Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

Hitler had misjudged the mood in Britain. And his speech had not been tuned to offer anything that might tempt the opponents of Churchill, who could have formed a peace-lobby.¹⁴¹ Ciano, who met Hitler the day after the speech, was told that British reactions had ruled out any possibility of an understanding being reached. Hitler said he was preparing to strike at Britain, whose resistance would collapse under the first blows.¹⁴² This was meant for the Italians, but indirectly — through the known leaks — for British ears, to help concentrate their minds. To Goebbels, Hitler had a different line. He still did not want to accept England’s answer at face-value. ‘He thinks of still waiting a bit.’¹⁴³

He left the matter open when he met the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht on 21 July.¹⁴⁴ ‘No clear picture on what is happening in England,’ Brauchitsch recorded Hitler as saying, when he reported back to Halder next day. ‘Preparations for a decision by arms must be completed as quickly as possible.’ Hitler would not allow the military initiative to be lost. But he was evidently still hoping for a diplomatic solution. ‘Crossing of Channel appears very hazardous to the Führer. On that account, invasion is to be undertaken only if no other way is left to bring terms with England,’ Halder reported. ‘England’s position is hopeless. The war is won by us,’ Hitler stated.

But Britain still put her hopes in America, and in Russia. There was the possibility, said Hitler, referring to rumours of crisis in London, that a cabinet including Lloyd George, Chamberlain, and Halifax might come to power and seek peace terms.¹⁴⁵ But, failing that, Britain would have to be reduced by an air-offensive combined with intensified submarine warfare to the state, by mid-September, when an invasion could be carried out. Hitler would decide within days, after hearing Raeder’s report in mid-week on naval operational logistics, whether the invasion would be carried out by autumn. Otherwise, it would be before the following May. The final decision on the intensity of submarine and air attacks would be left until the beginning of August. There was the possibility that the invasion might begin as early as 25 August.

Hitler turned finally to the issue which had already started to bother him: the position of Russia. Stalin, he pointed out, had his own agenda. He was flirting with Britain to keep her in the war, to tie down Germany, and to exploit the situation to undertake his own expansionist policy. There were no indications of any Russian aggression towards Germany. ‘But,’ went on Hitler, ‘our attention must be turned to tackling the Russian problem and prepare planning.’ It would take four to six weeks to assemble the German military force. Its object would be ‘to crush the Russian army or at least take as much Russian territory as is necessary to bar enemy air raids on Berlin and Silesian industries’. He also mentioned the need to protect the Romanian oil-fields. Eighty to 100 divisions would be required. He contemplated attacking Russia that very autumn, to relieve the pressure of the air war on Britain.¹⁴⁶ Compared with what had been achieved in the West, Hitler had remarked to Jodl and Keitel already at the time of the French capitulation ‘a campaign against Russia would be child’s play (Sandkastenspiel)’.¹⁴⁷

It was an astonishing prospect that Hitler held out to his army leaders. He was, of course, not yet committing himself to anything. But the two-front war which had always been anathema was now being entertained. Paradoxically, having advocated since the 1920s a showdown with the Soviet Union to destroy Bolshevism and win ‘Lebensraum’, Hitler had now come back to the idea of a war against Russia for strategic reasons: to force his erstwhile would-be friend, Britain, now stubbornly holding out against the odds, to terms. The ideological aim of smashing Bolshevism, though apparently invoked by Hitler as part of his reasoning, was at this point secondary to the strategic need to get Britain out of the war.¹⁴⁸ It was a sign of the difficulties that Hitler had manoeuvred himself into. Britain would not play his game. But the military lesson he kept saying she would have to be taught, and which the German public now awaited, would be, he knew, a hazardous affair. So he was now moving to a step he — and most of his generals did not disagree — thought less dangerous: an attack on the Soviet Union.