The Yugoslav crisis had caused Hitler’s meeting with the hawkish Japanese Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, to be put back a few hours. It also necessitated Ribbentrop being called away from the preliminary talks with his Japanese counterpart to attend Hitler’s briefing.123 Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin was accompanied by enormous pomp and circumstance. Every effort was made to impress the important guest. As usual on state visits, cheering crowds had been organized — this time waving the little Japanese paper flags that had been handed out in their thousands. The diminutive Matsuoka, invariably dwarfed by lanky SS men around him, occasionally acknowledged the crowd’s applause with a wave of his top-hat.124
Hitler placed great store on the visit. His hope — encouraged by Raeder and Ribbentrop — was to persuade the Japanese to attack Singapore without delay.125 With ‘Barbarossa’ imminent, this would tie up the British in the Far East. The loss of Singapore would be a catastrophic blow for the still undefeated Britain. This in turn, it was thought in Berlin, would serve to keep America out of the war.126 And any possible rapprochement between Japan and the USA, worrying signs of which were mounting, would be ended at one fell swoop.127 Hitler sought no military assistance from Japan in the forthcoming war against the Soviet Union. In fact, he was not prepared to divulge anything of ‘Barbarossa’ — though in his talks with Matsuoka earlier that morning Ribbentrop had indicated a deterioration in Soviet-German relations and strongly hinted at the possibility that Hitler might attack the Soviet Union at some point.128
Hitler outlined for Matsuoka the military successes and position of the Axis powers. On all fronts they were in command. Britain had lost the war, and it was only a question of whether she would recognize this. Britain’s two hopes, he went on, again singing the old refrain, were American aid and the Soviet Union. The former would play no significant part before 1942. And Germany had available 160 to 180 divisions which he would not hesitate to use against the Soviet Union if need be — though he added that he did not believe the danger would materialize. Japan, he implied, need have no fear of attack from the Soviet Union in the event of her moving against Singapore: 150 German divisions — Hitler more than doubled the actual number — were standing on the border with Russia.129 No time could be more favourable, therefore, for the Japanese to act.130
Hitler had deployed his full rhetorical repertoire. But he was sorely disappointed at Matsuoka’s reply. An attack on Singapore was, the Japanese Foreign Minister declared, merely a matter of time, and in his opinion could not come soon enough. But he did not rule Japan, and his views had not so far prevailed against weighty opposition. ‘At the present moment,’ he stated, ‘he could not under these circumstances enter on behalf of his Japanese Empire into any commitment to act.’131
Hitler was going to get nothing out of Matsuoka, whom he later described as ‘combining the hypocrisy of an American Bible missionary with the cunning of a Japanese Asiatic’.132 It was clear: Hitler had to reckon without any Japanese military intervention for the foreseeable future. He continued to see this as a vital step in the global context. As Ciano noted, a few weeks later, ‘Hitler still considers the Japanese card as extremely important in order, in the first place, to threaten and eventually counterbalance completely any American action.’133 When Matsuoka returned briefly to Berlin in early April to report on his meeting with Mussolini, Hitler was prepared to give him every encouragement. He acceded to the request for technical assistance in submarine construction. He then made an unsolicited offer. Should Japan ‘get into’ conflict with the United States, Germany would immediately ‘draw the consequences’. America would seek to pick off her enemies one by one. ‘Therefore Germany would,’ Hitler said, ‘intervene immediately in case of a conflict Japan-America, for the strength of the three Pact powers was their common action. Their weakness would be in letting themselves be defeated singly.’134 It was the thinking that would take Germany into war against the United States later in the year following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, the Soviet — Japanese neutrality pact which Matsuoka negotiated with Stalin on his way back through Moscow — ensuring that Japan would not be dragged into a conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union, and securing her northern flank in the event of expansion in south-east Asia — came as an unpleasant surprise to Hitler.135
