Hitler

Ribbentrop put Prince Paul under heavy pressure when he visited Berlin on 4 March. Despite the fear of internal unrest, which the Regent emphasized, Prince Paul’s visit paved the way for the eventual signing of the Tripartite Pact on 25 March. But within hours of the signing, high-ranking Serbian officers, who had long resented Croat influence in the government, staged their coup.
    Hitler was given the news on the morning of the 27th. He was outraged. He summoned Keitel and Jodl straight away. He would never accept this, he shouted, waving the telegram from Belgrade. He had been betrayed in the most disgraceful fashion and would smash Yugoslavia whatever the new government promised. There was still just about time to settle the Balkan issue. But there was now great urgency. Halder had also been peremptorily summoned from Zossen. Hitler asked him forthwith how long he needed to prepare an attack on Yugoslavia. Halder provided on the spot the rudiments of an invasion plan, which he had devised in the car on the way from Zossen.
    By one o’clock, Hitler was addressing a sizeable gathering of officers from the army and Luftwaffe. ‘Führer is determined,’ ran the report of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, ‘… to make all preparations to smash Yugoslavia militarily and as a state-form.’ Speed was of the essence. He ordered preparations to begin immediately. The army and Luftwaffe were to indicate their intended tactics by the evening.
    The plans for the invasion of Greece and the build-up to ‘Barbarossa’ were fully revised at breakneck speed to allow for the preliminary assault on Yugoslavia. The operation was eventually scheduled to begin in the early hours of 6 April.
    The Yugoslav crisis had caused Hitler’s meeting with the hawkish Japanese Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, to be put back a few hours. It also necessitated Ribbentrop being called away from the preliminary talks with his Japanese counterpart to attend Hitler’s briefing. Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin was accompanied by enormous pomp andcircumstance. Every effort was made to impress the important guest. As usual on state visits, cheering crowds had been organized – this time waving the little Japanese paper flags that had been handed out in their thousands. The diminutive Matsuoka, invariably dwarfed by lanky SS men around him, occasionally acknowledged the crowd’s applause with a wave of his top-hat.
    Hitler placed great store on the visit. His hope – encouraged by Raeder and Ribbentrop – was to persuade the Japanese to attack Singapore without delay. With ‘Barbarossa’ imminent, this would tie up the British in the Far East. The loss of Singapore would be a catastrophic blow for the still undefeated Britain. This in turn, it was thought in Berlin, would serve to keep America out of the war. And any possible rapprochement between Japan and the USA, worrying signs of which were mounting, would be ended at one fell swoop. Hitler sought no military assistance from Japan in the forthcoming war against the Soviet Union. In fact, he was not prepared to divulge anything of ‘Barbarossa’ – though in his talks with Matsuoka earlier that morning Ribbentrop had indicated a deterioration in Soviet-German relations and strongly hinted at the possibility that Hitler might attack the Soviet Union at some point.
    Hitler deployed his full rhetorical repertoire. But he was sorely disappointed at Matsuoka’s reply. An attack on Singapore was, the Japanese Foreign Minister declared, merely a matter of time, and in his opinion could not come soon enough. But he did not rule Japan, and his views had not so far prevailed against weighty opposition. ‘At the present moment,’ he stated, ‘he could not under these circumstances enter on behalf of his Japanese Empire into any commitment to act.’
    It was clear: Hitler had to reckon without any Japanese military intervention for the foreseeable future. When Matsuoka returned briefly to Berlin in early April to report on his meeting with Mussolini, Hitler was prepared to give him every encouragement. He acceded to the request for technical assistance in submarine construction. He then made an unsolicited offer. Should Japan ‘get into’ conflict with the United States, Germany would immediately ‘draw the consequences’. America would seek to pick off her enemies one by one. ‘Therefore Germany would,’ Hitler said, ‘intervene immediately in case of a conflict Japan-America, for the