The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (99 page)

Cautious as both men were, the Germans were encouraged. At 10:40 o’clock that evening of May 30 Weizsaecker got off a “most urgent” telegram
⁵⁹
to Schulenburg in Moscow:

   Contrary to the tactics hitherto planned we have now, after all, decided to make a certain degree of contact with the Soviet Union.
^*

   It may have been that a long secret memorandum which Mussolini penned to Hitler on May 30 strengthened the Fuehrer’s resolve to turn to the Soviet Union, however cautiously. As the summer commenced, the Duce’s doubts mounted as to the advisability of an early conflict. He was convinced, he wrote Hitler, that “war between the plutocratic, self-seeking conservative nations” and the Axis was “inevitable.” But—“Italy requires a period of preparation which may extend until the end of 1942 … Only from 1943 onward will an effort by war have the greatest prospects of success.” After enumerating several reasons why “Italy needs a period of peace,” the Duce concluded: “For all these reasons Italy does not wish to hasten a European war, although she is convinced of the inevitability of such a war.”
⁶⁰

Hitler, who had not taken his good friend and ally into his confidence about the date of September 1 which he had set for attacking Poland, replied that he had read the secret memorandum “with the greatest interest” and suggested that the two leaders meet for discussions sometime in the future. In the meantime the Fuehrer decided to see if a crack could
be made in the Kremlin wall. All through June preliminary talks concerning a new trade agreement were held in Moscow between the German Embassy and Anastas Mikoyan, the Russian Commissar for Foreign Trade.

The Soviet government was still highly suspicious of Berlin. As Schulenburg reported toward the end of the month (June 27), the Kremlin believed the Germans, in pressing for a trade agreement, wished to torpedo the Russian negotiations with Britain and France. “They are afraid,” he wired Berlin, “that as soon as we have gained this advantage we might let the negotiations peter out.”
⁶¹

On June 28 Schulenburg had a long talk with Molotov which proceeded, he told Berlin in a “secret and urgent” telegram, “in a friendly manner.” Nevertheless, when the German ambassador referred assuringly to the nonaggression treaties which Germany had just concluded with the
Baltic States
,
^*
the Soviet Foreign Commissar tartly replied that “he must doubt the permanence of such treaties after the experiences which Poland had had.” Summing up the talk, Schulenburg concluded:

   My impression is that the Soviet Government is greatly interested in learning our political views and in maintaining contact with us. Although there was no mistaking the strong distrust evident in all that Molotov said, he nevertheless described a normalization of relations with Germany as being desirable and possible.
⁶²

   The ambassador requested telegraphic instructions as to his next move. Schulenburg was one of the last survivors of the Seeckt, Maltzan and Brockdorff-Rantzau school which had insisted on a German
rapprochement
with Soviet Russia after 1919 and which had brought it about at
Rapallo
. As his dispatches throughout 1939 make clear, he sincerely sought to restore the close relations which had existed during the Weimar Republic. But like so many other German career diplomats of the old school he little understood Hitler.

Suddenly on June 29 Hitler, from his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, ordered the talks with the Russians broken off.

Berchtesgaden, June 29, 1939

… The Fuehrer has decided as follows:

The Russians are to be informed that we have seen from their attitude that they are making the continuation of further talks dependent on the acceptance of the basis for our economic discussions as fixed in January. Since this basis
was not acceptable to us, we would not be interested in a resumption of the economic discussions with Russia at present.

The Fuehrer has agreed that this answer be delayed for a few days.
⁶³

   Actually, the substance of it was telegraphed to the German Embassy in Moscow the next day.

The Foreign Minister [Weizsaecker wired] … is of the opinion that in the political field enough has been said until further instructions and that for the moment the talks should not be taken up again by us.

Concerning the possible economic negotiations with the Russian Government, the deliberations here have not yet been concluded. In this field too you are requested for the time being to take no further action, but to await instructions.
⁶⁴

   There is no clue in the secret German documents which explains Hitler’s sudden change of mind. The Russians already had begun to compromise on their proposals of January and February. And Schnurre had warned on June 15 that a breakdown in the economic negotiations would be a setback for Germany both economically and politically.

Nor could the rocky course of the Anglo–French–Soviet negotiations have so discouraged Hitler as to lead him to such a decision. He knew from the reports of the German Embassy in Moscow that Russia and the Western Powers were deadlocked over the question of guarantees to Poland, Rumania and the
Baltic States
. Poland and Rumania were happy to be guaranteed by Britain and France, which could scarcely help them in the event of German aggression except by the indirect means of setting up a Western front. But they refused to accept a Russian guarantee or even to allow for Soviet troops to pass through their territories to meet a German attack.
Latvia
, Estonia and Finland also stoutly declined to accept any Russian guarantee, an attitude which, as the German Foreign Office papers later revealed, was encouraged by Germany in the form of dire threats should they weaken in their resolve.

In this impasse Molotov suggested at the beginning of June that Great Britain send its Foreign Secretary to Moscow to take part in the negotiations. Apparently in the Russian view this would not only help to break the deadlock but would show that Britain was in earnest in arriving at an agreement with Russia. Lord Halifax declined to go.
^*
Anthony Eden, who was at least a former Foreign Secretary, offered to go in his place, but Chamberlain turned him down. It was decided, instead, to send William Strang, a capable career official in the Foreign Office who had previously
served in the Moscow Embassy and spoke Russian but was little known either in his own country or outside of it. The appointment of so subordinate an official to head such an important mission and to negotiate directly with Molotov and Stalin was a signal to the Russians, they later said, that Chamberlain still did not take very seriously the business of building an alliance to stop Hitler.

Strang arrived in Moscow on June 14, but though he participated in eleven Anglo–French meetings with Molotov, his appearance had little effect on the course of Anglo–Soviet negotiations. A fortnight later, on June 29, Russian suspicion and irritation was publicly displayed in an article in
Pravda
by Andrei Zhdanov under the headline, “British and French Governments Do Not Want a Treaty on the Basis of Equality for the Soviet Union.” Though purporting to write “as a private individual and not committing the Soviet Government,” Zhdanov was not only a member of the Politburo and president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Soviet Parliament but, as Schulenburg emphasized to Berlin in reporting on the matter, “one of Stalin’s confidants [whose] article was doubtless written on orders from above.”

   It seems to me [Zhdanov wrote] that the British and French Governments are not out for a real agreement acceptable to the U.S.S.R. but only for talks about an agreement in order to demonstrate before the public opinion of their own countries the alleged unyielding attitude of the U.S.S.R. and thus facilitate the conclusion of an agreement with the aggressors. The next few days will show whether this is so or not.
⁶⁶

   Stalin’s distrust of Britain and France and his suspicion that the Western Allies might in the end make a deal with Hitler, as they had the year before at Munich, was thus publicized for all the world to ponder. Ambassador von der Schulenburg, pondering it, suggested to Berlin that one purpose of the article was “to lay the blame on Britain and France for the possible breakdown of the negotiations.”
⁶⁷

Still Adolf Hitler did not rise to the Russian bait. Perhaps it was because all during June he was busy at Berchtesgaden supervising the completion of military plans to invade Poland at the summer’s end.

By June 15 he had General von Brauchitsch’s top-secret plan for the operations of the Army against Poland.
⁶⁸
“The object of the operation,” the Commander in Chief of the Army, echoing his master, declared, “is to destroy the Polish armed forces. The political leadership demands that the war should be begun by heavy surprise blows and lead to quick successes. The intention of the Army High Command is to prevent a regular mobilization and concentration of the Polish Army by a surprise invasion
of Polish territory and to destroy the mass of the Polish Army, which is expected to be west of the Vistula-Narew line, by a concentric attack from
Silesia
on the one side and from Pomerania-East Prussia on the other.”

To carry out his plan, Brauchitsch set up two army groups—Army Group
South
, consisting of the
Eighth
,
Tenth
and
Fourteenth
armies, and Army Group
North
, made up of the
Third
and
Fourth
armies. The southern army group, under the command of General von Rundstedt, was to attack from Silesia “in the general direction of Warsaw, scatter opposing Polish forces and occupy as early as possible with forces as strong as possible the Vistula on
both
sides of Warsaw with the aim of destroying the Polish forces still holding out in western Poland in co-operation with Army Group North.” The first mission of the latter group was “to establish connection between the Reich and East Prussia” by driving across the Corridor. Detailed objectives of the various armies were outlined as well as those for the Air Force and Navy. Danzig, said Brauchitsch, would be declared German territory on the first day of hostilities and would be secured by local forces under German command.

A supplemental directive issued at the same time stipulated that the order of deployment for “White” would be put into operation on August 20. “All preparations,” it laid down, “must be concluded by that date.”
⁶⁹

A week later, on June 22, General Keitel submitted to Hitler a “preliminary timetable for Case White.”
⁷⁰
The Fuehrer, after studying it, agreed with it “in the main” but ordered that “so as not to disquiet the population by calling up reserves on a larger scale than usual … civilian establishments, employers or other private persons who make inquiries should be told that men are being called up for the autumn maneuvers.” Also Hitler stipulated that “for reasons of security, the clearing of hospitals in the frontier area which the Supreme Command of the Army proposed should take place from the middle of July must not be carried out.”

The war which Hitler was planning to launch would be total war and would require not only military mobilization but a total mobilization of all the resources of the nation. To co-ordinate this immense effort a meeting of the Reich Defense Council was convoked the next day, on June 23, under the chairmanship of Goering. Some thirty-five ranking officials, civil and military, including Keitel, Raeder, Halder, Thomas and Milch for the armed forces and the Ministers of the
Interior
, Economics, Finance and Transport, as well as
Himmler
, were present. It was only the second meeting of the Council but, as Goering explained, the body was convoked only to make the most important decisions and he left no doubt in the minds of his hearers, as the captured secret minutes of the session reveal, that war was near and that much remained to be done about manpower for industry and agriculture and about many other matters relating to total mobilization.
⁷¹

Goering informed the Council that Hitler had decided to draft some seven million men. To augment the labor supply Dr. Funk, the Minister of Economics, was to arrange “what work is to be given to prisoners of war and to the inmates of prisons and
concentration camps
.” Himmler
chimed in to say that “greater use will be made of the concentration camps in wartime.” And Goering added that “hundreds of thousands of workers from the Czech protectorate are to be employed under supervision in Germany, particularly in agriculture, and housed in hutments.” Already, it was obvious, the Nazi program for slave labor was taking shape.

Dr. Frick, the Minister of the Interior, promised to “save labor in the public administration” and enlivened the proceedings by admitting that under the Nazi regime the number of bureaucrats had increased “from twenty to forty fold—an impossible state of affairs.” A committee was set up to correct this lamentable situation.

An even more pessimistic report was made by Colonel Rudolf Gercke, chief of the Transport Department of the
Army General Staff
. “
In the transportation sphere
,” he declared bluntly, “
Germany is at the moment not ready for war.
”

Whether the German transportation facilities would be equal to their task depended, of course, on whether the war was confined to Poland. If it had to be fought in the West against France and Great Britain it was feared that the transport system would simply not be adequate. In July two emergency meetings of the Defense Council were called “in order to bring the
West Wall
, by August 25 at the latest, into the optimum condition of preparedness with the material that can be obtained by that time by an extreme effort.” High officials of Krupp and the steel cartel were enlisted to try to scrape up the necessary metal to complete the armament of the western fortifications. For on their impregnancy, the Germans knew, depended whether the Anglo–French armies would be inclined to mount a serious attack on western Germany while the Wehrmacht was preoccupied in Poland.