Hitler

‘Must be exterminated’ was his sinister conclusion. He was anticipating that the opportunity might arise following a Japanese victory over China. Once China was smashed, he guessed, Tokyo would turn its attention to Moscow. ‘That is then our great hour,’ he predicted.
    Hitler’s belief in an alliance with Britain had by now almost evaporated. His attitude towards Britain had come to resemble that of a lover spurned. Contemptuous of the British government, he also saw Britain greatly weakened as a world power. Egged on by Ribbentrop, by now aggressively anti-British, his hopes rested on his new friend Mussolini.
    Nothing was spared in the preparations for a huge extravaganza with all conceivable pomp and circumstance to make the maximum impact on the Duce during his state visit to Germany between 25 and 29 September. Mussolini took home with him an image of German power and might – together with a growing sense that Italy’s role in the Axis was destined to be that of junior partner. Hitler was also overjoyed at the outcome. There had been agreement on cooperation in Spain, and on attitudes towards the war in the Far East. Hitler was certain that Italian friendship was assured, since Italy had in any case little alternative. Only the Austrian question, on which Mussolini would not be drawn, remained open. ‘Well, wait and see,’ commented Goebbels.
    From remarks recorded by Goebbels, it is clear that Hitler was alreadyby summer 1937 beginning to turn his eyes towards Austria and Czechoslovakia, though as yet there was no indication of when and how Germany might move against either state. Nor were ideological or military-strategic motives, however important for Hitler himself, the only ones influencing notions of expansion in central Europe. Continuing economic difficulties, especially in fulfilling the Wehrmacht’s demands for raw materials, had been the main stimulus to increased German pressure on Austria since the successful visit by Göring to Italy in January. Gold and foreign-currency reserves, labour supplies, and important raw materials were among the lure of a German takeover of the Alpine Republic. Not surprisingly, therefore, the office of the Four-Year Plan was at the forefront of demands for an Anschluß as soon as possible. The economic significance of the Austrian question was further underlined by Hitler’s appointment in July 1937 of Wilhelm Keppler, who had served before 1933 as an important link with business leaders, to coordinate party affairs regarding Vienna. Further concessions to follow on those of the 1936 agreement – including the ending of censorship on
Mein Kampf
– were forced on the Austrian government in July. ‘Perhaps we’re again coming a step further,’ mused Goebbels. ‘In Austria, the Führer will some time make a
tabula rasa
,’ the Propaganda Minister noted, after a conversation with Hitler at the beginning of August. ‘Let’s hope we can all still experience it,’ he went on. ‘He’ll go for it then. This state is not a state at all. Its people belong to us and will come to us. The Führer’s entry into Vienna will one day be his proudest triumph.’ At the end of the Nuremberg Rally, a few weeks later, Hitler told Goebbels that the issue of Austria would sometime be resolved ‘with force’. Before the end of the year, Papen was unfolding to Hitler plans to topple the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg. Göring and Keppler were by then both convinced that Hitler would tackle the question of Austria during the spring or summer of 1938.
    In the case of Czechoslovakia, too, Hitler’s intentions were unmistakable to Goebbels. ‘Czechia is not a state, either,’ he noted in his diary in August. ‘It will one day be overrun.’ The refusal by Czech authorities to allow children from the Sudeten area to go for holidays to Germany was used by Goebbels as the pretext to launch the beginning of a vitriolic press campaign against the Czechs. Göring had by this time been stressing to the British Ambassador, Nevile Henderson, Germany’s rights to Austria and the Sudetenland (in due course also to revision of the Polishborder). To a long-standing British acquaintance, the former air attaché in Berlin, Group-Captain Christie, he went farther: Germany must have not simply the Sudetenland, but the whole of Bohemia and Moravia, Göring asserted. By mid-October, following the demands of Konrad Henlein, the Sudeten German leader, for autonomy, Goebbels was