When he reported to Halder next day, 24 August, the Chief of the Army General Staff fell into a rage at Guderian’s complete volte-face on being confronted by Hitler at first hand.132 Halder’s dismay was all the greater since Guderian, whom he had considered as a possible future Army Commander-in-Chief, had been among the most vehement critics of Hitler during the meeting at Army Group Centre Headquarters the previous day.133 Bock shared Halder’s contempt for the way the outspoken and forthright Guderian had caved in under Hitler’s pressure.134 In reality, whatever the opprobrium now heaped on him by his superiors, there had been little prospect of Guderian changing Hitler’s mind.135 At any rate, the die was cast. The great battle for Kiev and mastery of the Ukraine was about to begin.
By the time the ‘Battle of Kiev’ was over on 25 September — the city of Kiev itself had fallen six days earlier — the Soviet south-west front was totally destroyed. Hitler’s insistence on sending Guderian’s Panzer Group south to bring about the encirclement had led to an extraordinary victory. An astonishing number of Soviet prisoners — around 665,000 — were taken. The enormous booty captured included 884 tanks and 3,018 artillery pieces.136 The victory paved the way for Rundstedt to go on to occupy the Ukraine, much of the Crimea, and the Donets Basin, with further huge losses of men and material for the Red Army.137 In the light of the immense scale of the Soviet losses in the three months since the beginning of ‘Barbarossa’, the German military leadership now concluded that the thrust to Moscow — given the name ‘Operation Typhoon’ — could still succeed despite starting so late in the year.138
It was scarcely any wonder, basking in the glow of the great victory at Kiev, that Hitler was in ebullient mood when Goebbels spoke alone with him in the Führer Headquarters on 23 September. Hitler’s reported comments afford a notable insight into his thinking at this juncture. After bitterly complaining about the difficulties in getting his way with the ‘experts’ in the General Staff, Hitler expressed the view that the defeats imposed on the Red Army in the Ukraine marked the breakthrough. ‘The spell is broken,’ Goebbels recorded. Things would now unfold quickly on other parts of the front. New great victories could be expected in the next three to four weeks. By mid-October, the Bolsheviks would be in full retreat. The next thrust was towards Kharkov, which would be reached within days, then to Stalingrad and the Don. Once this industrial area was in German hands, and the Bolsheviks were cut off from their coal supplies and the basis of their armaments production, the war was lost for them.
Leningrad, birthplace of Bolshevism, Hitler repeated, would be destroyed street by street and razed to the ground. Its 5 million population could not be fed.139 The plough would one day once more pass over the site of the city. Bolshevism began in hunger, blood, and tears. It would end the same way. Asia’s entry-gate to Europe would be closed, the Asiatics forced back to where they belonged. A similar fate to Leningrad, he reiterated, might also befall Moscow. The attack on the capital would follow the capture of the industrial basin. The operation to surround the city should be completed by 15 October. And once German troops reached the Caucasus Stalin was lost. Hitler was sure that in such a situation, Japan would not miss the opportunity to make gains in the east of the Soviet Union. What then happened would be up to Stalin. He might capitulate. Or he might seek a ‘special peace’, which Hitler would naturally take up. With its military power broken, Bolshevism would represent no further danger. It could be driven back to Asia. It might retain extra-European imperialist ambitions, but that could be a matter of indifference to Germany.
He returned to a familiar theme. With the defeat of Bolshevism, England would have lost its last hope on the Continent. Its last chance of victory would disappear. And the increasing successes by U-boats in the Atlantic which would follow in the next weeks would put further pressure on a Churchill who was betraying signs of nervous strain.140 Hitler did not rule out Britain removing Churchill in order to seek peace. Hitler’s terms would be as they always were: he was prepared to leave the Empire alone, but Britain would have to get out of Europe. The British would probably grant Germany a free hand in the east, but try to retain hegemony in western Europe. That, he would not allow. ‘England had always felt itself to be an insular power. It is alien to Europe, or even hostile to Europe. It has no future in Europe.’141
