32. Jacobsen, Dokumente zum Wesfeldzug 1940; Jacobsen, Fall Gelb” der Kampf; Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende, 66–116; Goutard, Battle of France; May, Strange Victory, 215–26; Geyer, “Restorative Elites,” 139–44.
33. “The great western offensive was a one-shot affair,” one historian aptly explained. “Success, and Germany would acquire the economic base to fight a long war; failure, and the war would be over.” Murray, Change in the European Balance of Power, 361.
34. Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende, 3. The same day—May 20, 1940—the Nazis opened a concentration camp at Oświęcim/Auschwitz for Polish political prisoners. It would later be expanded and specialize in gassing Jews.
35. Hooten, Luftwaffe at War, II: 61; Schuker, “Seeking a Scapegoat,” 114, citing Villelume, Journal, 333 (May 12, 1940). As the historian May has observed of France, “When Germany opened its offensive against the Low Countries and France in 1940, not a single general expected victory as a result.” May, Strange Victory, 7.
36. Nord, France 1940. See also Gunsburg, Divided and Conquered.
37. Deutscher, Stalin, 437–41; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 537. In France, the advocates of armor, such as de Gaulle, lacking a patron, had been stymied by traditionalists.
38. Hillgruber, “Das Russlandbild,” 296–310; Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 297–300.
39. Haffner, Meaning of Hitler, 31.
40. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 267; Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 266.
41. Jervis, “Hypotheses on Misconceptions,” esp. 475–6. “The vozhd,” the contemporary Konstantin Simonov would later observe, “had created for himself a situation in the party and the state such that if he decided something firmly, no one contemplated the possibility of direct resistance. Stalin did not have to defend his correctness before anyone, he was by definition correct if he had taken the decision.” Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 82.
42. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 115–6 (Sept. 7, 1939). “Hitler without knowing it leads to shattering [of the] bourgeoisie,” explained a secret cipher in early Oct. 1939, from the Dimitrov to Earl Browder of the American Communist party, in reference to the Pact. Jaffe, Rise and Fall of American Communism, 46–7.
43. DGFP, series D, IX: 585–6 (June 18, 1940); Naumov, 1941 god, I: 40–2 (AVPRF, f. 06, op. 2, pap. 14, d. 155, l. 206–8).
44. Lemin, “Novyi etap voiny v Evrope,” 28; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 373–4; Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, 296–7. Halifax, British foreign secretary, wrote in his diary on May 25, 1940: “the mystery of what looks like the French failure is as great as ever. The one firm rock on which everybody had been willing to build for the last two years was the French Army, and the Germans walked through it like they did through the Poles.” Colville, Footprints in Time, 92; Reynolds, “1940,” 329 (citing Halifax diary: Hickleton papers, A 7.8.4, Borthwick Institute, York).
45. Schwendemann, Die wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit, 373. The German air attaché in Moscow, Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Aschenbrenner, called upon the international liaison department of the defense commissariat back on May 21, 1940, and in a jolly mood attributed German successes in the West to Soviet support. “Before my departure for your country,” he told his Soviet interlocutor, “I was received by Hitler, who said to me: ‘Remember, Stalin did a great thing for us, about which you should never forget, under any circumstances. Remember this, and do not turn yourself into a merchant, but be a worthy representative of our army in a country friendly to us.’” Later that same day, Köstring, the German army attaché, visited the international liaison department and passed on photographs from the war with France. (The package was marked solely for Stalin.) When asked how events would now unfold, Aschenbrenner had made ostensibly definitive statements; the shrewder Köstring had answered, “only Hitler and a very narrow circle of people close to him know. I am given very limited information.” Aschenbrenner asked that his conversation not be reported to Köstring, for the latter “is jealous, like a girl, and might be offended that I got here before him.” Gavrilov, Voenaia razvedka informiruet, 315–6 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1305, l. 374s–375s; report of Colonel Grigory I. Osetrov [b. 1901]).
46. Trotsky, “Stalin—Intendant Gitlera.” Biulleten’ oppozitsii, 79–80 (Aug.–Oct. 1939).
