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Nazi Germany: war and defeat,c. 1939-1945

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Germany: war and defeat, c. 1939-1945

Origins: Hitler’s aims and objectives in foreign policyThe Nazi foreign position in 1939

Key issues: The impact of Blitzkrieg and Total WarGerman successes in Western Europe and the collapse of FranceThe invasion of the Soviet UnionThe impact of German occupation on the people, regions and countries of EuropeThe post-war settlement

Significance/consequences

The significance and consequences of the main developments in the war years to 1945

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Origins:

1.Hitler’s aims and objectives in foreign policy

2. The Nazi foreign position in 1939

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INTRODUCTION: NAZI FOREIGN POLICY

Hitler’s main political interest lay in the sphere of foreign affairs and much of his domestic policy was geared to help him achieve the aims of his foreign policy. He was an expansionist. But it is difficult to be certain as to the exact nature of his expansionist aims. Also, did he intend war or just accept its likelihood because of his aggressive territorial actions.

This was an area of policy-making over which Hitler ruled supreme and rarely sought the advice of others.

At his trial at Nuremberg in 1945-6 Hermann Goring told the court, ‘Foreign policy above all was the Fuhrer’s own realm’.

Klaus Hildebrand wrote that Hitler ‘ treated foreign affairs as almost entirely his own preserve’. Ian Kershaw concludes that ‘ There seems little disagreement..that Hitler did take the ‘big’ decisions in foreign policy....’

YouTube - Hitler-expert Ian Kershaw: "I never get immune to the horrors"

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HITLER’S WRITINGS

Much of Mein Kampf is devoted to foreign policy issues. On the first page he wrote:

...When the territory of the Reich embraces all the Germans and finds itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only then can the moral right arise, from the need of the people, to acquire foreign territory. The plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the daily bread for generations to come.

Theme to which Hitler returns time and time again:

If the German people are imprisoned within an impossible territorial area and for that reasons are face to face with a miserable future our people will not obtain territory....as a favour from other people, but will have to win it by the power of the triumphant sword.

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Hitler was also prepared to indicate where Lebensraum or living space would be found:

‘History proves that the German people owes its existence solely to its determination to fight in the east and obtain land by military conquest. Land in Europe is only to be obtained at the expense of Russia. ‘

In Europe 1919-1938: Prelude to Disaster, the American historian J.H. Huizinga writes:

....on January 30, 1933, the nations of Europe awoke to find themselves confronted with a Germany now wholly different from the one with which they had dealt in the twenties – a Germany wholly in the grip of that lunatic fringe, openly vowed to the most barbaric cults, the most outspoken expansionism, the most murderous racism

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NAZI AIMS Recovery of Germany with its vast economic potential and manpower always ‘on the cards’.

Revision of Versailles and the re-emergence of Germany as great power had already begun pre-1933.

Under Hitler both pace and direction of foreign policy were altered.

Up to the late 1950s it was widely assumed that the expansionist aims of Nazi foreign policy dated from the so-called Hossbach Conference in 1937. Hitler’s address to the chiefs of the armed forces and to Foreign Minister Neurath seemed to mark the turning point from a revisionist policy to one of aggressive expansion.

Such a view is not now generally accepted.

YouTube - Hitler's Foreign Policy Aims

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Hitler’s overriding foreign policy aim was to create adequate living space, Lebensraum, through the conquest of land for the future settlement of the Germanic people.

To achieve this meant relocating or eliminating the inferior Slav races then in possession of that territory, namely Poles and Russians.

Hitler saw the Jews as the main obstacle to his plans , since they, together with the Marxists were intent on world domination.

He hoped that if Germany were supportive of the British Empire, Britain would allow him a free hand in eastern Europe. He also planned to isolate France and destroy the Little Entente.

Hitler’s other foreign policy aims were revisionists – reversing the injustices of Versailles and restoring German prestige with the creation of a Grossdeutschland (Greater Reich)

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Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz

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HISTORIAN’S DEBATEHistorical opinion falls into two categories, the

intentionalist and the structuralistHistorian’s views on the aims of Hitler’s foreign policyIntentionalist/programme school

Structuralist view

Intentionalists place greatest emphasis on Hitler’s personal drive to carry through a pre-planned foreign policy programme.

Consider Hitler to have been a man of tremendous will-power and vision whose character and determination are the key factors in shaping German foreign policy.

Regard policy as founded on a clearly defined programme of objectives. Some consider that his aim was to progress towards his ultimate goal on a stage-by-stage basis, according to a Stufenplan ( Hugh Trevor-Roper, Klaus Hildrebrand)

Structuralists see German foreign policy as being determined collectively by a whole range of different factors, some determined by the Nazi Party and some not.

They reject the notion that German foreign policy was set to follow a rigidly defined course.

Assert that his foreign policy was unclear, confused even, without specific aims and that Hitler was an opportunist – a man of improvisation and experiment (A.J.P. Taylor)

Stufenplan a plan carried out in stages

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Did Hitler really have a war plan or was he an opportunist?

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CONTROVERSIESA.J.P. Taylor caused controversy when he claimed that Hitler, like all German politicians, simply wanted to restore Germany’s position in Europe. He dismissed the belief that Hitler was a planner, and claimed that his ideas were little more than day-dreaming.

In his view, the Fuhrer’s policies were determined by the course of events and he merely took advantage of the opportunities offered him. Most controversial of all was Taylor’s claim that Anglo-French appeasement gave Hitler the chance to exploit Nazi expansionism.

Lebensraum, in its crudest sense, meant a demand for empty space where German people could settle. Germany was not overpopulated compared with most European countries: and there was no empty space anywhere in Europe…Lebensraum, in short, did not drive Germany to war. Rather war, or warlike policy, produced a demand for Lebensraum.

‘The Origins of the Second World War’

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Martin Broszat argues that Nazi foreign policy generally lacked any consistency and had a confused variety of aims – ‘expansion without object’. He even suggests that Hitler’s goals were ‘utopian’ and that it was the dynamism of the Nazi movement with its incessant demands for change, which transformed Lebensraum from an idea into political reality.

Another point of view, put forward by Tim Mason, links the evolution of Nazi foreign policy to the domestic pressures which were building up in the second half of the 1930s. He suggested that it was the internal discontent created by the constraints of Nazi economic policy that really shaped foreign policy. In order to maintain his own political supremacy at home, Hitler, Mason argues, was forced to accelerate his war ambitions in 1938-39.

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The majority of historians disagree and some are scathingly critical of Taylor’s views. They cite what they consider as the overwhelming evidence of Mein Kampf, of Hitler’s policy statement made at the Hossbach Conference in 1937, the fact that Hitler geared the German economy to the needs of his rearmament programme and his ruthless expansionist policies.

Hugh Trevor-Roper regards Mein Kampf as a ‘complete blueprint of his intended achievements’ and that Hitler was a systematic thinker whose views should have been taken more seriously. His main aim was to secure adequate lebensraum. These ideas were more fully developed by the intentionalist or programme school of historians. So such a ‘stage by stage plan’ (Stufenplan) amounted to:

1. The destruction of the Versailles Treaty and restoration of Germany’s pre-1914 boundaries.

2. The union of German-speaking peoples such as Austria, western Poland, the Sudetenland and provinces in Hungary and Romania.

3. The creation of Lebnsraum: the establishment of a Nazi racial empire by expanding into eastern Europe at the expense of Poland and Russia.

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OPINIONS DIVIDED ‘Continentalists’ believe that planned expansion was limited to the establishment of a hegemony within Europe.

‘Globalists’ go further and support the thesis that Hitler aspired to German supremacy in the Middle East and Africa (in particular, at the expense of British colonial territories) and finally to a maritime struggle with the USA for global domination.

Debate is speculative as it based on vague statements from Hitler about a future world order. Yet, on fundamentals both schools of thought are in agreement:

They uphold the central place of Hitler himself in the creation of Nazi foreign policy. They emphasise the racialist framework of that foreign policy. They view the creation of Lebensraum as the basis for Hitler to build Germany’s status as a great power and to destroy Soviet Russia.

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COMPROMISE POSITIONS Alan Bullock writes that Hitler had overall aims, but was prepared to adapt and show flexibility. In Bullock’s words, Nazi foreign policy combined ‘consistency of aim with complete opportunism in methods and tactics’.

Ian Kershaw has continued to assert that German foreign policy was not solely directed by Hitler’s aims and personality, but by a range of other domestic factors and influences as well.

Programme school – A title given to some intentionalist historians who concentrate on Hitler’s foreign policy.

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The Anschluss with Austria in 1938 was a spectacular foreign policy triumph for Hitler with important consequences:

1. Diplomatically Britain and France were left looking weak.

2. German access to Austria’s gold and valuable commodities.

3. Shift in strategic balance giving Hitler a gateway into south-eastern Europe.

The Czech Crisis and subsequent Munich Agreement brought further significant advantages for Germany:

1. Access to the manufacturing and natural deposits of the Sudetenland.

2. Reinforcement of Hitler’s position and weakened his critics, notably Beck, who had planned to arrest him.

3. Easier to attack rest of Czech state.4. Isolation of Russia

THE POSITION IN 1938

Autonomy – the right of self-government

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MUNICH CONFERENCE

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What, no chair for me? (30th September, 1938)

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YouTube - Neville Chamberlain addresses the crowd Another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler 1938

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THE POSITION IN 1939 “ I shall go down in history as the greatest German”.

Expectations of a fundamental peace in the winter months of 1938-9 evaporated quickly in March 1939. In an act of unbelievable folly, the Czechs asked Hitler for help when the Slovaks demanded greater autonomy. Hitler heaped threats and abuse on the hapless Czech President, Hacha, when he visited Berlin on 15 March. After recovering from fainting, Hacha singed an agreement which allowed German troops into Czechoslovakia to restore order and so provided Hitler with the legal basis for invading his country. The provinces of Bohemia and Moravia were annexed to Germany and Slovakia was reduced to a German protectorate.

In late March, in a further act of aggression, German troops occupied Memel.

THE END OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA Protectorate – a weak state that is dependent on a stronger one

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Western democracies did not respond militarily to the overturning of the Munich Agreement; it resulted in a few months of peace but frenzied diplomatic activity. Chamberlain felt that he had been duped and so an Anglo-French military guarantee was drawn up on 31 March 1939 to uphold Poland’s independence. This clearly lessened Hitler’s chances of a free hand in eastern Europe and yet, he most definitely did not want a war with Britain and France.

In May 1939 Hitler managed to secure an alliance with the Pact of Steel with Italy, but this was of limited military significance. It was the hope of neutralising Britain and France that drove Hitler into the arms of Stalin. Stalin convinced that the western democracies had no sympathy for his security fears re-opened trade talks with Germany in July. A month later, a 10 year Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed.

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By the second half of 1939 Germany was a formidable military power with her pride restored. The pact with Stalin averted the risks associated with a simultaneous war on two fronts. Opposition within the military had been contained, for the time-being. The German populace as a whole did not crave war, but could not fail to be impressed at Hitler’s astonishing foreign policy successes achieved with such incredible ease. By July 1939 Hitler mistakenly believed that he could get away with conquering Poland without British or French intervention. This was a major miscalculation. Unleashing a general war had enormous ramifications, and German success was dependent on her capacity to bring defeat the western democracies swiftly.

“ Now you have your damned war!”Goering to Ribbentrop, September 1939

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TERRITORIAL CHANGES, 1935-39

Source: Map 1, "Territorial Changes, 1935-1939," in Germany and the Second World War, edited by the Research Institute for Military History, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Volume I, The Build-up of German Aggression, by Wilhelm Deist, Manfred Messerschmidt, Hans-Erich Volkmann, and Wolfram Wette. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1990.

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Why did the Anschluss not lead to war?How important was the Anschluss?

Why did Czechoslovakia become an international crisis?Why was the Munich Agreement so significant?

Why and with what result did Hitler break the Munich Agreement?How did Hitler hope to avoid a conflict while pursuing his claims on Poland?

Anschluss with Austria, March 1938

The Czech Crisis 1938

Poland – the outbreak of war 1939

BackgroundOccupation

The road to appeasementAppeasement, September 1938Consequences of Munich Agreement

Anglo-French guarantee to PolandNazi-Soviet PactGerman invasion

Consequences

The road to war

The destruction of the Czech state

Key question Why did the German invasion of Poland result in a continental war?

Key debate Did Hitler really have a war plan or was he an opportunist ?

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Concentration and Extermination Camps and Major "Euthanasia" Centres

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Europe at the Beginning of December 1941

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Europe in April 1944