Hitler’s ultimate gamble of war in the east to destroy Bolshevism with one swift knock-out blow was also to put his own popularity at risk, and with that the very focus of the regime’s support. Hitler’s immense popularity had been attained during the 1930s through successes, beyond all else through ‘victories without bloodshed’ that had brought territorial expansion and returned national pride and strength to a humiliated country. Once war had begun in 1939, the victories were quick, spectacular and, if not ‘without bloodshed’, then nevertheless relatively painless for the German people. But to retain the heights of popularity reached after the stunning victory over France in 1940, Hitler needed to bring final victory. That had so far eluded him. Sensitive as he was to the fickleness of popular support, and never forgetting how collapsing morale had given way to revolutionary fervour in 1917–18, he knew how much rested on the rapid and complete crushing of the Soviet Union. Victory in the east would produce the material base of lasting power and prosperity — endless bounty from the riches of the new territories to improve living standards at home, and limitless opportunities for upward mobility, wealth, and domination. Failure to deliver the knockout blow would, by contrast, endanger the regime. It meant prolonged war — in its wake, increasing sacrifice and privation, suffering and misery, and with that in due course the conditions in which the regime’s popularity and his own unique authority could be undermined.
Though Nazi loyalists welcomed the showdown with the arch-enemy, following the uneasy period of what they saw as an artificial and purely tactical pact, the initial reactions of the German people to the beginning of ‘Barbarossa’, unprepared as they were for the extension of the war in the east, were for the most part anxiety and dismay.156 As we have already noted, the first ‘special announcements’ of the remarkable advance and military successes of the Wehrmacht had, as Goebbels realized, far from their desired effect. As the triumphalist communiqués of the Wehrmacht High Command continued to blare out of their radios, one bulletin after another reporting yet a further grandiose victory, proclaiming the total defeat or annihilation of the enemy, and announcing Stalin’s deployment of his last reserves, hopes were raised of an early end to the conflict. (They were encouraged by the tone of propaganda: Goebbels had told media representatives on 22 June that the war in the east would be over within eight weeks.157) Ardent Nazis were naturally jubilant, outright opponents depressed. But the deep anxieties and hopes of an early peace — a victorious one if at all possible, but above all an end to war — among the mass of the population could not for long be banished. And, however great the reported victories of the Wehrmacht were, no end seemed in sight. As the summer wore on, it was obvious that Stalin had far from used up his last reserves. Scepticism in the reports started to mount. Moreover, accounts of hard fighting, fierce resistance by the Red Army, and, especially, of ‘horrible bestialities’ and the ‘inhumane way of fighting of the Bolsheviks’ and ‘criminal types’ in the ‘Jewish state’, not unnaturally increased the worries, whatever the scale of the victories, of those with fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands at the front.158
A young soldier, just married and home on leave, left an indication in his diary of the mood after only two weeks of fighting when he attended a Sunday morning service in his church: ‘There were read out — in a quite matter-of-fact way — the name, year of birth, date and place of death of the dead and fallen, and precisely these cold facts had a doubly moving effect. The widows sobbed throughout the church…’159 But such observations did not prevent approval of Nazi aims. The same soldier noted, a few days later, his approval of the antisemitic films
