236. Dülffer, Marine, 471–4. Hitler demanded the building of six heavy battleships — the beginnings of the later Z-Plan — saying to Raeder that he needed a ‘risk fleet’ in order to reach terms with Great Britain (‘… daß er eine Risikoflotte haben müsse, ohne die es nicht zu einem Ausgleich mit England kommen werde’). (IfZ, ZS-41, Admiral a.D. Werner Fuchs, 16 December 1951, Fol.16.) Raeder was well aware in 1938 of the hopelessness (Aussichtslosigkeit) of a war at sea against the British Navy (BA/MA, PG/34566, Akten des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder, ‘Aus der Unterrichtung des Amtschefs A am 12.7.38…’) The navy leadership saw the six battleships as the minimum over the following six years for an eventual conflict with Britain which would involve, taking account of the British Empire and other nations, war against a third to a half of the entire world (BA/MA, PG 34566, Admiral Rolf Carls, ‘Stellungnahme zur “Entwurfstudie” Seekriegführung gegen England’, September 1938).
237. Wiedemann, 128.
238. NCA, i.520–51, Doc.PS-3037; Wiedemann, 127.
239. Müller, Beck, 512–20 (and also 29off.).
240. IMG, xxv.433–9, here 433–4, Doc.388-PS; DGFP, D, II, 358–64, here 358, No.221.
241. ADAP, D, II, 377–80 (quotation, 377), NO.282; DGFP, D, II, 473–7, here 473, NO.282.
242. Michael Geyer, ‘Restorative Elites, German Society, and the Nazi Pursuit of War’, in Richard Bessel (ed.), Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Comparisons and Contrasts, Cambridge, 1996, 134–64, here 163; see also Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (= DRZW), ed. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, 6 vols. so far published, Stuttgart, i.644ff.
243. Müller, Beck, 521–37 (and 289–97).
244. Müller, Beck, 523–5.
245. Müller, Heer, 313.
246. Müller, Heer, 313–14. See Janßen/Tobias, 206–19, for the inaccuracy of the rumours that Brauchitsch had been ‘bought’ by Hitler through a sizeable bribe to assist in the costs incurred through divorcing his wife in order to remarry. Brauchitsch’s subservience to Hitler was not purchased; it came naturally.
247. Müller, Heer, 314.
248. Müller, Armee, Dok.115, S.259–61 (Halder’s report on Hitler’s speech); Below, 103–5; Janßen/Tobias, 237ff.; Weinberg II, 385; Müller, Beck, 297; Müller, Heer, 315; IfZ, ED 1, Fol.416–17, ‘Personliche Erlebnisse des Generals d.Inf. a.D. Curt Liebmann in den Jahren 1938/39’ (compiled in November 1939).
249. Janßen/Tobias, 240.
250. Müller, Beck, 298–300.
251. Müller, Beck, 300–301 (and n.88 for a date after 16 June for the concluding discussion).
252. Müller, Beck, 307–8, 537–62. Beck imagined Brauchitsch issuing Hitler in the second half of September with a collective protest of the top military leadership and refusal to collaborate in a war against Czechoslovakia (Müller, Beck, 558). See also Müller, Heer, 315–33.
253. Müller, Beck, 552.
254. Müller, Heer, 333–5 and n.138, 337; Müller, Beck, 542–50, for the text of Beck’s memorandum of 16 July 1938. See also the account of the meeting (misdated to 3 August 1938) in General Liebmann’s memoirs, IfZ, ED 1, Fol.418.
255. Müller, Heer, 335–7.
256. Müller, Heer, 337.
257. Below, 112.
258. Below, 113.
259. Anton Hoch and Hermann Weiß, ‘Die Erinnerungen des Generalobersten Wilhelm Adam’, in Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Miscellanea: Festschrift für Helmut Krausnick zum 75. Geburtstag, Stuttgart, 1980, 32–62, here 54. Adam’s account is to be preferred to one in which Hitler’s fury was directed at Beck’s criticism of the Westwall (Müller, Heer, 338).
260. Below, 113.
261. IfZ, ED 1, Liebmann Memoirs, Fol.417–18; Müller, Heer, 339; Keitel, 186–7; Below, 115.
262. Müller, Heer, 339.
263. Müller, Heer, 333, 339–40; Müller, Beck, 310–11.
264. Müller, Heer, 340; Müller, Beck, 557.
265. Müller, Beck, 311, 580.
266. See Müller, Beck, 311. For extensive analysis of Beck’s position and radicalization during the summer of 1938, see Müller, Heer, ch.7.
267. Klemperer, 96–101; Meehan, 141ff.
268. Kube, 269.
269. Weinberg II,383 and n.18.
270. Wiedemann, 166; Müller, Beck, 557, 559; Bloch, 188–9; Weinberg II, 383.
271. Wiedemann, 166, 235–6; Bloch, 188–9; Weinberg II,383.
272. TWC, xii.798–9. Hitler and Göring had told naval chiefs much the same in July (BA/MA, PG/34566, Akten des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder, ‘Aus der Unterrichtung des Amtschefs A am 12.7.38…’).
273. Ernst von Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, Munich/Leipzig/Freiburg i.Br., 1950, 192 (and for his quoted words, 165).
274. Cit. Blasius in Knipping and Müller, 118.
275. Irving, Führer, 118–19 (with examples, but no sources). See also Broszat, Staat Hitlers, 418.
