331. Janßen/Tobias, 150; Domarus, 783, has sixty military posts, including fourteen generals, as well as Blomberg and Fritsch. General Liebmann remarked of the senior army officers removed, that there could be no doubt that they were all figures who in some way were ‘uncomfortable’ (‘unbequem’) for the Party {IfZ, ED 1, Fol.416, Liebmann memoirs).
332. Janßen/Tobias, 199–200. Brauchitsch told the generals that he had accepted the post ‘only unwillingly and with considerable reservations’ (‘nur widerstrebend und unter erheblichen Bedenken’) (IfZ, ED 1, Fol.416, Liebmann memoirs).
333. TBJG, I/3, 424 (1 February 1938).
334. Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Die “Reichsregierung” im Führerstaat. Stellung und Funktion des Kabinetts im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, in Günther Doeker and Winfried Steffani (eds.), Klassenjustiz und Pluralismus, Hamburg, 1973, 187–223, here 200–201.
335. Janßen/Tobias, 154.
336. TBJG, I/3, 431 (5 February 1938); Domarus, 783. Hitler told his generals on 5 February that, for prestige reasons both at home and abroad, he could not possibly disclose the real reason for Blomberg’s dismissal (IfZ, ED 1, Fol.415, Liebmann memoirs).
337. Janßen/Tobias, 79. Hitler’s view of Blomberg, as disclosed to his generals in early February 1938, was less favourable. He described him as a weak character (‘einen schwachen Charakter’) who in every critical situation, especially during the occupation of the Rhineland, had lost his nerve (IfZ, ED 1, Fol.415, Liebmann memoirs).
338. Janßen/Tobias, 182.
339. Janßen/Tobias, 148.
340. Janßen/Tobias, 247–9.
341. Domarus, 728.
342. DBS, v.9–22; and see Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’. Image and Reality in the Third Reich, Oxford, (1987), paperback edn, 1989, 129–30.
343. TBJG, I/3, 434 (6 February 1938).
344. Towards the end of 1944, in the wake of the bomb-plot against him, Hitler would once more refer to the Fritsch case. He was, according to Goebbels, more convinced than ever that Fritsch had been the head of the generals’ conspiracy — in its early stages — ‘and that the indictment against him for homosexuality was in the last resort correct’ (TBJG, II/14, 333 (2 December 1944)).
345. IfZ, ED 1, Fol.416, Liebmann memoirs: ‘Der Eindruck dieser Eröffnungen — sowohl der über Blomberg, wie der über Fritsch, war geradezu niederschmetternd, besonders deshalb, weil Hitler beide Sachen so dargestellt batte, dass über die tatsächliche Schuld kaum noch ein Zweifel bestehen konnte. Wir alle hatten das Gefühl, dass das Heer — im Gegensatz zur Marine, Luftwaffe und Partei — einen vernichtenden Schlag erlitten hatte.’ See also Janßen/Tobias, 153 and 294 n.31 for the date of 5 February and not, as Liebmann, Fol.416, has it, the 4th.
346. TBJG, I/3, 434 (6 February 1938). In speaking to the generals, Hitler had mentioned that during the Rhineland crisis, when Blomberg’s nerve had deserted him, of all his advisers only the ‘thick-skulled Swabian Neurath’ had been in favour of holding out. (‘Von alien seinen Beratern sei damais nur der “dickschädelige Schwabe Neurath” für Durchhalten gewesen.’) (IfZ, ED 1, Liebmann memoirs, Fol.415.) Neurath was able to be so sanguine about the plans to remilitarize the Rhineland because the Foreign Office had received accurate intelligence indicating that the French would not resort to military action in such an event (Zach Shore, ‘Hitler, Intelligence, and the Decision to Remilitarize the Rhine’, JCH, 34 (1999), 5–18).
347. TBJG, I/3, 434 (6 February 1938).
348. Domarus, 792.-804, here especially 796–7, 799–800.
349. Domarus, 797. See Janßen/Tobias, 157.
<p>CHAPTER 2: THE DRIVE FOR EXPANSION</p>
