The Spy in Hitler’s Inner Circle: Hans-Thilo Schmidt and the Allied Intelligence Network that Decoded Germany’s Enigma by Paul Paillole

Author:Paul Paillole [Paillole, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781612003726
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2016-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

General Gauché was responsible for interpreting the intelligence and transmitting it to High Command. They wouldn’t be let down.

“… On August 23,158 the head of the Deuxième Bureau was able to paint a vivid picture of the German concentration efforts and the threat it carries…”159

At dawn on September 1, 1939 the Wehrmacht invaded Poland under false pretenses: the corridor, Danzig. I was unable to stop myself that day from going back to the intelligence H.E. provided in 1932 regarding the Reichswehr’s studies on the Polish military situation and the “threats” it posed to Germany.160 Poland’s fate had already been set back then.

In the afternoon of September 1, inspired by Rivet, Gauché went to Army Chief of Staff General Colson. France was not yet at war. It was important that the High Command was presented once again with the balance of forces, as the French alone would have to bear the initial shock.

“Once again I come back to the superiority of certain elements of the German army […] I conclude that the French army could in no way, as weak as it is, make a claim of superiority […]. Finally, I expressed my concern with these terms: never, at any period in her history, has France ever engaged in a war under such unfavorable conditions from the outset.”161

Forced to abstain from any major offensive capable of relieving Poland, France, despite her commitments, would respond to the aggression by withdrawing into herself with the hope of escaping the worst.

*

At 3 p.m. on September 3, 1939, following Great Britain’s example, France declared war on Germany.

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