The Second World War (155 page)

‘
Worse than the tedium
’: Peter Quennell,
The Wanton Chase
, London, 1980, p. 15

‘
The view now prevails
’: Ernst von Weizsäcker,
Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 1933– 1950
, Berlin, 1974, p. 225

9: Reverberations

here
For the Ichang operation, see Tobe Ryöichi, ‘The Japanese Eleventh Army in Central China, 1938–1941’, in Peattie, Drea and van de Ven,
The Battle for China
, pp. 207–29

‘What about the wounded
?’: Smedley,
Battle Hymn of China
, pp. 343–4

‘
China, they said, couldn’t fight
’:
ibid.
, p. 348

62,000 Japanese soldiers killed in China
: Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, p. 99

‘
Hundred Regiments’ campaign
: Garver,
Chinese–Soviet Relations
, pp. 140–1

‘
parallel war
’:
GSWW
, vol. iii, p. 2

here
Italian armed forces in 1940:
ibid.
, p. 68

‘
as a circus clown
’: Weizsäcker,
Die Weizsäcker-Papiere
, p. 206

Franco and Hitler at Hendaye
: Stanley G. Payne,
Franco and Hitler
, New Haven, 2008, pp. 90–4; and Javier Tusell,
Franco, España y la II Guerra Mundial: Entre el Eje y la Neutralidad
, Madrid, 1995, pp. 83–201

‘
alianza espiritual
’: Tusell,
Franco, España y la II Guerra Mundial
, p. 159

‘
The Führer sees the value
’:
KTB OKW
, vol. i, 15.11.40, p. 177

‘
like a Jew
’:
ibid.
, p. 144 (‘como un judío que quiere traficar con las más sagradas posesiones’)

‘
Jesuit swine
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. i, p. 670

‘
territorially and materially
’:
GSWW
, vol. iii, p. 194

‘
accept everything for the time being
’:
The Times
, 2.7.40

‘
lady friend
’: Dudley Clarke,
The Eleventh at War
, London, 1952, p. 95; and Michael Carver,
Out of Step
, London, 1989, pp. 54–5

‘
foregone conclusion
’: Count Galeazzo Ciano,
Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers
, London, 1948, p. 273

‘
Hitler keeps confronting me
’:
ibid.
, 12.10.40, p. 297

macaronides
Mark Mazower,
Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44
, New Haven, 1993

Greeks in Egypt
: Artemis Cooper,
Cairo in the War, 1939–1945
, London, 1989, p. 59

here
Italian casualties in Greece and Albania:
GSWW
, vol. iii, p. 448

‘
purred like six cats
’: Churchill,
The Second World War
, vol. ii, p. 480

10: Hitler’s Balkan War

‘
clearly understood
’:
KTB OKW
, vol. i, 10.12.40, p. 222

‘
Well, I don’t know about that
’: Sir Francis de Guingand,
Generals at War
, London, 1964, p. 33

‘
gasping for revenge
’: Schmidt,
Hitler’s Interpreter
, p. 223

‘
final proof
’: Domarus, vol. ii, pp. 1726ff.

here
Civilian casualties in Belgrade:
GSWW
, vol. iii, p. 498

‘
At 05.30 hours the attack
’: Gefr. G., Art.Rgt.119, 11. Pz.Div., BfZ-SS 13/517A

‘
At the command post
’: Richthofen KTB, 6.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 53

‘
That’s war
!’: Richthofen KTB, 10.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 59

‘
astonishing news
’: Richthofen KTB, 9.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 58

‘
just like a picture
’: Major G. de Winton, quoted Antony Beevor,
Crete: The Battle and the Resistance
, London, 1990, p. 36

‘
Near Vevi
’: OL 2042, TNA DEFE 3/891

‘
In just under five
’: Gefr. G., Art.Rgt.119, 11.Pz.Div., 17.4.41, BfZ-SS 13 517A

‘
Did [the Serbs] perhaps believe
’: Sold. Erich N., 8.Kp./SS-Rgt.(mot.) DF, SS-Div. Reich, 10.5.41, BfZ-SS 11 707 E

‘
by moonlight
’: Beevor,
Crete
, p. 38

here
2 million drachmas and starvation: Mazower,
Inside Hitler’s Greece
, p. xiii

‘
Dünkirchen-Wunder
’: Richthofen KTB, 10.4.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 60

‘
If I saw the enemy
’: quoted
GSWW
, vol. ix/1, p. 536

‘
so that our children
’: Hauptmann Friedrich M., 73.Inf.Div., BfZ-SS 20 305

here
For the debate over the delay to Barbarossa, see Martin van Creveld,
Hitler’s Strategy, 1940–1941: The Balkan Clue
, London, 1973; Salonika symposium, May 1991;
GSWW
, vol. iii, p. 525; Müller-Hillebrand, ‘Improvisierung’, 78, MGFA-P 030; Andreas Hillgruber,
Hitlers Strategie
, Frankfurt am Main, 1965, pp. 504ff.; and Andrew L. Zapantis,
Greek–Soviet Relations, 1917–1941
, New York, 1983, pp. 498 ff.

‘
air landing of
’: OL 2167, TNA DEFE 3/891

‘
five to six thousand airborne
’: TNA PREM 3/109

‘
seaborne invasion
’: Freyberg to Wavell, quoted Churchill,
The Second World War
, vol. iii:
The Grand Alliance
, p. 243

‘
a beach landing with tanks
’: Freyberg, quoted John Connell,
Wavell: Scholar and Soldier
, London, 1964, p. 454

‘
We for our part
’: quoted Ian Stewart,
The Struggle for Crete
, Oxford, 1955, p. 108

‘
It ought to be a fine
’: quoted Churchill,
The Second World War
, vol. iii, p. 241

‘
They’re dead on time
’: Woodhouse, quoted C. Hadjipateras and M. Fafalios,
Crete 1941
, Athens, 1989, p. 13

‘
We do not reinforce failure
’: Brigadier Ray Sandover, conversation with the author, 12.10.90

‘
seaborne attack
’: New Zealand Division war diary, quoted Stewart,
The Struggle for Crete
, p. 278

Destination of Light Ships Group
: ‘Einsatz Kreta’, BA-MA RL 33/98

‘
Enemy still shooting
’: Richthofen KTB, 28.5.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 115 German losses: BA-MA ZA 3/19 and RL2 III/95

11: Africa and the Atlantic

Hitler’s dislike of Generalleutnant von Funck
: Gen der Artillerie Walter Warlimont, ETHINT 1

Failure to bomb Benghazi
: Adalbert von Taysen,
Tobruk 1941: Der Kampf in Nordafrika
, Freiburg, 1976, quoted Martin Kitchen,
Rommel’s Desert War: Waging World War II in North Africa, 1941–1943
, Cambridge, 2009, p. 54

‘
Arabo Morte’ etc
.: Kitchen,
Rommel’s Desert War
, p. 17

‘
All day long he races
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. ii, 23.4.41, p. 381, quoted
ibid.
, p. 100

‘
perhaps the only man
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. ii, 23.4.41, p. 385

‘
the crux of the problem
’:
ibid.
, p. 412

‘
The war is becoming ever
’: Richthofen KTB, 19.5.41, BA-MA N671/2/7/9, p. 100

‘
greatest tank battle
’: Gefr. Wolfgang H., 15.Pz.Div., 21.6.41, BfZ-SS 17 338

here
On Roosevelt and Marshall, see Andrew Roberts,
Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West
, London, 2008, pp. 24–34

‘
a decisive act of
’: Churchill to FDR, quoted Winston Churchill,
The Second World War
, vol. ii, p. 498

‘
the most unsordid
’:
ibid.
, p. 503

American conditions for Lend–Lease
: Hastings,
Finest Years
, pp. 171–4

here
German reaction to Lend–Lease:
DGFP
, Series D, vol. xii, no. 146, 10.3.41, pp. 258–9

Twenty-two U-boats operational in February 1941
:
GSWW
, vol. ii, p. 343
Admiral Scheer
:
ibid.
, p. 353

12: Barbarossa

Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin
: Garver,
Chinese–Soviet Relations
, pp. 112–18

Foreign Minister Matsuoka drunk on departure
: Valentin M. Berezhkov,
At Stalin’s Side
, New York, 1994, p. 205

‘
We must always stay
’: Krebs letter of 15.4.41, BA-MA MSg1/1207

here
For Backe and the Hunger Plan, see Lizzie Collingham,
The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food
, London, 2011, pp. 32–8; Tooze,
The Wages of Destruction
, pp. 173–5, 476–80

15 May document
: for the best analysis see Chris Bellamy,
Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War
, London, 2007, pp. 99–121; also Constantine Pleshakov,
Stalin’s Folly: The Secret History of the German Invasion of Russia, June 1941
, London, 2005, pp. 75–84; Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (ed.),
Präventivkrieg? Der deutsche Angriff auf die Sowjetunion
, Frankfurt am Main, 2000; and for the conspiracy theorists, Viktor Suvorov,
Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?
, London, 1990; Heinz Magenheimer,
Hitler’s War
, London, 2002, pp. 51–64. The whole debate was examined by the Russian Association of the Second World War Historians on 28.12.97. (Information Bulletin, No.4, 1998) and they rightly concluded that the Red Army was simply in no condition to launch an offensive. I am grateful to their president, Professor O.A. Rzheshevsky, for sending me the verbatim report.

‘
Disinformation has now reached ambassadorial level
!’:
Pravda
, 22.6.89

here
Deportations from Baltic states: Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky,
KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev
, London, 1990, p. 203

‘
This is a war of extermination
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. ii, pp. 336–7

‘
Dortmund’, ‘Thus the start
’:
KTB OKW
, vol. i, p. 417

‘
on the eve of
’: Sold. Paul B., Flak-Sonderger Wrkst. Zug 13, 22.6.41, BfZ-SS L 46 281

‘
Early this morning
’: Sold. Kurt U., 1.San.Kp.91, 6.Geb.Div., 21.6.41, BfZ-SS

‘
My conviction is
’: Fw. Herbert E., 2.Kp./Nachr.Abt.SS, SS-Div.Reich, BfZ-SS

‘
thirty-nine aircraft incursions
’: Maslennikov, RGVA 38652/1/58

‘
In the course of the morning
’:
KTB OKW
, vol. i, p. 417

‘
impetuous dash
’: Erich von Manstein,
Lost Victories
, London, 1982, p. 187

‘
Of course I’ll be there
’: Schmidt,
Hitler’s Interpreter
, p. 233

‘
For the first time in years
’: quoted Richard Lourie,
Sakharov: A Biography
, Hanover, NH, 2002, p. 52

‘
Finally, after a successful attack
’: RGALI 1710/3/43

‘
The Russian is a
’: Sold. Rudolf B., Stab/Nachsch.Btl.553, 27.7.41, BfZ-SS

NKVD massacres of prisoners
: Anne Applebaum,
Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps
, London, 2003, pp. 377–8; and Polish prisoners, Snyder,
Blood-lands
, p. 194

‘Lenin founded our state
’: quoted Richard Overy,
Russia’s War
, London, 1999, p. 78

‘
The whole field
’: Aleksandr Tvardovsky,
Dnevniki i pisma, 1941–1945
, Moscow, 2005, p. 32

‘
After Minsk began to burn
’: Vasily Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/43

‘
Before the corpses
’: RGVA 32904/1/81, p. 28, quoted Anna Reid,
Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941–1944
, New York, 2011, p. 43

‘
inadequate on the eve of war
’: TsAMO 35/107559/5 p.364

‘
only 3,800 were ready to fight
’:
ibid.

Evacuation of Lenin’s body
: Ilya Zbarsky,
Lenin’s Embalmers
, London, 1998, pp. 118–21

‘
probably no overstatement
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. iii:
Der Russlandfeldzug bis zum Marsch auf Stalingrad
, p. 38

‘
There were about nine hundred
’: Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/43

‘
At the outset of the war
’: Halder,
Kriegstagebuch
, vol. iii, p. 506

‘
Whether they are riding somewhere
’, ‘
the much-battered enemy continued his cowardly advance
’: RGALI 1710/3/43

‘
At night, the sky
’: Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/49

Soviet 34th Army collapse and self-inflicted wounds
: RGASPI 558/11/49, p. 1, quoted Reid,
Leningrad
, pp. 65–6

Evacuation of Tallinn
: David M. Glantz,
The Battle for Leningrad, 1941–1944
, Lawrence, Kan., 2002, p. 46

here
Refugees described by Vasily Chekrizov: Reid,
Leningrad
, p. 116

‘
Doesn’t it seem to you
’: RGASPI 558/11/492, p. 27, quoted
ibid.
, p. 106

‘
Make it clear to all troops
’: RGASPI 83/1/18, p. 18

‘
A German aircraft appeared
’: VCD, 21.8.41