1. Plainly implied in numerous speeches in the later 1920s, emphasizing Germany’s ‘lack of space’ (Raumnot) equivalent to the needs of its population, man’s eternal struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, and analogies with the eastern colonization during the Middle Ages or the attainment and defence of the British Empire. See e.g. Hitler. Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen: Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 5 vols, in 12 parts, Munich/London/New York/Paris, 1992–8 (=RSA), II/2, 447 (6 August 1927), 546 (16 November 1927), 554 (21 November 1927), 733 (3 March 1928), 778 (17 April 1928).
2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf[= MK], 876–88oth reprint, Munich, 1943, 742; trans. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, London, 1969, trans, by Ralph Manheim, with an introduction by D. C. Watt (= MK Watt), 597.
3. One country with no illusions about Hitler was the Soviet Union. At his meeting with the United States’ Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies, on 4 February 1937, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim M. Litvinov, had commented ‘that Hitler’s policy had not changed from that which he had announced in his book Mein Kampf; that he was dominated by a lust for conquest and for the domination of Europe; that he could not understand why Great Britain could not see that once Hitler dominated Europe he would swallow the British Isles also’. In Davies’s view, Litvinov ‘seemed to be very much stirred about this and apprehensive lest there should be some composition of differences between France, England, and Germany’ (Joseph E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, New York, 1941, 59–60).
4. See Dirks and Janßen, 58–72, for a summary of the Wehrmacht’s aims in the rearmament programme.
5. Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler. Legende-Mythos-Wirklichkeit, 3rd paperback edn, Munich/Esslingen, (1971), 1976, 374, 455–6; Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘Hitler’s Private Testament of May 2, 1938’, in JMH, 27 (1955), 415–19, here 415. In 1942, Hitler referred to his testament four years earlier and his fears at the time that he had cancer (Picker, 222 (29 March 1942)).
6. IMG, xxviii.367, Doc. 1780-PS (Jodl-Tagebuch).
7. See Gerhard Botz, Der 13. März 38 und die Anschluß-Bewegung. Selbstaufgabe, Okkupation und Selbstfindung Österreichs 1918–1945, 5–14; Bruce F. Pauley, Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis. A History of Austrian National Socialism, London/Basingstoke, 1981, 4–10.
8. Walther Hofer (ed.), Der Nationalsozialismus. Dokumente 1933–1945, Frankfurt am Main (1957), 1974, 28.
9. MK, 1; MK Watt, 3.
10. See Kube, 233, where it is suggested that this arose from internal rivalries in the Austrian party, and was also an indication that Göring had received no equivalent commission from Hitler to operate in Austrian affairs and was acting quasi-independently.
11. Weinberg II, 278–9.
12. Weinberg II, 122; Martens, 122.
13. Borthwick Institute, York, Papers of 1st Earl of Halifax, 410.3.6, ‘Conversation with Herr Hitler — 19th November 1937’, Fols.13, 16; 410.3.3 (vi), ‘Lord Halifax’s Diary. Visit of the Lord President to Germany, 17th to 21st November, 1937’, Fol.9; Confidential Memo., Fol.4. Hitler, Halifax noted in his diary (Fol. 12), struck him ‘as very sincere, and as believing everything he said’. Halifax’s notes made in the train en route from Berlin to Calais on 21 November (Fol.1) stated: ‘Unless I am wholly deceived, the Germans, speaking generally, from Hitler to the man in the street, do want friendly relations with Great Britain. There are no doubt many who don’t: and the leading men may be deliberately throwing dust in our eyes. But I don’t think so…’ See also The Earl of Halifax, Fulness of Days, London, 1957, 187.
14. Weinberg II, 288.
15. Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945 (= ADAP) D, I, N0.80, 106; DGFP, D, I, 80, 129–31; TBJG, 1/3, 369 (15 December 1937); Weinberg II, 287–8; Kube, 241.
16. Weinberg II, 289.
17. Kube, 216.
18. See Kube, 212–14.
19. See Kube, 235–6 for Göring’s emphasis on political and military, not just economic motives for Anschluß.
20. Stefan Martens, ‘Die Rolle Hermann Görings in der deutschen Außenpolitik’, in Franz Knipping and Klaus-Jürgen Müller (eds.), Machtbewußtsein in Deutschland am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Paderborn, 1984, 75–92, here 80; Kube, 216, 224ff.
21. Kube, 225–7, 229–30, Schmidt, 352–3.
22. Kube, 232, 236–7.
23. Franz von Papen, Memoirs, London, 1952, 401.
24. Papen, 401; and see Kube, 238–9.
