The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (94 page)

The next day, March 31, as we have seen, Chamberlain made his historic declaration in the House of Commons that Britain and France “would lend the Polish Government all support in their power” if Poland were attacked and resisted.
^†

To anyone in Berlin that weekend when March 1939 came to an end, as this writer happened to be, the sudden British unilateral guarantee of Poland seemed incomprehensible, however welcome it might be in the lands to the west and the east of Germany. Time after time, as we have seen, in 1936 when the Germans marched into the demilitarized Rhineland, in 1938 when they took Austria and threatened a European war to take the Sudetenland, even a fortnight before, when they grabbed Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France, backed by Russia, could have taken action to stop Hitler at very little cost to themselves. But the peace-hungry Chamberlain had shied away from such moves. Not only that: he had gone out of his way, he had risked, as he said, his political career to help Adolf Hitler get what he wanted in the neighboring lands. He had done nothing to save the independence of Austria. He had consorted with the German dictator to destroy the independence of Czechoslovakia, the only truly democratic nation on Germany’s eastern borders and the only one which was a friend of the West and which supported the League of Nations and the idea of collective security. He had not even considered the military value to the
West
of Czechoslovakia’s thirty-five well-trained, well-armed
divisions entrenched behind their strong mountain fortifications at a time when Britain could put only two divisions in France and when the German Army was incapable of fighting on two fronts and, according to the German generals, even incapable of penetrating the Czech defenses.

Now overnight, in his understandably bitter reaction to Hitler’s occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain, after having deliberately and recklessly thrown so much away, had undertaken to unilaterally guarantee an Eastern country run by a junta of politically inept “colonels” who up to this moment had closely collaborated with Hitler, who like hyenas had joined the Germans in the carving up of Czechoslovakia and whose country had been rendered militarily indefensible by the very German conquests which Britain and
Poland
had helped the Reich to achieve.
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And he had taken this eleventh-hour risk without bothering to enlist the aid of Russia, whose proposals for joint action against further Nazi aggression he had twice turned down within the year.

Finally, he had done exactly what for more than a year he had stoutly asserted that Britain would never do: he had left to another nation the decision whether his country would go to war.

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister’s precipitate step, belated as it was, presented Adolf Hitler with an entirely new situation. From now on, apparently, Britain would stand in the way of his committing further aggression. He could no longer use the technique of taking one nation at a time while the Western democracies stood aside debating what to do. Moreover, Chamberlain’s move appeared to be the first serious step toward forming a coalition of powers against Germany which, unless it were successfully countered, might bring again that very encirclement which had been the nightmare of the Reich since Bismarck.

The news of Chamberlain’s guarantee of Poland threw the German dictator into one of his characteristic rages. He happened to be with Admiral
Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, and according to the latter he stormed about the room, pounding his fists on the marble table top, his face contorted with fury, and shouting against the British, “I’ll cook them a stew they’ll choke on!”
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The next day, April 1, he spoke at
Wilhelmshaven
at the launching of the battleship
Tirpitz
and was in such a belligerent mood that apparently he did not quite trust himself, for at the last moment he ordered that the direct radio broadcast of his speech be canceled; he directed that it be re-broadcast later from recordings, which could be edited.
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Even the re-broadcast version was spotted with warnings to Britain and Poland.

Hitler, as his cancellation of the direct broadcast showed, was cautious enough not to provoke foreign opinion too much. It was reported in Berlin that day that he would denounce the Anglo–German naval treaty as his first reply to Chamberlain. But in his speech he merely declared that if Great Britain no longer wished to adhere to it, Germany “would accept this very calmly.”

As so often before, Hitler ended on an old familiar note of peace: “Germany has no intention of attacking other people … Out of this conviction I decided three weeks ago to name the coming party rally the ‘Party Convention of Peace’”—a slogan, which as the summer of 1939 developed, became more and more ironic.

That was for public consumption. In the greatest of secrecy Hitler gave his real answer to Chamberlain and Colonel Beck two days later, on April 3. It was contained in a top-secret directive to the armed forces, of which only five copies were made, inaugurating “Case White.” This was
a code name which was to loom large in the subsequent history of the world.

As for Danzig:

Surprise occupation of Danzig may become possible independently of “Case White” by exploiting a favorable political situation … Occupation by the Army will be carried out from East Prussia. The Navy will support the action of the Army by intervention from the sea.

   Case White is a lengthy document with several “enclosures,” “annexes” and “special orders,” most of which were reissued as a whole on April 11 and of course added to later as the time for hostilities’ approached. But already on April 3, Hitler appended the following directives to Case White:

1. Preparations must be made in such a way that the operation can be carried out at any time from September 1, 1939, onward.
   

   As in the case of the date Hitler gave long in advance for getting the
   Sudetenland
   —October 1, 1938—this more important date of September 1, 1939, would also be kept.
   

2. The High Command of the Armed Forces [OKW] is charged with drawing up a precise timetable for “Case White” and is to arrange for synchronized timing between the three branches of the Wehrmacht.
   

3. The plans of the branches of the Wehrmacht and the details for the timetable must be submitted to OKW by May 1, 1939.
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   The question now was whether Hitler could wear down the Poles to the point of accepting his demands, as he had done with the Austrians and (with Chamberlain’s help) the Czechs, or whether Poland would hold its ground and resist Nazi aggression if it came, and if so, with what. This writer spent the first week of April in Poland in search of answers. They were, as far as he could see, that the Poles would not give in to Hitler’s threats, would fight if their land were invaded, but that militarily and politically they were in a disastrous position. Their Air Force was obsolete, their Army cumbersome, their strategic position—surrounded by the Germans on three sides—almost hopeless. Moreover, the strengthening of Germany’s
West Wall
made an Anglo–French offensive against Germany in case Poland were attacked extremely difficult. And finally it became obvious that the headstrong Polish “colonels” would never consent to receiving Russian help even if the Germans were at the gates of Warsaw.

Events now moved quickly. On April 6 Colonel Beck signed an agreement with Great Britain in London transforming the unilateral British guarantee into a temporary pact of mutual assistance. A permanent treaty, it was announced, would be signed as soon as the details had been worked out.

The next day, April 7, Mussolini sent his troops into
Albania
and added the conquest of that mountainous little country to that of Ethiopia. It gave him a springboard against Greece and
Yugoslavia
and in the tense atmosphere of Europe served to make more jittery the small countries which dared to defy the Axis. As the German Foreign Office papers make clear, it was done with the complete approval of Germany, which was informed of the step in advance. On April 13, France and Britain countered with a guarantee to Greece and Rumania. The two sides were beginning to line up. In the middle of April, Goering arrived in
Rome
and much to Ribbentrop’s annoyance had two long talks with Mussolini, on the fifteenth and sixteenth.
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They agreed that they “needed two or three years” to prepare for “a general conflict,” but Goering declared that if war came sooner “the Axis was in a very strong position” and “could defeat any likely opponents.”

Mention was made of an appeal from President Roosevelt which had arrived in Rome and Berlin on April 15. The Duce, according to Ciano, had at first refused to read it and Goering declared that it was not worth
answering. Mussolini thought it “a result of infantile paralysis,” but Goering’s impression was that “Roosevelt was suffering from an incipient mental disease.” In his telegram to Hitler and Mussolini the President of the United States had addressed a blunt question:

   Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory of the following independent nations?

   There had followed a list of thirty-one countries, including Poland, the Baltic States, Russia, Denmark, the
Netherlands
,
Belgium
, France and Britain. The President hoped that such a guarantee of nonaggression could be given for “ten years at the least” or “a quarter of a century, if we dare look that far ahead.” If it were given, he promised American participation in world-wide “discussions” to relieve the world from “the crushing burden of armament” and to open up avenues of international trade.

“You have repeatedly asserted,” he reminded Hitler, “that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war.”

In the light of what now is known, this seemed like a naïve appeal, but the Fuehrer found it embarrassing enough to let it be known that he would reply to it—not directly, but in a speech to a specially convoked session of the Reichstag on April 28.

In the meantime, as the captured German Foreign Office papers reveal, the Wilhelmstrasse in a circular telegram of April 17 put two questions of its own to all the states mentioned by Roosevelt except Poland, Russia, Britain and France: Did they feel themselves in any way threatened by Germany? Had they authorized Roosevelt to make his proposal?

“We are in no doubt,” Ribbentrop wired his various envoys in the countries concerned, “that both questions will be answered in the negative, but nevertheless, for special reasons, we should like to have authentic confirmation at once.” The “special reasons” would become evident when Hitler spoke on April 28.

By April 22 the German Foreign Office was able to draw up a report for the Fuehrer that most of the countries, including
Yugoslavia
, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg
“have answered both questions in the negative”—a reply which would soon show what an innocent view their governments took of the Third Reich. From Rumania, however, came a tart answer that the “Reich Government were themselves in a position to know whether a threat might arise.” Little
Latvia
up in the Baltic did not at first understand what answer was expected of it, but the Foreign Office soon put it right. On April 18 Weizsaecker rang up his minister in Riga

to tell him we were unable to understand the answer of the Latvian Foreign Minister to our question about the Roosevelt telegram. While practically all
the other governments have already answered, and naturally in the negative, M. Munters treated this ridiculous American propaganda as a question on which he wished to consult his cabinet. If M. Munters did not answer “no” to our question right away, we should have to add Latvia to those countries which made themselves into willing accomplices of Mr. Roosevelt. I said that I assumed that a word on these lines by Herr von
Kotze
[the German minister] would be enough to obtain the obvious answer from him.
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