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Hitler's ‘Programme’ and the Genesis of Operation ‘Barbarossa’ *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Koch
H. W. Koch
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

Hitler's foreign policy is still an area of widespread interest - particularly the question of its inner coherence. The present consensus goes back to the early 1950s and 1960s, when the German attack upon Russia was viewed as one stage in Hitler's quest for European hegemony or even world domination. While Alan Bullock viewed Hitler as an opportunist, Hugh Trevor-Roper in his essay on Hitler's war aims interpreted Hitler's invasion of Russia as a systematic step in Hitler's programme. Since then this model has been highly refined and systematized, notably by Andreas Hillgruber, who argues that Hitler's foreign policy programme had already been formulated long before he came to power, particularly in Mein Kampf and Hitler's Second book. On this model National Socialist foreign policy was programmatically fixed and Hillgruber goes as far to say that Hitler's programme ‘alone determined the great line of German policy in general’ and that he devoted all the energies available to him to realizing it. Yet even before Hillgruber had formulated his model, case studies were available which appeared to contradict its inner coherence and logic. Serious objections have also been raised by Martin Broszat, who describes Hitler's idea of an eastern empire as a ‘metaphor and Utopian figure of speech’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 891 - 920
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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73 Such as an attack on Gibraltar via Spain, the support of the Italians by German armoured units in North Africa to capture Egypt and the Suez Canal, striking as far north as Haifa.

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99 KTB-OKW, 1, 14 Aug. 1940 and 29 Aug. 1940.

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103 ibid. doc. nos. 157, 158, 159.

104 ibid. doc. no. 160.

105 ibid. doc. no. 162.

106 Soviet Documents, III, 468.

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110 KTB-OKW, I, 19 Sept. 1940.

111 ibid. 19 Sept. 1940; Halder-KTB, 11, 9 Sept. and 19 Sept. 1940.

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114 ibid. doc. no. 246.

115 KTB-OKW, 1, 22 Oct. 1940.

116 ibid. 9 Nov. 1940.

117 ibid. 2 Aug. 1940.

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119 IMT, x, 589ff.; xiv, 117ff.; xx, 629ff.; xv, 428ff. For the sheer dilettantism, the haphazard and improvised nature of Aufbau-Ost see the details provided by E. Helmdach, former group commander of the Wehrmacht's ‘Fremde Heere Ost’ (he was personally responsible for the Soviet Union) in Überfall: Der deutsch-sowjetische Aufmarsch (Neckargemünd, 1975), and also his Täuschungen und Versäumnisse (Bergam See, 1979).Google Scholar

120 Operation ‘Felix’ (the capture of Gibraltar, the Azores, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands); Operation ‘Marita’ (the support of the Italians in Greece); Operation ‘Attila’ (the occupation of Vichy-France if the need should arise); the defence of the Rumanian oilfields are but a few of the projects.

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122 KTB-OKW, 1, 29 Aug. 1940; Hitler made the point that German military measures had already had a ‘ braking effect’ upon the Russians in Finland and the Balkans.

123 KTB-Greiner, 5 Sept. 1940 in IMT, XXVII, 72, doc. no. 1229-PS. Again this entry has been omitted in the published version of the KTB-OKW.

124 KTB-OKW, 1, 30 Jan. 1941.

125 Kriegstagebuch der Seekriegsleitung (KTB-SKL), 2 Jan. 1940 in IMT, XXXII, 178.

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132 IMT, xxviii, doc. no. 2842-PS, p. 570.

133 ibid. See also Adler, Isolationist impulse, passim.

134 Halder-KTB, 11, 23 Sept. 1940.

135 Seidl, Die Beziehungen, doc. no. 167.

136 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 129.

137 Seidl, Die Beziehungen, doc. no. 167.

138 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 118; see also J. M. Menzel, ‘Der geheime deutsch-japanische Notenaustausch zum Dreimächtepakt’ in VfZg, 1957.

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143 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 236.

144 KTB-OKW, 28 Oct. 1940.

145 Halder-KTB, II 15 Oct. 1940.

146 ibid. loc. cit.

147 ibid. 24 Oct. 1940.

148 ibid. 4 Nov. 1940.

149 ibid. loc. cit.

150 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 172.

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154 ibid. doc. no. 175.

155 ibid. doc. no. 178.

156 ibid. doc. nos. 178–179.

157 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 325.

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159 See note 157.

160 Hilger, Wir und der Kreml, p. 302.

161 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. nos. 326, 328.

162 ibid.

163 ibid. doc. nos. 329, 348.

164 ibid. doc. no. 309.

165 See note 163.

166 Thus Hitler to his army adjutant Major Engel, quoted by Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, p. 356.

167 DGFP, series D, xi, doc. no. 379.

168 ibid. doc. no. 405.

169 ibid.

170 KTB-OKW, 1, 5 Dec. 1940; Halder-KTB, 11, 15 Dec. 1940.

171 Halder-KTB, loc. cit.

172 Hubatsch, Hitlers Weisungen, Weisung Nr. 21: Fall, ‘Barbarossa’, pp. 97ff.

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