In Search of Klingsor by Jorge Volpi

Author:Jorge Volpi [Volpi, Jorge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007440306
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1999-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE GAME OF WAR

BERLIN

SEPTEMBER 1939

In his Mein Kampf, Hitler declared that unless Germany became a world power, there would be no Germany. And he was prepared to go to any length to fulfill this prophecy. Tertius non datur, there was no third option: It was either supremacy or ruin. In 1939, this meant, inevitably, the beginning of the hostilities. In reality his main objective had always been to eradicate the Soviet Union—as well as all the Jews—and he had announced his plans as such. In the latter part of 1939 the Führer decided to deploy one of his most brilliant strategies. On August 20, he sent a telegram to his Soviet counterpart, requesting a meeting on behalf of Joachim von Ribbentrop, his eccentric foreign minister. When Stalin agreed, almost immediately, Hitler achieved far more than a mere diplomatic triumph. The last piece of his puzzle was now in place, and Germany was finally poised to take control of Europe.

Hitler’s plan was simple: Germany and the Soviet Union would carve up Poland before the expectant, shocked eyes of France and Great Britain. Once this mission was accomplished, Hitler would quickly turn against Stalin, his new ally, and crush him. And when his victory in the East was more or less certain, Hitler would turn his attention to the West.

On August 23, Ribbentrop and Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, announced their recent signing of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact. Great Britain and France felt utterly betrayed by the Soviet leaders, but the greatest blow of all was to the communists, who had been actively protesting fascism for years. Suddenly Stalin was telling them not only to surrender but to cooperate with the enemy.

One week later, on September 1, Hitler’s troops crossed the Polish border, with the full knowledge and support of the Soviet Union. The Soviets, meanwhile, quickly took control of the territories on the eastern border of Poland, which they had been granted by a secret clause in the pact. And just as the Führer had predicted, France and Britain declared war on Germany. Some two weeks later, Poland was declared an occupied zone, and Hitler, in one fell swoop, wiping away both its history and its identity, renamed it with the more neutral-sounding général gouvernement.

The swift conquest of Poland was followed by another equally successful Blitzkrieg, with Denmark and Norway falling under the command of the Third Reich. Nobody seemed able to defy Hitler’s plans. It was finally the right time to turn to the West. After a period of tense calm known by the French, in a rather macabre display of humor, as the drôle de guerre, Hitler ordered his troops to invade France. On May 10, 1940, an intrepid convoy of armored tanks under the command of General Hans Guderian crossed the Ardennes, accomplishing in a few short weeks something that could have easily taken years: the siege of Paris. And on June 22, barely six weeks after the start of this spectacular campaign, France signed the armistice. The

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