Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

It is, in fact, doubtful whether he would have believed the accounts of poor morale, even if he had read them. Even three years or so earlier, when his adjutant at the time, Fritz Wiedemann, had tried to summarize the content of negative opinion reports, Hitler had refused to listen, shouting: ‘The mood in the people is not bad, but good. I know that better. It’s made bad through such reports. I forbid such things in future.’²⁶ On the day Poland was invaded he would say to members of the Reichstag: ‘Don’t anyone tell me that in his Gau or his district, or his constituency (Gruppe), or his cell the mood could at some point be bad. You are responsible for the mood.’²⁷ In April 1939, he took the adulation of the crowds at his fiftieth birthday celebrations, which, he claimed, had given him new strength, as the true indication of the mood of the people.²⁸ Following one extraordinary triumph upon another, his self-belief had by this time been magnified into full-blown megalomania. Even among his private guests at the Berghof, he frequently compared himself with Napoleon, Bismarck, and other great historical figures.²⁹ The rebuilding programmes that constantly preoccupied him were envisaged as his own lasting monument — a testament of greatness like the buildings of the Pharaohs or Caesars.³⁰ He felt he was walking with destiny. Such a mentality allowed little space for the daily worries and concerns of ordinary people. It was much the same when Schacht or Göring brought the deteriorating economic situation to his attention. Such problems were, in his view, a mere passing phenomemon, a temporary irritant of no significance compared with the grandeur of his vision and the magnitude of the struggle ahead. Conventional economics — however limited his understanding — would, he was certain, never solve the problems. The sword alone, as he had repeatedly advocated since the 1920s, would produce the solution: the conquest of the ‘living space’ needed for survival. The lands of the East would one day provide for Germany. There would be no economic problems then. The opportunities awaited. But they had to be grasped quickly. His enemies — he had said so after Munich — were puny. But they were gathering strength. There was no time to lose.

It was a bizarre mentality. But in the summer of 1939, such a mentality was driving Germany towards European war. All along the way, Hitler had pushed at open doors. Revanchism and revisionism had given him his platform. Foreign Ministry mandarins, captains of industry, and above all the leaders of the armed forces had done everything — in their own interest — to ‘work towards the Führer’ in destroying Versailles and Locarno, pushing for economic expansion, building up a war machine. The weakened and divided western powers had given way at every step. They had provided the international backcloth to the expansion of Hitler’s power, to the diplomatic triumphs cheered to the echo by millions. The exalting of Hitler’s prestige had in turn elevated him to a position where he was held in awe even by his close entourage. The Führer cult removed him more and more from criticism, undermined opposition, inordinately strengthened his own hand against those who had done everything to build him up but now found themselves sidelined or bypassed. The traditional national-conservative power-elites had helped to make Hitler. But he now towered above them.³¹ The major shifts in personnel in the army leadership and Foreign Ministry in February 1938, and the great foreign-policy triumphs that followed, had removed the last possible constraining influences. Surrounded by lackeys, yes-men, and time-servers, Hitler’s power was by this time absolute. He could decide over war and peace.³²

Hitler made public the abrupt shift in policy towards Poland and Great Britain in his big Reichstag speech of 28 April 1939.