Adolf Hitler: His own part in his downfall
HISTORY THE WAR IN THE WEST: GERMANY ASCENDANT 1939-1941 by James Holland (Bantam Press £25)
THE ENGLISH general could not contain his exasperation. Edward Spears was in Paris for crisis talks as Hitler’s armies poured across the border in the spring of 1940 — and no one on the French side seemed to have the faintest idea how to stop them.
Why on Earth hadn’t roadblocks been set up, he demanded? Or bridges blown up? Simple and obvious military measures to stall the fast-moving German columns and, at least, buy some time.
Across the table, his French counterpart pondered. ‘A very interesting idea,’ he said, finally. ‘I will consider it.’ With the Germans fewer than 100 miles away, and closing fast, it was a monumentally pathetic response.
This vignette of dither and funk sums up the collapse of France, re-told with withering scorn by historian Holland in the fascinating first volume of a new three-part history of World War II, starting with the years 1939 to 1941, when Germany was allowed to conquer all before it.
‘Allowed’ is the apt word when we consider how one country after another caved in to Hitler’s go-for-broke military tactics, rolled over by a blitzkrieg machine that engendered panic in its path, rather than determination to resist.
With most of Western Europe tucked under his belt, Hitler fully expected Britain to give in, too. But from behind the Channel, Churchill refused.
His ‘we shall never surrender’ speech of defiance can seem a cliche these days, but here we can feel anew its extraordinary power — because ‘surrender’ was precisely what every other country had done.
Faced by what Holland describes as ‘Britain’s very infuriating insistence on continuing to fight’, the Fuhrer had no Plan B when the over-rated Luftwaffe failed to bomb this island nation into submission.
He turned his attention to quick victories in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and (he imagined) Russia, thinking he could leave Britain parked and out of the game.
That was his big mistake. With aid from the U.S., Britain was able to build up its own fighting power and strike back.
There were German generals with the gumption to know that an unbeaten Britain would come back to haunt and eventually defeat them, but they kept their thoughts to themselves.
The result was another fatal mistake: failure to cut off the transatlantic trade that, in those crucial early years, kept Britain fed and re-armed. German
submarines could have done the job, but (and we should be grateful for this) there were not enough of them.
Hitler never really understood sea power, his mindset as landlocked as Austria, the country of his birth. He starved his navy of the steel it needed to build more ships, and what little the Kriegsmarine did get generally went on grandiose battleships, rather than churning out more subs.
Used effectively and in greater numbers, U-boats could have won the war, starving Britain into submission and, by ruling the Atlantic, dissuading the U.S. from joining in. But there was no focused effort to employ them.
Instead, four subs were on permanent loan to the Luftwaffe as weather-watchers, issuing meteorological reports instead of sinking enemy ships. For the invasion of Russia, Hitler inexplicably ordered eight to the Baltic, where there was nothing for them to do. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, the vast majority of convoys got through, enabling Britain to survive and prepare for the entry of the U.S. into the war that, in time, would seal Hitler’s fate.
Wars are, of course, also about the ordinary individuals who fought them, and this history is spiced with anecdotes of real people. Lives turn on a sixpence. Futures are snuffed out. Or miraculously not.
We see novice RAF Pilot Officer Roald Dahl arrive in Greece in his Hurricane fighter with no combat experience whatsoever, and sent straight into a desperate fight against invading German forces.
Landing after yet another close shave, he is told by the ground crew: ‘Blimey, mate, this kite’s got so many ’oles in it, it looks like chicken wire.’
Dahl lived to tell the tale. One more ’ole may well have done for him, depriving children’s literature of one of its greatest writers. Such are the vagaries of war.