Hitler (154 page)

55. Speer in a communication to the author; Speer adds that Hitler's rejection of the works of Lucas Cranach, for example, was due to the fact that Cranach's female figures did not correspond to his own plumper ideal. Cranach's women were “unaesthetic,” Hitler said to Speer.

56. See the illustration between pages 144 and 145.

57. For this whole subject see Hildegard Brenner,
Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus,
especially the chapter headed “Der Führerauftrag Linz,” pp. 154 ff.

58. Speer, p. 230.

59. Cf. Nolte,
Epoche,
p. 500.

60.
Tischgespräche,
p. 186; the following remark
ibid.,
p. 171.

61.
Ibid.,
p. 446.

62.
Ibid.,
pp. 159, 173; see also Speer, pp. 94 ff.

63.
Libres propos,
p. 253. In
Mein Kampf
he commented: Blood purity “is a thing that the Jew preserves better than any other people on earth. And so he advances on his fatal road until another force comes forth to oppose him, and in a mighty struggle hurls the heaven-stormer back to Lucifer.”
Mein Kampf,
p. 662.

64. Klaus Dörner, “Nationalsozialismus und Lebensvernichtung,” in: VJHfZ 1967:2, p. 131; also Domarus, p. 717, where Hitler declares in the course of a party rally proclamation: “But Germany has experienced her greatest revolution as a consequence of the first policy of racial hygiene ever systematically undertaken in this country. The results of this German racial policy will be more decisive for the future of our nation than the effects of all other laws. For they create the new man.”

65.
Mein Kampf,
p. 688. The speech to the officers is printed in Jacobsen and Jochmann, under the date of January 25, 1939.

66. Speer, p. 138.

67. Domarus, p. 974.

68. Cf. Jacobsen,
Aussenpolitik,
p. 435. For Hitler's attacks on the intellectuals cf. the speeches of April 29, 1937, and May 20, 1937, prinfed in Kotze and Krausnick, pp. 149 f. and 241 f.

69. Nolte,
Faschismus,
p. 325.

70. Situation report by the district magistrate of Bad Kreuznach, quoted in Heyen, pp. 290 f., with further such references.

71. Heiden,
Hitler
II, pp. 215, 251.

72. Italian Ambassador Attolico in conversation with Carl Jacob Burckhardt. See C. J. Burckhardt, p. 307. Cf. also Hitler's remark in
Tischgespräche,
p. 341, that the Foreign Office was “a hodgepodge of nobodies.” For the remark on the generals cf. Fabian von Schlabrendorff,
Offiziere gegen Hitler,
p. 60; for the remark on the diplomats, H. Rauschning,
Gespräche,
pp. 249 ff.

73. IMT XXXI, 2949-PS, pp. 368 ff.

74. Seyss-Inquart's memorandum of September 9, 1945, IMT XXXII, 3254-PS, p. 70.

75.
Neue Basler Zeitung,
March 16, 1938, quoted in M. Domarus, p. 822.

76. Cf. Bracher,
Diktatur,
p. 338.

77. Stefan Zweig,
Die Welt von gestern,
pp. 446 f.

78.
Ibid.,
p. 448.

79. C. J. Burckhardt, p. 157; for Chamberlain's remark see Bernd-Jürgen Wandt,
München 1938,
p. 26.

80.
Ciano's Hidden Diary 1937–1938,
p. 114. See also Kirkpatrick,
Mussolini.

81. Henderson to Ribbentrop on May 21, 1938, ADAP II, No. 184. Similarly, on April 22, Undersecretary Butler told a representative of the German Embassy in London that England was aware that Germany would reach her next goal (he mentioned the Czechoslovak question);
ibid.,
I, No. 750.

82. IMT XXV, 388-PS, pp. 422, 434.

83. Cf. Gilbert and Gott, p. 99, also p. 89. Chamberlain made his remark in his radio address of September 27, 1938; London
Times
of September 28, 1938. At this time the Czech ambassador in Rome, F. K. Chvalkovsky, commented to Mussolini that “Bohemia is completely unknown in England. Once, when he was a student in London, he was given a violin to play at a party, simply because it was known that he was a Czech. There was a confusion of thought between Bohemians and gypsies.”
Ciano's Hidden Diary 1937–1938,
p. 174.

84. Duff Cooper,
Old Men Forget,
p. 229. The account of the meeting is based upon Paul Schmidt,
Statist,
pp. 395 ff., on the minutes of the meeting, and on a letter of Chamberlain's, both reprinted in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
I, pp. 133 ff.

85. Notes by Ivone Kirkpatrick, quoted in Bullock, p. 461.

86. Cf. Shirer,
Rise and Fall,
p. 398. Hitler's speech is printed in
My New Order,
pp. 517 ff.

87. Kirkpatrick's notes, quoted by Bullock, p. 461; see also Paul Schmidt,
Statist,
p. 409.

88. Shirer,
Rise and Fall,
p. 399. The same behavior has been recorded by many other observers; cf., for example, P. Schmidt,
Statist,
p. 410; Fritz Wiedemann, pp. 176 f.; Kordt,
Nicht aus den Akten,
pp. 259 f., 265 ff. C. J. Burckhardt wrote to a friend at the end of August that it was impossible to imagine “the horror, the despair of the masses when the talk of war began again.... Never have I so keenly felt that the peoples are not responsible for the crimes of their leaders.”
Meine Danziger Mission,
p. 155.

89. Cf. Peter Hoffmann,
Widerstand, Staatsstreich, Attentat,
p. 79. In Paris, in the course of his visits there that spring, Goerdeler met chiefly with Pierre Bertaux and Alexis Léger (who as a poet uses the pseudonym of St.-John Perse), then the highest-ranking official at the Quai d'Orsay.

90.
Ibid.,
p. 83. Beck would have considered a public statement of readiness to aid Czechoslovakia and a demonstration of military firmness “certain proof.”

91. On Halder's relationship to Hitler cf. Helmut Krausnick, “Vorgeschichte und Beginn des militärischen Widerstandes gegen Hitler,” in:
Die Vollmacht des Gewissens,
p. 338, and H. B. Gisevius,
To the Bitter End,
pp. 288 f. Gisevius's account carries special weight since he was among the sharpest critics of Halder. Also Gerhard Ritter,
Carl Goerdeler,
p. 184.

92. It appears that Canaris and Oster were informed of this plan and approved it—in large part on the grounds that only in this way could the problem of the oath of loyalty to Hitler personally be abruptly eliminated—that problem which had so fateful an effect right up to the twentieth of July.

93. Hans Rothfels,
Opposition gegen Hitler,
p. 68; also Helmuth K. G. Rönne-farth,
Die Sudetenkrise
I, p. 506.

94. Ritter,
Goerdeler,
pp. 198 f. Shortly after the Munich conference Nevile Henderson wrote to the same effect: “As things stand, by preserving peace we have saved Hitler and his regime.” Klaus-Jürgen Müller,
Das Heer und Hitler,
p. 378. Here once again, incidentally, Hitler followed up on his success by promptly dismissing a number of army officers, such as Gênerai Adam, who had emerged as oppositionists, thus snatching important key positions from the Opposition.

95.
Ciano's Hidden Diary 1937—1938,
p. 166.

96.
Ibid.,
pp. 166–68. All the concomitant circumstances make it plain that the only question at issue was how to set forth in a treaty the actual existing agreement. Of course, in the eyes of the two Western government heads, the conference also aimed at pinning Hitler down and thus making further expansion more difficult for him; but it is significant that all guarantees were merely set forth in supplementary agreements not signed by all the participants.

97.
Ibid.,
p. 167. For the course of the Munich conference cf. Stehlin, pp. 125 f.; Schmidt,
Statist,
pp. 415 f.; and François-Poncet, pp. 269 ff.

98.
Ciano's Hidden Diary 1937–1938,
p. 168.

99. Nolte,
Faschismus,
p. 281.

100.
Le Testament politique de Hitler,
pp. 118 f. The original text of the notes (the “Bormann Vermerke”) published in this book have not yet been made available. This, in part, may be the reason that the language and thought have a pithiness hardly characteristic of Hitler. We must also consider that the manuscript undoubtedly was revised and that the passages cited here represent a concentrate from a long-winded text full of outbursts and digressions. Albert Speer, in conversation with the author, has argued that Goebbels must have edited the text extensively, and perhaps written some of it himself; the diction on the whole, Speer points out, is much more in keeping with the Propaganda Minister's style than with Hitler's. For Schacht's testimony cf. IMT XIII, p. 4. A similar remark of Hitler's is recorded for September, 1938, in the diaries of Helmuth Groscurth: “He [Hitler] said he had been forced to draw back in September and had not reached his goal. He would have to wage war during his lifetime, he went on, for never again would a German enjoy such unlimited trust; he alone could do it. War aims: a) Dominion in Europe b) Domination of the world for centuries to come. The war would have to be launched soon because the others were rearming.” Helmuth Groscurth,
Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers 1938–1940,
p. 166.

101. Cf. the speech of August 22, 1939, Domarus, pp. 1234 f.

102. IMT XX, p. 397. Keitel declared in Nuremberg that the German offensive capacity would not even have sufficed to break through Czechoslovakia's border fortifications; IMT X, p. 582.

103. Cf. Gilbert and Gott, pp. 144 ff.

104. See, for example, the report of the British chargé d'affaires in Berlin,
Documents on British Foreign Policy,
2nd Series III, p. 277. For the quotation from
Das Schwarze Korps,
see Bracher,
Diktatur,
p. 399. Details on reactions to the pogrom in various parts of the Reich in Marlis Steinert,
Hitlers Krieg,
p. 75.

105. The speech, a key document to the understanding of Hitler's mentality, is printed in: VJHfZ 1958:2, pp. 181 ff.

106. Notes by Legation Councillor Hewel, ADAP IV, No. 228.

107. Zoller, p. 84; the following quotation is taken from the Proclamation to the German People of March 15, which had evidently been framed before the conversation with Hácha; cf. Domarus, p. 1095.

108. Quoted in Nolte,
Faschismus,
p. 330; on Chamberlain's speech in Birmingham cf. Michaelis and Schraepler, XIII, pp. 95 ff.; also Gilbert and Gott, p. 164; and Shirer, p. 454.

109. Erich Kordt,
Wahn und Wirklichkeit,
p. 153. For Hitler's later criticism of the operation against Prague, cf.
Le Testament politique de Hitler,
pp. 119 f. For the instructions to the press of March 16, 1939, cf. Hillgruber,
Strategie,
p. 15.

110. Sebastian Haffner,
Der Teufelspakt
(p. 92), a very stimulating, sharply expressed study, which also contains the reference to the three possible courses open to Hitler.

111. C. J. Burckhardt, p. 157.

112. Thus the record of the conversation among Beck, Chamberlain, and Halifax on April 4, 1939, quoted in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
II, p. 122.

113.
Ibid.,
p. 97.

114. Shirer, p. 454.

115. Gisevius, p. 363.

116. Domarus, pp. 1119 ff.

117. Cf., for example, François-Poncet, p. 282; also Grigore Gafencu,
Derniers Jours de l'Europe,
pp. 98 ff. For the following cf. Michaelis and Schraepler, XIII, pp. 211 f., 214 f.

118. IMTXXXIV, pp. 380 ff. (120-C).

119. Shirer, p. 471; Bullock (p. 504) expresses a similar opinion.

120.
My New Order,
674 ff.

121. Quoted in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
II, pp. 373 f.

122. Notes of Embassy secretary Julius Schnurre on a conversation with Georgi Astachov, the Soviet charge d'affaires in Berlin, on May 5, 1939; cf. ADAP VI, p. 355; also notes of von Weizsäcker on a conversation with Soviet Ambassador Merekalov on April 17,1939;
ibid.,
No. 215.

123. C. J. Burckhardt, p. 348. On Hitler's hesitation and his wavering attitude, cf. p. 325 f.; also Bullock, pp. 515 f. The remark on the “pact with Satan” was made in a conference on August 28; cf. Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
I, p. 38.

124. ADAP VI, pp. 514 ff.

125. IMT XXXVII, pp. 546 ff.

126. C. J. Burckhardt, pp. 341 ff.

127. ADAP VI, No. 729.

128. Ernst von Weizsäcker,
Erinnerungen,
p. 235.

129. Georges Bonnet,
Avant la catastrophe.

130. Freund, Weltgeschichte III, p. 124; here, too, p. 123, the Polish Foreign Minister's declaration of August 23, 1939, and, p. 165, the exchange of telegrams between Ribbentrop and Hitler.

131. The Soviet judges succeeded, however, in preventing the admission of the supplementary protocol as evidence, so that it played no further part in the trial.

132. Nolte,
Krise,
p. 204.

133. Hans-Günther Seraphim, ed.,
Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs,
p. 82. “That is,” Rosenberg commented indignantly, “about the most brazen insult that can be inflicted upon National Socialism.”

134. Report of the secretary, Hencke, dated August 24, 1939, cited in Freund,
Weltgeschichte
III, pp. 166 ff.

135. Hoffmann,
Hitler Was My Friend,
p. 103. For the remark on unused historic moments cf. Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
I, p. 122.

136. Six separate versions of this address have been preserved, each differing from the others in its stresses. Cf. the comparative analysis by Winfried Baumgart in VJHfZ 1968:2, pp. 120 ff. The version cited here is to be found in: IMT XXVI, 798-PS (first part) and 1014-PS (second part). Concerning the impression the speech made on its audience cf. Erich Raeder,
Mein Leben
II, pp. 165 ff. and Erich von Manstein,
Verlorene Siege,
pp. 19 f.