Journey into Darkness by Lowell W. Culver

Author:Lowell W. Culver
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780761862468
Publisher: Hamilton Books
Published: 2013-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Unknown to all but a small group of his closest advisors, Hitler, without waiting for the struggle with Britain to be brought to a successful conclusion, began to develop plans for his most ambitious undertaking in fulfillment of a life-long objective, the conquest of the Soviet Union. Documents and personal accounts by people close to him indicate that in this venture Hitler was never troubled by the extreme indecisiveness which characterized his cross-Channel invasion plans. To him coexistence with Britain was considered desirable and achievable, but he was convinced that conflict with the bastion of Bolshevism was inevitable and that a grand crusade to crush her must take place while the Reich was at the height of its power, and before the German people had become complacent and weary of war. He didn’t want to risk attack by a more formidable Red Army at some future point in time under less favorable circumstances. Only by Russia’s defeat, he felt, could the long-term survival of the German nation be assured.

The relatively effortless victories of 1939 and 1940 had created an illusion of German invincibility. At the same time, German leaders were deceived into believing that the Stalin regime would collapse and the country disintegrate in face of the over-powering might of the Wehrmacht. The ineptness of the Red Army in its David and Goliath dual with Finland, the observed obsolescence of the weaponry displayed at the parade in November 1940 marking the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, and the earlier purges of Russia’s military leadership tended to reinforce the perception of the Eurasian giant as a weak and potentially easy victim. Hitler was assured that the operation against the Soviets could be concluded in a matter of months, before the onset of the dreaded Russian winter.

Although Germany and the Soviet Union were parties to a nonagression pact which provided for the settlement of disputes or conflict by friendly exchange of opinion or by arbitration, relations between the two powers, while outwardly cordial, remained strained. Suspicions were early aroused by Soviet designs on the Baltic States which contained large numbers of German nationals. Hitler was especially incensed by the advantage taken by the Soviets in June 1940 when he was preoccupied in France. Without advance notice the Soviets terminated the semi-protectorate status of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by outright annexation. This was followed by the Soviet seizure of Bessarabia and Bucovina from Romania, prompting Germany to guarantee Romania’s remaining territory in order to ensure access to crucial oil resources. Overlapping interests in Finland, where Germany was strengthening its cultural, economic and military ties, and in the Balkans generated additional mistrust of the Soviet Union. Hitler’s tentative considerations of a move to crush Russia seem to have hardened into a definite decision during the November 12-13, 1940 discussions with Vyacheslav Molotov in Berlin, when the Soviet Foreign Minister clarified the extent of Soviet ambitions in the Balkans and the Straits. On December 18, 1940, after four months of preliminary planning, the formal directive

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