Two days later Hitler summoned Goebbels to the Reich Chancellery — he was told to enter through a back door in order not to raise suspicions — to explain the situation. Hitler looked well, thought Goebbels, despite living in an extraordinary state of tension, as invariably was the case before major ‘actions’. Hitler told Goebbels that once the ‘action’ had started, he would become calm, as had been the case on numerous earlier occasions.267 He greeted his Propaganda Minister warmly. Then he gave him an account of developments. The Greek campaign had taken its toll of matériel, so that the military build-up had been somewhat delayed. But it would be completed now within a week, and the attack on Russia would then immediately commence, it was good that the weather was so poor, Hitler remarked, and that the harvest in the Ukraine had not yet ripened. As a result, they could hope to gain most of it. The attack would be the most massive history had ever seen. There would be no repeat of Napoleon (a comment perhaps betraying precisely those subconscious fears of history indeed repeating itself). The Russians had around 180–200 divisions, about as many as the Germans, he said, though there was no comparison in quality. And the fact that they were massed on the Reich borders was a great advantage. ‘They would be smoothly rolled up.’ Hitler thought ‘the action’ would take about four months. Goebbels estimated even less time would be needed: ‘Bolshevism will collapse like a house of cards,’ he thought. Hitler had by this time convinced himself of the preventive war theory he had concocted. ‘We have to act,’ Goebbels recounted. ‘Moscow wants to keep out of the war till Europe is exhausted and sucked of its life-blood. Then Stalin would like to act, to bolshevize Europe, and bring in his form of rule.’ The German action would put a stop to this. No geographical limits were put on ‘the action’. The fight would continue until Russian power had ceased to exist.
Goebbels continued his summary of Hitler’s argument — that the defeat of Russia would free some 150 divisions and massive resources for the conflict with Britain. ‘The thrust (Tendenz) of the entire campaign is clear,’ wrote Goebbels: ‘Bolshevism must fall and England will have its last conceivable continental weapon knocked out of its hand.’ ‘The Bolshevik poison must be removed from Europe.’ All true Nazis, he added, would rejoice to see the day that ‘genuine socialism’ took the place of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ in Russia. The Pact of 1939 — ‘a stain on our badge of honour’ — would be washed away. ‘That which we have spent our lives fighting, we will now annihilate.’ He conveyed this thought to Hitler, who said: ‘Whether right or wrong, we must win. That is the only way. And it is morally right and necessary. And when we have won, who will ask us about the method? In any case, we have chalked up so much that we have to win, otherwise our entire people — and in first place we ourselves, with all that is dear to us — will be wiped out.’
Hitler asked Goebbels about public opinion. The Propaganda Minister replied that people believed that relations with the Soviet Union were still sound, but would be behind the regime ‘when we call on them’. He pointed out that the veil of secrecy had meant an entirely different approach to that previously deployed. Pamphlets were now being produced en masse by printers and packers who were confined to the Propaganda Ministry until the invasion took place. In fact, Goebbels was less in touch with opinion than he imagined. Given the extent of the military build-up in the eastern provinces of the Reich, it was hardly surprising that rumours had been rife for weeks about an imminent conflict with Russia.268 Even so, the concealment was broadly successful. According to one internal report, ‘the concentration of numerous troops in the eastern areas had allowed speculation to arise that significant events were afoot there, but nevertheless probably the overwhelming proportion of the German people did not think of any warlike confrontation with the Soviet Union’.269
Goebbels himself, after his meeting with Hitler on 18 June, had been driven out of the back gate of the Reich Chancellery and through the city, ‘where people are harmlessly walking about in the rain. Happy people,’ he wrote, ‘who know nothing of all our concerns and live for the day.’270
