Ostkrieg (11 page)

Perhaps sensing the impossibility of his mission—satisfying all the conflicting demands, he remarked, would require a gigantic fraud—in his diplomatic offensive in October 1940 Hitler seemed hesitant and halfhearted. In July, such a mission might have succeeded: France was reeling from defeat, Franco and Mussolini eager for easy gains. By the autumn, however, the failure of Germany to subdue Great Britain had changed the situation dramatically. French and Spanish leaders were markedly more wary of any commitment to fight, while Mussolini seethed at his reduction to an afterthought in the alliance. In addition,
the price each demanded for aiding Germany had risen enormously, while their territorial claims still collided. Hitler's meeting with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass on 4 October went well, with both expressing support for a Mediterranean strategy, which pleased the Italians since it promised to raise their status. Eight days later, however, the cordiality faded when Mussolini heard, without warning, of Hitler's decision to act unilaterally to protect the Rumanian oil fields, seemingly excluding Italy from an area it regarded as within its own sphere of influence. The
duce
's retaliation was to present Hitler with a fait accompli at the end of the month, the invasion of Greece, which Hitler had repeatedly warned against and which resulted in a near disaster for the Axis.
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A meeting with French foreign minister Pierre Laval on 20 October went well enough, with Laval hoping through cooperation with Germany to secure French colonial possessions and release from heavy reparations. Hitler did not make any commitments but did request a meeting with Marshal Petain, which Laval agreed to arrange. Hitler's train then traveled on to Hendaye, on the Spanish border, where he met with Franco on the twenty-third. This meeting lacked all promise from the beginning. Hitler knew that Spanish entry into the war would put a serious economic strain on Germany, and he was also aware that he could not offer Spain any territorial concessions from France since he was attempting to get the latter to enter the war against Britain. He thus had little to offer the Spanish
caudillo
, even as Franco intended to extract maximum gains for Spanish entry into the war. From this unpromising beginning, negotiations floundered almost immediately. Franco's train arrived late, and Hitler took an almost instant dislike to the short, garrulous dictator. After a long monologue on Spanish economic difficulties, Franco offered to join the war against Britain in January 1941, but only if Spain acquired extensive French territories in Africa and received exorbitant quantities of food, raw materials, and armaments from Germany. Further irritated by Franco's observation that Britain would likely continue the conflict indefinitely, given American support, Hitler at one point got up and seemed ready to walk out of the talks. Although they continued, nothing was accomplished. Hitler, still seething at Franco, remarked to Mussolini a few days later in Florence that he “would prefer to have three or four teeth taken out” than have another discussion with the Spanish dictator.
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Nor were the talks the next day in Montoire with Petain and Laval any more profitable, even if they were more pleasant. Despite Hitler's bluster about the strength of the German position, both Petain and Laval remained noncommittal, hinting that French cooperation hinged
on generous treatment by Germany and the acquisition of British colonies after a peace settlement. Although Hitler professed himself satisfied with the talks and impressed by Petain, in reality discussions with these potential allies had revealed not German strength but German weakness. Hitler had nothing substantive to offer either Spain or France since he could not satisfy one without antagonizing the other, nor could he move closer to France without alienating Italy. Moreover, any long-term benefits of Spanish and French participation in the war against England had to be weighed against the enormous short-term drain on the already hard-pressed German economy.
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Finally, Germany lacked the requisite naval and air strength to go it alone in the Mediterranean, a fact that hardly escaped the notice of the other leaders. Despite Hitler's assurances that the British were practically out of the war, the view from Madrid and Vichy looked decidedly different; to them, waiting to see which way the wind blew appeared at the moment to be a far safer bet.

As Hitler, discouraged by his failure to make any headway with the Spanish and French, traveled by train back to Italy for another meeting with the
duce
, the conviction grew that his initial instincts were correct: the solution to Germany's dilemma lay in action in the east. He once again emphasized to Keitel and Jodl his intention to attack and defeat the Soviet Union in the spring, after the threat to the German flank in the Balkans had been removed. Still, in late October and early November, he had not definitively decided on a course of action. He retained some hope that Franco might yet be pressured into cooperating in seizing Gibraltar, but the goal now had faded from forcing Britain out of the war merely to protecting the German rear as decisive victory was sought in the east. During his talks with Mussolini, Hitler mentioned the upcoming visit to Berlin of Soviet foreign minister Molotov and his hope of directing Russian expansive energies against Great Britain in the Persian Gulf and India. In early November, however, the Führer observed to his military leaders that Russia remained “the great problem of Europe” and that everything had to be done “to prepare for when the showdown comes.” At the meeting, Hitler had seemed to his army adjutant, Major Engel, “visibly depressed,” as if “at the moment he [did] not know how things should proceed.”
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The discussions with Molotov had, in fact, come at the behest of Ribbentrop, who hoped to realize his plan for a continental bloc by incorporating Russia into the Tripartite Pact. Although the spheres of interest of the four powers would touch, Ribbentrop hoped that they need not clash. For his part, Stalin seemed genuinely interested in the prospect since it would prolong the “capitalist war,” provide time for the further growth
of the Soviet war economy, and add to the booty he had acquired from the 1939 pact with Germany, which had also allowed him to push the Soviet security zone to the west. The Germans, however, were much less sanguine. The Soviet acquisition of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina had prompted direct German involvement in Rumania in order to protect its oil supplies. This not only raised protests from Moscow that Berlin had violated the 1939 agreement but also strained German relations with Italy while exacerbating a Hungarian-Rumanian territorial dispute. All this threatened unrest in the one region that Hitler most needed calm. German intervention stabilized the situation, but Mussolini's pique had also been one of the motives behind the invasion of Greece, which now threatened to destabilize the region anew. The increasing German dependence on deliveries of vital food and raw materials from Russia also drove fears that the long-term interests of Germany and the Soviet Union were incompatible.
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Although skeptical of any agreement, Hitler nonetheless bowed to Ribbentrop's argument that Soviet inclusion in the Tripartite Pact would prove decisive in the struggle against Great Britain. Still, on 12 November, the very day Molotov arrived in Berlin, Hitler signed Directive No. 18, which, after laying out the various combat possibilities inherent in the Mediterranean strategy, finally declared, “Political discussions for the purpose of clarifying Russia's attitude in the immediate future have been initiated. Regardless of the outcome of these discussions, all preparations for the east for which verbal orders have already been given [i.e., military operations against the Soviet Union] will be continued.” Though no military options had been closed in this directive, the implication seemed to be that Hitler had grown very doubtful of the possibilities offered by alternative schemes and increasingly viewed the strategy he had always favored, attack on the Soviet Union, as the only realistic way to achieve a swift victory.
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In any case, the meetings with Molotov did not go at all well, merely confirming Hitler's assessment of the incompatibility of their positions. While Hitler and Ribbentrop delivered rambling monologues, the cold, steely-eyed Molotov sat impassively. When it came his turn to speak, he shot a series of specific questions at the visibly discomfited Führer about German intentions in the Baltic and Balkans, the proposed spheres of interest, and the aims of the Tripartite Pact. The Soviet foreign minister pointedly ignored Hitler's suggestion that Russia expand toward the Persian Gulf and India, making demands instead on Finland, Rumania, and Bulgaria, expressing Soviet interest in control of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, and demanding as well a secure exit from the
Baltic Sea. Molotov further suggested, perhaps not so innocently, that Germany should seek its gains in the remains of the British Empire. He also pressed Hitler on German actions in Rumania and Finland, which Moscow viewed as clear violations of the 1939 agreement. Even when the Soviet foreign minister mentioned the mutual benefits of the German-Soviet relationship, without which German victories would have been impossible, it served merely to reinforce in Hitler's mind German dependence and exposure to Russian blackmail. By the end of the second day of talks, despite Molotov's indication of Russia's willingness to cooperate with the Tripartite Pact, Hitler recognized that the aims of the two sides remained irreconcilable. All in all, the talks proved a fiasco, best symbolized by the British air raid during the closing banquet that forced the dignitaries into a bomb shelter.
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Although Molotov's demands in Berlin were almost certainly intended as a tactical maneuver, the opening proposals in an ongoing negotiation that would result in Soviet accession to the Tripartite Pact, Hitler viewed them as extortionist and confirmation of the long-term Russian threat to Germany. Neither Hitler nor the German Foreign Office even bothered to reply to Molotov's further note of 25 November, in which he moderated the Soviet demands. Even before Molotov's visit, according to his army adjutant, Major Engel, Hitler had viewed the talks as a test of Moscow's intentions, of whether Germany and the Soviet Union would stand “back to back or chest to chest.” The Führer now had his answer. The talks had clearly shown the incompatibility of Soviet and German territorial aims. “Molotov had let the cat out of the bag,” Engel recorded Hitler as saying. “He [the Führer] was really relieved. It would not even remain a marriage of convenience.” The day after Molotov's departure, Admiral Raeder observed that Hitler believed the Mediterranean strategy posed greater risks than an attack in the east and, thus, was “still inclined toward a confrontation with Russia,” while, on the seventeenth, Weizsäcker noted the talk in Hitler's circle, “It would be impossible to create order in Europe without the liquidation of Russia.” Hitler's conviction, formed in the summer and shaped by the failure of the alternative strategies, had been reinforced: the way out of Germany's dilemma lay in the east.
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On 5 December, Hitler ordered Brauchitsch and Halder to prepare the army for an attack on the Soviet Union in the spring. Soviet ambitions in the Balkans, he declared, threatened Germany. He then added, “The decision concerning hegemony in Europe will come in the battle against Russia.” The aim of the operation, he stressed, echoing his arguments of 31 July, was the annihilation of “Russia's manpower.”
Bock noted the Führer's emphasis once again on the importance of Russia and America for Britain: “If the Russians were eliminated England would have no hope of defeating us on the continent, especially since an effective intervention by America would be complicated by Japan, which would keep our rear free.” Three days later, the last attempt to convince Franco to join the war failed, and the Germans suspended preparations for the proposed attack on Gibraltar. The failure of the Mediterranean and continental bloc strategies now prompted Hitler to concentrate his energies on the defeat of the Soviet Union. On 17 December, after a briefing by Jodl, the Führer summarized his estimate of the global situation. “All continental European problems,” he stressed, would have to be solved in 1941 “since the United States would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards.”
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Hitler's great goal since the 1920s had now become the sole means of extricating Germany from its deadlock. The alternative was no longer, if it had ever been, either a Mediterranean or a continental bloc strategy; the choice now was between destruction of the Soviet Union and Germany's ruin. With time running against him and the Mediterranean strategy dependent on the cooperation of unwilling or unable allies, Hitler decided to go it alone. The attack on the Soviet Union was the only practical alternative left—and one, moreover, that not only accorded with his long-term goals but also seemed the less risky option. On 18 December 1940, therefore, he signed Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa), which demanded that the Wehrmacht should “crush the Soviet Union in a rapid campaign.” On 9 January 1941, he told his generals, “The enormous Russian space holds immeasurable riches. Germany must control it economically and politically. . . . In that way it would have at its disposal the means by which in the future to fight a war of continents: it could no longer be beaten by anyone.” This operation, he boasted, would “make the world hold its breath.”
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In a bitter irony, the victories of 1940 had not brought Germany relief from its strategic and economic problems, nor had they resulted in a swift end to the war. As a result, Hitler saw the way out of the German dilemma not through negotiation but by expanding the war. He most likely decided for war against Russia in late July 1940 but in characteristic fashion proved willing to keep his options open and explore alternatives. If they served to knock Great Britain out of the war and cleared Germany's rear for the showdown in the east, fine; if not, he could do nothing in the east until spring 1941 anyway. None of the alternatives proved successful, which simply reinforced his conviction that he had been correct in opting to invade Russia. Germany could not afford to
wait since from 1942 on the German position was bound to deteriorate while a successful operation promised to remove the Soviet threat, drive Britain from the war, forestall any American intervention, and win living space necessary for German security. In the end, Hitler believed that the only way to get out of his dilemma and to retain the initiative was to expand the violence. Given the geographic and economic constraints on Germany, the success of blitzkrieg in 1940 offered the means by which to escape this straitjacket. From Hitler's perspective, then, a compelling logic—a combination of strategic, economic, political, ideological, and time pressures—had driven him in the direction he wanted to go in any case. The logic of escalatory violence, however, also meant that the resulting war in the Soviet Union would be pitiless and harsh.
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