The Hitler Years by Frank McDonough

Author:Frank McDonough [McDonough, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784975913
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Hitler standing on the train platform in Berlin before Mussolini departs at the end of his state visit in September 1937.

© Getty images

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor met Hitler at the Berghof on 22 October. The Duke expressed his admiration for the industrial, housing and social welfare arrangements he had seen during his visit. Paul Schmidt, who acted as interpreter, observed: ‘In the conversation there was, so far as I could see, nothing to indicate whether the Duke of Windsor really sympathized with the ideology and practices of the Third Reich, as Hitler seemed to assume. After they left Hitler commented of the Duchess: “She would certainly have made a good Queen.”’108

While this royal visit took place, the German government released a statement on 13 October making the following surprising promise: ‘The German government considers that the inviolability and integrity of Belgium are common interests of the Western Powers. It confirms its determination that in no circumstances will it impair this inviolability and integrity, and that it will at all times respect Belgian territory.’109 Once again, Hitler wanted the world to think that his intentions were peaceful.

On 5 November Kurt von Kamphoevener, a diplomat at the German Foreign Ministry, offered Neurath advice as to how best to deal with Eden’s memorandum of 16 July. He reported that no further progress had been made on the Western Pact negotiations since then and that Belgium, France and Italy had no interest in adopting Eden’s proposals. Kamphoevener felt that it was advisable to ask Ribbentrop to inform the British Foreign Office that the German government was holding back on replying to the memorandum, because it did not think the current discussions on the Western Pact would succeed while there was still conflict in the Far East and Spain.110

At 4.15 p.m. on that same day Hitler began a secret meeting with his leading military officers. Minister of War Werner von Blomberg was there; as well as Werner von Fritsch, commander-in-chief of the army; Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe and overseer of the Four-Year Plan; and Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the navy. Foreign Secretary Konstantin von Neurath was also in attendance, along with Hitler’s military assistant Friedrich Hossbach, who wrote up the minutes of the meeting, which then became a memorandum, dated 10 November 1937. The ‘Hossbach Memorandum’ would be a key document at the Nuremberg war trials, which aimed to prove that Hitler had a cold-blooded plan for an offensive and to escalate the war in Europe.111

The meeting, which lasted until 8.30 p.m., was ostensibly called to discuss problems of rearmament, because Germany’s productive capacity was being overstretched with shortages of skilled labour and key raw materials, notably aluminium, iron, oil, rubber and steel. However, instead of discussing the allocation of raw materials between the different branches of the armed forces, Hitler delivered an extensive monologue on the future of German foreign policy.

He began by reaffirming his determination to acquire ‘living space’ (Lebensraum) in Eastern Europe. Everything else was subordinate to solving this problem.

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