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What Started World War 2 the Real Cause? _________________________________________________________________________
President Roosevelt and the Origins of the 1939 War
In this scholarly
article, excerpted from his book, The Forced War: The Origins and Originators of World War II, Dr. Hoggan examines the
secret war aspirations of President Franklin Roosevelt. Hoggan also shows how Poland's leaders, bolstered by assurances
from London of military backing, sought to provoke war with Germany. During the months prior to the outbreak of war in
September 1939, he explains, Poland's provocations of Germany were frequent and extreme. Hitler had more than sufficient
justification to go to war with Poland.
________________________________________________________________________ Hitler's Normal Speaking Voice
Explaining His Decision
to Attack the USSR Video
Recording, with English
text translation, of Hitler speaking during a luncheon with Finnish leaders. This is the only recording of the German leader talking at length in his normal,
conversational voice. Hitler
visited Finland on June 4, 1942, to meet with that country’s military commander, Marshal Mannerheim, President Ryti, and Prime Minister Rangell. (Finland and Germany were World War II allies against the Soviet
Union.) An engineer
of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE had placed a microphone near where the men shared a meal in a railroad dining car, and thereby recorded a portion of
their lengthy conversation. This
is the only known recording of Hitler speaking in his “normal,” conversational voice. Here’s a portion, along with an English
translation. Hitler talks about
his fateful decision to strike against the USSR. Runtime: 11:22 mins. _________________________________________________________________
Why Germany Invaded Poland
Great Britain’s Blank Check to Poland On March 21, 1939, while hosting French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, British
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain discussed a joint front with France, Russia and Poland to act together against
German aggression. France agreed at once, and the Russians agreed on the condition that both France and Poland
sign first. However, Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck vetoed the agreement on March 24, 1939.[1] Polish statesmen feared Russia more than they did Germany. Polish Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz told the French
ambassador, “With the Germans we risk losing our liberty; with the Russians we lose our soul.”[2] Another
complication arose in European diplomacy when a movement among the residents of Memel in Lithuania sought to join
Germany. The Allied victors in the Versailles Treaty had detached Memel from East Prussia and placed it in a separate
League of Nations protectorate. Lithuania then proceeded to seize Memel from the League of Nations shortly after
World War I. Memel was historically a German city which in the seven centuries of its history had never separated
from its East Prussian homeland. Germany was so weak after World War I that it could not prevent the tiny new-born
nation of Lithuania from seizing Memel.[3] Germany’s
occupation of Prague in March 1939 had generated uncontrollable excitement among the mostly German population of
Memel. The population of Memel was clamoring to return to Germany and could no longer be restrained. The Lithuanian
foreign minister traveled to Berlin on March 22, 1939, where he agreed to the immediate transfer of Memel to Germany.
The annexation of Memel into Germany went through the next day. The question of Memel exploded of itself without
any deliberate German plan of annexation.[4] Polish leaders agreed that the return of Memel to Germany from Lithuania would not constitute an issue of conflict between
Germany and Poland.[5] What
did cause conflict between Germany and Poland was the so-called Free City of Danzig. Danzig was founded in the early
14th century and was historically the key port at the mouth of the great Vistula River. From the beginning
Danzig was inhabited almost exclusively by Germans, with the Polish minority in 1922 constituting less than 3%
of the city’s 365,000 inhabitants. The Treaty of Versailles converted Danzig from a German provincial capital
into a League of Nations protectorate subject to numerous strictures established for the benefit of Poland. The
great preponderance of the citizens of Danzig had never wanted to leave Germany, and they were eager to return to
Germany in 1939. Their eagerness to join Germany was exacerbated by the fact that Germany’s economy was
healthy while Poland’s economy was still mired in depression.[6] Many
of the German citizens of Danzig had consistently demonstrated their unwavering loyalty to National Socialism and
its principles. They had even elected a National Socialist parliamentary majority before this result had been
achieved in Germany. It was widely known that Poland was constantly seeking to increase her control over Danzig
despite the wishes of Danzig’s German majority. Hitler was not opposed to Poland’s further economic
aspirations at Danzig, but Hitler was resolved never to permit the establishment of a Polish political regime at
Danzig. Such a renunciation of Danzig by Hitler would have been a repudiation of the loyalty of Danzig citizens
to the Third Reich and their spirit of self-determination.[7] Germany
presented a proposal for a comprehensive settlement of the Danzig question with Poland on October 24, 1938. Hitler’s
plan would allow Germany to annex Danzig and construct a superhighway and a railroad to East Prussia. In return
Poland would be granted a permanent free port in Danzig and the right to build her own highway and railroad to
the port. The entire Danzig area would also become a permanent free market for Polish goods on which no German
customs duties would be levied. Germany would take the unprecedented step of recognizing and guaranteeing the
existing German-Polish frontier, including the boundary in Upper Silesia established in 1922. This later provision
was extremely important since the Versailles Treaty had given Poland much additional territory which Germany proposed
to renounce. Hitler’s offer to guarantee Poland’s frontiers also carried with it a degree of military
security that no other non-Communist nation could match.[8] Germany’s
proposed settlement with Poland was far less favorable to Germany than the Thirteenth Point of Wilson’s program
at Versailles. The Versailles Treaty gave Poland large slices of territory in regions such as West Prussia and
Western Posen which were overwhelmingly German. The richest industrial section of Upper Silesia was also later
given to Poland despite the fact that Poland had lost the plebiscite there.[9] Germany was willing to renounce these territories in the interest of German-Polish cooperation. This concession of Hitler’s
was more than adequate to compensate for the German annexation of Danzig and construction of a superhighway and
a railroad in the Corridor. The Polish diplomats themselves believed that Germany’s proposal was a sincere
and realistic basis for a permanent agreement.[10] On
March 26, 1939, the Polish Ambassador to Berlin, Joseph Lipski, formally rejected Germany’s settlement proposals.
The Poles had waited over five months to reject Germany’s proposals, and they refused to countenance any
change in existing conditions. Lipski stated to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that “it was
his painful duty to draw attention to the fact that any further pursuance of these German plans, especially where
the return of Danzig to the Reich was concerned, meant war with Poland.”[11] Polish
Foreign Minister Józef Beck accepted an offer from Great Britain on March 30, 1939, to give an unconditional
guarantee of Poland’s independence. The British Empire agreed to go to war as an ally of Poland if the Poles
decided that war was necessary. In words drafted by British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Chamberlain spoke in
the House of Commons on March 31, 1939:
I now have to inform the House…that in the event of any action which
clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist
with their national forces, His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish
Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to that effect.[12] Great Britain for the
first time in history had left the decision whether or not to fight a war outside of her own country to another
nation. Britain’s guarantee to Poland was binding without commitments from the Polish side. The British
public was astonished by this move. Despite its unprecedented nature, Halifax encountered little difficulty in
persuading the British Conservative, Liberal and Labor parties to accept Great Britain’s unconditional guarantee
to Poland.[13] Numerous
British historians and diplomats have criticized Britain’s unilateral guarantee of Poland. For example, British
diplomat Roy Denman called the war guarantee to Poland “the most reckless undertaking ever given by a British
government. It placed the decision on peace or war in Europe in the hands of a reckless, intransigent, swashbuckling
military dictatorship.”[14] British historian Niall Ferguson states that the war guarantee to Poland tied Britain’s “destiny to that of
a regime that was every bit as undemocratic and anti-Semitic as that of Germany.”[15] English military historian Liddell Hart stated that the Polish guarantee “placed Britain’s destiny in the
hands of Poland’s rulers, men of very dubious and unstable judgment. Moreover, the guarantee was impossible
to fulfill except with Russia’s help.…”[16] American
historian Richard M. Watt writes concerning Britain’s unilateral guarantee to Poland: “This enormously
broad guarantee virtually left to the Poles the decision whether or not Britain would go to war. For Britain to
give such a blank check to a Central European nation, particularly to Poland—a nation that Britain had generally
regarded as irresponsible and greedy—was mind-boggling.”[17] When
the Belgian Minister to Germany, Vicomte Jacques Davignon, received the text of the British guarantee to Poland,
he exclaimed that “blank check” was the only possible description of the British pledge. Davignon
was extremely alarmed in view of the proverbial recklessness of the Poles. German State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker
attempted to reassure Davignon by claiming that the situation between Germany and Poland was not tragic. However,
Davignon correctly feared that the British move would produce war in a very short time.[18] Weizsäcker
later exclaimed scornfully that “the British guarantee to Poland was like offering sugar to an untrained child
before it had learned to listen to reason!”[19] The
Deterioration of German-Polish Relations German-Polish relationships had become strained by the increasing harshness with which the
Polish authorities handled the German minority. The Polish government in the 1930s began to confiscate the land
of its German minority at bargain prices through public expropriation. The German government resented the fact
that German landowners received only one-eighth of the value of their holdings from the Polish government. Since
the Polish public was aware of the German situation and desired to exploit it, the German minority in Poland could
not sell the land in advance of expropriation. Furthermore, Polish law forbade Germans from privately selling
large areas of land. German diplomats insisted that the November 1937 Minorities Pact with Poland for the equal treatment of
German and Polish landowners be observed in 1939. Despite Polish assurances of fairness and equal treatment, German
diplomats learned on February 15, 1939, that the latest expropriations of land in Poland were predominantly of
German holdings. These expropriations virtually eliminated substantial German landholdings in Poland at a time
when most of the larger Polish landholdings were still intact. It became evident that nothing could be done diplomatically
to help the German minority in Poland.[20] Poland
threatened Germany with a partial mobilization of her forces on March 23, 1939. Hundreds of thousands of Polish
Army reservists were mobilized, and Hitler was warned that Poland would fight to prevent the return of Danzig
to Germany. The Poles were surprised to discover that Germany did not take this challenge seriously. Hitler, who
deeply desired friendship with Poland, refrained from responding to the Polish threat of war. Germany did not
threaten Poland and took no precautionary military measures in response to the Polish partial mobilization.[21] Hitler
regarded a German-Polish agreement as a highly welcome alternative to a German-Polish war. However, no further
negotiations for a German-Polish agreement occurred after the British guarantee to Poland because Józef
Beck refused to negotiate. Beck ignored repeated German suggestions for further negotiations because Beck knew
that Halifax hoped to accomplish the complete destruction of Germany. Halifax had considered an Anglo-German war
inevitable since 1936, and Britain’s anti-German policy was made public with a speech by Neville Chamberlain
on March 17, 1939. Halifax discouraged German-Polish negotiations because he was counting on Poland to provide
the pretext for a British pre-emptive war against Germany.[22] The
situation between Germany and Poland deteriorated rapidly during the six weeks from the Polish partial mobilization
of March 23, 1939, to a speech delivered by Józef Beck on May 5, 1939. Beck’s primary purpose in
delivering his speech before the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, was to convince the Polish public
and the world that he was able and willing to challenge Hitler. Beck knew that Halifax had succeeded in creating
a warlike atmosphere in Great Britain, and that he could go as far as he wanted without displeasing the British.
Beck took an uncompromising attitude in his speech that effectively closed the door to further negotiations with
Germany. Beck made numerous false and hypocritical statements in his speech. One of the most astonishing claims
in his speech was that there was nothing extraordinary about the British guarantee to Poland. He described it
as a normal step in the pursuit of friendly relations with a neighboring country. This was in sharp contrast to
British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan’s statement to Joseph Kennedy that Britain’s guarantee to Poland
was without precedent in the entire history of British foreign policy.[23] Beck
ended his speech with a stirring climax that produced wild excitement in the Polish Sejm. Someone in the audience
screamed loudly, “We do not need peace!” and pandemonium followed. Beck had made many Poles in the
audience determined to fight Germany. This feeling resulted from their ignorance which made it impossible for them
to criticize the numerous falsehoods and misstatements in Beck’s speech. Beck made the audience feel that
Hitler had insulted the honor of Poland with what were actually quite reasonable peace proposals. Beck had effectively
made Germany the deadly enemy of Poland.[24] More
than 1 million ethnic Germans resided in Poland at the time of Beck’s speech, and these Germans were the
principal victims of the German-Polish crisis in the coming weeks. The Germans in Poland were subjected to increasing
doses of violence from the dominant Poles. The British public was told repeatedly that the grievances of the German
minority in Poland were largely imaginary. The average British citizen was completely unaware of the terror and
fear ofdeath that stalked these Germans in Poland. Ultimately, many thousands of Germans in Poland died in consequence
of the crisis. They were among the first victims of British Foreign Secretary Halifax’s war policy against
Germany.[25] The
immediate responsibility for security measures involving the German minority in Poland rested with Interior Department
Ministerial Director Waclaw Zyborski. Zyborski consented to discuss the situation on June 23, 1939, with Walther
Kohnert, one of the leaders of the German minority at Bromberg. Zyborski admitted to Kohnert that the Germans of
Poland were in an unenviable situation, but he was not sympathetic to their plight. Zyborski ended their lengthy
conversation by stating frankly that his policy required a severe treatment of the German minority in Poland.
He made it clear that it was impossible for the Germans of Poland to alleviate their hard fate. The Germans in
Poland were the helpless hostages of the Polish community and the Polish state.[26] Other
leaders of the German minority in Poland repeatedly appealed to the Polish government for help during this period.
Sen. Hans Hasbach, the leader of the conservative German minority faction, and Dr. Rudolf Wiesner, the leader
of the Young German Party, each made multiple appeals to Poland’s government to end the violence. In a futile
appeal on July 6, 1939, to Premier Sławoj-Składkowski, head of Poland’s Department of Interior,
Wiesner referred to the waves of public violence against the Germans at Tomaszów near Lódz, May 13-15th,
at Konstantynów, May 21-22nd, and at Pabianice, June 22-23, 1939. The appeal of Wiesner produced
no results. The leaders of the German political groups eventually recognized that they had no influence with Polish
authorities despite their loyal attitudes toward Poland. It was “open season” on the Germans of Poland
with the approval of the Polish government.[27] Polish
anti-German incidents also occurred against the German majority in the Free City of Danzig. On May 21, 1939, Zygmunt
Morawski, a former Polish soldier, murdered a German at Kalthof on Danzig territory. The incident itself would
not have been so unusual except for the fact that Polish officials acted as if Poland and not the League of Nations
had sovereign power over Danzig. Polish officials refused to apologize for the incident, and they treated with
contempt the effort of Danzig authorities to bring Morawski to trial. The Poles in Danzig considered themselves
above the law.[28] Tension
steadily mounted at Danzig after the Morawski murder. The German citizens of Danzig were convinced that Poland
would show them no mercy if Poland gained the upper hand. The Poles were furious when they learned that Danzig
was defying Poland by organizing its own militia for home defense. The Poles blamed Hitler for this situation.
The Polish government protested to German Ambassador Hans von Moltke on July 1, 1939, about the Danzig government’s
military-defense measures. Józef Beck told French Ambassador Léon Noël on July 6, 1939, that
the Polish government had decided that additional measures were necessary to meet the alleged threat from Danzig.[29] On
July 29, 1939, the Danzig government presented two protest notes to the Poles concerning illegal activities of
Polish custom inspectors and frontier officials. The Polish government responded by terminating the export of
duty-free herring and margarine from Danzig to Poland. Polish officials next announced in the early hours of August
5, 1939, that the frontiers of Danzig would be closed to the importation of all foreign food products unless the
Danzig government promised by the end of the day never to interfere with the activities of Polish customs inspectors.
This threat was formidable since Danzig produced only a relatively small portion of its own food. All Polish customs
inspectors would also bear arms while performing their duty after August 5, 1939. The Polish ultimatum made it
obvious that Poland intended to replace the League of Nations as the sovereign power at Danzig.[30] Hitler
concluded that Poland was seeking to provoke an immediate conflict with Germany. The Danzig government submitted
to the Polish ultimatum in accordance with Hitler’s recommendation.[31] Józef
Beck explained to British Ambassador Kennard that the Polish government was prepared to take military measures
against Danzig if it failed to accept Poland’s terms. The citizens of Danzig were convinced that Poland
would have executed a full military occupation of Danzig had the Polish ultimatum been rejected. It was apparent
to the German government that the British and French were either unable or unwilling to restrain the Polish government
from arbitrary steps that could result in war.[32] On
August 7, 1939, the Polish censors permitted the newspaper Illustrowany Kuryer Codzienny in Kraków
to feature an article of unprecedented candor. The article stated that Polish units were constantly crossing the
German frontier to destroy German military installations and to carry captured German military materiel into Poland.
The Polish government failed to prevent the newspaper, which had the largest circulation in Poland, from telling
the world that Poland was instigating a series of violations of Germany’s frontier with Poland.[33] Polish
Ambassador Jerzy Potocki unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Józef Beck to seek an agreement with Germany.
Potocki later succinctly explained the situation in Poland by stating “Poland prefers Danzig to peace.”[34] President
Roosevelt knew that Poland had caused the crisis which began at Danzig, and he was worried that the American public
might learn the truth about the situation. This could be a decisive factor in discouraging Roosevelt’s plan
for American military intervention in Europe. Roosevelt instructed U.S. Ambassador Biddle to urge the Poles to
be more careful in making it appear that German moves were responsible for any inevitable explosion at Danzig.
Biddle reported to Roosevelt on August 11, 1939, that Beck expressed no interest in engaging in a series of elaborate
but empty maneuvers designed to deceive the American public. Beck stated that at the moment he was content to have
full British support for his policy.[35] Roosevelt
also feared that American politicians might discover the facts about the hopeless dilemma which Poland’s
provocative policy created for Germany. When American Democratic Party Campaign Manager and Post-Master General
James Farley visited Berlin, Roosevelt instructed the American Embassy in Berlin to prevent unsupervised contact
between Farley and the German leaders. The German Foreign Office concluded on August 10, 1939 that it was impossible
to penetrate the wall of security around Farley. The Germans knew that President Roosevelt was determined to prevent
them from freely communicating with visiting American leaders.[36] Polish
Atrocities Force War On August 14, 1939, the Polish authorities in East Upper Silesia launched a campaign of mass arrests against
the German minority. The Poles then proceeded to close and confiscate the remaining German businesses, clubs and
welfare installations. The arrested Germans were forced to march toward the interior of Poland in prisoner columns.
The various German groups in Poland were frantic by this time; they feared the Poles would attempt the total extermination
of the German minority in the event of war. Thousands of Germans were seeking to escape arrest by crossing the
border into Germany. Some of the worst recent Polish atrocities included the mutilation of several Germans. The
Polish public was urged not to regard their German minority as helpless hostages who could be butchered with impunity.[37] Rudolf
Wiesner, who was the most prominent of the German minority leaders in Poland, spoke of a disaster “of inconceivable
magnitude” since the early months of 1939. Wiesner claimed that the last Germans had been dismissed from
their jobs without the benefit of unemployment relief, and that hunger and privation were stamped on the faces
of the Germans in Poland. German welfare agencies, cooperatives and trade associations had been closed by Polish
authorities. Exceptional martial-law conditions of the earlier frontier zone had been extended to include more
than one-third of the territory of Poland. The mass arrests, deportations, mutilations and beatings of the last
few weeks in Poland surpassed anything that had happened before. Wiesner insisted that the German minority leaders
merely desired the restoration of peace, the banishment of the specter of war, and the right to live and work
in peace. Wiesner was arrested by the Poles on August 16, 1939 on suspicion of conducting espionage for Germany
in Poland.[38] The
German press devoted increasing space to detailed accounts of atrocities against the Germans in Poland. The Völkischer
Beobachter reported that more than 80,000 German refugees from Poland had succeeded in reaching German territory
by August 20, 1939. The German Foreign Office had received a huge file of specific reports of excesses against
national and ethnic Germans in Poland. More than 1,500 documented reports had been received since March 1939, and
more than 10 detailed reports were arriving in the German Foreign Office each day. The reports presented a staggering
picture of brutality and human misery.[39] W. L. White, an American journalist, later recalled that there was no doubt among well-informed people by this time
that horrible atrocities were being inflicted every day on the Germans of Poland.[40] Donald
Day, a Chicago Tribune correspondent, reported on the atrocious treatment the Poles had meted out to the
ethnic Germans in Poland:
…I traveled up to the Polish corridor where the German authorities permitted me to interview
the German refugees from many Polish cities and towns. The story was the same. Mass arrests and long marches along
roads toward the interior of Poland. The railroads were crowded with troop movements. Those who fell by the wayside
were shot. The Polish authorities seemed to have gone mad. I have been questioning people all my life and I think
I know how to make deductions from the exaggerated stories told by people who have passed through harrowing personal
experiences. But even with generous allowance, the situation was plenty bad. To me the war seemed only a question
of hours.[41] British Ambassador Nevile
Henderson in Berlin was concentrating on obtaining recognition from Halifax of the cruel fate of the German minority
in Poland. Henderson emphatically warned Halifax on August 24, 1939, that German complaints about the treatment
of the German minority in Poland were fully supported by the facts. Henderson knew that the Germans were prepared
to negotiate, and he stated to Halifax that war between Poland and Germany was inevitable unless negotiations were
resumed between the two countries. Henderson pleaded with Halifax that it would be contrary to Polish interests
to attempt a full military occupation of Danzig, and he added a scathingly effective denunciation of Polish policy.
What Henderson failed to realize is that Halifax was pursuing war for its own sake as an instrument of policy.
Halifax desired the complete destruction of Germany.[42] On
August 25, 1939, Ambassador Henderson reported to Halifax the latest Polish atrocity at Bielitz, Upper Silesia.
Henderson never relied on official German statements concerning these incidents, but instead based his reports
on information he received from neutral sources. The Poles continued to forcibly deport the Germans of that area,
and compelled them to march into the interior of Poland. Eight Germans were murdered and many more were injured
during one of these actions. Hitler was faced with a terrible dilemma. If Hitler did nothing, the Germans of Poland and Danzig would
be abandoned to the cruelty and violence of a hostile Poland. If Hitler took effective action against the Poles,
the British and French might declare war against Germany. Henderson feared that the Bielitz atrocity would be the
final straw to prompt Hitler to invade Poland. Henderson, who strongly desired peace with Germany, deplored the
failure of the British government to exercise restraint over the Polish authorities.[43] On
August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. This non-aggression
pact contained a secret protocol which recognized a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. German recognition
of this Soviet sphere of influence would not apply in the event of a diplomatic settlement of the German-Polish
dispute. Hitler had hoped to recover the diplomatic initiative through the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact.
However, Chamberlain warned Hitler in a letter dated August 23, 1939, that Great Britain would support Poland
with military force regardless of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Józef Beck also continued to refuse to
negotiate a peaceful settlement with Germany.[44] Germany
made a new offer to Poland on August 29, 1939, for a last diplomatic campaign to settle the German-Polish dispute.
The terms of a new German plan for a settlement, the so-called Marienwerder proposals, were less important than
the offer to negotiate as such. The terms of the Marienwerder proposals were intended as nothing more than a tentative
German plan for a possible settlement. The German government emphasized that these terms were formulated to offer
a basis for unimpeded negotiations between equals rather than constituting a series of demands which Poland would
be required to accept. There was nothing to prevent the Poles from offering an entirely new set of proposals of
their own. The Germans, in offering to negotiate with Poland, were indicating that they favored a diplomatic settlement
over war with Poland. The willingness of the Poles to negotiate would not in any way have implied a Polish retreat
or their readiness to recognize the German annexation of Danzig. The Poles could have justified their acceptance
to negotiate with the announcement that Germany, and not Poland, had found it necessary to request new negotiations.
In refusing to negotiate, the Poles were announcing that they favored war. The refusal of British Foreign Secretary
Halifax to encourage the Poles to negotiate indicated that he also favored war.[45] French
Prime Minister Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain were both privately critical of the Polish government.
Daladier in private denounced the “criminal folly” of the Poles. Chamberlain admitted to Ambassador
Joseph Kennedy that it was the Poles, and not the Germans, who were unreasonable. Kennedy reported to President
Roosevelt, “frankly he [Chamberlain] is more worried about getting the Poles to be reasonable than the Germans.”
However, neither Daladier nor Chamberlain made any effort to influence the Poles to negotiate with the Germans.[46] On
August 29, 1939, the Polish government decided upon the general mobilization of its army. The Polish military plans
stipulated that general mobilization would be ordered only in the event of Poland’s decision for war. Henderson
informed Halifax of some of the verified Polish violations prior to the war. The Poles blew up the Dirschau (Tczew)
bridge across the Vistula River even though the eastern approach to the bridge was in German territory (East Prussia).
The Poles also occupied a number of Danzig installations and engaged in fighting with the citizens of Danzig on
the same day. Henderson reported that Hitler was not insisting on the total military defeat of Poland. Hitler was
prepared to terminate hostilities if the Poles indicated that they were willing to negotiate a satisfactory settlement.[47] Germany
decided to invade Poland on September 1, 1939. All of the British leaders claimed that the entire responsibility
for starting the war was Hitler’s. Prime Minister Chamberlain broadcast that evening on British radio that
“the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe (war in Poland) lies on the shoulders of one man, the German
Chancellor.” Chamberlain claimed that Hitler had ordered Poland to come to Berlin with the unconditional
obligation of accepting without discussion the exact German terms. Chamberlain denied that Germany had invited
the Poles to engage in normal negotiations. Chamberlain’s statements were unvarnished lies, but the Polish
case was so weak that it was impossible to defend it with the truth. Halifax also delivered a cleverly hypocritical speech to
the House of Lords on the evening of September 1, 1939. Halifax claimed that the best proof of the British will
to peace was to have Chamberlain, the great appeasement leader, carry Great Britain into war. Halifax concealed
the fact that he had taken over the direction of British foreign policy from Chamberlain in October 1938, and that
Great Britain would probably not be moving into war had this not happened. He assured his audience that Hitler, before
the bar of history, would have to assume full responsibility for starting the war. Halifax insisted that the English
conscience was clear, and that, in looking back, he did not wish to change a thing as far as British policy was
concerned.[48] On
September 2, 1939, Italy and Germany agreed to hold a mediation conference among themselves and Great Britain,
France and Poland. Halifax attempted to destroy the conference plan by insisting that Germany withdraw her forces
from Poland and Danzig before Great Britain and France would consider attending the mediation conference. French
Foreign Minister Bonnet knew that no nation would accept such treatment, and that the attitude of Halifax was
unreasonable and unrealistic. Ultimately, the mediation effort collapsed, and both Great Britain and France declared war against Germany
on September 3, 1939. When Hitler read the British declaration of war against Germany, he paused and asked of
no one in particular: “What now?”[49] Germany was now in an unnecessary war with three European nations. Similar to the other British leaders, Nevile Henderson, the British
ambassador to Germany, later claimed that the entire responsibility for starting the war was Hitler’s. Henderson
wrote in his memoirs in 1940: “If Hitler wanted peace he knew how to insure it; if he wanted war, he knew
equally well what would bring it about. The choice lay with him, and in the end the entire responsibility for war
was his.”[50] Henderson forgot in this passage that he had repeatedly warned Halifax that the Polish atrocities against the German minority
in Poland were extreme. Hitler invaded Poland in order to end these atrocities. Polish Atrocities Continue against German Minority The Germans in Poland continued to experience
an atmosphere of terror in the early part of September 1939. Throughout the country the Germans had been told,
“If war comes to Poland you will all be hanged.” This prophecy was later fulfilled in many cases. The famous Bloody
Sunday in Toruń on September 3, 1939, was accompanied by similar massacres elsewhere in Poland. These massacres
brought a tragic end to the long suffering of many ethnic Germans. This catastrophe had been anticipated by the
Germans before the outbreak of war, as reflected by the flight, or attempted escape, of large numbers of Germans
from Poland. The feelings of these Germans were revealed by the desperate slogan, “Away from this hell, and
back to the Reich!”[51] Dr.
Alfred-Maurice de Zayas writes concerning the ethnic Germans in Poland: The first victims of the war were Volksdeutsche, ethnic
German civilians resident in and citizens of Poland. Using lists prepared years earlier, in part by lower administrative
offices, Poland immediately deported 15,000 Germans to Eastern Poland. Fear and rage at the quick German victories
led to hysteria. German “spies” were seen everywhere, suspected of forming a fifth column. More than
5,000 German civilians were murdered in the first days of the war. They were hostages and scapegoats at the same
time. Gruesome scenes were played out in Bromberg on September 3, as well as in several other places throughout
the province of Posen, in Pommerellen, wherever German minorities resided.[52] Polish atrocities against
ethnic Germans have been documented in the book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland.
Most of the outside world dismissed this book as nothing more than propaganda used to justify Hitler’s
invasion of Poland. However, skeptics failed to notice that forensic pathologists from the International Red Cross
and medical and legal observers from the United States verified the findings of these investigations of Polish
war crimes. These investigations were also conducted by German police and civil administrations, and not the National
Socialist Party or the German military. Moreover, both anti-German and other university-trained researchers have
acknowledged that the charges in the book are based entirely on factual evidence.[53] The
book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland stated: When the first edition of this collection of documents
went to press on November 17, 1939, 5,437 cases of murder committed by soldiers of the Polish army and by Polish
civilians against men, women and children of the German minority had been definitely ascertained. It was known
that the total when fully ascertained would be very much higher. Between that date and February 1, 1940, the number
of identified victims mounted to 12,857. At the present stage investigations disclose that in addition to these
12,857, more than 45,000 persons are still missing. Since there is no trace of them, they must also be considered
victims of the Polish terror. Even the figure 58,000 is not final. There can be no doubt that the inquiries now
being carried out will result in the disclosure of additional thousands dead and missing.[54] Medical examinations
of the dead showed that Germans of all ages, from four months to 82 years of age, were murdered. The report concluded: It was shown that the
murders were committed with the greatest brutality and that in many cases they were purely sadistic acts—that
gouging of eyes was established and that other forms of mutilation, as supported by the depositions of witnesses,
may be considered as true. The method by which the individual murders
were committed in many cases reveals studied physical and mental torture; in this connection several cases of
killing extended over many hours and of slow death due to neglect had to be mentioned.
By far the most important finding seems to be the proof that murder by such chance weapons as
clubs or knives was the exception, and that as a rule modern, highly-effective army rifles and pistols were available
to the murderers. It must be emphasized further that it was possible to show, down to the minutest detail, that
there could have been no possibility of execution [under military law].[55] The Polish atrocities
were not acts of personal revenge, professional jealously or class hatred; instead, they were a concerted political
action. They were organized mass murders caused by a psychosis of political animosity. The hate-inspired urge
to destroy everything German was driven by the Polish press, radio, school and government propaganda. Britain’s
blank check of support had encouraged Poland to conduct inhuman atrocities against its German minority.[56] The
book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland explained why the Polish government encouraged
such atrocities: The guarantee of assistance given Poland by the British Government was the agent which lent impetus to
Britain’s policy of encirclement. It was designed to exploit the problem of Danzig and the Corridor to begin
a war, desired and long-prepared by England, for the annihilation of Greater Germany. In Warsaw moderation was
no longer considered necessary, and the opinion held was that matters could be safely brought to a head. England
was backing this diabolical game, having guaranteed the “integrity” of the Polish state. The British
assurance of assistance meant that Poland was to be the battering ram of Germany’s enemies. Henceforth Poland
neglected no form of provocation of Germany and, in its blindness, dreamt of “victorious battle at Berlin’s
gates.” Had it not been for the encouragement of the English war clique, which was stiffening Poland’s
attitude toward the Reich and whose promises led Warsaw to feel safe, the Polish Government would hardly have let
matters develop to the point where Polish soldiers and civilians would eventually interpret the slogan to extirpate
all German influence as an incitement to the murder and bestial mutilation of human beings.[57] ENDNOTES [1] Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 207. [2] DeConde, Alexander, A History of American Foreign Policy, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971, p. 576. [3] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, pp. 25, 312. [4] Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 209. [5] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, p. 50. [6] Ibid., pp. 49-60. [7] Ibid., pp. 328-329. [8] Ibid., pp. 145-146. [9] Ibid., p. 21. [10] Ibid., pp. 21, 256-257. [11] Ibid., p. 323. [12] Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power, New York: William Morrow, 1972, p. 560; see also Taylor, A.J.P.,
The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 211.
[13] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, pp. 333, 340. [14] Denman, Roy, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century, London: Indigo, 1997, p. 121. [15] Ferguson, Niall, The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, New York: Penguin
Press, 2006, p. 377. [16] Hart, B. H. Liddell, History of the Second World War, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970, p. 11. [17] Watt, Richard M., Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate 1918 to 1939, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, p. 379. [18] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, p. 342. [19] Ibid., p. 391. [20] Ibid., pp. 260-262. [21] Ibid., pp. 311-312. [22] Ibid., pp. 355, 357. [23] Ibid., pp. 381, 383. [24] Ibid., pp. 384, 387. [25] Ibid., p. 387. [26] Ibid., pp. 388-389. [27] Ibid. [28] Ibid., pp. 392-393. [29] Ibid., pp. 405-406. [30] Ibid., p. 412. [31] Ibid. p. 413. [32] Ibid., pp. 413-415. [33] Ibid. p. 419. In a footnote, the author notes that a report of the same matters appeared in the New York Times
for August 8, 1939. [34] Ibid., p. 419. [35] Ibid., p. 414. [36] Ibid., p. 417. [37] Ibid., pp. 452-453. [38] Ibid., p. 463. [39] Ibid., p. 479. [40] Ibid., p. 554. [41] Day, Donald, Onward Christian Soldiers, Newport Beach, Cal.: The Noontide Press, 2002, p. 56.
[42] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, pp. 500-501, 550. [43] Ibid., p. 509 [44] Ibid., pp. 470, 483, 538. [45] Ibid., pp. 513-514. [46] Ibid., pp. 441, 549. [47] Ibid., pp. 537, 577. [48] Ibid., pp. 578-579. [49] Ibid., pp. 586, 593, 598. [50] Henderson, Nevile, Failure of a Mission, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940, p. 227.
[51] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review,
1989, p. 390. [52] De Zayas, Alfred-Maurice, A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 2nd
edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 27. [53] Roland, Marc, “Poland’s Censored Holocaust,” The Barnes Review in Review: 2008-2010, pp. 132-133. [54] Shadewalt, Hans, Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland, Berlin and New York: German Library
of Information, 2nd edition, 1940, p. 19. [55] Ibid., pp. 257-258. [56] Ibid., pp. 88-89. [57] Ibid., pp. 75-76. _________________________________________________________________________ Poland's Edward Rydz-Smigly
Marshal
Edward Rydz-Smigly MEET
THE MAN WHO STARTED WORLD WAR II The ultimate culprits behind the disaster
of World War II were the high-level masters of the New World Order crime gang (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Sulzberger, Baruch et al), and their skilled operational
henchmen of the political world (FDR, Churchill, Daladier, Stalin et al). By the way, this is the same self-perpetuating
crime syndicate that has, in recent years, been agitating for confrontation against Russia and
China. Same game, new players, long story.But the one thing this dirty gang could never have accomplished by themselves was to trigger
the actual war. As even the most geographically illiterate Boobus Americanus or Boobus Europithicus
should know, neither the US, nor the USSR, and nor the UK shared a common border from which to make
mayhem against Hitler's Germany. France does share a border with Germany, but when Hitler
permanently renounced any claims to the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region in 1935, a possible flash-point
between the two rivals was diffused forever. Another
potential trigger was diffused in 1938 when the Munich Agreement - since dubbed by propagandists and ignoramus parrots alike as "Neville
Chamberlain's appeasement" - fairly settled the German-Czech dispute to the mutual benefit
of Czechs, Slovaks and Germans. Nor was Germany bound to any dangerous entangling alliances, as it had been prior to World
War I when the Reich was committed to fight alongside Austria-Hungary after the
Russians and French began mobilizing against that nation.  
Hitler's skillful and honest diplomacy resolved
the Alsace-Lorraine dispute to France's favor, and the Sudetenland problem to the benefit of all parties.
Left: with UK's Neville Chamberlain, Right: with Daladier of France Unfortunately,neither Daladier nor Chamberlain would
be strong enough to hold back the continued pressure from the warmongering factions around and above
them. In November of 1938, the U.S. mid-term Congressional elections dealt a crushing blow to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
Democrat Party. With America still reeling from the decade-long Great Depression, absent
some foreign "crisis", it appeared that the failed two-term President would not be able to
seek a third term (He ultimately held office until his death in 1945). It should be noted
that at this hard time in American history, prosperous Germany was enjoying full employment, a strong
currency, the Autobahn, the Volkswagen, and a happy reconciliation between labor and the entrepreneurial
class. But I digress. Even the claims of Jewish persecution in Germany were no longer
valid. Though the dominant Jewish elite had in large measure been stripped of high positions in finance,
press, government, law and academia, the truth was, the 330,000 Jews who remained in Hitler's Germany
were unmolested and actually quite prosperous. Indeed, after anti-Jewish riots broke out following
the 1938 Paris murder of a German diplomat by a deranged Polish Jew, it was Hitler himself who, via Goebbels, immediately
issued an Emergency Order for the anti-Jewish violence (since exaggerated in scope) to cease. And so, by 1939, the New World Order crime syndicate and the British & French chauvinists
had nearly run out of all options and all propaganda pretexts for instigating another war against
peaceful and prosperous Germany, as they had done in 1914. The last hopes
for starting the war to re-enslave Germany rested on the shoulders of one man, and one man only. His
name was Edward Rydz-Smigly
-- the criminal fool who started World War II. As is to be
expected, his name is virtually unknown outside of Poland.
It's high-time this dirty, rotten, ego-maniacal scoundrel gets the posthumous "credit" he so
richly deserves.   After Germany
was essentially tricked into laying down her arms and surrendering during World War I, its west Prussian
territory was carved out, given to the new state of Poland, and, for the most part, "ethnically
cleansed" of Germans. The German port city of Danzig was declared a "free city" and forbidden
from rejoining Germany. East Prussia remained part of Germany but was left isolated from the mainland.
This illogical and immoral configuration, and the anti-German abuses which were to take place within
the "Polish Corridor", would serve as the perfect trip-wire for setting off a new
war against Germany. A
Tale of Two Marshals Born
and known as Edward Rydz, the young army commander served in the Polish legions of Austro-Hungarian
Empire during World War I. He later became one of the leaders of a Polish independence movement that
sought to establish a Polish state carved from the Polish majority areas of Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Rydz, by appointment of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, became commander of the Polish
Military Organization and adopted the 'nom de guerre' of "Smigly" (Fast
or Agile). He later added 'Smigly' as an integral part to his surname, which tells us something about his
ego. His self-promoting renaming is similar to that of Loseb Jugashvili,
who later took the name "Stalin" - Man of Steel. 
Pilsudski (l) and Smigly-Rydz fought for Polish
statehood. As a Brigadier, Smigly commanded armies during the Polish-Soviet War which followed World War
I. The treaty which ended that war, the Peace of Riga, divided the disputed territories between the
relatively new state of Poland and the new Soviet Union (fka Russian Empire). Marshal Pilsudski would go on to become
Poland's head of State until his death in 1935. It is important to note that Hitler and Pilsudski were
on good terms. Pilsudski
had actually congratulated Hitler on winning the 1933 elections, and the German-Polish
Non-Aggression Pact was signed just 10 months after Hitler came to power. According to the Pact, both countries pledged to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo
armed conflict. Just before
his death, Pilsudski re-emphasized that Poland should maintain neutral relations with Germany. The
death of Pilsudki proved to be a great loss for Germany - a fact which Hitler himself expressed during
the closing days of World War II.   1- Hitler attends a Berlin Memorial
Service held in honor of Pilsudski, whom he respected greatly. 2- Pilsudski and his Foreign Minister Beck (left) make peace with German
Minister for Propaganda & Public Enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels, and German Ambassador to Poland,
von Moltke. A Dictatorship Without a Dictator
Following Pilsudski's death, Rydz-Smigly became General Inspector
of the Armed Forces. From that point on, Smigly was rapidly elevated. In 1936, he was awarded the
title of "Second Man in the State after the President", by the Polish prime minister. Later
that year, he was promoted to the rank of Marshal of Poland. Smigly's carefully crafted image as Pilsudski's anointed
successor alienated many of Pilsudski's supporters, who saw him as a shameless self-promoter. The period
of Smigly's rule, 1935–39, was often referred to as "a dictatorship without a dictator".
But he lacked the moral authority of the beloved Pilsudski and many Poles were divided over their
new de-facto dictator; with more than a few hating him outright. The Smigly regime became increasingly
authoritarian. This was illustrated by the creation of the Ozon movement, whose objective was to build
a popular mass movement that would transform the tin-pot dictator into "Poland's second great leader"
(after Pilsudski himself). Several of Poland's senior politicians made a point of distancing themselves
from this phony "grass-roots" cult movement.  
Smigly-Rydz: always decorated like a Christmas
tree and talking big. In addition to being authoritarian, and not all that popular among his own people, the pompous Marshal
had grandiose delusions of restoring the old Polish Empire of 1569-1795, in territories which had long
since been devoid of Polish inhabitants (Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechoslovakia and
Prussian Germany). To that end, Smigly's gang embarked on a campaign of aggressive intimidation
and forced annexation.   
1 & 2 - Dreams of restoring Poland's long
gone Empire danced in 'Emperor' Smigly's mind 3 - Nationalist painting, from months before the
war started, depicts the Mad Marshal riding triumpantly through the Brandenburg gate in Berlin as he
tramples upon German flags. Smigly-Rydz Strong-Arms Lithuania
& Czechoslovakia
In March of 1938, Smigly issued an ultimatum to the tiny Baltic State of Lithuania.
Lithuania had refused to have any diplomatic relations with Poland after
1920, protesting the annexation of the Vilnius Region by the new Polish state. The ultimatum demanded that Lithuania
unconditionally agree to establish diplomatic ties with Poland within
48 hours, and that the terms be finalized within two weeks. The establishment of diplomatic relations
would mean a renunciation of Lithuanian claims to the region containing its historic capital,
Vilnius. Tiny Lithuania, preferring peace to war,
accepted bully-boy Smigly's ultimatum and conditions. Had Lithuania stood firm, it's quite possible that
Stalin would have used the ensuing war as pretext to take the Baltic States (which he eventually
did in 1940) and start the 2nd Polish-Soviet war. Such was the recklessness of Marshal Smigly. Many in the "democratic"
West, including, ironically, the anti-German New York Times, expressed dismay over Poland's
militaristic bullying of Lithuania; a development so dangerous that it caused jitters among
Wall Street investors. (here) But in the end, it was generally understood that Poland would be needed for bigger things, so the West "held
its nose" and tolerated Smigly's antics.
Later that same year, Smigly made a similar bold move against
the Czech government when he took advantage of the Sudetenland Crisis
to demand a portion of Zaolzie and some other smaller areas. The Czechs were powerless to stop the
forced annexations. Again, the "democratic" West shook its head in dismay, but held its
tongue. 1- Lithuania and Czechoslovakia
were both strong-armed by 'Emperor' Smigly. 2- Uninvited, Polish tanks roll into annexed Zaolzie. A few Polish flags are visible, but the people don't seem too
excited.
Smigly
the Tyrant Eyes Danzig
In addition to the expansionist foreign policy, the Polish military junta was infamous
for suppressing ethnic minorities living within its new borders. Indeed, during the 20-year history
of the League of Nations, literally hundreds of formal complaints were submitted by German and
other ethnic minorities trapped in the stolen lands now controlled by ultra-Nationalist Poland. Smigly was not content with the
possession and ethnic cleansing of stolen western Prussia. He also wanted control over the beautiful
"free city" of German Danzig (today known as Gdansk, Poland) and eventually all of eastern
Prussia too.
In 1939, supported from "behind the scenes" by elements
in the UK, France, and the US (yes, Roosevelt was deeply involved!), Smigly was encouraged
to ignore Hitler's sincere and generous proposals for resolving the bizarre and hated partition of Prussia
that had caused tension ever since the end of World War I. At one point, Hitler had even
agreed to give up claims to western Prussia in exchange for the return of Danzig and a 1-mile wide highway -
railway passage linking Germany to eastern Prussia. Underestimating Germany's resolve,
overestimating Poland's power, and foolishly trusting in the western intriguers who were manipulating
his bloated imperialistic ego, Smigly ignored Hitler's offers and ratcheted up the abuse of Germans
trapped in western Prussia and Danzig. The suffering of the Prussian Germans is not "Nazi
propaganda." It is historical fact which the West's "court historians" have purposely edited
out of their "Orwellianized" history books. Believing that the western powers were truly behind him, the
cowardly Smigly 'stood down' and allowed predominantly Jewish-Bolshevik terror gangs to attack innocent
Germans; both within "Prussian Poland" and inside of German border towns as well. These gangs
of Red "partisans", as well as other Polish ultra-nationalists, had been salivating
at the prospect of triggering a Western "holy war" against Germany ever since 1933.
The torture-mutilation-massacre
at Bromberg occurred just 2 days after the liberating Germans arrived in western Prussia. The brutality
of the mass killing gives an indication of the type of abuse that innocent Germans, trapped in Poland,
had been suffering while Smigly "looked the other way."
Again, Smigly coveted the "free
city" of Danzig (98% German) and wished to eventually annex all of eastern Prussia. Step
by step Smigly plotted the restoration of an empire that was long gone -- an Empire which even his own
people didn't want. A man blinded by such ambition was easy pickings for the British -- those undisputed
historical masters of foreign intrigue - and also for the cunning Roosevelt and the Jewish operatives
that surrounded him. By August of 1939,
Germany had exhausted all efforts to reason with Smigly's gang. Earlier that year, the British and French
had even urged Smigly to allow the Soviet Army to march westward, in the event that war should
break out with Germany. Smigly refused, stating that: "there is no guarantee that the Soviets
will really take active part in the war; furthermore, once having entered Polish territory, they will
never leave it". Smigly-Rydz Forces Hitler's Hand
On September
1, 1939, after all German attempts to reason with Poland, France and Britain had failed, and after
the Polish military, at the urging of Britain, went on full mobilization, the Germans invaded
Poland and liberated Danzig. On September 7, along with most of the government, Smigly
ran from Warsaw as it came under attack. The immediate counter-attack promised by Poland's
French and British "allies" never materialized. Unbeknownst to the blinded idiot Smigly, the Allies had no such plans and fully expected not
only the fall of Poland, but the entry of Stalin's hordes. The Allies only interest was
to have an excuse to declare war upon Germany, and then wait for Stalin to attack Germany from the
east, necessarily having to pass through Poland. Stalin was indeed ready to pounce
on a distracted Poland, but his move against Germany was to be on his time-table, not that of the Allies. The Allies continued to ignore Hitler's impassioned pleas for
peace and would spend the next eight months plotting Scandinavian-based maneuvers
and deploying a massive mechanized fighting force in northern France, in anticipation of invading
Germany via Belgium and Holland, sometime in the spring of 1940. The rest, as they say, is history.   
Once Rydz-Smigly
had given Britain and France the phony pretext needed to declare war against Germany, he was given
his 15 minutes of fame and then "thrown under the bus." The Allies Abandon Smigly; Stalin Finishes Poland Smigly's ego-maniacal pipe-dream of a new Polish Empire was further
crippled when the opportunistic Stalin attacked Poland from the east on September 17th; an
invasion which Britain & France, in spite of their "defense guarantees" to Poland, said
nothing about! Having picked a fight with one superpower, Germany; and thus
exposing Poland to invasion from another, the Soviet Union; Smigly-Rydz sealed his county's doom. His
criminal stupidity enabled the brutal butchers of the Soviet NKVD to round up and execute 10,000 of
his Polish Army officers at Katyn Forest.  
Had Smigly followed the late Marshal
Pilsudski's advice and remained on friendly terms with Germany, the Soviet invasion and the Katyn Forest
massacre of his officer corps would never have happened. Rather than choosing an honorable punishment for the disastrous folly which he drove Poland
into - such as suicide or at least surrendering to the humane Germans - the coward Smigly fled to Romania.
Like a true narcissist egomaniac, he deflected any and all blame for the disaster that he and he alone engineered,
later stating from his Romanian hideout: "Cost of construction of modest
fortifications along our western border was equivalent to 18-month budget of Poland, and at the same time, we
were working on fortifications in the East. A modest armament plan was up to 5 billion zlotys. What was I supposed
to do? I am not an economist. We began partial mobilization in the spring 1939. The
nation hated it, more than 1000 Silesians deserted to Germany. We were unable to keep
Poland mobilized for so long, we could not afford it." Pathetic! Smigly admitted that Poland was ill-equipped for
war; that the nation itself did not want war; that the Soviets posed a threat from the East; and
that Poland could not afford the cost of war. And yet, he purposely pissed in Hitler's face and
eagerly rushed head-long into war anyway! In
defense of the accusation of cowardice in regard to his flight, Smigly issued more prideful excuses: "They say that I am a coward. I had three options:
to surrender, to kill myself, and to be captured. It was impossible to fight, as I had only half a
company of soldiers with me. To kill myself meant failure." "To kill myself meant failure", eh Smigly? That would be like the captain
of the Titanic abandoning the ship that he helped to carelessly destroy, sneaking onto one of the limited
lifeboats, and later declaring, "To have stayed on the ship would have meant failure." As
it went, Captain Smith stayed on the Titanic and is believed to have shot himself as the ship went down. In light of what Smigly's folly enabled the Soviet
butchers to do to his officers at Katyn Forest, the pain of remorse alone should have
driven him to suicide; but that's assuming Smigly was any kind of a decent or honorable man. Clearly,
he was not. Smigly-Rydz would return to Poland in 1941 to work with the Polish
underground. He was said to have died of "heart failure" just a few weeks later -- or
did some of his fellow Poles repay him for his folly and cowardice? Hitler
Exposes Smigly During his
speech to liberated Danzig in 1939, Hitler addressed Smigly's folly: "No power on earth would have borne this condition as
long as Germany. I do not know what England would have said about a similar peace solution (Versailles) at
its expense or how America or France would have accepted it. I attempted to find a solution - a tolerable
solution - even for this problem. I submitted this attempt to the Polish rulers in the form of verbal
proposals. You know these proposals. They were more than moderate. I do not know what mental condition the Polish Government
was in when it refused these proposals." In that same speech, Hitler goes on to speak of Smigly's cowardice:
"The Polish Marshal (Smigly), who miserably deserted his
armies, said that he would hack the German Army to pieces." And of his cruelty: "And martyrdom began for our German nationals. Tens of thousands
were dragged off, mistreated, and murdered in the vilest fashion. Sadistic beasts gave vent to their
perverse instincts, and this pious democratic world watched without blinking an eye." And of Smigly's willful blindness:
"I have often asked myself:
Who can have so blinded Poland? Does anyone really believe that the German nation
will permanently stand that from such a ridiculous State? Does anyone seriously believe that?" The highly decorated and twice-wounded war hero Hitler had
this slippery, sleazy, sniveling, self-promoting Smigly clown all figured out!  
1- Hitler struts through the streets of Danzig while Smigly hides in Romania. (The
Fuhrer is so 'bad-ass', in a good way, isn't he?) 2-
The joyous crowds of Danzig
greet their liberator. It wasn't merely the fact that Marshal Rydz-Smigly was a tyrannical, imperialist, warmongering
weasel that should have made his name infamous. Compounding all of these vices was his abject stupidity.
All "Polish jokes" aside, did Smiggy actually believe that Poland could defeat Germany?
Really? Evidently so. Did the
Smigster not suspect, that with his hands full fighting Germany, the bestial Stalin might capitalize
on the situation and invade from the east? Evidently not. Did His Royal Smigness not suspect that his British, French, and America "allies" were just using
Poland to pick a fight with Germany, only to throw her out like a used-up lemon rind afterwards? Was Smigly
not aware of how the Allies seduced the Russian Tsar to fight with them during World War I, only to
refuse him asylum when he was overthrown? The Bolsheviks then captured and murdered the
Tsar and his entire family. Was Smigly not
aware of how the British, during World War I, encouraged the Arabs to rise up against the Ottoman Turkish
Empire, only to renege on promises made to them and then steal Palestine as well? Ironically, what Smigly was not able to see was, again, very clear to
Hitler. In that same Danzig speech, Hitler spoke about how Poland had been played for chumps: "For these men (British warmongers) Poland,
too, was only a means to an end. Because today it is being declared quite calmly that Poland was not
the primary thing, but that the German regime is. I always warned against
these men. I pointed out the danger that in a certain country such men could rise and unmolested
preach the necessity of war - Herren Churchill, Eden, Duff-Cooper, etc. The circumstances surrounding the outbreak of this unnecessary war haunted
Hitler until his dying day. Hours before his suicide, Hitler dictated his final political testament; in which
he stated: "It
is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated
exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish
interests. Three
days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador
in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem—similar to that in the case of the
Saar district, under international control. This offer
also cannot be denied. It was only rejected because the leading circles in English politics wanted the war, partly
on account of the business hoped for and partly under influence of propaganda organized by international
Jewry." The modern "educated"
mind, so twisted by 75 years of false propaganda, may find it difficult, if not impossible, to even begin to process
such a claim. And yet, an objective analysis of the events of 1939 leads us to the inescapable conclusion
that the man was telling the truth! Hitler saw how the Allies
were playing Smigly-Rydz for a chump; and spoke publicly about it months before the war had
even started. Wasn't Smigly listening? Will History Repeat?
Smigly's imperial folly, criminal negligence, and astonishing
stupidity not only doomed Poland, but the world as well. That's what happens when a man is blinded by
his ego and his ambitions. Given these true facts about the horrible historical record of the mad Marshal,
one would think that, in spite of the conventional misunderstanding of World War II, the Poles would
universally hold his memory in contempt. But that is not the case. Marshal Edward Rydz Smigly
Park is a large tree-covered public park in Warsaw that honors the memory of the man who not only started
World War II at the behest of his western manipulators, but doomed his nation to Soviet conquest, mass killings,
and nearly 50 years of Communism.  
Honoring Smigly? Really? Come on Poland!
Are you flippin' serious? One would also think that Poland learned a valuable historical
lesson about 'messin' with super-powers. And yet, the current Polish government, much to the dismay
of more than a few Poles, is taking the lead in provoking Putin's Russia on behalf of its EU and US
handlers! How does the old adage go? "Those who fail to learn from history
are doomed to repeat it”.   
1- US and Polish troops continue to drill for war against Russia. 2- Brainwashed Poles protest Putin, who, like Hitler,
has never threatened them in any way. 3-
Polish President Komorowski plays the modern day role of Smigly to Obama's Roosevelt.   1- Poland to accept US missiles on its soil, eh? Smart move Poland.
Smigly-Rydz would be proud. 2-
Hitler and Putin - two dynamic leaders who refused to submit to The New World Order, what Putin
calls 'The Unipolar World' ____________________________________________________________ 
 
Background: This is the booklet accompanying a 1942 exhibition
on the Soviet Union, organized by the Nazi Party’s propaganda office. The brochure is 48 pages with
numerous black and white photographs of the exhibition. I translate only a part of it here, and include
five of the photographs. The Nazis put out a “documentary film” with the same title that supplemented
the exhibition. A version of that film with English subtitles is available from International Historic Films. The source: Das Sowjet-Paradies.
Ausstellung der Reichspropagandaleitung der NSDAP. Ein Bericht in Wort und Bild. Berlin: Zentralverlag
der NSDAP., 1942. The German original is available here.
The Soviet
Paradise An Exhibition of the Nazi Party Central Propaganda Office
As early as 1934 the Reichspropagandaleitung of
the NSDAP organized an exhibition from the available written and visual material. Its goal was
to inform the German people about the dreadful conditions in the Soviet Union.  The exhibition’s organizers often had the feeling that their portrayal of conditions in the Soviet Union
was far from accurate. This feeling has since been confirmed — but in an entirely different
manner than expected. Everything that had been said about Bolshevism before the outbreak of the war
with the Soviet Union has been thrown into the shadows by reality. Words and pictures are not enough to
make the tragedy of Bolshevist reality believable to Europeans. This agrees with what our soldiers
repeatedly say. It is impossible to portray conditions in the Soviet Union without oneself having seen and
experienced them.
The idea therefore was
to provide German citizens with an exhibition based on everyday life under Bolshevism in order to
show them the misery of life there. A number of expeditions to areas held by our troops were made to gather
the necessary original material for the exhibition. Millions of visitors have received an accurate picture of the misery of life under Bolshevism through
the numerous original items. Experts, above all our soldiers, still agree that even this exhibition
does not give a full picture of the misery and hopelessness of the lives of farmers and workers in the “Soviet
Paradise.” “The
Riches of the East.” [This
section discusses the Soviet Union’s natural resources.]
The Germanic Settlement in the East.
[This section discusses German migrations to the east.] Marxism and Bolshevism — The Invention of Jewry.
Early on, Jewry recognized unlimited possibilities for the Bolshevist nonsense in the East. This
is supported by two facts: 1. The inventor of Marxism
was the Jew Marx-Mordochai; 2. The present Soviet
state is nothing other than the realization of that Jewish invention. The Bolshevist revolution itself stands
between these two facts. The Jews exterminated the best elements of the East to make themselves the
absolute rulers of an area from which they hoped to establish world domination. According to the GPU’s
figures, nearly two million people were executed during the years 1917 to 1921. A direct result of the revolution
was the terrible famine that demanded 19 million victims between 1917 and 1934. Over 21 million people
lost their lives though this Jew-incited revolution and its consequences.
The Facade of Bolshevism
The bloody attacks of Bolshevism into Europe were always accompanied by wild agitation
that claimed that the Soviet Union was the “paradise of farmers and workers.” In reality this
was propaganda, and all the cultural, social and technical advances that Bolshevism claimed were nothing
but a deceptive facade that concealed the gray misery of daily life under Bolshevism. This is illustrated
in the next room of the exhibition. In its center, there is an original Bolshevist monument mass produced
from plaster on a wood frame. One was found in every city. Because of their poor quality they quickly
began crumbling, a true example of Bolshevist culture. Such monuments intensify the dirty and miserable
atmosphere that all Soviet cities share, interrupted only by a few prestige buildings that display
technical weaknesses. They are built for propaganda purposes, and to deceive travelers from abroad. These facades, built only for propaganda reasons, are the mark of all
Bolshevist cities. Model streets in the American style are filled with huge buildings with a thousand
deficiencies, which mock the miserable workers who are forced even after 25 years of Bolshevist culture to live gray and joyless lives. The contrast between government buildings and the general wretched housing
is the same as the difference between military production and those things that are necessary for daily life.
The enormous military expenditures dwarf those of all other nations, but everyday goods are of wretched
quality. The war is not responsible for the population’s lack of cups and saucers, furniture and
beds, the most basic decorative items such as curtains or inexpensive carpets, not to mention the most
necessary items of clothing. Such things are just as expensive as foodstuffs. A generous estimate
of the weekly average wage of a worker is 100-125 rubles. Here are the costs: 1400 rubles for a suit 360 rubles for a pair of shoes 24 rubles for a kilo of butter
22 rubles for a kilo of meat
Those were the peacetime prices in the USSR, which does not however mean
that such things could actually be bought. Bad bread and potatoes were the almost exclusive diet of the miserable
population during the Bolshevist system’s 20 years of peace.
The glaring contrast between the between the splendid weaponry and the deep poverty
of the people is clear from the living conditions  in Moscow, which by the way are neither better nor worse than those in other Bolshevist cities. Conditions
were not particularly good even before the war in 1913. But by 1928 four people lived in the average room,
and six by 1939, independent of whether or not they were related. All usable rooms are jammed full.
Normal dwellings of the kind we are used to in Germany are unknown. Each room is a kitchen, living room,
and bedroom for its inhabitants. If one looks for those responsible for these miserable conditions,
one always finds Jews. Is it not interesting that the word “anti-Semite” is the worst thing
one can be accused of in the Soviet state, for which one all too easily is sentenced to forced labor or death?
A look at the statistics on the Jewdification of high offices in the Soviet Union makes everything
clear. Nearly all the ministries, which the Bolshevists
call “people’s commissions,” are controlled by the Jews.
Further proof that the Soviet state belongs to the Jews is the fact that
the people are ruthlessly sacrificed for the goals of the Jewish world revolution. Besides the notorious
Stachanov system, women are systematically degraded to labor slaves. Even during peace, women increasingly
worked even in the hardest jobs such as coal mining and the smelting industry.
A further fact makes clear to the expert that the Jews are behind Soviet
industrial structure: The Woroschilov factory in Minsk was supposed to produce 650 machines tools with a value
of 81 million rubles annually. Given the nature of Jewish thinking, the decisive thing was the total
value of the production. Because of a lack of experts, tools, and parts the factory produced only
480 machine tools with a value of 59.2 million rubles. To fulfill the plan, the factory managers secretly
built a boiler-maker in the back, which produced goods sold at black market prices. This made
up for the difference of 22 million rubles. The plan was thus met with production of 81 million rubles,
even though 170 too few machines were produced. The
Soviet Army — A Terrible Threat to Europe. Ever since the murder of the Tsar, the Jewish-Bolshevist ruling clique in Moscow has planned the
annihilation of Europe. All raw materials and the whole labor force were exploited ruthlessly to meet
this goal. Foreign specialists and engineers were brought in to make up for the domestic failings. Production
figures that astonished the entire world resulted. This became evident in the Wehrmacht’s figures
on captured war booty.  180,000,000 people had to work under the most brutal and primitive conditions solely for armaments production.
That is the explanation for the unimaginable amount of Bolshevist weaponry, most of which has been destroyed
or captured in the great battles of annihilation of the Eastern campaign.
This vast armory was intended to help Jewry overrun Europe. In preparation, Bolshevism
had prepared its positions in Finland, the Baltic, Poland, and Bessarabia. These were the bases from
which the decisive blows would be struck against the West. The vast extent of this weaponry, some of which still exists, is perhaps best shown by the booty
of the great encirclement battles of 1941 and the winter battles: 25,000 tanks, 32,000 heavy guns,
and 16,000 airplanes were captured or destroyed, and over 4,000,000 prisoners were taken. Classes in a Classless State Bolshevism preached that there would of course be no classes
in its paradise, since only the proletariat would remain after the elimination of the former ruling class.
The emptiness of the claim is obvious to any unprejudiced observer, who can see the degrees of slavery
among the population. The Jewish ruling class and its lackeys are at the top, then the masses of factory
workers in the cities. A deep chasm separates them from the totally impoverished collective farmers.
Bolshevism intentionally created these great differences for two reasons:
1. To lure the masses to the cities to support the Bolshevist armaments program; 2. To give the workers the impression that they are better off than the
farmers and to deceive them into believing that their primitive and miserable life is wonderful in comparison
to that of the collective farmers. The workers do not and cannot know that by our standards their
existence is wretched, since they are hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world. Beside the
workers and the collective farmers, there are two classes without any rights at all: the members of the former
intelligentsia and the middle class, who are not of proletarian descent. There are also forced laborers,
who are used as cheap and defenseless slaves in the vast uncultivated regions. Millions of them die
as the result of bad food, poor accommodations and hard work.
The GPU — The Terror Instrument of Jewish Bolshevism The brutal terror Bolshevism exercises through the GPU is perhaps
the best answer to the frequent question of why the Bolshevists fight so bitterly at the front. 25 years
of terror have produced a gray and broken mass who silently follow orders because that is their only
way to remain alive. Resistance means death, often the death of the entire family. The bestial terror regime
of the Jewish GPU is best seen in the sadistic methods of torture used against supposed “enemies.” The exhibition includes an execution cell from a GPU dungeon. According
to a captured commissar, nearly 5,000 people were shot by the GPU in five years behind its iron bars. The cell is tiled. The condemned were brought to the cell and shot in
the back of the neck. The corpses were moved to the side and sprayed with a hose to wash away the blood.
A fan provided fresh air so that the next victim would not faint from the blood, because he was to
remain conscious until the last moment. Another
narrow cell was used to secure confessions. Prisoners were forced to kneel for hours. If they stood up they
hit the ceiling and set off an alarm, and a spotlight was aimed toward them. If they sat on the small
seat they got an electric shock that forced them off. A wooden prong on the door pressed against their
stomachs. The worst of all terror institutes
of the GPU are the forced labor camps in which millions of innocent victims die every year. Only rarely
do they know why they were taken from their families and jobs to work in the icy wastes of Workuta
or any of the numerous other labor camps. Most of them are there only because free labor was needed somewhere
in the wilderness. No one cared about them. They were shipped there under the principle: “People?
We have enough of such trash.” The
unhappy victims, condemned with or without cause, follow a miserable path from which death is the only real
escape. It begins with a spy, often a member
of one’s own family. One night the GPU knocks on the door and takes its victim. Put in narrow
cells, worn out by endless interrogations. and finally forced to confess by the usual methods of torture,
with or without a verdict, they are transported to forced labor camps with inadequate food, often in the bitter
cold. Many die on the way. In the forced labor camps themselves, they are stuffed into small barracks.
The pitiful food ration depends on the amount of work done. It is never enough, and the hard work soon
leads to exhaustion. The smallest offense is punished severely by a spell in an ice cell. Continual
overwork, bad food, and the lack of sanitary facilities soon lead to serious illness. The sick forced laborers
are put on starvation rations to speed their deaths, for the GPU has no interest in weak workers.
They must be disposed of as quickly as possible. Very
few forced laborers return to freedom. Kajetan Klug was one of them. He was a leader of the Marxist Defense
League in Linz. After the unsuccessful insurrection of February 1934, he had to flee the revenge of
the Dolfuß regime. His route led him through Czechoslovakia to the land of his dreams, the “Paradise
of Farmers and Workers.” In Moscow he took over the leadership of the Austrian emigrants and became
a party member. But he soon learned the misery of the workers and farmers. When he openly criticized
these conditions, he was accused of espionage. He was arrested, tortured, acquitted, and finally condemned
with no proof to 5 years of forced labor in Central Asia. The wintry wasteland of Workuta finally opened
his eyes to the real nature of the “Paradise of Farmers and Workers.” A few days before the beginning
of the war with the Soviet Union, he succeeded in escaping to the German embassy. Along with the embassy
personnel, he was able to reach Germany. The
Misery of the Collective Farmers [This section discusses life on collective farms.]
The Life of the Worker in the Soviet Paradise Wherever one looks there is poverty, misery, decay, and hunger. This true
both of the countryside and the cities. The atmosphere of Bolshevist cities, too, is grim and depressing. The exhibition here, all the experts agree, is particularly genuine.
It always astonishes, for the simple reason that the terrible things it makes visible are real. Here is a
Bolshevist culture park, with its mass produced sculptures that cannot endure the weather because
of their poor quality. They add to the atmosphere of general atmosphere of decay that all cities in the land
of the Bolshevists share. There, just as it was originally, is a collapsing barracks, a so-called home
for students, standing in the shadow of a university built on the American model. Its wretched inhabitants
at least have a good view of the prestige buildings. From a distance, one cannot see that the quality of
every aspect of the buildings is wretched. The interior of the dormitory corresponds to its exterior. Broken chairs, a damaged bed with torn
coverings, a shabby ceiling, a few propaganda posters and books, an old curtain: That is the room
of the dormitory leader. As many as eleven less fortunate inhabitants are packed into the other rooms. A washroom
for 63 students, without running water, is next to the dormitory leader’s room. Look into any side street. A dark hole of a shop with the most primitive
things: paper clothing (in peace time!), bread, a few cans and bottles. A modest supply of everyday
items. It is a government shop. It is governmental because there are no shopkeepers in the Soviet “paradise,”
at least in our sense. Nor are there any craftsmen or independent merchants, since private property
has been abolished. Next door there is the workshop of a private cobbler, an exception to the usual ban
on private property, since he works on his own and is not a member of the normal collective. Still,
high taxes take a large part of his modest income, which is hardly enough to provide for himself and his
family. Hidden behind a pile of garbage in a courtyard
in the center of Minsk is a restaurant, also a state enterprise. It is miserably equipped. The guests
need to bring their own eating utensils. Such items are rare enough so that they would otherwise be stolen.
And this is not a place for the poor. It is frequented by managers and government officials. The manager
has a special room for his favored guests with several shabby upholstered chairs. The food itself comes
from a factory and is always the same, which led to constant complaints in the comment book. And that in
peace time! Alongside the prestige buildings
of the university, there are numerous wretched workers’ dwellings. One of them was removed to
be part of the exhibition along with all its furnishings. Six families lived here. Each had a single room
that served as bedroom, kitchen, and storage room. There was no running water, and the women all agreed
that things were so crowded they could never get things in order. Still, they thought these were good
rooms since at least they were dry and warm. Many of their comrades lived in wet basements, in caves, or had
no roof over their head at all, since the city government did not worry about the many homeless. Everywhere
there was desolation and apathy. Even worse
than all this misery is the complete disruption of family life, indeed the beginning of its complete elimination.
The exhibition includes one of those offices where marriages are performed for a charge of 50 rubles,
without any need for documents. There are countless cases in which men and women have been married
numerous times, without ever getting divorced from their previous spouses. The reason is that papers are
rarely checked carefully. The result of such
terrible disruption of marriages and families must inevitably lead to complete misery and decay of the youth.
The exhibition shows this by the example of the Besprisornys. These gangs of boys from 4 to 15 rob
and steal to support themselves. They live in collapsing buildings and caves. According to people
in Minsk, a city of 300,000, there are 3,000 such orphaned children. These deserted children say that they
never knew their fathers or mothers, and have no names. They do not know how old they are. One such
Besprisornys gang was captured and put in a German orphanage. Their clothing is on mannequins that give a realistic
picture of how these unfortunate children lived in complete misery in the “Soviet Paradise.” Many displays give a picture of everyday life in the Soviet Paradise.
A doctor’s office deserves special notice. It gives the lie to all the Bolshevist propaganda about
the “exemplary social condition” in the Soviet Union. As a result of the abolition of private
property, the doctor is a poorly paid state employee earning 400 rubles a month. She has three
rooms, one of which she lives in, one a waiting room, and one the treatment room. The medicines and equipment,
the operating table and everything else are unbelievably primitive and do not meet even the minimum
hygienic standards. This doctor had 30,000 people to care for, many of whom lived more than a day’s
travel from her office. “Europe
Enters”  Poverty, misery, decay, hunger, and need wherever one looks: That is the Soviet paradise that our soldiers experience
every day, and that millions of exhibition visitors encountered in many original displays that
give them a genuine picture of the so loudly praised social accomplishments of the Jewish-Soviet state.
He who has seen the exhibition understands the historic conflict in which we are now engaged, a conflict
in which there can be no compromise. There are only two possible outcomes: Either the German people
will win and ensure the survival of the world and its culture, or it will perish and all the peoples of
the world will fall into the barbarism of the Soviet state that has reduced millions to powerless
starving slaves.
To stop that from happening,
the best elements of Europe are fighting under German leadership at the side of our soldiers to destroy
the fateful threat to the life and culture of Europe. Our battle is to free the East, along with its vast
and inexhaustible riches and agricultural resources, and to save Europe from the nightmare that has
threatened it for millennia. In the words of the Führer:
“In defeating this enemy, we remove a danger from the German Reich and
all of Europe more severe than any it has faced since the Mongol hordes swarmed across the continent.” _________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why Germany Invaded the Soviet Union By John Wear Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 is widely interpreted by historians as an unprovoked act of aggression by Germany.
Adolf Hitler is typically described as an untrustworthy liar who broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact he had signed with the
Soviet Union. Historians usually depict Josef Stalin as an unprepared victim of Hitler’s aggression who was foolish
to have trusted Hitler.[1] Many historians think the Soviet Union was lucky to have survived Germany’s attack. This standard version of history does not incorporate
information from the Soviet archives, which shows that the Soviet Union had amassed the largest and best equipped army in
history. The Soviet Union was on the verge of launching a massive military offensive against all of Europe. Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union was a desperate preemptive attack that prevented the Soviet Union from conquering all of Europe.
Germany was totally unprepared for a prolonged war against an opponent as powerful as the Soviet Union. Viktor Suvorov, a former Soviet military-intelligence operative who defected to the United Kingdom in 1978, wrote
a research paper titled “The Attack of Germany on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941” while he was a student
at the Soviet Army Academy. Suvorov explained his interest in the subject by saying he wanted to study how Germany prepared
for the attack so that a horrible tragedy of this kind would never happen again. The topic of Suvorov’s research was
approved, and he was given access to closed Soviet archives.[2] Suvorov
discovered in the Soviet archives that the concentration of Soviet troops on the German border on June 22, 1941 was frightful.
If Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union would have easily conquered all of Europe. German intelligence
correctly saw the massive concentration of Soviet forces on the German border, but it did not see all of the Soviet military
preparations. The real picture was much graver even than Germany realized. The Red Army in June 1941 was the largest and
most-powerful army in the history of the world.[3] Suvorov
writes in his book The Chief Culprit that Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union without making reasonable
preparations for the invasion. Hitler realized that he had no choice but to invade the Soviet Union. If Hitler had waited
for Stalin to attack, all of Europe would have been lost.[4] Suvorov
also writes that both German and Soviet forces were positioned for attack on June 22, 1941. The position of the divisions
of the Red Army and the German army on the border mirrored each other. The airfields of both armies were moved all the way
up to the border. From the defensive point of view, this kind of deployment of troops and airfields by both armies was suicidal.
Whichever army attacked first would be able to easily encircle the troops of the other army. Hitler attacked first to enable
German troops to trap and encircle the best units of the Red Army.[5] The German army quickly captured millions of Soviet soldiers after its invasion of the Soviet
Union. Hitler soon looked for help in feeding these captured Soviet POWs. Stalin’s Betrayal of Soviet POWs
The Soviet Union was
not a party to The Hague Conventions. Nor was the Soviet Union a signatory of the Geneva Convention of 1929, which defined
more precisely the conditions to be accorded to POWs. Germany nevertheless approached the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) immediately after war broke out with the Soviet Union to attempt to regulate the conditions of prisoners
on both sides. The ICRC contacted Soviet ambassadors in London and Sweden, but the Soviet leaders in Moscow refused to cooperate.
Germany also sent lists of their Russian prisoners to the Soviet government until September 1941. The German government
eventually stopped sending these lists in response to the Soviet Union’s continued refusal to reciprocate.[6] Over
the winter Germany made further efforts to establish relations with the Soviets in an attempt to introduce the provisions
of The Hague and Geneva Conventions concerning POWs. Germany was rebuffed again. Hitler himself made an appeal to Stalin
for prisoners’ postal services and urged Red Cross inspection of the camps. Stalin responded: “There are no
Russian prisoners of war. The Russian soldier fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically
excluded from the Russian community. We are not interested in a postal service only for Germans.”[7] British
historian Robert Conquest confirmed that Stalin adamantly refused to cooperate with repeated German attempts to reach mutual
agreement on the treatment of POWs by Germany and the Soviet Union. Conquest wrote: When the Germans approached the Soviets, through Sweden,
to negotiate observance of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, Stalin refused. The Soviet soldiers
in German hands were thus unprotected even in theory. Millions of them died in captivity, through malnutrition or maltreatment.
If Stalin had adhered to the convention (to which the USSR had not been a party) would the Germans have behaved better?
To judge by their treatment of other “Slav submen” POWs (like the Poles, even surrendering after the Warsaw Rising),
the answer seems to be yes. (Stalin’s own behavior to [Polish] prisoners captured by the Red Army had already been
demonstrated at Katyn and elsewhere. German prisoners captured by the Soviets over the next few years were mainly sent to
forced labor camps.)[8] The ICRC soon became
aware of the Soviet government’s callous abandonment of their soldiers who fell into German hands. In August 1941,
Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the German camp for Soviet POWs at Hammerstadt. As a result of this visit,
the Red Cross requested that the Soviet government permit the delivery of food parcels to the Soviet POWs. The Soviet government
adamantly refused. It replied that sending food in this situation and under fascist control was the same as making presents
to the enemy.[9] In
February 1942, the ICRC told Molotov that Great Britain had given permission for the Soviet Union to buy food for captured
Soviet prisoners in her African colonies. Also, the Canadian Red Cross was offering a gift of 500 vials of vitamins, and
Germany had agreed to collective consignments of food for POWs. The Red Cross reported: “All these offers and communications
from the ICRC to the Soviet authorities remained unanswered, either directly or indirectly.” All other appeals by
the ICRC and parallel negotiations undertaken by neutral or friendly nations met with no better response.[10] The Soviet refusals to accept aid came as a surprise to the Red Cross, which had not read Stalin’s Order No.
270 published on August 16, 1941. This order stated in regard to captured Soviet POWs: If…instead of organizing resistance to the enemy, some Red Army men
prefer to surrender, they shall be destroyed by all possible means, both ground-based and from the air, whereas the families
of the Red Army men who have been taken prisoner shall be deprived of the state allowance and relief. The commanders and political officers…“who surrender to the enemy shall be considered malicious deserters,
whose families are liable to be arrested [the same] as the families of deserters who have violated the oath and betrayed
their Motherland.”[11] Order No. 270 reveals
Stalin’s great hatred for Soviet soldiers captured by German forces. It also reveals the danger to innocent children
and relatives of Soviet POWs. Hundreds of thousands of Russian women and children were murdered simply because their father
or son had been taken prisoner. Given Stalin’s attitude, the German leaders resolved to treat Soviet prisoners no
better than the Soviet leaders were treating captured German prisoners.[12] Mortality
of Soviet POWs The
result was disastrous for surrendered Russian soldiers in German camps. Captured Red Army soldiers had to endure long marches
from the field of battle to the camps. Prisoners who were wounded, sick, or exhausted were sometimes shot on the spot. When
Soviet prisoners were transported by train, the Germans usually used open freight cars with no protection from the weather.
The camps also often provided no shelter from the elements, and the food ration was typically below survival levels. As
a result, Russian POWs died in large numbers in German camps. Many Russian survivors of the German camps described them as
“pure hell.”[13] One
German officer described the conditions for captured Soviet POWs in the German camps: The abject misery in the prisoner-of-war camps had now
passed all bounds. In the countryside one could come across ghost-like figures, ashen grey, starving, half naked, living
perhaps for days on end on corpses and the bark of trees…I visited a prison camp near Smolensk where the daily death
rate reached hundreds. It was the same in transit camps, in villages, along the roads. Only some quite unprecedented effort
could check the appalling death toll.[14] By one estimate, 5,754,000
Russians surrendered to German forces during World War II, of whom 3.7 million died in captivity.[15] Another source estimates that 3.1 million Soviet POWs died in German captivity. The starvation of Russian soldiers in German
camps stiffened the resistance of the Red Army, since soldiers would rather fight to the death than starve in agony as German
captives. As knowledge of German policies spread, Timothy Snyder writes that some Soviet citizens began to think that Soviet
control of their country was preferable to German control.[16] The death of millions of Russian POWs in German captivity constitutes one of the major war
crimes of the Second World War. However, much of the blame for the terrible fate of these Soviet soldiers was due to the
inflexibly cruel policies of Joseph Stalin. A major portion of the Soviet POWs who died from hunger could have been saved
had Stalin not called them traitors and denied them the right to live. By preventing the ICRC from distributing food to
the Soviet POWs in German captivity, Stalin needlessly caused the death of a large percentage of these Soviet POWs.[17] A
Red Army sergeant who was captured by the Germans when he was dug out unconscious from the ruins of Odessa later joined Gen.
Andrei Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army. The sergeant, who had been decorated twice, bitterly complained of the Soviet
Union’s betrayal of its POWs:
You think, Captain, that we sold ourselves to the Germans for a piece of bread? Tell me, why did the Soviet
Government forsake us? Why did it forsake millions of prisoners? We saw prisoners of all nationalities, and they were taken
care of. Through the Red Cross they received parcels and letters from home; only the Russians received nothing. In Kassel
I saw American Negro prisoners, and they shared their cakes and chocolates with us. Then why didn’t the Soviet Government,
which we considered our own, send us at least some plain hard tack?.... Hadn’t we fought? Hadn’t we defended
the Government? Hadn’t we fought for our country? If Stalin refused to have anything to do with us, we didn’t
want to have anything to do with Stalin![18] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
also complained of the shameful betrayal of Soviet soldiers by the Russian Motherland. Solzhenitsyn wrote: The first time she betrayed them was on the battlefield,
through ineptitude…The second time they were heartlessly betrayed by the Motherland was when she abandoned them to
die in captivity. And the third time they were unscrupulously betrayed was when, with motherly love, she coaxed them to
return home, with such phrases as “The Motherland has forgiven you! The Motherland calls you!” and snared them
the moment they reached the frontiers. It would appear that during the one thousand one hundred years of Russia’s
existence as a state there have been, ah, how many foul and terrible deeds! But among them was there ever so multimillioned
foul a deed as this: to betray one’s own soldiers and proclaim them traitors?[19] Repatriation
of Soviet POWs Stalin’s hatred of Soviet former POWs continued after the war. Stalin publicly warned that “in Hitler’s
camps there are no Russian prisoners of war, only Russian traitors and we shall do away with them when the war is over.”
Stalin’s position was supported at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, where Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill
both agreed to repatriate “without exception and by force if necessary” all former Soviet POWs.[20] Many
of the Soviet prisoners who were to be repatriated to the Soviet Union after the war begged to be shot on the spot rather
than be delivered into the hands of the Soviet NKVD. Other Soviet prisoners committed suicide so as not to be tortured and
executed by the Soviets. A shock force of 500 American and Polish guards was required at Dachau to forcibly repatriate the
first group of Soviet prisoners to the Soviet Union. What followed is described in a report submitted to Robert Murphy: Conforming to agreements
with the Soviets, an attempt was made to entrain 399 former Russian soldiers who had been captured in German uniform, from
the assembly center at Dachau on Saturday, January 19 [1946]. All of these men
refused to entrain. They begged to be shot. They resisted entrainment by taking off their clothing and refusing to leave
their quarters. It was necessary to use tear-gas and some force to drive them out. Tear-gas forced them out of the building
into the snow where those who had cut and stabbed themselves fell exhausted and bleeding in the snow. Nine men hanged themselves
and one had stabbed himself to death and one other who had stabbed himself subsequently died; while 20 others are still
in the hospital from self-inflicted wounds. The entrainment was finally effected of 368 men who were set off accompanied
by a Russian liaison officer on a train carrying American guards. Six men escaped en route…[21] The report ended: “The
incident was shocking. There is considerable dissatisfaction on the part of the American officers and men that they are
being required by the American Government to repatriate these Russians…”[22] Thus, for most Soviet POWs, being shot in a German concentration camp was preferable to being tortured and executed on
their return to the Soviet Union. A number of Soviet POWs held in British camps also committed suicide rather than being repatriated
to the Soviet Union. The British Foreign Office carefully concealed the forced repatriations of Soviet POWs from the British
public in order to avoid a scandal.[23] Soviet
POWs held at Fort Dix, New Jersey also resorted to desperate measures when informed they were to be repatriated to the Soviet
Union. The Russian POWs barricaded themselves inside their barracks. Many of the Soviet POWs committed suicide, while other
Soviet POWs were killed fighting the American soldiers attempting to take them to the ship bound for the USSR. The surviving
Soviet POWs stated that only the prompt use of tear gas by the Americans prevented the entire group of 154 Soviet POWs from
committing suicide.[24] Conclusion American historian Timothy Snyder writes: “After
Hitler betrayed Stalin and ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans starved the Soviet prisoners of war…”[25] Snyder
incorrectly states that Hitler betrayed Stalin. Hitler’s preemptive invasion of the Soviet Union prevented Stalin from
conquering all of Europe. Hitler’s attack was not for Lebensraum or any other malicious reason. This is why
volunteers from 30 nations enlisted to fight in the German armed forces during World War II.[26] These volunteers knew that the Soviet Union, which Viktor Suvorov calls “the most criminal and most bloody empire
in human history,”[27] could not be allowed to conquer all of Europe.
Snyder also fails to recognize that a major portion of the Soviet POWs who
died in German captivity could have been saved had Stalin not called them traitors and denied them the right to live. Stalin
prevented the ICRC from distributing food to the Soviet POWs held in German captivity, thereby needlessly causing the deaths
of many of these Soviet POWs. Many Soviet POWs who survived German captivity were also brutally tortured and murdered by
Stalin when they were repatriated to the Soviet Union after the war.
Notes
[1] For example, see Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010, p.
xi. [2] Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 2008, pp. xviii-xix. [6] Tolstoy, Nikolai, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies 1944-1947, New York and London: Pegasus Books,
1977, pp. 33-34. [8] Conquest, Robert, Stalin: Breaker of Nations, New York: Viking Penguin, 1991, p. 241.
[9] Teplyakov, Yuri, “Stalin’s War against His Own Troops: The Tragic Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity,”
The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, July/Aug. 1994, p. 6. [10] Tolstoy, Nikolai, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of The Allies 1944-1947, New York and London: Pegasus Books,
1977, p. 55. [11] Teplyakov, Yuri, “Stalin’s War against His Own Troops: The Tragic Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity,”
The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, July/Aug. 1994, pp. 4, 6. [13] Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010, pp. 176-177, 179.
[14] Strik-Strikfeldt, Wilfried, Against Stalin and Hitler: Memoir of the Russian Liberation Movement 1941-5, London:
Macmillan, 1970, pp. 49-50. [15] Tolstoy, Nikolai, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies 1944-1947, New York and London: Pegasus Books,
1977, p. 35. [16] Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010, p. 184. [17] Teplyakov, Yuri, “Stalin’s War against His Own Troops: The Tragic Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity,”
The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, July/Aug. 1994, p. 6. [18] Tolstoy, Nikolai, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies 1944-1947, New York and London: Pegasus Books,
1977, p. 41. [19] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I., The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Vol. 1) New
York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974, p. 240. [20] Tzouliadis, Tim, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008,
p. 244. [21] Tolstoy, Nikolai, Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of The Allies 1944-1947, New York and London: Pegasus Books,
1977, pp. 354-355. [25] Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010, p. 380. [26] Tedor, Richard, Hitler’s Revolution, Chicago: 2013, p. 7. [27] Suvorov, Viktor, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 2008, p. 58.
_______________________________________________________ Some Background Information Regarding Why Hitler Invaded the USSR: With the world preoccupied by the war in Europe: - Stalin violated the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact by invading Poland in 1939
- Stalin violated the Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact by invading Finland in 1939
- Stalin violated a provision of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact (1939) by invading
Lithuania in 1940
- Stalin grabbed a piece of eastern Romania
in 1940
Hitler believed that Stalin, in secret collaboration with the British, was planning to totally break the Soviet-German Non Aggression Pact by launching a massive surprise attack upon anti-Communist
Germany. The
Führer to the German People: 22 June 1941 (Images
& captions added by TomatoBubble.com) German
people! National Socialists! After long months when I was forced to keep silent, despite heavy concerns, the time has come when I can finally speak openly. When the German Reich received England’s declaration of war on 3 September 1939,
the British attempted once again to frustrate any attempt to
begin a consolidation, and thus a strengthening, of Europe by
fighting the then strongest power on the Continent. England
formerly destroyed Spain through many wars. For the same reason
it waged its wars against Holland. With the help of all of Europe
it later fought France. Napoleon had actually made peace with Tsar Alexander I
of Russia. It was British intrigue
that later brought Russia back into Britain's war against Napoleon; with disastrous results for France. Hitler (continued): And around the turn of the century, it began to encircle the German Reich and it began the World War in 1914 100 years later, the British (and French) again
lured Tsarist Russia into
its war (promising them Constantinople) Hitler
(continued): Germany was defeated in 1918 only because of its inner disunity. The results were terrible. After first hypocritically declaring to be fighting only against the Kaiser and his regime, they began the systematic destruction of the German Reich after the German army had laid down its arms. As the prophecy of a French statesman, who had said that there were twenty million Germans too many, began to be fulfilled through
starvation, disease, or emigration, the National Socialist movement
began building the unity of the German people, thereby preparing
the rebirth of the Reich.
This new revival of our people from poverty, misery, and shameful contempt was a sign of a pure internal rebirth. England was not affected, much less threatened, by this.
Nonetheless, it immediately renewed its hateful policy of encirclement
against Germany. Both at home and abroad, we faced the plot
we all know about between Jews and democrats, Bolshevists and
reactionaries, all with the same goal: to prevent the establishment of
a new people’s state, to plunge the Reich again into impotence and misery.
The hatred of this international world
conspiracy was directed not only against us, but also against
those peoples who also had been neglected by Fortune, who could earn their daily bread only through the hardest struggle. Italy and Japan above all, alongside Germany, were almost forbidden to enjoy their share of the wealth of the world. The alliance between
these nations was, therefore, only an act of self-defense against
a threatening, egotistical world coalition of wealth and power. As early as 1936, according to the testimony of the American General Wood to a committee of the American House of Representatives, Churchill had said that Germany was becoming too strong again, and that it therefore had to be destroyed.
In summer 1939, England
thought that the time had come to renew its attempts to destroy
Germany by a policy of encirclement. Their method was to begin a campaign of lies. They declared that Germany threatened other peoples. They then provided an English guarantee of support and assistance, next, as in the World War, let them march against
Germany. Thus between May and August 1939, England
succeeded in spreading the claim throughout the world that Germany
directly threatened Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Bessarabia,
and even the Ukraine. Some of these nations allowed themselves to be misled, accepting the promises of support that were offered, and thereby joined the new attempt to encircle Germany.
Under these circumstances,
I believed that I was called by my conscience, and by the history
of the German people, to assure not only these nations and their governments that
these British accusations were untrue, but also to reassure the strongest power
in the East through formal declarations that our interests did not conflict. National
Socialists!
You
probably all felt that this was a bitter and difficult step for me. The German people have never had hostile feelings toward the peoples of Russia. During the last two decades, however, the Jewish-Bolshevist rulers in Moscow have attempted to set not only Germany, but all
of Europe, aflame. Germany has never attempted to spread its
National Socialist world-view to Russia. Rather, the Jewish-Bolshevist
rulers in Moscow have constantly attempted to subject us and
the other European peoples to their rule.They have attempted this not only
intellectually, but above all through military means.
The results of their efforts, in every nation, were only chaos, misery, and starvation. I, on the other hand, have tried for two decades to build a new socialist order in Germany,
with a minimum of interference and without harming our productive
capacity. This has not only eliminated unemployment, but also
the profits of labor have flowed increasingly to working people. The
results of our policies are unique in all the world. Our economic and social reorganization has led to the systematic elimination of social and class barriers, with the goal of a true people’s
community.
Hitler turning shovels of dirt for the Autobahn. Germany
has achieved full employment while
Britain and the US remained mired in the Great Depression. It was, therefore, difficult for me in August 1939 to send my minister to Moscow to attempt to work against Britain’s plans to encircle Germany. I did it only because of my
sense of responsibility to the German people, above all in the
hope of reaching a lasting understanding and perhaps avoiding
the sacrifice that would otherwise be demanded of us.
With the exception of Lithuania, Germany declared that those areas and nations were outside Germany’s political interests. There was a special provision in the case that England
succeeded in inciting Poland into war against Germany. But here,
too, German claims were moderate, and in no relation to the
accomplishments of German arms.
National Socialists! The
results of the treaty, which I sought in the interests of the German people, were
particularly severe for Germans living in the affected nations.
Over half a million German people’s comrades —
all of them small farmers, craftsmen, and workers — were
forced, almost overnight, to leave their former homes to escape a new
government that threatened them with vast misery, and sooner or later, with complete extermination (Ausrottung).
Even so, thousands of Germans disappeared! It was impossible to learn what had happened to them, or even where they were. More than 160 of them were men holding German citizenship. I kept silent about all this, because I had to keep silent! My wish was for final agreement with this state, and if possible a lasting settlement.
But even during our
march into Poland, in violation of the treaty, the Soviet rulers suddenly claimed
Lithuania. The German Reich never intended to occupy Lithuania, and never made
any such demand on Lithuania. To the contrary, it turned down the request by the Lithuanian government to send German troops there, since that did not correspond to the goals of German policy.
Nonetheless, I accepted
this new Russian demand. But that was only the beginning of ever
new demands. The victory on Poland, gained exclusively by German
troops, gave me the occasion to extend a new offer of peace
to the Western powers. It was rejected by the international and Jewish warmongers.
The reason was that England still hoped to mobilize a European coalition
against Germany that would include the Balkans and Soviet Russia.
Those in London decided to send Ambassador Cripps to Moscow.
He has clear orders to improve relations between England and
Soviet Russia, and to develop them along lines England wanted.
The English press reported on the progress of his mission, as long as they were not silent for tactical reasons.
The first results were
evident in fall 1939 and spring 1940. Russia justified its attempts to subject
not only Finland, but also the Baltic states, by the sudden false and absurd claim that it was protecting them from a foreign threat, or that it was acting to prevent that threat. Only Germany could have been meant. No other power could enter the Baltic Sea, or wage war there. I still had to remain silent. The rulers of the Kremlin continued.
Consistent with the
so-called friendship treaty, Germany removed its troops far from its eastern
border in spring 1940. Russian forces were already moving in, and in numbers that could only be seen as a clear threat to Germany. According to a statement by Molotov, there were already 22 Russian divisions in the Baltic states in spring 1940.
Although the Russian
government always claimed that the troops were there at the request of
the people who lived there, their purpose could only be seen as a demonstration aimed at Germany. As our soldiers attacked French-British forces in the west, the extent of the Russian advance on our eastern front grew ever more threatening.
In August 1940, I concluded
that, given the increasing number of powerful Bolshevist divisions,
it was no longer in the interests of the Reich to leave the eastern provinces, so often devastated by war, unprotected. This, however, is exactly what the British and Soviets had hoped.
The fact that so much of the German forces, in particular the
air force, was tied down in the east made it impossible for
the German leadership to bring a radical end to the war in the West.
This was the goal of both British and Soviet Russian policy.
Both England and Soviet Russia wanted to prolong this war as
long as possible in order to weaken all of Europe and plunge it
into ever greater impotence. Russia’s threatened attack on Rumania was intended not only to take over an important element in the economic life not only of Germany, but of Europe as whole, or at least to destroy it.
With boundless patience, the German Reich attempted after
1933 to win over the southeastern European states as trading
partners. We, therefore, had the greatest possible interest in their
domestic stability and order. Russia’s entrance into Rumania and Greece’s ties to England threatened to rapidly transform this area into a general battleground. Despite our principles
and customs, and despite the fact that the Rumanian government
had brought on these troubles itself, I urgently advised them,
for the sake of peace, to bow to Soviet extortion and cede Bessarabia.
The Rumanian government, however, believed that it could justify
this step to its own people only if Germany and Italy in return
guaranteed the security of its remaining territory. I did this with
a heavy heart. When the German government gives a guarantee, it will stand by it. We are neither English nor Jewish. I thus believed that I had saved peace at the last moment, even if at the cost of a heavy obligation. To reach a final resolution of these problems
and to clarify Russian intentions toward the Reich, as well
as under the pressure of steadily increasing mobilization along
our eastern border, I invited Mr. Molotov to come to Berlin.
The Soviet foreign minister demanded further clarification from Germany on the following four questions: Molotov’s first question: Does
Germany’s guarantee for Rumania in the event of an attack mean
war with Russia in the event of an attack Soviet Russia? My answer: The German guarantee is broad and obligates us absolutely. Russia has never told us that it has any interest in Rumania outside Bessarabia. The occupation of northern Bukowina
was already a violation of this assurance. I therefore do not
believe that Russia could have any further claims on Rumania. Molotov’s second question: Russia
feels itself threatened by Finland again. Russia is unwilling to tolerate this. Is Germany ready to provide no support for Finland, and above all to withdraw the German troops in Kirkenes? My answer: As in the past,
Germany has no political interests in Finland. However, the German government
cannot accept a new Russian war against the tiny Finnish people, particularly since we could never believe that Finland threatens Russia. However, we do not want war in the Baltic Sea. 1- With no help from the West, the brave Finns valiantly
fought back Stalin's invasions. Only
Germany supported tiny Finland. // 2- Hitler with General Mannerheim of Finland Molotov’s third question: Is
Germany willing for Soviet Russia to provide a guarantee to Bulgaria, and to send Soviet-Russian troops to Bulgaria for this purpose — although he (Molotov) wished to say that they did not have the intention of removing the king. My answer: Bulgaria
is a sovereign state, and I did not know that, just as Rumania had asked for a German guarantee, Bulgaria has asked for one from Soviet Russia. I would also have to discuss the matter with my allies. Molotov’s fourth question: Soviet Russia
absolutely requires free passage through the Dardanelle, and also demands, for
its protection, several important positions on the Dardanelle or along
the Bosporus. Is Germany willing to agree to this or not? My
answer: Germany is ready at any time to agree to changes in the
Statute of Montreux that benefit the Black Sea states. Germany
is not willing to approve Russian bases on the straights. National
Socialists! I behaved as the responsible leader of the German
Reich, but also as a responsible representative of European
culture and civilization. The result was an increase in Soviet
Russian activity against the Reich, above all the immediate
beginning of efforts to subvert the new Rumanian state and an
attempt to use propaganda to eliminate the Bulgarian government. With
the help of confused and immature people, the Rumanian Legion succeeded in organizing a coup that removed General Antonescu and plunged the nation into chaos. By removing legal authority, they also removed the grounds for Germany to act on its guarantee.
Still, I believed it
best to remain silent. Immediately after this enterprise collapsed, there
was a new increase in Russian troops along the German eastern border. Increasing numbers of tank and parachute divisions threatened the German border. The German army, and the German homeland, know that until a few weeks ago, there was not a single
German tank or motorized division on our eastern border.
If anyone needed final
proof of the carefully hidden coalition between England and Soviet
Russia, the conflict in Yugoslavia provided it. While I was making a last attempt to keep peace in the Balkans, and in agreement with the Duce invited Yugoslavia to join the Three Power Pact, England and Soviet Russia organized a coup that toppled the government that was ready for such an agreement.
The German people can
now be told that the Serbian coup against Germany was under
both the English and Soviet Russian flags. Since we were silent, the Soviet Russian government went a step further. Not only did they organize a Putsch, but signed a treaty of friendship with their new lackeys a few days later that was intended to strengthen
Serbia’s resistance to peace in the Balkans, and turn
it against Germany. It was no platonic effort, either. Moscow
demanded that the Serbian army mobilize.
Since I still believed that it was better not to speak, the rulers of the Kremlin took
a further step. The German government now possesses documents
that prove that, to bring Serbia into the battle, Russia promised
to provide it with weapons, airplanes, ammunition, and other
war material through Salonika. That happened at almost the same moment that
I was giving the Japanese Foreign Minister Dr. Matsuoka the advice to maintain
good relations with Russia, in the hope of maintaining peace.
Only the rapid breakthrough of our incomparable divisions
into Skopje and the capture of Salonika prevented the realization
of this Soviet Russian-Anglo-Saxon plot. Serbian air force officers,
however, fled to Russia and were immediately welcomed as allies. Only the victory of the Axis powers in the Balkans frustrated the plan of involving Germany in battle in the southeast for months, allowing the Soviet Russian armies to complete their march and increase their readiness for action. Together with England, and with the hoped for American supplies,
they would have been ready to strangle and defeat the German
Reich and Italy.
Thus Moscow not only broke our treaty of friendship, but betrayed it! They did all this while the powers in the Kremlin, to the very last minute, hypocritically attempted to favor peace and friendship, just as they had with Finland or Rumania. I was forced by circumstances to keep silent in the past. Now the moment has come when further silence would be not only a sin, but a crime against the German people, against
all Europe.
Today,
about 160 Russian divisions stand at our border. There have been steady border violations for weeks, and not only on our border, but in the far north, and also in Rumania. Russian pilots make a habit of ignoring the border, perhaps to show us that they already
feel as if they are in control. During the night of 17-18 June,
Russian patrols again crossed the German border and could only
be repelled after a long battle.
Now the hour has come when it is necessary to respond to his plot by Jewish-Anglo-Saxon warmongers and the Jewish rulers of Moscow’s Bolshevist headquarters.
German people!
At this moment, an attack
unprecedented in the history of the world in its extent and size has
begun. With Finnish comrades, the victors of Narvik stand by the Arctic Sea. German divisions, under the command of the conqueror of Norway, together with the heroes of Finland’s freedom and their marshal, defend Finnish soil. On the Eastern Front, German
formations extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. From
the banks of the Pruth River, from the lower Danube to the Black
Sea, German and Romanian soldiers are united under state leader
Antonescu.
The
purpose of this front is no longer the protection of the individual nations, but rather the safety of Europe, and therefore the salvation of everyone. I have therefore decided today once again to put the fate of Germany and the future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers. May God help us in this battle. The German preemptive strike saved Europe. The Führer to the German People: 11 December 1941 "Already in 1940 it
became increasingly clear from month to month that the plans of the men
in the Kremlin were aimed at the domination, and thus the destruction, of all of Europe. I have already told the nation of the build-up of Soviet military power in the East during a period when Germany had only a few divisions in the provinces bordering Soviet Russia.
Only a blind person could fail to see that a military build-up
of world-historical dimensions was being carried out. And this
was not in order to protect something that was being threatened,
but rather to attack that which seemed incapable of defense ... I may say this
today: If the wave of more than 20,000 tanks, hundreds of divisions, tens of thousands of artillery pieces, along with more than 10,000 airplanes, had not been kept from being set into motion against the Reich, Europe
would have been lost." Millions of Soviet troops were quickly
taken prisoner because they were packed along
the front line, in OFFENSIVE positions. The Germans then advanced easily across undefended territory. There was so little defense behind the front lines because Stalin was planning an invasion of eastern Europe, NOT a defense of Russia.
After the war, the prisoners shown
above would be condemned to death in Stalin's gulags.
Stalin declared: "There are no prisoners of war, just traitors."
The great sacrifice of Germany and the 500,000 foreign SS Waffen volunteers prevented Stalin from taking ALL of Europe.
_______________________________________________________________________ Germany’s Invasion
of Norway and Denmark Great
Britain Forced Invasion Germany had no plans
to invade Norway or Denmark when hostilities began that later became known as World War II. Hitler considered it advantageous
to have a neutral Scandinavia. On August 12, 1939, in a conversation with Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, Hitler stated
that he was convinced none of the belligerents would attack the Scandinavian countries, and that these countries would not
join in an attack on Germany. Hitler’s statement was apparently sincere, and it is confirmed in a directive of October
9, 1939.[1] Hitler eventually became convinced of the need for a preemptive
strike to forestall a British move against Norway. Adm. Erich Raeder in a routine meeting with Hitler on October 10,
1939 pointed out that the establishment of British naval and air bases in Norway would be a very dangerous development for
Germany. Raeder said that Britain would be able to control access to the Baltic, and would thus be in a position to hinder
German naval operations in the Atlantic and the North Sea. The flow of iron ore from Sweden, which passed via Narvik, Norway
through the North Sea, would end, and the Allies would be able to use Norway as a base for aerial warfare against Germany.[2] In
a meeting on December 18, 1939, Hitler let it be known that his preference was for a neutral Norway, but if the enemy tried
to extend the war into this area, he would be forced to stop them. Hitler soon had convincing evidence that Britain would
not respect Norwegian neutrality. German naval intelligence in February 1940 broke the British naval codes and obtained
important and accurate information about Allied activities and plans. The intercepts indicated the Allies were preparing
for operations against Norway using the pretext of helping Finland in its defense against the invasion by the Soviet Union
underway at the time. The intercepts confirmed Adm. Raeder’s fears about British intentions.[3] Both Britain and France believed
the threat of Germany losing badly needed iron ore would provoke Germany into opening up military operations in Scandinavia.
However, Britain and France had somewhat different objectives. Britain believed German operations could be challenged effectively
and successfully by the Allies, resulting in quick military victories for the Allies in a war that had stagnated further
south on the European Continent. France wanted to open a new front in order to divert German attention and resources from
her border. Both Britain and France felt the maritime blockade of Germany would become more effective once Norway was conquered,
especially if they succeeded in severing the flow of iron ore to Germany from Sweden. They were willing to accept great
military and political risks to this end.[4] German intelligence reports continued
to indicate that the Allies would invade Norway even after peace was concluded between Finland and the Soviet Union. On
March 28, 1940, the Germans learned of the decision taken by the Allied Supreme War Council to mine Norwegian waters. A
diplomat’s report on March 30, 1940, indicated that the Allies would launch operations in northern Europe within a
few days. British mining operations in Norwegian territorial waters began on April 8, 1940. Although no armed clashes with
Norwegian forces took place, the British mining operations were a clear violation of Norway’s neutrality and constituted
an act of war.[5] The Norwegian government protested against the mine-laying to the British, giving them 48 hours in which to sweep up the
mines.[6] Germany’s decision to invade Denmark was based on
the strategy of Gen. Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who concluded that it would be desirable to occupy Denmark as a “land
bridge” to Norway. Denmark quickly surrendered to German forces on April 9, 1940.[7] The German invasion
of Norway on April 9, 1940 was made to block Britain’s invasion of Norway, not unlike the Allies’ subsequent
invasion of Iceland to block such a move by the Germans. The Germans achieved most of their objectives in what must be viewed
as a stunning military success. The occupation of Norway complicated British blockade measures and kept open the door to
the Atlantic for possible interference with British supplies coming from overseas. The air threat to Germany by a British
presence in Norway was also avoided, as was the possibility of Sweden falling under the control of the Allies. Most importantly,
Germany’s source of iron ore was secure, and the German navy was able to skirt some of the limitations that otherwise
might have been imposed on it by geography.[8] British hopes that quick victories could be achieved by
enticing the Germans into an area where they would confront enormous British naval superiority were not realized. The hoped-for
British victory in Norway turned into a humiliating defeat. The French objective of reducing the threat to her homeland
by opening a new theater of war was also not achieved. A protracted war in Norway and the consequent drain on German resources
did not materialize.[9] U.S. military historian Earl F. Ziemke wrote: “As
an isolated military operation the German occupation of Norway was an outstanding success. Carried out in the teeth of vastly
superior British sea power, it was, as Hitler said, ‘not only bold, but one of the sauciest undertakings in the history
of modern warfare.’ Well planned and skillfully executed, it showed the Wehrmacht at its best...”[10] The only major advantage to the Allies was a hardening of
public opinion against Germany in neutral countries, especially in the United States.[11] American physicist Robert Oppenheimer spoke for many Americans when he said, “We have to defend Western values against
the Nazis.”[12] Most people did not know that Germany’s invasion of Norway and Denmark had been made to preempt Allied military initiatives
of quite the same nature in Norway. Confirmation
by Establishment Historians The preemptive nature
of Germany’s invasion of Denmark and Norway has been acknowledged by some establishment historians. For example, historian
David Cesarani, who said he did not believe in freedom of speech regarding the so-called Holocaust,[13] wrote: The campaign in the west was triggered
by a British naval incursion into Norwegian waters in February 1940. In an attempt to limit iron ore imports to Germany,
the British next mined Norwegian sea lanes and landed troops at Trondheim. On 9 April [1940], Hitler responded by launching
an invasion of Norway and ordered the occupation of Denmark. The Danes capitulated within a day, but land battles in Norway
and naval engagements continued for eight weeks until Allied troops were evacuated.[14] History is written by the (ultimate) victors,
and the (ultimate) victors, like all victors, did everything possible to make their actions in World War II look good. As
Winston Churchill famously stated in the late 1940s, “History will be kind to me because I intend to write it.”[15] However, even Winston Churchill acknowledged British complicity
in Germany’s invasion of Norway. Churchill wrote: On April 3, the British Cabinet implemented the resolve of the Supreme War Council, and the Admiralty was authorized
to mine the Norwegian Leads on April 8. I called the actual mining operation “Wilfred,” because by itself it
was so small and innocent. As our mining of Norwegian waters might provoke a German retort, it was also agreed that a British
brigade and a French contingent should be sent to Narvik to clear the port and advance to the Swedish frontier. Other forces
should be dispatched to Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim, in order to deny these bases to the enemy.[16] Churchill wrote that Britain implemented
these military activities: The Norwegian Government
was…chiefly concerned with the activities of the British. Between 4:30 and 5 A.M. on April 8, four British destroyers
laid our minefield off the entrance to West Fiord, the channel to the port of Narvik. At 5 A.M. the news was broadcast from
London, and at 5:30 a note from His Majesty’s Government was handed to the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The morning
in Oslo was spent in drafting protests to London.[17] Churchill thus acknowledged that Britain was
illegally mining Norwegian waters. Germany’s invasion of Norway was designed to preempt Britain’s military activities
in Norway. Norwegians Suffer from Invasion The campaign in Norway lasted 62 days and unfortunately resulted in a substantial number
of casualties. Most sources list about 860 Norwegians killed. Another source estimates the number of Norwegians killed or
wounded at about 1,700, with another 400 civilians estimated to have died during the campaign. Norway also effectively lost
her entire navy, and her people experienced increased hardships during Germany’s five-year occupation.[18] Germany during its occupation of Norway sometimes required
Norwegians to make sacrifices to help the German war effort. For example, in October 1941 Germany demanded that Norwegians
surrender their woolen blankets, jackets, knapsacks, tent outfits, and that all business concerns hand over heavy trousers
and other warm clothing. This merchandise was needed by the German troops who were freezing to death in the Soviet Union.
Failure to comply could be punished by up to three years’ imprisonment.[19] Living conditions in
Norway became worse as the war progressed. Undernourishment was common because of insufficient and inferior food, which
in turn led to an increase in diseases such as pneumonia, diphtheria and tuberculosis. The lack of clothing and shoes was
also felt more and more as the war progressed.[20] The winter of 1944 was particularly harsh
in Europe, including Norway, affecting both living conditions and social life. The desperate food shortages and the daily
hunt for fuel were the dominant concerns of the Norwegian civilian population. Oslo suffered its harshest winter in generations.[21] The German invasion had a profound effect on Norwegian foreign
policies after the war. Instead of returning to a policy of neutrality, Norway embraced collective security and became a
charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While Norway never elected to become a member of the European
Union, Norwegians still strongly support the traditional security system that came into being after the war.[22] Quisling Executed Leader of Norway’s fascist party Vidkun Quisling, backed by the German occupation
authorities, seized control of the Norwegian government shortly after Germany’s invasion of Norway. The news of Quisling’s
coup in Norway was welcomed in Berlin, with Hitler recognizing Quisling’s new government immediately. Hitler said to
Alfred Rosenberg on the night of April 10, 1940, “Quisling can form his government.”[23] Quisling soon became very unpopular in Norway. He had been
making anti-Jewish statements since the 1930s when he condemned both liberalism and Marxism as Jewish creations. In Frankfurt
on March 26, 1941, Quisling said in a lecture that Norway had for centuries been increasingly undermined by Jewish influence
and subversion. Quisling said that a total of 10,000 Jews and half-Jews were corrupting Norwegian blood like “destructive
bacilli”, and he advocated common European legislation against the Jews.[24] Quisling was unpopular among Norwegians for more than his
anti-Jewish statements. The press and public opinion in Norway ruthlessly denounced Quisling and his movement as treacherous,
and kept attacking him for unwarranted collaboration with the enemy. Before long Quisling’s name replaced the name
of Kuusinen as the synonym for a traitor. His name became a byword for traitor in nearly all languages. At the end of the
war Quisling was reading reports from the international press about “Japan’s Quisling” and “Russia’s
Quisling”.[25] Quisling was tried in Norway after the war before a judicial
tribunal of nine members, which included four professional judges and five civilians. Erik Solem, a highly respected judge,
served as president of the court responsible for conducting the proceedings. Quisling’s defense attorney raised an
objection to Solem’s presiding as judge since Solem had expressed strong opposition to Quisling’s policies during
the war. The appellate panel of Norway’s Supreme Court refused to sustain the defense’s challenge, stating that
if this objection was applied broadly, there would hardly be anyone in Norway qualified to sit in judgement at the trial.[26] No one had been executed in Norway since 1876, 11 years
prior to Quisling’s birth. The death penalty had been removed from the civilian criminal code in 1902 because of the
public’s opposition to it. However, the death penalty still remained on the books as part of the military penal code.[27] Quisling was found guilty by the Norwegian court.
To justify the death penalty, the judgement bluntly stated that all of Quisling’s actions from the summer of 1939
onwards were guided by a plan to cooperate with Nazi Germany—a plan consisting of occupation, coup and collaboration.
Quisling was executed by a firing squad early in the morning on October 24, 1945.[28] Ten years after Quisling’s trial it was established
beyond doubt that Quisling had never played an active role in Hitler’s attack on Norway, as the court had stated in
1945. Quisling’s image as a monster, as maintained by the prosecution, soon gave way to more-human images.[29] Conclusion Other members of Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling Party were arrested after
the war. Richard Petrow wrote: The German capitulation
brought mass arrests. Thousands of members of the Nasjonal Samling Party were seized, some whose only “crime”
had been party membership. By July 1 [1945] Norwegian prisons and concentration camps were filled to overflowing with 14,000
new inmates. By the end of the year more than 90,000 persons were arrested, investigated, or interrogated for wartime activities.
More than half this number—46,000—eventually were convicted of wartime offenses…Thirty Norwegian collaborators
and 15 Germans were sentenced to death for wartime treason or atrocities.[30] Fortunately, after a few years, Norway was
ready to forgive the bulk of its war criminals. By the summer of 1948, parole was granted to all war criminals who had served
at least half of their sentences. Norwegians sentenced to life imprisonment were released after serving an average term
of eight years and three months. Among those sentenced to death, however, 12 Germans and 25 Norwegians were executed.[31] For many in Norway, the word Quisling is still infamous
and synonymous with the word traitor.[32] Most of these Norwegians do not realize that Germany’s invasion of Norway was made to preempt Britain’s invasion
of their country. Notes [1] Lunde, Henrik O., Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate,
2010, p. 44. [5] Ibid., pp. 34, 85-86, 95-96.
[6] Hoidal, Oddvar K., Quisling: A Study in Treason, Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989, p. 369. [7] Keegan, John, The Second World War, New York: Viking Penguin, 1990, p. 50. [8] Lunde, Henrik O., Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate,
2010, p. 544. [10] Ziemke, Earl F., The German Decision to Invade Norway and Denmark, CMH Pub. 70-7-02, p. 71. [11]Lunde, Henrik O., Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate,
2010, p. 551. [12] Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin J., American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, New York:
Vintage Books, p. 2006, p. 149.
[13] Guttenplan, D. D., The Holocaust on Trial, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, p. 298. [14] Cesarani, David, Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016, p. 294.
[15] Davies, Norman, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945, New York: Viking Penguin, 2007, p. 487.
[16] Churchill, Winston S., The Second World War: The Gathering Storm, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948, p. 579.
[18] Lunde, Henrik O., Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate,
2010, pp. 542-543, 545. [19] Rygg, A. N., American Relief for Norway, New York: Arnesen Press, Inc., 1947, p. 26. [21] Dahl, Hans Frederick, Quisling: A Study in Treachery, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 319-320.
[22] Lunde, Henrik O., Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia and Newbury: Casemate,
2010, p. 553. [23] Dahl, Hans Frederick, Quisling: A Study in Treachery, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 174-175.
[24] Ibid., pp. 118, 222.
[26] Hoidal, Oddvar K., Quisling: A Study in Treason, Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989, pp. 725-726.
[28] Dahl, Hans Frederick, Quisling: A Study in Treachery, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 405,
415. [30] Petrow, Richard, The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway April 1940-May 1945, New York:
William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1974, pp. 348-349. [32] Cohen, Maynard M., A Stand against Tyranny: Norway’s Physicians and the Nazis, Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1997, p. 279.
__________________________________________________________________________ The Hossbach 'Protocol': The Destruction of a Legend  Das Hossbach-'Protokoll': Die Zerstoerung einer Legende, by Dankwart Kluge.
Leoni am
Starnberger See [Bavaria]: Druffel Verlag, 1980. 168 pages. DM 19.80. ISBN 3-80611003-4.
Reviewed by Mark Weber Hitler, we're
told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar
Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies sought to prove that Hitler and his "henchmen"
had engaged in a sinister "Conspiracy to Wage Aggresive War." The most important
piece of evidence produced to sustain this charge was and is a document known as the "Hossbach
Protocol" or "Hossbach Memorandum." On 5 November 1937, Hitler called a few high officials together for a conference in the Reich
Chancellery in Berlin: War Minister Werner von Blomberg, Army Commander Werner von Fritsch,
Navy Commander Erich Raeder, Air Force Commander Hermann Göring, and Foreign Minister
Konstantin von Neurath. Also present was Hitler's Army adjutant, Colonel Count Friedrich Hossbach. Five days later, Hossbach wrote up an unauthorized record of the meeting based on memory. He did not take notes during the conference. Hossbach claimed after the war that he twice asked
Hitler to read the memorandum, but the Chancellor replied that he had no time. Apparently none
of the other participants even knew of the existence of the Colonel's conference record. Nor
did they consider the meeting particularly important. A few
months after the conference, Hossbach was transferred to another position. His manuscript was
filed away with many other papers and forgotten. In 1943 German general staff officer Colonel
Count Kirchbach found the manuscript while going through the file and made a copy for himself.
Kirchbach left the Hossbach original in the file and gave his copy to his brother-in-law, Victor
von Martin, for safe keeping. Shortly after the end of the war, Martin turned over this copy
to the Allied occupation authorities, who used it to produce a substantially altered version
for use as incriminating evidence at Nuremberg. Sentences such as those quoting Hitler as saying
that "The German question can only be solved by force" were invented and inserted.
But over all, the document presented at Nuremberg is less than half the length of the original
Hossbach manuscript. Both the original written by Hossbach and the Kirchbach/Martin copy have
completely (and conveniently) disappeared. According to the
Hossbach document presented at Nuremberg and widely quoted ever since, Hitler told those present
that his remarks were to be regarded as a "final testament" in case of his death.
The most incriminating section quotes Hitler as saying that the armed forces would have to
act by 1943-45 at the latest to secure the "living space" ("Lebensraum")
Germany needed. However, if France became weakened by internal crisis before that time, Germany
should take action against Czechia (Bohemia and Moravia). Or if France became so embroiled in
war (probably with Italy) that she could not take action against Germany, then Germany should
seize Czechia and Austria simultaneously. Hitler's alleged references to German "living
space" refer only to Austria and Czechia. When Hitler
came to power in 1933, Germany was militarily at the mercy of hostile foreign states. Rearmament
had begun slowly, and in early 1937, because of a raw materials shortage, the three armed service
branches had to cut back. A furious dispute broke out between the branches for the remaining
allocation. Contrary to what the Hossbach protocol suggests,
Hitler called the conference of 5 November 1937 partially to reconcile the squabbling heads
of the military branches and partially to revive the German rearmament program. Foreign policy
was only a subsidiary issue. Hitler sought to justify the need for rebuilding German armed strength
by presenting several exaggerated and hypothetical foreign crisis cases which would require
military action, none of which ever occurred. Hitler announced no new course in German foreign
policy, much less a plan for aggressive war. At Nuremberg Göring testified that Hitler told him privately just before the conference that the main purpose in calling the meeting was "to put pressure on General von Fritsch, since
he (Hitler) was dissatisfied with the rearmament of the army." Raeder confirmed Göring's
statement. Like some other aristocratic and traditionalist
conservatives, Hossbach became a bitter opponent of Hitler and the National Socialist regime.
He was an intimate friend of General Ludwig Beck, who was executed in 1944 for his leading role
in the conspiracy which tried to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the government. Despite his
postwar denial, it is virtually certain that Hossbach prepared his slanted version of the conference
at Beck's urging for possible use in discrediting the Hitler regime following a coup d'etat.
Hossbach was also close to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of military intelligence, and General
Ziehlberg, both of whom were also executed for their roles in the 1944 assassination plot. Even
in early 1938 Hossbach, Beck and Canaris were in favor of a coup to forcibly overthrow Hitler. The Hossbach memorandum is frequently cited in popular historical works as conclusive
proof of Hitler's plans for aggressive war. A good example is William Shirer's best-selling but unreliable Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which alleged that the protocol recorded "the decisive turning point in the life of the Third Reich." At this critical conference, Shirer wrote, "... the die was cast. Hitler had communicated his irrevocable decision to go to war. To the handful of men who would have to direct it there could no longer by any doubt." Like many other Germanophobe publicists, Shirer deceptively cites the Hossbach memorandum
as a reliable record. He even distorts the actual wartime importance of the conference participants.
Of the five top officials present, three (Blomberg, Fritsch, Neurath) lost their high positions
within months of the meeting. Raeder was replaced as Navy Commander in January 1943. Only Göring
was really close to Hitler. The important role of the fraudulent
Hossbach protocol at the Nuremberg Tribunal is another damning confirmation of the illegitimate,
show-trial character of this most extravagant judicial undertaking in history. On the basis
of the protocol, which became Nuremberg document 386-PS, the Tribunal indictment declared: "An
influential group of the Nazi conspirators met together with Hitler on 5 November 1937 to discuss
the situation. Once again it was emphasized that Germany must have living space in Central
Europe. They recognized that such a conquest would probably meet resistance that would have
to be beaten down with force, and that their decision would probably lead to a general war."
U.S. prosecutor Sidney Alderman told the Tribunal that the memorandum ("one of the most
striking and revealing of all the captured documents") removed any remaining doubts about
the guilt of the German leaders for their crimes against peace. It was also the basis for the
conclusion of the Nuremberg judges that the German "Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War" began at the conference of 5 November 1937. The document was crucial in condemning
Göring, Neurath and Raeder for their roles in the "criminal conspiracy." The spurious
Hossbach protocol is all too typical of the kind of evidence used by the victorious Allies at
Nuremberg to legitimize their judicial imprisonment and murder of defeated Germany's leaders. There is now no doubt that the Hossbach protocol is worthless as a historical document.
After the war both Hossbach and Kirchbach declared that the U.S. prosecution version is quite different than the document manuscript they recalled. Hossbach also testified
at Nuremberg that he could not confirm that the prosecution version corresponded completely
with the manuscript he wrote in 1937. And in his memoirs, he admitted that in any case, Hitler
did not outline any kind of "war plan" at the meeting. At Nuremberg, Göring, Raeder,
Blomberg and Neurath all denounced the Hossbach protocol as a gross misrepresentation of the
conference. (Fritsch was dead.) The protocol deals only with the first half of the meeting,
thereby distorting its true character. The memorandum concludes with the simple sentence: "The
second half of the conference dealt with material armaments questions." No details are
given. In 1968 Victor von Martin characterized the memorandum with these words: "The protocol
presented at the Nuremberg court was put together in such a way as to totally change the meaning
[of the original] and can therefore be characterized only as a crude forgery."
When he wrote his path-breaking study, The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor accepted the Hossbach memorandum as a faithful record of the meeting of 5 November
1937. However, in a supplementary "Second Thoughts" added to later editions, the renowned
British historian admitted that he had initially been "taken in" by the "legend" of the document. The allegedly significant conference was actually "a maneuver in domestic affairs." The protocol itself, Taylor noted, "contains no directives for action beyond a wish for increased armaments." He ruefully observed that "those who believe in political trials may go on quoting the Hossbach memorandum." H.W. Koch, a Lecturer at the University of York (England), further dismantled the legend in a 1968 article which concluded that the infamous
protocol would be "inadmissible in any other court except the Nuremberg tribunal." Dankwart Kluge has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the origins of the Second World War. His study will stand for many years as the most authoritative dissection
of a great documentary fraud. This attractive work includes the complete text of the Hossbach
protocol as an appendix, four photos, and a comprehensive bibliography. The author was born
in 1944 in Breslau (Wroclaw), Silesia. Since 1974 he has worked as an attorney in West Berlin.
Kluge has done an admirable job of assembling his material, which is drawn not only from all
the available published and documentary sources, but also from numerous private interviews
and correspondence with key witnesses. Kluge argues his case compellingly, although the narrative
style is somewhat weak. This important study leaves no doubt that the highly touted protocol
is actually a forged revision of an uncertified copy of an unauthorized original, which has
disappeared. Harry Elmer Barnes, to whom the work is dedicated, would have welcomed it heartily. From The Journal of Historical Review, Fall 1983 (Vol. 4, No. 3), pp. 372-375.
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