His main concern was the coming showdown with the West, particularly with Britain. He doubted the possibility of peaceful coexistence in the long run. So it was necessary to prepare for conflict. A contest over hegemony, he implied (as he had done privately to Goebbels earlier in the year), was unavoidable. ‘Therefore England is our enemy and the showdown with England is a matter of life and death.’ He speculated on what the showdown would be like — speculations not remote from what was to happen a year later. Holland and Belgium would have to be overrun. Declarations of neutrality would be ignored. Once France, too, was defeated (which he did not dwell upon as a major difficulty), the bases on the west coast would enable the Luftwaffe and U-boats to effect the blockade that would bring Britain to its knees. The war would be an all-out one: ‘We must then burn our boats and it will no longer be a question of right or wrong but of to be or not to be for 80 million people.’ A war of ten to fifteen years had to be reckoned with. A long war had, therefore, to be prepared for, even though every attempt would be made to deliver a surprise knock-out blow at the outset — possible only if Germany avoided ‘sliding into’ war with Britain as a result of Poland. Clearly, Hitler was here, too, envisaging the elimination of Poland
Decisive in the conflict with Britain — and here Hitler indirectly provided the answer on raw materials allocation, and showed himself at the same time strategically still locked in the past — would not be air-power but the destruction of the British fleet. How, exactly, this would be achieved was not clarified. A special operations staff of the armed forces was to be set up to prepare the ground in detail and keep Hitler informed. ‘The aim is always to bring England to its knees,’ he stated.
Only Göring responded at the end of the forthright, if rambling, address. Not surprisingly, he wanted to hear something concrete about the priorities for raw materials, and about the likely timing of the conflict with the West. Hitler replied, vaguely, that the branches of the armed forces would determine what was to be constructed. On naval requirements, however, he was adamant, as his remarks had indicated: ‘Nothing will be changed in the shipbuilding programme.’ To the relief of those present, who took it as an indication of when he envisaged the conflict with the West taking place, he stipulated that the rearmament programmes were to be targeted at 1943–4 — the same time-scale he had given in November 1937. But no one doubted that Hitler intended to attack Poland that very year.51
Throughout the spring and summer frenzied diplomatic efforts were made to try to isolate Poland and deter the western powers from becoming involved in what was intended as a localized conflict. On the day before Hitler’s address to his military leaders, Italy and Germany had signed the so-called ‘Pact of Steel’, meant to warn Britain and France off backing Poland.52 The Italians had been soured by being kept in the dark about the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia. ‘Every time Hitler occupies a country he sends me a message,’ Mussolini had lamented.53 But Ribbentrop had striven to mend fences. The Italian annexation of Albania in early April — partly to show the Germans they could do it too — had been applauded by Berlin. The Japanese, interested only in an anti-Soviet alliance and keen to avoid any commitments involving the West, adamantly refused to fall in with Ribbentrop’s grand plan and establish a tripartite pact.54 But the pompous German Foreign Minister — even Hitler described him as swollen-headed — duped the Italians into signing a bilateral military pact on the understanding that the Führer wanted peace for five years and expected the Poles to settle peacefully once they realized that support from the West would not be forthcoming.55
