The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (177 page)

The Japanese carrier fleet was now well on its way to
Pearl Harbor
. Tokyo was in a hurry to get Germany to sign. On the same day that Oshima was receiving his new instructions, November 30, the Japanese
Foreign Minister was conferring with the German ambassador in Tokyo, to whom he emphasized that the Washington talks had broken down because Japan refused to accede to American demands that she abandon the Tripartite Pact. The Japanese hoped the Germans would appreciate this sacrifice in a common cause.

“Grave decisions are at stake,” Togo told General Ott. “The United States is seriously preparing for war … Japan is not afraid of a breakdown in negotiations and she hopes that in that case Germany and Italy, according to the Three-Power Agreement, will stand at her side.”

I answered [Ott radioed Berlin] that there could be no doubt about Germany’s future position. Japanese Foreign Minister thereupon stated that he understood from my words that Germany in such a case would consider her relationship to Japan as that of a community of fate. I answered, according to my opinion, Germany was certainly ready to have mutual agreement between the two countries on this situation.
³⁵

General Oshima was a great lover of German–Austrian classical music and despite the gravity and tenseness of the situation he took off for
Austria
to enjoy a Mozart festival. But he was not permitted to listen to the great Austrian composer’s lovely music for long. An urgent call on December 1 brought him rushing back to his embassy in Berlin, where he found new instructions to get busy and sign up Germany on the dotted line. There was no time to lose.

And now, when cornered, Ribbentrop stalled. Apparently realizing fully for the first time the consequences of his rash promises to the Japanese, the Nazi Foreign Minister grew exceedingly cool and evasive. He told Oshima late on the evening of December 1 that he would first have to consult the Fuehrer before making any definite commitment. The Japanese ambassador returned to the Wilhelmstrasse on Wednesday, the third, to press his case but again Ribbentrop put him off. To Oshima’s pleas that the situation had become extremely critical the Foreign Minister replied that while he personally was for a written agreement the matter would have to wait until the Fuehrer returned from headquarters later in the week. Actually, as
Ciano
noted in his diary, not without a sign of glee, Hitler had flown to the southern front in Russia to see General von
Kleist
, “whose armies continue to fall back under the pressure of an unexpected offensive.”

The Japanese, by this time, had also turned to Mussolini, who was not at any front. On December 3 the Japanese ambassador in Rome called on the Duce and formally asked Italy to declare war on the United States, in accordance with the Tripartite Pact, as soon as the conflict with America should begin. The ambassador also wanted a treaty specifying that there
would be no separate peace. The Japanese interpreter,
Ciano
noted in his diary, “was trembling like a leaf.” As for the Duce, he was “pleased” to comply, after consultation with Berlin.

The German capital, Ciano found the next day, had grown extremely cautious.

Regardless of Ribbentrop’s opinion, which Hitler, surprisingly, still paid some attention to, the decision as to whether Germany would give a formal guarantee to Japan could be taken only by the Nazi warlord himself. During the night of December 4–5 the Foreign Minister apparently got the Fuehrer’s go-ahead and at 3
A.M
. he handed General Oshima a draft of the requested treaty in which Germany would join Japan in war against the United States and agree not to make a separate peace. Having taken the fateful plunge and followed his Leader in reversing a policy that had been clung to stubbornly for two years, he could not refrain from seeing that his Italian ally promptly followed suit.

The Japanese had a draft treaty, approved by both Hitler and Mussolini, but they did not yet have it signed, and this worried them. They suspected that the Fuehrer was stalling because he wanted a
quid pro quo:
if Germany joined Japan in the war against the United States, Japan would have to join Germany in the war against Russia. In his telegram of instructions to Oshima on November 30, the Japanese Foreign Minister had given some advice on how to handle this ticklish problem if the Germans and Italians raised it.

December 6 came. Zhukov that very day launched his counteroffensive in front of Moscow and the German armies reeled back in the snow and bitter cold. There was all the more reason for Hitler to demand his
quid pro quo
. On this question there was great uneasiness in the Foreign Office in Tokyo. The naval task force was now within flying distance of
Pearl Harbor
for its carrier planes. So far—miraculously—it had not been discovered by American ships or aircraft. But it might be any moment. A long message was being radioed from Tokyo to Nomura and
Kurusu
in Washington instructing them to call on Secretary
Hull
at precisely 1
P.M
. the next day, Sunday, December 7, to present Japan’s rejection of the latest American proposals, and stressing that the negotiations were “de facto ruptured.” In desperation Tokyo turned to Berlin for a written guarantee of German support. The Japanese warlords still did not trust the Germans enough to inform them of the blow against the United States which would fall the next day. But they were more worried than ever that Hitler would refrain from giving his guarantee unless Japan agreed to take on not only the United States and Great Britain but the Soviet Union as well. In this predicament Togo got off a long message to Ambassador Oshima in Berlin urging him to somehow stall the Germans on the Russian matter and not to give in unless it became absolutely necessary. Deluded though they were about their ability to deal with the Americans and the British, the Japanese generals and admirals retained enough sense to realize that they could not fight the Russians at the same time—even with German help. Togo’s instructions to Oshima on that fateful Saturday, December 6, which are among the intercepted messages decoded by Secretary Hull’s expert decipherers, give an interesting insight into the diplomacy practiced by the Nipponese with the Third Reich at the eleventh hour.

The Japanese need not have worried so much. For reasons unknown to the Tokyo militarists, or to anyone else, and which defy logic and understanding, Hitler did not insist on Japan’s taking on Russia along with the United States and Britain, though if he had the course of the war conceivably might have been different.

At any rate, the Japanese on this Saturday evening of December 6, 1941, were determined to strike a telling blow against the United States in the Pacific, though no one in Washington or Berlin knew just where or even exactly when. That morning the
British Admiralty
had tipped off the American government that a large Japanese invasion fleet had been observed heading across the Gulf of Siam for the Isthmus of Kra, which indicated that the Nipponese were striking first at
Thailand
and perhaps
Malaya
. At 9
P.M
. President Roosevelt got off a personal message to the Emperor of Japan imploring him to join him in finding “ways of dispelling the dark clouds” and at the same time warning him that a thrust of the Japanese military forces into Southeast
Asia
would create a situation that was “unthinkable.” At the Navy Department, intelligence officers drew up their latest report on the location of the major warships of the
Japanese Navy
. It listed most of them as being in home ports, including all the carriers and other warships of the task force which at that very moment had steamed to within three hundred miles of
Pearl Harbor
and was tuning up its bombers to take off at dawn.

On that Saturday evening too the Navy Department informed the President and Mr. Hull that the Japanese Embassy was destroying its codes. It had first had to decipher Togo’s long message, which had dribbled in all afternoon in fourteen parts. The Navy decoders were also deciphering it as fast as it came in and by 9:30
P.M
. a naval officer was at the White House with translations of the first thirteen parts. Mr. Roosevelt, who was with
Harry Hopkins
in the study, read it and said, “This means war.” But exactly when and just where, the message did not say and the President did not know. Even Admiral Nomura did not know. Nor far off in Eastern Europe did Adolf Hitler. He knew less than Roosevelt.

The Japanese onslaught on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor at 7:30
A.M
. (local time) on Sunday, December 7, 1941, caught Berlin as completely by surprise as it did Washington. Though Hitler had made an oral promise to Matsuoka that Germany would join Japan in a war against the United States and Ribbentrop had made another to Ambassador
Oshima, the assurance had not yet been signed and the Japanese had not breathed a word to the Germans about
Pearl Harbor
.
^*
Besides, at this moment, Hitler was fully occupied trying to rally his faltering generals and retreating troops in Russia.

Night had fallen in Berlin when the foreign-broadcast monitoring service first picked up the news of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. When an official of the Foreign Office Press Department telephoned Ribbentrop the world-shaking news he at first refused to believe it and was extremely angry at being disturbed. The report was “probably a propaganda trick of the enemy,” he said, and ordered that he be left undisturbed until morning.
³⁸
So probably Ribbentrop, for once, told the truth when he testified on the stand at Nuremberg that “this attack came as a complete surprise to us. We had considered the possibility of Japan’s attacking
Singapore
or perhaps Hong Kong, but we never considered an attack on the United States as being to our advantage.”
³⁹
However, contrary to what he told the tribunal, he was exceedingly happy about it. Or so he struck
Ciano
.