Source: K. Hildebrand, The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich (London, 1973), pp.51-90.
A. Hitler's Program of Expansion and Chamberlain's Concept of Appeasement
By November 1937, Neville Chamberlain's cabinet had been in office for six months 1 . In the meantime, Hitler had risen to a position of almost absolute dictatorship in Germany 2 , and it was clear that he was not prepared to wait much longer for the British to come round to his point of view. Hitler was beginning to pursue his aggressive program of territorial expansion against the will of the British, the country, which the Fuehrer had originally envisaged as his alliance partner. This is the decisive fact to emerge from the secret speech made by Hitler on 5 November 1937 and noted down by Hitler's military adjutant, Colonel Hossbach, which has become known (not quite accurately) as the "Hossbach Memorandum" 3 . The importance of this document lies in showing Hitler's changing attitude towards Britain, and not in the admission, which the memorandum merely repeats but which was known in principle for a long time, that he wanted Lebensraum for the German nation in the East.
What did Hitler have to tell the Commanders-in-Chief of the three branches of the armed forces, von Fritsch, Raeder and Goering, von Blomberg, the War Minister, and von Neurath, Hitler's Foreign Minister, in this speech at the close of 1937? Which aspects of his thinking had been changing, orientated though they were as ever to his basic program? In laying down the political and military course for the coming years, it seems it was essentially the following problems which Hitler had to rethink in the light of the recalcitrant attitude of the British government on the one hand and her practical neutrality in the shadow of German military strength on the other. Most important of all, as already mentioned, Hitler's changed attitude the whole of the Dictator's programmed policy seemed to depend. On 5 November 1937 there was no longer any more talk of wanting to co-operate with and woo Britain - or rather blackmail and pressurise her - into an alliance. The tactics of barter and threats took a back seat. Hitler now adopted an "ambivalent" course towards the British, which acquired an increasingly anti-British flavour 3a . On the one hand he did not absolutely turn his back on London, but rather continued to remain "open" to the original idea of an alliance - as his policy for a long time into the war demonstrates. But on the other hand, besides this "doctrinaire" pet idea which he continued to pursue, the strategist in Hitler, under the principle of realist political calculation, and with extensive experience of British statesmen, recognised that Great Britain might quite will have to be regarded as an enemy. It was not primarily a question of conquering Britain, however, but rather of forcing Britain to remain in a position of neutrality acceptable to the Reich through demonstrating Germany's military might and political determination. With such a situation prevailing in European politics, the Reich would be able to take the offensive on the Continent according to the Program, against the will of the British, while holding them politically and militarily in check. But as had been known since 1925, the direction of attack in German policy was to be towards the East. In this connection Hitler named the years 1943-45 as the ultimate deadline by which these aims were to be undertaken. And these were no vague dates, but on the contrary the relatively accurate timing for the carrying out of the continental stage within the Stufenplan .
What does seem interesting is that Hitler-in contrast to the colonial propaganda which accompanied all the foreign demands of the Reich on the Continent - did not talk of regarding overseas aims and European objectives as being political alternatives. Rather he was already casting his eye on the British Empire and making significant remarks about its strength or rather its weakness. However, with his assertion that he did not regard the British Empire as invincible and that Germany should only contemplate overseas aims at such a time when Britain was weak and the Reich strong, Hitler was by no means already directing his attention unequivocally at this stage to long-term overseas goals. Rather, one must take the situation at the address of 5 November into account. The Fuehrer had to undermine the respect which his audience of officers as well as his Foreign Minister had for Great Britain, which was regarded as utterly invincible with her world-wide communication and supply network. And yet one feature, quite typical of the shape of Hitler's thoughts, should not be overlooked. According to Hitler's ideas based on his political calculation, "cowardly" Britain would retreat again and again into a weak position of neutrality in the face of the armed and well-equipped Reich, and would at some stage or other have to take into account that its overseas possessions would be inherited by Germany. In order to be able to realise this long-term aim 4 which was already greatly interesting Hitler before 1937, a necessary precondition was to achieve hegemony over Europe by 1943-45 and thus extend the Lebensraum base of the Reich. With this step, a mighty Reich would them confront the British already weakened by other foreign burdens.
As Hitler saw it, the British statesmen had "one single chance". For a long time Hitler had been offering this chance with apparent generosity; up to 1939 the offer came less and less often, until in 1940/41 it was made again at every opportunity. The chance lay in the British yielding and co-operating in an alliance after all, in order to avert - at least for the time being - the threatening German step across the high seas and into overseas territories. By the end of 1937, in his new directive, which he regarded as his political testament, Hitler was considering Britain primarily as an opponent of the policy of expansion he had planned. Yet in view of past experience, he was confident that the British, for reasons of political and military weakness, would remain neutral, and from this point of view he as even speculating already on more extensive long-term aims arising from the political calculation on his Stufenplan reaching beyond the confines of Europe. Hitler was reckoning on the years 1943-45 as the final date for the achievement of his European ventures. In accordance with his Stufenplan and its order of priorities, long-term goals had to be pursued after that date - that is, in the latter half of the 1940s. These aims, Hitler realised, might will have to be achieved in opposition to the British - in the event that they had not by than accepted Hitler's Program - and most certainly in the face of opposition from the USA 5 . We shall see to what extent the events of the 1940s actually corresponded to the timing envisaged for European and overseas expansion in the plans of the navy, the economic leaders and the Foreign Office, and more particularly in the statements of Hitler and his diplomats. But what must be remembered is that Hitler never allowed himself to be side-tracked from his Program either by the opposition of the Schacht liberal Imperialist in domestic and economic policy, or by the far more significant refusal of the British to accept his offer of "complicity". So it is clear that in 1937 the Fuehrer was consciously leaning more and more closely towards a policy of risk in pursuing his ambivalent - indeed increasingly anti-British - course. This police of chance was the same that had decisively influenced Germany's statesmen in the almost fatalistic atmosphere of the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War 6 , summed up in the formula of world supremacy or downfall. Hitler had taken the very same political path, admittedly without surrendering to so-called fate in the manner of the Wilhelmine Germans. For again and again he tried to achieve his original idea of winning Britain's friendship, or at least ensure that Great Britain, confronted by the might of the German armed forces 7 , would by intimidated by threats from the Reich into a passive neutral role, looking on at German ventures on the Continent.
But it was not only Hitler who had changed his policy vis-a-vis Great Britain, the key power in his political thinking. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, also seems to have reconsidered Anglo-German relations intensively during his first six months in office 8 . It seems that at the very moment, early in November 1937, when Hitler was formulating his revised "political testament", the Prime Minister was developing a clearly conceived political strategy in place of the previous largely improvised policy 9 . This strategy, which held good for Neville Chamberlain's much-maligned but perhaps solely realistic policy of appeasement up to and after September 1939, can perhaps be simplified in the following terms. From 1937 until after the outbreak of the war, Britain tried in a concrete and planned way to bring the Reich to a general agreement. As the first step towards a rapprochement, the British intended guaranteeing Hitler certain continental concessions on the proviso that these be acquired peacefully. This would then pave the way for the second stage, the problem of colonies, which in London's eyes would act as a bait. In so doing Chamberlain wanted to meet Hitler's wishes - at that time by no means very concrete - for overseas possessions. He hoped in return to bring about talks and a settlement of the arms problem, particularly the question of an air pact, and so finally secure European and world peace by means of a far-reaching Anglo-German understanding which would include other nations too. His seems to be the core of the policy of appeasement, which has been the subject of so much controversy to this day. Seen in principle and analysed in its historical dimension, it has to be understood as the realistic attempt to continue to rule a world-wide Empire by means which had become inadequate for the task 10 . In order to postpone the fall of the Empire and avoid shaking any further Britain's weakened world position, Chamberlain had above all to exclude war as a political weapon 11 . But as events were to show, in the end there clearly remained no alternative to Chamberlain's policy except for the course consciously pursued under Churchill and culminating in the entry of Britain into the war. This development does not actually condemn Chamberlain' policy as such, but rather places him in the tradition of British politicians (to which his opponent Churchill also for a long time belonged 12 ) who only recognised very later on, it at all, the true nature and global scope of Hitler's dynamic policy.
Let us now consider the conversation which took place at Berchtesgaden on 19 November 1937 13 between Hitler and Lord Halifax, the envoy of the British Prime Minister and the man who, though still deputy Foreign Secretary, was soon to become head of the Foreign Office. The talk took place only 14 days after Hitler's speech of 5 November 1937 in the Reich Chancellery in which he had announced the change in course towards Britain. At the outset Lord Halifax stressed the common front which Britain and Germany formed against Bolshevism. Whether for tactical reasons or out of genuine considerations of principle, he gave an assurance that Great Britain would raise no objections to German claims in Central and Eastern Europe provided they were presented reasonably - that is, that they were realised peaceably. If we recall, Sir John Simon had already said as much in March 1935 when he asserted that Great Britain would be far less interested and concerned about Austria than the Belgian coast. But this time Hitler practically received full permission to move onto his next revisionist goals - and without having to pay in colonial coins, as he had once feared. It was Halifax's intention that talks between the two countries on this very question of colonies should be the curtain-raiser for an Anglo-German agreement and the establishment of peace in the world.
But the offer made by Lord Halifax in line with Chamberlain's strategy hardly seems to have occupied the Fuehrer very much. Certainly, even after the change in German policy to the ambivalent or anti-British course, there still existed in Hitler's mind the possibility of making an alliance with the British and so securing his rear while executing his continental plans. But offers such as Lord Halifax presented only interested the dictator insofar as they might guarantee him a smooth course for the ventures he envisaged in Central Europe. With such an alliance he could dedicate himself to the task was the gateway of the Reich, in full certainty of British neutrality. But anything beyond this - in short Lord Halifax's call for German co-operation to create world peace - contradicted Hitler's Program and his policy towards Britain, which he had revised at the latest 14 by November 1937. Now the colonial question could hardly entice him into sitting at the negotiating table with the British to make a settlement. For it seemed to Germany that the overseas goals were just as assured if the Reich were to extent its activities overseas after the continental stage had been achieved. Hitler was not to be won round to the idea of establishing a peaceful, political, but above all economic supremacy over Central and Eastern Europe, a hegemony which London was evidently prepared to concede to the Germans 15 . He hoped to subjugate Europe and the East of the Continent in the shadow of British neutrality, which though it rejected Hitler's plans did not hinder them. Then - either in agreement with the British, if in the meantime they had "come to their senses", or against their will - Hitler intended to on the offensive overseas to round off Germany's position as a world power through colonial territories and naval bases.
The incompatibility of the foreign policies of Germany and Britain in the history of those years is thus quite evident - not to contemporaries probably, but at least to the historical observer looking back who is aware of the political conceptions developed by both sides. This mutual misunderstanding, however, was further aggravated by the fact that to the ears of British diplomats, officers and businessmen, the German Reich did not just speak with Hitler's voice. For example, in spite of all the extensive planning on a world scale, the German naval command was still governed by the principle of a German-British understanding, prevalent since 1935 16 . At the same time the Foreign Office, through von Weizsaecker 17 , the departmental head, was defining German wishes in moderate and traditional Great Power terms 18 . According to this point of view, the wishes of the Reich - the colonial demands and Eastern policy - should be extorted from the British in return for a compromise on an arms agreement, to which Neville Chamberlain was inclined. The German Foreign Office thereby established a maximum negotiating base in order to discuss solutions with a strong voice but still within the Concert of Europe. Even someone like Hjalmar Schacht, always judged as highly influential in Great Britain, who was a representative of the undoubtedly expansionist "liberal Imperialism", had been pressing for a long time for peaceful, economic factors, as an "alternative" to Hitler's planned course of military expansion in south-eastern Europe and for the acquisition of colonies 19 . Indeed, even the role of one of Hitler's most loyal lieutenants, Hermann Goering, ought to be more precisely examined in this connection. Why was it that in talks with the American Ambassador Bullitt on 23 November 1937 20 , he announced economic and colonial demands? Did he make them in ignorance of the Fuehrer's Program, perhaps to gain prestige and strengthen his position within the hierarchy of the Party and State? Probably he was far more concerned to steer an opposition course, along the lines of Schacht, to guide Hitler off the road of aggression onto a peaceful course I order to follow economically and diplomatically a policy of indirect domination. In the years 1938 and 1939, the conservative opposition to Hitler were planning to remove Hitler and others and push Goering into his place as the Head of Government 22 . At the same time Goering was involved in the negotiating activities of his colleague Wohlthat, while from July and August 1939 to December of the same year there took place the "Dahlerus Mission" to London. Seen in the light of such events, the attitude of Goering on foreign policy throws a very interesting and strong light on the apparently large range of different possibilities in the foreign policy of those years. If in principle Hitler acted in complete accordance with decisive social factors and elements which formed the basis of his power, nevertheless it was he alone who decided on the details and extent of the coups towards the attainment of the policy laid down in his Program. And it was neither in an "agreement" with Britain, as seen by the new men in Downing Street, nor by a strategy such as Secretary of State von Weizsaecker suggested, that Hitler saw his next goal. Nor was he making really concrete plans for the overseas stage of his Program, but instead was turning his sights on Vienna, Prague and Danzig as the next staging - posts in his policy.
Seen against this background, it hardly seems plausible that von Ribbentrop's at present rather overrated memorandum "for the Fuehrer" of 2 January 1938 23 , could decisively have influenced Hitler's British policy, the central factor in all Hitler's considerations 24 . But it certainly confirmed in the view he had developed of Britain in November 1937. In this resume however, von Ribbentrop had to admit that his London mission had collapsed. Great Britain was just not prepared to make an alliance of the kind for which the Fuehrer had hoped and which he thought his ambassador would bring him. For his part, von Ribbentrop now encouraged Hitler to treat Britain as an enemy in the future, thus slipping back into the traditional formula adopted by all those continental powers who had ever fallen into conflict with the British sea power: they sought to forge an alliance of European nations against the island. These considerations of von Ribbentrop finally reveal his political "conception" of regarding Britain as the chief enemy of German policy and thus of acting in co-operation with the great power in the East, Russia. This anti-policy which sought to preserve Russian neutrality and envisaged making overseas acquisitions led to the conception of a continental bloc, an idea which von Ribbentrop developed in 1940 25 . It found support and was echoed in similar reflections on the part of the Foreign Office and the navy, as well as among groups within the economy. The difference between this and Hitler's strategy is evident. It is true that Hitler came to judge Great Britain more and more as an opponent and that he too was already contemplating overseas aims. But he never allowed such considerations to supplant his central idea of achieving European hegemony and destroying Bolshevik Russia, while at the same time conquering Lebensraum in the East. In contrast to the "traditionalists" and von Ribbentrop he remained bound to his Stufenplan just as he remained open even to the possibility of eventually coming round to an alliance with Britain, his "hated opponent" - which was what he had originally envisaged. Whenever there seemed a favourable opportunity, Hitler still tried to implement his blueprint after all, in the face of all strategic insights and rational calculations, which were forcing him to judge Britain as an opponent and reckon with or even intensify open conflict with Britain.
By this time, in any case, Hitler was making preparations to continue his policy of expansion by military means. In January and February 1938, in the process of eliminating all the remaining centres of conservative opposition, he reorganised the leadership of both the armed forces 26 and the Foreign Office, and thereby created the decisive preconditions enabling him to carry out his expansionist policy unhindered. As a result of a personal scandal von Blomberg, the Reich War Minister was removed from his post; but the office of Supreme Command of the Armed Forces was not occupied by anyone else. Hitler kept this position for himself, and named the loyal General Keitel 27 as Chief of High Command, but with purely administrative functions. The headquarters of the armed forces under General Jodl never had the same significance as the old Prussian General Staff. Von Fritsch's place as Chief of Army Command was taken over by von Brauchitsch, who was even less of an opponent than von Fritsch 28 , who had at least resisted Hitler's war course - though not National Socialism as such. To a great extent the army leadership had capitulated to Hitler 29 . In line with these moves on 4 February 1938 Hitler replaced von Neurath at the Foreign Ministry by von Ribbentrop, a man personally quite loyal to him.
Only 20 days after this shake-up in the German Foreign Office there also occurred a change in the Foreign Office in London, which likewise did not run against the wishes of the German Head of State. If in Germany the "doves" were leaving the Wilhelmstrasse to make room for the "hawks", the opposite was the case in Great Britain. The "hard-liner", Eden - in method tough hardly in political aims - disappeared and in his place stepped the herald of Berchtesgaden, Lord Halifax, as the new Foreign Minister Neville Chamberlain's cabinet.
References:
1. On the analysis of the policy of the Chamberlain government cf. Niedhart, op. cit. passim, as well as K. Middlemass, Diplomacy of Illusion , London, 1972.
2. According to the definition of Arthur Schweitzer, the phase of partial fascism' merges into that of full fascism', see Schweitzer, Big Business, loc. cit.
3.ADAP, D, I, No. 19. Of the extensive literature on the interpretation and sources of the Hossbach Memorandum, mention may be made of the essay by W. Bussmann, Zur Entstehung und Ueberlieferung der "Hossbach Niederschrift"', in: VfZg 16 (1968), pp. 373 ff.
3a. See J. Henke, Hitler und England 1937ΓÇô39, Boppard/Rh., 1973.
4. See Hillgruber, Hitler Strategie , esp. pp. 242 ff., idem, Kontinuitaet , loc. cit., and idem, Wollte Hitler deutsche Kolonien in Afrika? Aufschluesse ueber die Grossmachtpolitik des nationalsozialistischen Reiches', in Frankfurter Allgemeine of 11 November 1969, p. 13.
5. See p. 113 of the present work. On the relationship between the USA and the Third Reich during the 1930s cf. Schroeder, Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten , loc. cit.
6. A special examination of the phenomenon of fatalism in German politics of the 19th and 20th centuries and the conservative ruling classes' on the eve of the First World War would certainly prove informative. In connection with this compare the thoughts of Theodor Schieder on the problem of vulgar Darwinism and his (politicised) concepts of evolution in Schieder's essay Das Problem der Revolution im 19. Jahrhundert' in: HZ 170 (1950).
7. An examination by W. Malanowski ( Der Spiegel , 1969) exposes' the alleged strength of the German armed forces as a bluff on Hitler's part at the same time as the Western powers were themselves overestimating Germany's military strength. But it was precisely the potentially hostile Western powers' perception and appraisal of the German armed forces, limited as this perception was by its time, which was the deciding factor for the course of historyΓÇônot the objective findings', which admittedly are still to be examined, which have come to light so sensationally today. See in this connection Hillgruber, Strategie , p. 34 f.
8. The study in progress by E. Most (Mannheim) on the British policy on the League of Nations gives useful information on Chamberlain's considerations already dating from 1936, which led him to adopt his concept' of appeasement. See also the work by K. Middlemas mentioned in n. 1 of this chapter, which finds the roots of Chamberlain's policy of appeasement dating back as far as 1934.
9. The question concerning conception or improvisation' is a central one handled in the dissertation, still in progress, by K. Gutzmer (Marburg/L.), Die englische Deutschlandpolitik 1931ΓÇô1935. Konzeption oder Improvisation.
10.Hildebrand, Vom Reich zum Weltreich , p. 765 f.
11.One aspect of the problem of the interdependence of domestic and foreign policy in England worth investigating would be the question as to whether Chamberlain thought about the possible fundamental social changes within the existing social and economic structure in Britain brought about by war. On the social changes which materialised during the war cf. the book by A. Calder, People's War , loc. cit., and the essay by D. Artaud, La Grand Bretagne et la lutte contre l'inflation', in: Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale 1969, no. 76, pp. 39 ff.
12.On Churchill and his policy cf. the biography in several volumes by M. Gilbert.
13. ADAP , D. I, No. 31, App. pp. 46 ff.
14.The Speer memories reveal that Hitler was already toying with these thoughts in his calculations rather earlier: A. Speer, Erinnerungen , Berlin, 1969, p. 85.
15.On the economic motivations behind the appeasement policy compare B. J. Wendt, Economic appeasement Handel und Finanz in der britischen Deutschland-Politik von 1933ΓÇô1939 , Duesseldorf, 1971.
16.Cf. M. Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1935ΓÇô1941 , Frankfurt/M., 1970, passim, on the basic axiom of German-British friendship' in the thoughts and considerations of the German Naval Command up to 1938. See also idem, Selbstverstaendnis und historisches Bewusstsein der deutschen Kriegsmarine', in: Marine-Rundschau 67 (1970), p. 74.
17. ADAP , D, I, No. 21, p. 33 f.
18.Compare the concluding remarks of this work as well as Hillgruber, Kontinuitaet , passim, on the different variations of German power politics on the path from Bismarck to Hitler.
19.See p. 42 and p. 45 of the present work.
20.Staatliches Archivlager Goettingen, Nuernberger Prozessmaterial LΓÇô151, Generaloberst H. Goering: App. Nr. 6 of dispatch No. 1267.
21.Goering's colleague Wohlthat, in a conversation on 16 September, 1966 with Prof. Werner Link (Kassel) in New York, confirmed the thesis of the economic alternative conception'. Dr Link informed the author of this in a communication of 30 November 1969.
22.On resistance activities from 1938ΓÇô39 cf. P. H. Hoffmann, WiderstandΓÇôStaatsstreichΓÇôAttentat. Der Kampf der Opposition gegen Hitler , Munich, 1969, and also K.-J. Mueller, Das Heer und Hitler. Armee und nationalsozialistische Regierung 1933 ΓÇô1944 , Stuttgart, 1969. In addition see H. C. Deutsch, Verschwoerung gegen den Krieg. Der Widerstand in den Jahren 1939ΓÇô1940 , Munich, 1969. On the role of Goering see among others, F. Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, Velbert/Kettwig, 1964, p. 113 f.
23. ADAP , D. I, pp. 132 ff.
24.This could only have been the case if it can be demonstrated that Hitler had already read the original report, of which this is a summary, before 5 November 1937.
25.See p. 102 f. of this work.
26.See M. Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat. Zeit der Indoktrination , Hamburg, 1969, pp. 48 ff. and K. J. Mueller, Das Heer und Hitler. Armee und nationalsozialistische Regierung 1933ΓÇô1944 , Stuttgart, 1969.
27.On Keitel cf. W. Goerlitz (ed.), Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, Verbrecher oder Offizier? Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente des Chegs, OKW , Goettingen/Berlin/Frankfurt, 1961.
28.See Mueller, Hitler und Heer , pp. 189 ff. and also Messerschmidt, Wehrmacht , p. 82.
29.See also J. Duelffer, Weisungen an die Wehrmacht 1938/39 als Ausdruck ihrer Gleichschaltung (I)', in: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau 1969 , pp. 651 ff.
29a The difference between Eden and Chamberlain consisted as is known in their contrasting estimations of Italy and Mussolini.
