Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

What did shock them was the prospect of the early use of force, and with that the grave danger that Germany would be plunged into war with Britain and France. Hitler, they thought, was taking foolhardy risks. They raised objections. Neurath saw an expansion of the Mediterranean conflict, in the way Hitler had conceived it, as highly unlikely. The generals pointed to deficiencies in Hitler’s military analysis.²⁷⁴ On no account must Germany find itself at war with Britain and France was the essence of their remarks.²⁷⁵ Even Göring, though he kept quiet until the discussion moved on to armaments matters, still favoured trying to reach agreement with Britain.²⁷⁶ Only Raeder, who had wanted the meeting in the first place, seemed unperturbed. If his later testimony is to be believed, he did not take Hitler’s remarks seriously, other than as a vehicle to spur on the army to speed up its armaments. Possible future conflict with Britain was, for Raeder, an inevitable component of planning for naval expansion. But an imminent conflict in the present state of Germany’s armaments was, in his view, such ‘complete madness’ that it could not be envisaged as a serious proposition.²⁷⁷

Others were less relaxed. Fritsch had to be reassured by Hitler at the end of the meeting that there was no immediate danger of war, and no need to cancel his planned leave.²⁷⁸ General Beck, shown a copy of Hoßbach’s record of the meeting, found Hitler’s remarks ‘crushing’ (niederschmetternd).²⁷⁹ It was not the prospect of expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia and attainment of German dominance in central Europe, once military strength had been consolidated, that appalled him, but the irresponsibility and dilettantism with which Hitler was prepared to run the risk of involving Germany in a catastrophic war with the western powers. His own, detailed and devastating ten-point critique of Hitler’s statement, probably drawn up as the basis of comments to be made to Blomberg, indicated how seriously he viewed the danger and how far he was estranged from the high-risk policy of the head of state and supreme commander of the armed forces.²⁸⁰ Neurath, who had arranged with Beck and Fritsch that he would speak to Hitler, had the opportunity to do so in mid-January 1938. Hitler’s policies, he warned, meant war. Many of his plans could be attained by more peaceful methods, if somewhat more slowly. Hitler replied that he had no more time.²⁸¹

Blomberg’s own doubts expressed at the November meeting were, as usual, short-lived. The pliant War Minister was soon conveying Hitler’s wishes to the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht. Within weeks, without Hitler having to give any express order, Chief of Defence Staff Colonel Alfred Jodl, recognizing what was needed, had devised a significant alteration to the previous mobilization plans against Czechoslovakia, aimed at preventing Czech intervention in the event of a war against France. The new directive included the sentence: ‘Once Germany has attained its full war preparedness in all spheres, the military basis will have been created to conduct an offensive war (Angriffskrieg) against Czechoslovakia and thereby also to carry the German space problem to a triumphant conclusion, even if one or other great power intervenes against us.’²⁸²

Externally as well as internally, the Third Reich was entering a new, more radical phase. The drift of Hitler’s thinking was plain from the November meeting, and from his comments earlier in the autumn. Nothing had been decided, no plans laid, no programme established. It was still ‘wait and see’. But Hitler’s hand became further strengthened at the end of January and beginning of February 1938 by a chance set of events — a personal scandal involving the War Minister Werner von Blomberg.