Heydrich...A walk in the black forest by David Challice

Author:David Challice [Challice, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, World War II, Leaders & Notable People, Military & Spies, Professionals & Academics, Military, History
Publisher: Vista Print
Published: 2014-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

On the election trail… Hitler, Sepp Dietrich (centre) and Kurt Daluege (right)

12

Walter Schellenberg’s tour of duty on ‘Special Train Heinrich’ ended in early October 1939 when Adolf Hitler arrived in Warsaw to inspect his newly conquered acquisition. Schellenberg was in charge of the security arrangements surrounding the visit, and his efforts seem to have impressed Heinrich Himmler.

It is not recorded whether Hitler was pleased by the sight that met him, the smoke-blackened moonscape of what had once been the centre of Warsaw, but he was plainly delighted at the speed of the victory, shaking hands with the troops and beaming into the news cameras.

Great Britain’s declaration of war, on 3 September, did not appear to concern him. Publicly he seemed to take it in his stride. But in private, behind closed doors, things were very different indeed. Hitler knew that he had miscalculated.

When Neville Chamberlain made his radio announcement to the world, Adolf Hitler listened to it in his office in Berlin. He looked sourly at von Ribbentrop, then suddenly roared, “So what do we do now? Tell me that!”

Between headless chicken and feather-brained rooster, von Ribbentrop opted for the latter. “Perhaps they have declared war, my Fuhrer, but the British will not fight. I know them. They will negotiate. Of this I am sure.”

In the annals of bad advice this has to rank as some of the worst. Hermann Goering also knew the British. Unlike von Ribbentrop he had fought them, commanding the Red Baron’s Flying Circus after the death of its namesake, and he harboured no illusions. World war was looming.

Albert Speer came upon him slumped in a chair outside Hitler’s office, sunk in misery, rocking in fury. Goering lifted his head.

“This will be a war to the death, Speer. And that imbecile Ribbentrop cannot see it.”

For Schellenberg, at any rate, the destruction of Warsaw was a deeply disturbing experience – or so he claims in his memoirs. The nights were already unpleasantly cold, the houses were ruined and burnt-out, and the people were hungry and without running water. This was a dead city, a wasteland, with fires burning in the rubble. Schellenberg was relieved to get behind the wheel of his own car and drive home to Berlin. (Incredibly the car seems to have been sent out for him beforehand.)

On 17 October, after a stop-over in the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland, Schellenberg came to Berlin for a meeting with Heydrich. By now, the rape of Poland seems to have been forgotten. Schellenberg now was horrified by the state of the SD set-up in the Ruhr and could not wait to unburden himself to his chief.

“Our office there, it’s a shambles – I couldn’t believe what I saw.”

“A question of the staff?” Heydrich asked.

“No, the staff are fine. They’re just buried in paperwork and outnumbered. Five of them to cover the whole of Dortmund, an area of three-and-a-half million people, with four hundred factories engaged on secret war work. We already know from captured Polish files that their agents have passed on a vast amount of information on our weapons industry.

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