceedings,
90 (June 1964), 88–96; Malcolm Muir, Jr., “American Warship Construction for Stalin’s Navy Prior to World War II: A Study in Paralysis of Policy,”
Diplomatic History
, 5 (1981), 337–51; see also Weinberg,
Foreign Policy,
1937–39, pp. 416–17.

51
On the discussion of this issue in the high command of the German navy (Skl), the high command of the German armed forces (OKW) and with Hitler, which shows Hitler reversing himself to approve important sales to the Russians in view of the significance of Soviet aid to Germany, see the documents of 30 and 31 Oct. 1939 in BA/MA, RM 7/198, f. 287–91. The fact that the German naval construction program had been carried out in violation of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 from the beginning was now coming back to haunt them when the Russians asked for the drawing for major warships constructed or laid down supposedly under its terms.

52
On the
Lützow,
see Weinberg,
Germany and the Soviet Union,
pp. 76–78. British intelligence had learned of its being towed to the Soviet Union by 1 June 1940 (N 5854/360/98, PRO, FO 371/24853).

53
Weinberg,
Foreign Policy,
1937–39, pp. 649–52.

54
Robert Fisk,
In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality
1939–45 (London: Deutsch, 1983), pp. 150–53.

55
Ibid., pp. 91, 94–96. See also
ADAP,
D, 8, No. 216.

56
Gibbs,
Grand Strategy,
1: 668.

57
War Cabinet 6
³⁹
, PRO, CAB 65/1, f. 41.

58
Documents diplomatiques franfais,
1932 - 1939, 2d series, Vol. I, No. 334.

59
See Robert A. Doughty,
The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doarine
1919–1939 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1985).

60
Waclaw Jedrzejewicz (ed.),
Diplomat in Paris,
1936–1939:
Memoirs of Juliusz Lukasiewicz
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1970), p. 217. it is indicative of the apologetic approach of Gunsberg,
Divided and Conquered
p. 80, that this commitment is mentioned with no reference to its fundamentally mendacious character. Only French memoirs are cited as sources (ibid., p. 85 n 58).

61
Ibid., p. 89.

62
Bethell,
War Hitler Won
p.161.

63
See the minutes of the first meeting of the Supreme War Council on September 12, 1939, in François Bedarida (ed.),
La Strategie secrete de la drôle de guerre
(Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1979), pp. 93–94.

64
The French also kept the British from mining the Rhine river (operation “Royal Marine”) for fear of reprisals. See on this PRO, FO 800/312, f. 28–29. The project was a favorite of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and is discussed at length in his
The Gathering Storm
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), pp. 508ff.

65
Max Hastings,
Bomber Command
(London: Pan Books, 1981), pp. 13–39. British concentration on bombing no more meant that the bombs actually exploded than that German planning for submarine warfare meant their torpedoes worked. When the British attacked the pocket battleship
Scheer
on September 4, 1939, four bombs hit but none exploded (ibid., p. 16). The Germans eventually solved the problem with their torpedoes, but the British never really solved the bomb problem: of the bombs dropped by the RAF on German oil targets in the last year of the war, almost a fifth failed to explode (ibid., P. 403).

66
On the leaflet campaign, see Charles Webster and Noble Frankland,
The Strategic Air
Offensive against Germany
1939–1945, 4 vols. (London: HMSO, 1961), 1: 105–6, 134–35.

67
KTB Skl A, I, 5 and 6 Sept. 1939, BA/MA, RM 7/4, f. 41, 43.

68
ADAP
, D, 8, NO.4.

69
BA/MA, PG 33626 passim. (There is a detailed account of the fate of the crew of
Graf Spee
in Ronald C. Newton,
The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina,
1937–1947 [Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 19921,
chap. 15
.) Similarly the Russians helped the crews of German ships stranded in Iran by the outbreak of war to return home across the Soviet Union (E 506/48/38, PRO, FO 371/24571). The route via Japan and the Soviet Union was also utilized for those stranded in the United States aapanese Consul General New York to Tokyo, No. 2 of 4 Jan. 1940, NA, RG 457, SRDJ 002742).

70
DRuZW
, 2: 170–74;
ADAP,
D, 8, Nos. 460–63, 467; Longmann (Montevideo) No. 177 of 14 Dec. 1939, copy in BA/MA, RM 6/71, f. 137.

71
Michael Salewski,
Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung,
1935–1945, 3 vols. (Frankfurt/M: Bernard & Graefe, 1975), 1:141ff;
DRuZW,
2: 164ff. The arguments over the dismissal, first of Admiral Hermann Boehm and later of Admiral Wilhelm Marschall cannot be reviewed here. Whatever the merits of the cases, the incidents certainly reflect confusion at the top of the German navy. There are some interesting comments on this in Rolf Johannesson,
Offizier in kritischer Zeit
(Herford: Mittler, 1989).

72
On the torpedo problem, see Salewski,
Seekriegsleitung,
1: 188ff. When the United States was drawn into the war more than two years later, the same thing happened with American torpedoes.

73
Jürgen Rohwer and Eberhard Jackel (eds.),
Die Funkaufklürung und ihre Rolle im
2.
Weltkrieg
(Stuttgart: Motorbuch, 1979), p. 128;
DRuZW,
2: 168.

74
KTB Skl
A
, 5, 23 Jan. 1940, BA/MA,
RM
7/8, f. 184. The Germans did not understand that the British were also greatly improving their radio location devices and eventually installed them on the convoy escorts, thus enabling the latter to locate and attack U-Boats during convoy battles. The subject is reviewed in Chapter 10, below. Note Rohwer and Jäckel,
Funkaufklärung,
pp. 126, 131–32; Jürgen Rohwer,
Geleitzugschlachten im März
1943 (Stuttgart: Motorbuch, 1975), pp. 29–32, 63–66, picture facing p. 289, 31–14.

75
David Dilks, “The Twilight War and the Fall of France: Chamberlain and Churchill in
1940,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,
series 5, 28 (1978), pp. 70–71. A file of documents on the project, code-named “Catherine,” is in PRO, ADM 205/4.

76
KTB Skl A 1,5 Aug. 1939, BA/MA, RM 7/4, f. 6.

77
As is now clear, the
Altmark
was armed and so was part of the crew; see the material in BA/MA,
PG
33627, esp. f. 35, 283–84. See also Hans-Dietrich Loock,
Quisling, Rosenberg und Terboven: Zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Revolution in Norwegen
(Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970), pp. 245–49; “Bestellungen aus der Pressekonferenz vom 19 Februar 1940,” BA, Brammer, ZSg. 101/15, f. 85. The Germans became a bit more sensitive about transporting prisoners of war across neutral countries thereafter; see Hans-Jürgen Lutzhöft,
Deutsche Militärpolitik und schwedische Neutralität 1939–1942
(Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1981), pp. 154–55;
ADAP
, D, 13, No. 181.

78
See E.F. Gueritz, “Nelson’s Blood: Attitudes and Actions of the Royal Navy,”
JCH,
16 (1981 ), 487–99.

79
There is a two-volumeofficial history by William N. Medlicott,
The Economic Blockade
(London: HMSO, 1952–59), but the subject has not attracted much scholarly attention since the opening of the archives. Williamson Murray argues in “The Strategy of the ‘Phony War’: A Re-evaluation,”
Military Affairs
45, No. 1 (1981), 13–14, that the blockade had major effects on the German economy in the first months of the war, but this overlooks the fact that the blockade was seen as a means of weakening
Germany not for a few months but during the years that Britain and France built up their forces.

80
On this question, see Alan S. Milward, “Could Sweden have Stopped the Second World War?”
Scandinavian Economic History Review
15 (1967), 127–38; Jörg-Johannes Jäger, “Sweden’s Iron Ore Exports to Germany,” ibid., pp. 139–47.

81
On these problems, see the minutes published by Bedarida,
Stratégtie secréte;
Llewellyn Woodward,
British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, 5
vols. (London: HMSO, 197–76), I:
chaps. 2
–
4
; Hans-Joachim Lorbeer,
Westmächte gegen die Sowjetunion 1939–1941
(Freiburg: Rombach, 1975)

82
Weinberg,
Foreign Policy
1937–39, pp. 563–67.

83
Knox,
Mussolini Unleashed,
pp. 44–46.

84
Important for Ciano’s visit, in addition to
ADAP,
0, 8, No. 176: Malcolm Muggeridge (ed.),
Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers
(London: Odhams, 1948), pp. 309–16; and Hugh Gibson (ed.),
The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1946), 1 and 2 Oct. 1939, is the report of the Soviet chargé in Rome, Leon Helfand, to United States Ambassador William Phillips on his conversation with Ciano in Phillips’s diary for 10 Oct. 1939 (Haward, Houghton Library). (These two publications are henceforth cited as Ciano,
Diplomatic Papers
and Ciano,
Diary
, respectively.) Ciano liked Helfand and later helped him defect; such personal relationships and attitudes greatly influenced Ciano’s conduct of official business. On Italian prodding for a peace with Poland, see also
ADAP
, D, 8, No. 38.

85
This interpretation is also shared by Knox,
DRuZW,
3, and the older study of Ferdinand Siebert,
Italiens Weg in den Zweiten Weltkrieg
(Frankfurt/M: Athenaum, 1962).

86
This was true in spite of British and French efforts to help themselves and split the Axis by trying to obtain deliveries of military supplies from Italy; see the reports of the German naval attache in Rome of 21 and 24 Jan. 1940, BA/MA, Case 17/3, PG 645170;
ADAP,
D, 8, Nos. 593, 599. On the blockade and Italy, see Knox,
Mussolini Unleashed,
pp. 70–75.

87
Knox, pp. 59–61; Conrad F. Latour,
Südtirol und die Achse Berlin-Rom
1938–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), chap. 4. On the issue of publicity, see Reichspropagandaamt Berlin, “Presse-Rundschreiben Nr. 11/13/40,” 11 Jan. 1940, BA, Nadler, ZSg. 115/19, f. 26.

88
Knox, pp. 63, 66.

89
See the books cited in n 85, above.

90
Knox, pp. 63–65;,
ADAP,
0, 8, No. 205.

91
Weinberg
Germany and the Soviet Union,
pp. 91–96.

92
The analysis of Spanish attitudes on this question in Donald S. Detwiler,
Hitler, Franco und Gibraltar
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1962), pp. 13–14, is persuasive.

93
Weinberg,
Foreign Policy
1937–39, pp. 160–63, 503.

94
See
ADAP,
D, 8, No. 173.

95
Detwiler,
Hitler, Franco,
pp. 17–18.

96
Elke Frohlich (ed.),
Die Tagebucher von Joseph Goebbels,
Part 1 (4 vols. plus index) (Munich: Saur, 1987),22 and 27 Jan. 1939. (Henceforth cited as Frohlich,
Goebbels Tagebucher
.)

97
KTB Skl, gKdos. “Organisation und Aufgaben der Etappen (Erfahrungen der Spannungszeit, Olnachschub),” Jan. 1939, BA/MA, RM 6/58.