Hitler

in rearmament, either on Hitler’s orders or those of the Foreign Office. It could, therefore, be expected that the demands of the armed forces leadership for acclerated rearmament would gain new impetus following the Saar triumph. Army leaders were divided about the tempo of expansion, but not about its necessity or the aim of an eventual thirty-six-division peacetime army, the size eventually determined by Hitler in March 1935. They reckoned with moving to a conscript army by summer 1935. Only the timing remained to be determined – on the basis of the foreign-policy situation.
    This had become strained again in early 1935. A joint British-French communiqué on 3 February had condemned unilateral rearmament, and advanced proposals for general restrictions of arms levels and an international defence-pact against aggression from the air. After some delay, the German response on 15 February expressed the wish for clarificatory talks with the British government. The British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon and Lord Privy Seal Anthony Eden were accordingly invited for talks in Berlin on 7 March. Three days before the planned visit, the publication of a British Government
White Book
, announcingincreases in military expenditure as a result of the growing insecurity in Europe caused by German rearmament and the bellicose atmosphere being cultivated in the Reich, led to a furious outcry in the German press. Hitler promptly developed a ‘diplomatic’ cold and postponed Simon’s visit.
    Three days after the visit should have taken place, on 10 March, Göring announced the existence of a German air-force – an outright breach of the Versailles Treaty. For effect, in comments to diplomats, he almost doubled the numbers of aircraft actually at Germany’s disposal at the time. Just prior to this, the French had renewed their military treaty of 1921 with Belgium. And on 15 March the French National Assembly approved the lengthening of the period of military service from one to two years. The moves of the arch-enemy, France, prompted Hitler’s reaction. They provided the pretext. Alert as ever to both the political and the propaganda advantages to be gained from the actions of his opponents, he decided to take the step now which in any case would soon have been forthcoming.
    On 13 March, Lieutenant-Colonel Hoßbach, Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant, was ordered to present himself the next morning in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich. When he arrived, Hitler was still in bed. Only shortly before midday was the military adjutant summoned to be told that the Führer had decided to reintroduce conscription in the immediate future – a move which would in the eyes of the entire world graphically demonstrate Germany’s newly regained autonomy and cast aside the military restrictions of Versailles. Hitler expounded his reasons for two hours. The advantageous foreign-policy situation, in which other European states were adjusting their military strength, and especially the measures being taken in France, were decisive. Hoßbach was then asked what size the new army should be. Astonishingly, Hitler did not consider directly consulting the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Werner Fritsch, or the Chief of the General Staff, Ludwig Beck, on this vital topic. It was expected that Hoßbach would be familiar with the thinking of the military leadership. Subject to approval from War Minister Blomberg and Fritsch, Hoßbach stipulated thirty-six divisions. This matched the final size of the peacetime army that the military leadership had envisaged
as a future goal
. It implied an army of 550,000 men, five-and-a-half times the size of the post-Versailles army, and a third larger than that envisaged by Beck in a memorandum written only ninedays earlier. Hitler accepted Hoßbach’s figures without demur. What had been meant by the army chiefs as a level to be attained only gradually was now determined as the immediate size.
    The more spectacular, the better, was always Hitler’s maxim in a propaganda coup. Secrecy both to achieve the greatest surprise and avoid damaging leaks that could provoke dangerous repercussions was another. Hitler had taken his decision without consulting either his military leaders or relevant ministers. It was the first time this had happened in a serious matter of foreign policy, and the first time that Hitler encountered opposition from the heads of the armed forces. Only Hoßbach’s pleading on 14 March