In the immediate aftermath of the First World War Hitler's views on international issues were largely informed and shaped by ideas current within the Pan-German League, whose leader, Heinrich Class, has been credited with exercising a considerable influence over Hitler's early outlook on questions of foreign policy.1 Hitler's international objectives at the time of his introduction to and acceptance of the idea of a Jewish 'world conspiracy' were essentially revisionist and, in so far as they envisaged the destruction of the Treaty of Versailles and the return of the German colonies, were typically representative of those to be found in nationalist circles.2 Despite the occasional reference to Germany's need for additional living space,3 there thus appears to have been no readily discernible ideological dimension to his outlook on foreign policy issues.

Hitler also had fixed ideas about which countries the Reich could count among its friends or enemies. Contrary to his later advocacy of an Anglo-German alliance, he was initially hostile to Britain.4 Associating with the prevailing Pan-German attitude of the time, he viewed Britain as an 'absolute' enemy not only because of its part in the war, but also because of its role in drafting and implementing the Treaty of Versailles. Even in 1919-20, however, Hitler obviously admired and envied British world power, which, he believed, derived its impetus from the strength of British national feeling, a commitment not to tolerate interracial breeding, and a genius for conquest, organization and economic exploitation.5

At this stage, in contrast to his overtly anti-British attitude, Hitler was not absolutely opposed to the idea of a future alliance with Russia. Russo-German enmity had, in his view, been the product of the second Reich's foolish support of Austro-Hungarian ambitions in the Balkans. In view of his developing appreciation of the supposed Jewish 'world conspiracy', it is equally significant that within a few months Hitler began suggesting that it had been the international Jewish press that had prevented a Russo-German agreement before the First World War, a fact that had undeniably contributed to its outbreak.6 This is one of the first examples where Hitler suggested that the Jews had been responsible for limiting Germany's options and thus weakening its international position even before 1914.

As we pointed out in an early case study, by autumn 1919 Hitler was already conversant with literature and acquainted with circles that purported to have uncovered a Jewish conspiracy based on Jewry's alleged exploitation of international finance and its promotion of worldwide revolution through Marxism. In this context, 1919 was a fateful year not only for Germany but also for Hitler, for at that time he first came into contact with Alfred Rosenberg and Dietrich Eckart, two personalities who undoubtedly helped shape his political Weltanschauung. Of the two, Rosenberg undoubtedly exercised the greater influence, for it was he who first instructed Hitler on the Jewish nature of Bolshevism and the relationship between the October revolution and the wider international Jewish conspiracy. Moroever, Rosenberg was able to introduce Hitler to other emigres and political refugees from former imperial Russia, some of whom, notably Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, may have exercised some influence on the future chancellor's perceptions of Bolshevism and its purported Jewish roots.

In any case we made it clear that by 1920, after having made Rosenberg's acquaintance, Hitler accepted that the Jews ruled Bolshevik Russia. He also appeared to share - or perhaps accepted - Rosenberg's ideas on the possibilities for future collaboration between Germany and a Russia freed of the Bolshevik yoke. On 21 July 1920, in keeping with his hostility to Britain and France as the powers chiefly responsible for the peace settlement, and revealing an open mind on a future alliance with a Russia purged of Jewish influence, he declared that Germany's salvation could never come in association with the West; on the contrary, to that end it must seek contact (Anschluss) with 'nationalist, anti-Semitic Russia. Not with the Soviet'.7

If by 1920 racial ideology had begun to influence Hitler's Weltanschauung in so far as future foreign policy was concerned, so too had considerations of Realpolitik. France had a special place in Hitler's calculations, for, as a hereditary enemy that had continually sought the destruction of Germany, most recently demonstrated by its policy at the peace conference, France posed the most immediate threat to the integrity of the Reich.8 These views in turn affected Hitler's perceptions of Italy. Franco-Italian tension following d'Annunzio's occupation of Fiume in 1919 led Hitler to believe that advantages could be gained from exploiting the friction between the two powers, and for that reason he began to consider Italy a possible ally.9 Realpolitik rather than ideology thus determined the role of Italy in Hitler's calculations, and this, moreover, a full two years before the advent of Mussolini and fascism. Anti Bolshevism appears to have played little or no role in Hitler's initial gravitation towards Italy.

In summary, in the immediate aftermath of defeat a combination of general considerations of Realpolitik and pan-German ideology had framed Hitler's outlook. With regard to the USSR, however, his initial views soon began to change with the result that he began to speak increasingly of the threat of ‘Jewish Bolshevism'. As this all important question loomed ever larger in his deliberations, and notwithstanding the uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of the Bolshevik regime in the USSR, which was consumed by a bitter civil war, Hitler had by 1921 reduced German foreign policy to a single basic strategy: either an Anglo-German alliance directed against Russia or a Russo-German alliance directed against Britain.10 By December 1922, as the Bolsheviks finally began to strengthen their grip on power, Hitler's preference for an Anglo German alliance became clear. In an interview with Edouard Scharrer, co-owner of the Munchener Neueste Nachrichten, Hitler openly abandoned the pan-German line and came out strongly in favor of an Anglo-German alliance.11 Thus, even before the Ruhr crisis revealed the depth of the differences in the British and French approaches to the German question, Hitler believed that Britain viewed Germany not only as a counterweight to French hegemony in Europe, but also as a potential ally against Russia, whose destruction, he candidly admitted, would have to be undertaken 'with England's help'.12 In this interview Hitler for the first time renounced overseas ambitions that, he calculated, would make Germany attractive to the British as a future ally, and publicly stated that Germany's future Lebensraum was to be obtained in the east.

What had caused Hitler to opt for an alliance with Britain against Russia? Was Britain chosen as an ally on its own merits? Did Hitler fall back on a British alliance because he discovered grounds that ultimately forced him to reject Russia? Did the goal of Lebensraum in Russia determine his choice of Britain as a future ally? Had Britain been selected for its ideological antipathy to Bolshevism? There is strong evidence to suggest that the choice of Britain was made primarily on the grounds of Realpolitik. By the early 1920s there had been a discernible moderation of Hitler's hostile attitude to Britain, not least because the British appeared to oppose French policies towards Germany, notably during the ill-fated Franco Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, which has been seen as a turning point in Hitler's view of the British. While he feared the threat that France posed to Germany's territorial integrity, he was certainly aware of the British Opposition to French hegemony in Europe, and quick to note the debilitating effect of the Ruhr crisis on the already troubled Anglo-French entente. This was yet another impetus to his idea of Anglo-German friendship, for Britain would be a useful ally against France, Germany's eternal enemy. Having chosen Britain as an ally on these grounds, Russia was naturally rejected, and it would thus be in the east that Lebensraum would have to be sought.13

Although this appears to be a persuasive argument on the surface, the interpretation is limited, flawed even, because it fails to take the ideological element into account. The evidence suggests that it was not only considerations of Realpolitik that led to the choice of Britain as an ally, but also Hitler's increasing obsession with the threat posed by Jewish-Bolshevik' Russia. By 1922 he firmly believed that a battle was being waged in Europe between nationalism and internationalism. This was a battle, according to Hitler, 'which began nearly 120 years ago, at the moment when the Jew was granted citizen rights in the European states'.14 By December 1922 Hitler had been forced to accept the unpalatable fact that the Bolsheviks had won the Russian civil war, and, just as they had consolidated their domestic position, Hitler had adapted himself to the new conditions and consolidated his attitude towards the USSR. As unbridgeable ideological differences now made a Russo-German alliance untenable, Hitler was automatically pushed towards an arrangement with Britain. There is no evidence to suggest that the prospect of acquiring Lebensraum in Russia determined Hitler's choice of allies, for only after Hitler had accepted the incompatibility of an alliance with the USSR did he refer regularly to large-scale German expansion in the east. However, what is above all clear is that by 1922 Hitler's doctrines of race and space had converged: Jewish-Bolshevik' Russia was the target of future German expansion.

As the 1920s unfolded, traditional considerations of Realpolitik continued to influence Hitler's prospective alliance system. His views of France, for example, remained largely consistent, and he continued to believe that France desired the annihilation of Germany in order to consolidate its own hegemony in Europe, a view he would repeat to the point of exhaustion in his writings of the mid-1920s.15 All the same, Mein Kampf and the Zweites Buch serve to confirm not only the significance of Realpolitik, but also the importance of racial ideology in Hitler's Weltanschauung, and it is crucial not to lose sight of this when considering his written observations on foreign policy. As has been demonstrated, it was under Rosenberg's influence that Hitler first identified the Bolsheviks with an alleged Jewish world conspiracy whose goal remained the destruction of all non-Jewish national states.16 By 1925 Hitler's stance on this issue was clear and unequivocal. 'The fight against Jewish world Bolshevization', he wrote in Mein Kampf, 'requires a clear attitude towards Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the Devil with Beelzebub.’17

The ideological dimension of Hitler's foreign policy became clearly evident in Mein Kampf. The National Socialist movement, he wrote, had the mightiest task, for it 'must open the eyes of the people on the subject of foreign nations and must remind them again and again of the true enemy of our present-day world' .18 He believed it was the duty of Germany and other like-minded powers to confront the Jewish-Bolshevik' challenge, and in this respect Britain was an ideal partner. Combined with traditional Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Near East and central Asia, there was an obvious ideological conflict between capitalist Britain and Bolshevik Russia. Whereas Hitler now viewed an alliance with Russia as of no benefit to Germany, Britain, by contrast, was an ideal alliance partner in terms of both ideology and Realpolitik. Mein Kampf also contains a clear exposition of Hitler's views on Lebensraum and racial struggle. Heavily influenced by Social Darwinism, Hitler believed that racial vitality was the key to the health and strength of a nation, and that the principle of the survival of the fittest conditioned the struggle for existence. Taking their cue from this racist viewpoint, his ideas on future foreign policy were closely intertwined with his belief that 'only an adequately large space on this earth assures a nation of freedom of existence'.19 In short, the racially superior Germans lacked adequate Lebensraum, which Hitler believed was to be found not overseas but in eastern Europe. No longer was it simply a case of removing the constraints imposed by the Versailles settlement; indeed, he believed that the 1914 boundaries meant 'nothing at all for the German future.’20 Instead, the acquisition of Lebensraum in Russia at the expense of racially inferior Slavs was to be the central aim of his foreign policy. 21

Many of these ideas were recapitulated in the Zweites Buch, which was written in 1928 but not published in its author's lifetime. In Mein Kampf Hitler had presumed that Britain's determination to maintain the balance of power would automatically make it oppose any French or Russian attempts to achieve hegemony in Europe. In the Zweites Buch he sought to explain the obvious contradiction in why Britain would oppose French or Russian hegemony on the one hand, but accept German domination of the continent on the other. Britain, he argued, would only feel threatened if, from its paramount position in Europe, Germany were subsequently to menace its maritime or colonial interests,22 aims he had already envisaged abandoning in Mein Kampf. Indeed, the renunciation of Germany's colonial and naval interests was to be the bait with which Hitler hoped to land the British alliance. His logic was simple: a clear division of interests would leave Britain mistress of the seas and Germany master of Europe.23 Hitler further reasoned that Germany's search for Lebensraum in the east would not affect any vital British concerns; on the contrary, for reasons of both Realpolitik and ideology, Britain, he believed, would welcome a German campaign against Russia.24

With regard to Russia, the Zweites Buch reiterated and embellished Hitler's earlier convictions. Once again he made it clear that only Russia was a suitable target for Germany's future Lebensraum.25 He also reasserted his objections to the idea of a Russo-German alliance, fearing that this would result in the 'complete rule of Jewry in Germany'.26 Thus, Hitler's perception of Russia, in both his doctrines of race and space, had not changed. He remained convinced that a Russo-German alliance made 'no sense for Germany, neither from the standpoint of sober expediency nor from that of human community'.27 The future tasks of German foreign policy were clear - to 'free its [Germany's] rear against England and conversely to isolate Russia, as much as possible'.28

Any examination of the development of Nazi thought on international questions during the period between the completion of the Zweites Buch and the assumption of power is complicated because in these years Hitler did not write anything remotely comparable to Mein Kampf or the Zweites Buch in terms of value as a historical source. Although it has long been apparent that a number of theories and approaches to foreign policy were current within the NSDAP around the· turn of the decade,29 there had until very recently been difficulties in accessing sufficient and reliable sources on the ideas and attitudes of Hitler himself. Indeed, even at the time the NSDAP's position on the major international questions was a source of some confusion and mystery, and several of the obstacles to a satisfactory analysis applied as much 70 years ago as they do today.

In late 1931, in response to reports of growing anxiety abroad about the aims of National Socialism, the state secretary at Wilhelmstrasse, Bernhard von Bulow, issued a circular summarizing what was known about the Nazi attitude on various foreign policy issues.30 As far as it was possible to judge from the party programme and the recent utterances of its leaders, he concluded that the NSDAP appeared to have no clearly discernible foreign policy agenda, and based its strategy, if indeed it could so be termed, on a relentless and stinging criticism of the foreign policy of the present German administration. Moreover, in several areas there appeared not only to be uncertainty but also contradiction, for respective Nazi spokesmen took up different positions on the same issue. Nevertheless, Bulow was able to identify some areas where there appeared to be a general consensus on the need for an end to reparations, the thorough dismantling of the Versailles system, friendship with Great Britain and Italy and, significantly from our point of view, the need to combat Bolshevism. In its attitude to the USSR, the state secretary informed his colleagues that the NSDAP had a 'clear and unambiguous line', for the fight against Bolshevism was a 'fixed goal of National Socialist foreign policy'. If nothing else, this statement reveals that by 1931 senior officials in the German foreign ministry were fully aware that anti-Bolshevism was not simply a factor in the Nazi Party's quest for power within Germany but a fixed principle of its intended international policy.

As he had since the early to mid-1920s, Hitler continued to attach great importance to the cultivation of good relations and an eventual alliance with Britain. He believed that the British would value and appreciate a strong Germany, which, having renounced any aspirations to world power, would by virtue of its existence safeguard British interests on the continent.31 By the early 1930s, however, partly because he had reoriented his views on the relationship between Britain and France, Hitler appeared prepared to make further concessions to achieve an Anglo-German partnership. Chief among these was to be the abandonment of revisionist designs in northern and western Europe.32 Moreover, there was now considerably less emphasis on the possibility of Anglo German collaboration against France. To be sure, that element was still present, but Hitler now viewed Anglo-German relations much more from the point of view of a shared ideological antipathy to Bolshevism and the increasing threat posed to Europe by the USSR than from the previously rather limited perspective of a mutual antagonism towards France. Once secured from the threat of any renewed maritime or colonial rivalry with Germany, and assured that the National Socialist regime posed no threat to their most immediate security interests on the continent, Hitler could see no reason why the British should not come to a close working association with Germany on the basis of hostility towards the Soviet Union.

Indeed, that association had now become a vital necessity for both powers because the British, and indeed the French, surely had as much to fear from the red peril as the German fatherland. Moreover, in terms of sheer power politics, the NSDAP saw little distinction between the threat the USSR posed to British interests in India and the Far East and the threat the former imperial Russian regime had presented in previous years.33 Britain thus had much to fear from Bolshevism not only in Europe but at vital points of its empire, and it was in this connection that a rejuvenated, revitalized and powerful Germany could be of the greatest use to it. When a British journalist asked him what he would demand from England in return for German friendship, Hitler named two conditions:

British backing for the cancellation of reparations and, rather more revealingly, the acceptance by Britain of a 'free hand in the east', which would allow Germany's 'surplus millions ... a chance to expand into the empty spaces on our eastern frontiers'.34 Here, too, Hitler demonstrated the essential consistency of his views, for this was simply a repetition of the formula, first articulated in the mid1920s, of a separation and mutual recognition of German interests in Europe and Britain's interests in the wider world.

Not only that, but Hitler continued to believe that the survival of both countries depended on their collaboration, for it was not possible, he argued, to stand by and permit Bolshevism to conquer Germany and expect the rest of Europe, including the British Isles, to remain uncontaminated.35 In that sense, Britain needed Germany as much as Germany needed Britain. 'England also recognizes the danger Russia presents', he exclaimed to Otto Wagener in autumn 1931. 'England needs a sword on the Continent. Thus our interests are the same - yes, we are even dependent on one another. If we are overrun by Bolshevism, England falls as well. But together we are strong enough to counter the international danger of Bolshevism. I want to and I must preserve the German Yolk from the hardship of Bolshevism. That can only be done with England.'36

Just as Hitler's view of the value and desirability of British friendship remained consistent, so too did his perception of Germany's principal antagonists. In Hitler's view, the salvation of Europe hinged on its ability to mobilize against the dual threat posed by France and the Soviet Union, a process in which Germany, Britain and Italy should take the lead. It had been and remained his conviction, he told an Italian journalist in April 1931, that only such an association could preserve peace and save European civilization from the corrosive influence of a France that was increasingly allowing its blood to be poisoned by the African peoples on the one hand, and from the 'nightmare of Asiatic Bolshevism' on the other.37

Nevertheless, although Hitler continued to attack French militarism and reparations policy in public, and despite his concern at their wanton disregard of the most basic principles of racial hygiene, there appears to have been a subtle but significant modification of his attitude to France in or around 1931. This was manifested in a move away from the Mein Kampf idea of a war of revenge against Germany's 'mortal foe' towards the possibility of coexistence on the admittedly unlikely basis of France accepting German dominance in Europe. Although the precise reasons for this reorientation remain unclear, the increased emphasis Hitler placed on the consolidation of the Soviet Union under Stalin, particularly following the inauguration of the first five-year plan in 1928, is perhaps not without significance.

The fact that by the early 1930s Hitler had revised his original idea of a war of revenge against France and subordinated that aim to the wider goal of organizing Europe to place Germany in the optimum position from which it could fall on the USSR is certainly suggested by his repeated public renunciation of German aims in Alsace-Lorraine, indeed in western Europe as a whole, and his periodic attempts to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with Paris, both of which, it is important to note, continued long after the period of initial consolidation. It is thus insufficient to view German approaches to France during the early 1930s solely as an attempt to deceive the French, and British, authorities at a time when the Reich was relatively weak and vulnerable. As Klaus Hildebrand noted, there were enough signs in Hitler's policy towards France between 1933 and 1936 to suggest that he was prepared to accept a tolerable relationship with it on the basis of a common front against the USSR, provided France abandoned its interests in eastern Europe and accepted its lot as essentially a second-rate European power whose main focus of activity lay overseas.38

Apart from direct public appeals for European, or in the first instance Anglo-German, solidarity against Bolshevism, a further means through which Hitler sought to highlight the international dimension of the red threat was by attempting to anchor the political struggle between the conservative and revolutionary forces within Germany in a wider European or global context. In opposing Bolshevism the National Socialists, unlike their democratic opponents, who were either already intriguing with Moscow or simply too blind to appreciate the dangers, were thus already rendering the international community a considerable service. The threat to other nations, however, was still tangible and imminent. As he told the Saturday Review in October 1931, the Nazi movement meant to 'make an end in Germany of the pestilence of Asiatic Bolshevism, which threatens the thousand year-old civilization of Europe and has thrown the incendiary bomb of chaos into every country in the world'. Should the reds emerge victorious in Germany, however, it 'would signalize the beginning of a world catastrophe'.39

Although there was naturally a good deal of cheap propaganda to be made from this line of reasoning, it would be unwise to dismiss it as pure rhetoric. Out of the public spotlight, Hitler was no less adamant about the magnitude of the problem and the importance of his self-appointed mission. Indeed, it was largely because the Soviet danger was so great that Germany required allies to confront it. Speaking to a group of German industrialists in Dusseldorf in January 1932, Hitler warned his listeners against underestimating Bolshevism, which was not simply 'a mob ranting about in a few streets in Germany', but 'a world view which is on the point of subjecting to its rule the entire continent of Asia'. The Bolshevik Weltanschauung had already conquered an area stretching from central Europe to Vladivostok, and, orchestrated by its Soviet controllers, it intended slowly to 'shatter the world and bring about its collapse'. Indeed, if it were permitted to proceed unopposed, Bolshevism would 'expose the world to a transformation as complete as the one Christianity effected'.40

The final method the NSDAP employed in its efforts to spread the anti-Bolshevik gospel to the outside world was to establish contacts abroad. Despite the fact that between 1928 and 1932 the Nazi Party was more an object of curiosity than interest to foreigners, and that as such its opportunities for developing diplomatic and political contacts with representatives of foreign powers were necessarily rather limited, Hitler and his associates made strenuous efforts to forge international links in the years immediately preceding their rise to power. Not surprisingly, in view of the alliance strategy Hitler had devised in the mid-1920s, the powers most frequently targeted in this connection were Italy and Great Britain.

Informal contacts were established with Mussolini as early as 1922 and were further developed as the decade progressed through the use of intermediaries such as Kurt Ludecke, GUiseppe Renzetti and Hermann Göring.41 Although the Nazi leader was undoubtedly sincere in his admiration for the Duce, seeing in him and his movement a shining example of the triumph of Italian nationalism,42 Mussolini appears from the first to have had mixed feelings about Hitler and his followers. There is certainly nothing to suggest that he looked forward enthusiastically to the day when he might confront the USSR in alliance with a National Socialist Germany. For Mussolini's purposes, German nationalism was of much greater practical value when it was mobilized against France rather than against distant and alien Russia. Bolshevism was certainly anathema to the fascists, but Mussolini, lacking any aggressive designs on Soviet territory, and unburdened by Hitler's racial theories that automatically linked the Jews and the Bolsheviks,43 was rather more defensive in his attitude towards the Soviet Union and its supposed international machinations.

Despite his warm feelings for the Duce and fascism, it was clearly London rather than Rome that in Hitler's eyes held the key to combating the jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy', and it was partly with the intention of persuading the British of that fact that the NSDAP had a number of propaganda agents, including Hans Nieland, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Eugen Lehnkering operating in Britain during the early 1930s. The most significant party member to visit London during this period was Alfred Rosenberg, who arrived in England in November 1931 with the intention of encouraging understanding for Nazi ideas and emphasizing Germany's role as the first line of defence against the eastern menace.44 During the course of his visit Rosenberg was introduced to several senior figures, including the secretary of state for war, Lord Hailsham, who later forwarded a record of the conversation to the Foreign Office. Following the habitual denunciation of the French position on disarmament and reparations, the Nazi envoy launched into a lengthy disquisition about the fight against Bolshevism, which he characterized as a matter both for internal suppression by individual countries and a suitable area for large-scale international cooperation. The Nazi Party, he explained, had been established to champion German nationalism and root out communism with its divisive doctrine of class warfare. Externally, enthused Rosenberg, the NSDAP looked forward to 'worldwide cooperation against Russia and the successful defeat of the Russian five-year plan, both on its commercial and on its military side'.45

This was not the last the Foreign Office would hear of Rosenberg who returned to London in May 1933 on a further visit with much the same purposes. By that time there had been a marked increase in Nazi propaganda in London, much of which was calculated to exploit British fears of and distaste for the Bolshevik regime in Moscow. Moreover, the British authorities quickly grasped the ultimate purpose of this intensive propaganda activity. Commenting on an MI5 survey of the nature of Nazi propaganda in London towards the close of 1933, the head of the northern department, Laurence Collier, noted how the basic message of the German agents confirmed other reports that had also stressed the 'strong hold which the "Rosenberg policy" of expansion in Russia and the Baltic has on the Nazi leaders - in spite of its inherent fatuity'.46 Fatuous or not, the combination of German territorial aims in eastern Europe and their political adjunct in the form of an ideological campaign against Bolshevism was set to confound Anglo-German relations over the next few years, and in the process play an instrumental role in driving the two powers ever further apart.

In view of the unprecedented destruction and cost in human life that ultimately resulted from Hitler's actions, it might reasonably be contested that the notion of his having some touching concern to save Europe from the ravages of communism and a consequent desire, predicated admittedly on the assumption that attack is the best form of defense, to organize a system capable of extinguishing the ideological threat posed by the USSR is too ludicrous to entertain. Indeed, according to Kurt Uidecke, Hitler aimed all along to 'play ball with capitalism and keep the Versailles Powers in line by holding aloft the bogey of Bolshevism', for by so doing he would be able to convince them that a Nazi Germany was the 'last bulwark against the Red flood', which in turn was 'the only way to come through the danger period, to get rid of Versailles and rearm'.47 On the basis of evidence such as this it has been argued that Hitler's stance against Bolshevism, both within Germany and in the international arena, was essentially a sham.48 On an emotional level, precisely because of his impact on Europe and the wider world, the portrayal of Hitler as a shallow, self-seeking megalomaniac, half mad and devoid of genuine convictions, has an almost compelling appeal. Here too, however, a distinction must be drawn between sincerity and rhetoric, and between objectivity and sentimentality. The idea of mobilizing the European powers behind an Anglo-German front in order to combat Bolshevism was not merely a publicity stunt exercised for the benefit of foreign journalists in the hope of creating a positive impression abroad, but also a recurrent theme of Hitler's private conversations with colleagues such as Otto Wagener, who is patently a more reliable witness than the likes of Uidecke or Rauschning. Moreover, as demonstrated above, by 1930 an alliance with Britain on the basis of hostility to Bolshevism and in open anticipation of a future conflict with the USSR lay at the core of Hitler's foreign policy calculations.

In view of these factors, it can confidently be asserted that, despite the obvious propaganda mileage to be made from anti Bolshevism and the portrayal of Germany as a bulwark against the proliferation of Marxist-Leninist ideology, there was a good deal of sincerity behind Hitler's anti-Bolshevik message and the use to which he sought to put it, both within and outside Germany. Because it is impossible to view Hitler's attitude to the Bolsheviks in a vacuum, as if it were simply a device to win votes or a cover for nakedly imperialistic aims and thus entirely divorced from his racial theories, merely strengthens this point. To do so would be to ignore the intimate connection in Hitler's mind between the Bolsheviks and the Jews. Consequently, it would be equally foolish to deny that his racially determined hatred of the Jews and his political rejection of Marx were inextricably connected.

The force of this argument is not at all diminished by Hitler's frequent references to Germany's need for Lebensraum, which since 1922 he had determined would be found in the USSR, or by his conviction that Stalin's Russia, irrespective of its ideological identity, was, as the new centre of pan-Slavism, essentially no less a threat to central and western Europe. Nazi territorial aims in European Russia are not somehow separate from but rather complementary to the party's proclaimed mission to extirpate Bolshevism. The essential point to grasp is that no one factor alone can adequately explain Hitler's declared intention to smash the Soviet state. A series of complex and interlinked racial, imperialist and ideological factors, in which a determination to combat the international conspiracy that Bolshevism represented assumed a duly prominent role, conditioned his attitude. This debate, and the issue of the relative importance of imperialism and ideology, which it naturally raises, clearly lies at the core of this study and it is one to which we shall periodically have cause to return.

The general picture that emerges from this analysis of Hitler's attitude to the European powers and the potential role assigned to them in his plans for a crusade against Bolshevism is fairly clear. By 1933 the Nazi leader had plans to cooperate with certain major powers, foremost of which was Great Britain, on the basis of a shared antipathy to Bolshevism and the Soviet Union. By this stage the ideological imperative of Hitler's foreign policy was highly significant, more so than in the mid-1920s when there had been a greater emphasis on power political considerations, which had largely manifested themselves in schemes for an Anglo-German Italian alliance against France. By 1931-32 Hitler was toying with the idea of an agreement with France on the basis of anti Bolshevism, and even with the idea of a broadly based anti-Soviet coalition led by Britain and Germany. In this connection his words to Otto Wagener in the early 1930s are highly revealing. Commenting on a remark that Wagener had evidently made to him in connection with the pace of Soviet rearmament, Hitler explained:

What you told me earlier about Russian armaments serves only to make us realize that the sooner we can make up our minds to shatter the universal danger of Russian Bolshevism at its centre of power, the easier it will be got rid of. Furthermore, if Europe is to prevail in the decisive battle with America, it must have the grain, the meat, the wood, the coal, the iron, and the oil of Russia. That is in England's interest as well as in ours, it is in the interest of a United States of Europe! England and Germany are equally threatened. But they are also the backbone of the West, the old world, the cultural source of mankind. And a Europe that stretches from Gibraltar to the Caucasus includes all the spheres of interest of the countries that belong to it in other parts of the world - especially all of Africa, India, the Malayan archipelago, Australia, and New Zealand. Canada will also remain loyal to such a concentration of power, which would otherwise fall to America; and the Arabic family of nations will complete the circle of these United States of the old world. This is the prize we offer England! World peace would be assured for all eternity. No earthly power could sow discord into such a community, and no army or navy in the world could shake such power. It cannot be that England does not recognize and understand this. In any case, I am prepared, even at the risk of failing to persuade England, to take this road, and I will never betray Europe to bolshevism andJewry.49

Although Hitler hoped that it would ultimately be possible to interest the British in an alliance based on a common ideological antipathy to the USSR, and thus on an agreed agenda to combat the forces of international Jewry, his latter statements to Wagener demonstrate that he was not entirely convinced of Britain's ability to master its own Jewish problem. Rational considerations of Realpolitik, and less tangible notions of ideological solidarity, were thus tempered by fears about the extent of Jewish influence in Britain, which, as a democracy, was especially vulnerable to Jewish infiltration and manipulation. Democracy, Hitler believed, was easily exploited by the Jewish Marxists for their own distinctly undemocratic ends. It was thus 'madness' to imagine that one could counter jewry's ambitions for 'world conquest' by adopting the 'methods of Western democracy'.50 As the Volkischer Beobachter proclaimed in September 1925, Western parliamentarianism and Russian Bolshevism were the two forms 'in which the present Jewish world conspiracy finds its expression'.51 Small wonder therefore that Hitler considered the 'decisive influence' wielded in Britain by world Jewry to be a crucial issue determining the future course of Anglo-German relations.52 For however much he might desire cooperation with the British, such desires must and would come to nothing if the British could not resolve the contradictions between the aims of Jewish international finance and their own national interests. Resolute and ideologically sound allies were required for the fight against 'Jewish Bolshevism', not least as it was in Germany that the 'bitterest struggle for the victory of Jewry' was currently being fought. 53 In this respect it is significant that during the mid-1930s, when Hitler's dream of an association with Britain proved to be an illusion, he explained the failure of his policy not only in terms of Britain's attitude to power politics and its commitment to the maintenance of a balance of power in Europe, but also as a result of Britain's fundamental ideological failings. The German Reich, he hissed in February 1936, was surrounded by 'Bolshevik infested democracies'. 54

The heated denunciations of Jewish Bolshevism' in which Hitler frequently indulged during the 1920s and early 1930s, the repeated warnings against the spread of Bolshevik influence and the clarion calls for international collaboration to combat and ultimately destroy it cannot be characterized as pure rhetoric, the sole or even primary function of which was to drum up support for the NSDAP in its struggle with the communists and the other German political parties. Well might Hitler declare during an exchange with Wagener that he had not taken the road of politics to 'smooth the way for international socialism'.55 Indeed, in his public speeches and press interviews, in the orders he issued to the NSDAP and in his private conversations everything pointed to the very opposite conclusion. It remained to be seen, however, once the NSDAP swept to power in January 1933, whether these ideas were really the stuff of which practical politics, and ultimately war and conquest, might be made.

 

1.        See Stoakes, Hitler and the Quest for World Dominion, pp. 51ff. On Class and the Pan-German League see R. Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886-1914 (London, 1984); A. Kruck, Geschichte des Alldeutschen Verbandes (Wiesbaden, 1954).

2.        For representative early pronouncements by Hitler on foreign policy issues see HSA, no. 66, 'Brest-Litovsk und Versailles', Rede auf einer DAP-Versammlung, 13 November 1919; ibid., no. 87, 'Die Wahrheit uber den "Gewaltfrieden von Brest-Litowsk?" [sic] und den sogenannten "Frieden der Versohnung und Verstandigung von Versailles', Rede auf einer NSDAP-Versammlung, 4 March 1920; Phelps, 'Hitler als Parteiredner', no. 4. Speech at the Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal, 27 April 1920.

3.        See HSA, no. 141, 'Betrogen, verraten und verkauft', Rede auf einer NSDAP-Versammlung, 5 September 1920.

4.        See, for example, ibid., no. 69, 'Deutschland vor seiner tiefsten Emiedrigung', Rede auf einer DAP-Versammlung, 10 December 1919.

5.        On this see Phelps, 'Hitler als Parteiredner', no. 3. 'Nationalsozialistische [sic] Deutsche Arbeiterpartei im Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal am 17 April 1920'.

6.        Ibid. In September 1920 he accused the Jews of fanning the flames of war. Ibid., no. 15, 'Versammlung der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei Munchen im Hofbrauhausfestsaal am 22 September 1920, abends 8 Uhr'.

7.        HSA, no. 121, 'Spa, Boischewismus und politische Tagesfragen', Rede auf einem NSDAP-Sprechabend, 21 July 1920. See also ibid., no. 124, 'Spa-Moskau-oder Wir?', Rede auf einer NSDAP-Versammlung, 27 July 1920.

8.        Phelps, 'Hitler als Parteiredner', no. 3. 'National-sozialistische [sic] Deutsche Arbeiterpartei im Hofbrauhaus-Festsaal am 17 April 1920'.

9.        HSA, no. 118, Rede auf einer NSDAP-Versammlung, 6 July 1920.

10.      Ibid., no. 305, Rede auf einer NSDAP Versammlung, 21 October 1921.
Notably, Hitler reasoned during this speech that Germany was now confronted with exactly the same choice it had faced vis-a-vis Russia and Britain before 1914.

11.      BBL, R43V2681, E. A. Scharrer, 'Bericht nach Hitlers personlichen Ausführungen', December 1922, p. 4.

12.      Ibid.

13.      This view is supported by Axel Kuhn and Klaus Hildebrand. See Kuhn, Hitlers aussenpolitisches Programm, pp. 70ff; Hildebrand, Foreign Policy of the Third Reich, pp. 19ff.

14.      HSA, no. 393, 'Freistaat oder Sklaventum?' Rede auf einer NSDAP Versammlung, 28 July 1922.

15.      See Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 696, 699, 763-5, 766; Hitler, Zweites Buch, passim.

16.      Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 184-5. See also pp. 69-70, 356, 750-1. In a speech delivered on 27 February 1925 Hitler identified as the 'clear and simple' goal of the NSDAP 'the struggle against Marxism and the spiritual carrier of this world pestilence and scourge, the Jew'. RSA, I, no. 6, 'Deutschlands Zukunft und unsere Bewegung', Rede auf [einer] NSDAP-Versammlung, 27 February 1925 (emphasis in the original).

17.      Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 752 (emphasis in the original).

18.      Ibid., p. 724 (emphasis in the original).

19.      Ibid., p. 728 (emphasis in the original).

20.      Ibid., p. 738.

21.      Ibid., p. 154.

22.      Hitler, Zweites Buch, pp. 163-6.

23.      According to Hitler, even before the First World War, Germany should have renounced 'her senseless colonial policy ... her merchant marine and war fleet', and 'concluded an alliance with England ... thus passing from a feeble global policy to a determined European policy of territorial acquisition on the continent'. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 753.

24.      As we shall see, Hitler continued to express his fears of the Bolshevik threat and often spoke of an Anglo-German-Italian union against Bolshevism. See, for example, RSA, IV/2, no. 84. Interview with Sunday Graphic and Sunday News, 5 December 1931; ibid., VII, no. 66. Interview with Carlo Scorza, 29 April 1932.

25.      Hitler, Zweites Buch, pp. 102, 155.

26.      Ibid., p. 153.

27.      Ibid., p. 159.

28.      Ibid., p. 102.

29.      Although Hitler's attitude to Russia was clear, his anti-Russian, pro British policy was not without its critics. In the early I930s a circle of prominent Nazis (including Goring and Reventlow) wanted to remove Rosenberg's influence from the formulation of Nazi foreign policy. It was believed that if Rosenberg were frozen out then it would be easier to move the NSDAP in the direction of a pro-Russian policy and thus away from Hitler's preferred German-British-Italian understanding. BK, ZSg. 133/42, unsigned memorandum, 30 July 1931. Goring's love hate relationship with Russia was exemplified by his declaration in November 1931 that while he 'greatly admired the Soviet system ... he detested the Soviet doctrine'. DBFP, 2/ll, no. 302, notes of a conversation between Mr Yencken and Captain Goring, 24 November 1931.

30.      Akten zur drutschen Auswartigen Politik 1918-1945, Serie B, 1925-1933, vols I-XXI, eds H. Rothfels, W. BuBmann et al. (Gottingen, 1966-1983) [hereafter ADAP, B] XIX, no. 105, Bulow circular, 8 December 1931.

31.      RSA, lVII, no. 8. Interview with The Times, 14 October 1930. See also ibid., III/2, no. 119. Interview with New York American, December 1929; ibid., no. 124. Interview with Daily Mail, 25 September 1930.

32.      See Wagener, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, p. 230.

33.      DBFP, 2/lI, no. 302, notes of a conversation between Mr Yencken and Captain Goring, 24 November 1931.

34.      RSA, lVII, no. 111, interview with Daily Express, 1 May 1931.

35.      Hitler frequently spoke of his fears of the nightmare scenario that one day the Bolshevist menace could spread so that the 'Red Flag flew from Vladivostock [sic] to the English Channel'. In the battle against the international threat posed by Bolshevism the NSDAP was a 'vital necessity' not only to Germany but also to Britain and Europe. Ibid., no. 1, interview with The Times, 2 October 1930. For similar views see ibid., IV/2, no. 15, interview with Reuters, July 1931; ibid., no. 91, Rundfunkrede, 11 December 1931.

36.      Wagener, Memoirs of a Confidant, p. 157 (emphasis in the original). See also p. 173.

37.      RSA, lVII, no. 110, interview with II Popolo d'Italia. The concept of 'Asiatic Bolshevism' employed here by Hitler and dating back in National Socialist terminology to the early 1920s established rather a neat link between the racial and political dimensions of his anti Bolshevik ideology. This may have been specifically designed to make the maximum impact on and elicit the maximum capital from the racial and political prejudices of his audience both inside and outside Germany.

38.      K. Hildebrand, German Foreign Policy from Bismarck to Adenauer: The Limits of Statecraft, trans. L. Willmot (London, 1989) pp. 121-49. See also F. Knipping, 'Frankreich in Hiders Aussenpolitik 1933-1939', in M. Funke (ed.) Hitler, Deutschland und die Machte: Materialien zur
Auflenpolitik des Dritten Reiches (Dusseldorf, 1976) pp. 612-27. Hitler even mentioned the idea of an accommodation with France to the ltalian press - a significant point given that he had hitherto deliberately stressed the common enmity felt towards France. RSA, IV/2, no. 87. Interview with Gazzetta del Popolo, 6 December 1931. See also ibid., no. 99, Interview with Christian Science Monitor, 22 December 1931.

39.      Ibid., no. 56. Article in Saturday Review, 24 October 1931. This article entitled 'Germany at the Crossroads' subsequently appeared in Spanish and Italian newspapers.

40.      Domarus, 1/1, 27 January 1932, speech to the Industrieklub, p. 77.
Hitler also sought to highlight these aspects in newspaper articles, open letters and, significantly, in his communications with senior officials of the German army, where there was considerable support for the Rapallo policy of collaboration with the USSR. See RSA, lVII, no. 15, '''Das Telegramm Herves und Deutschland", Erklarung', 26 October 1930; ibid., no. 24, "'Deutschland und Frankreichs Abrustung", Erklarung', 7 November 1930; ibid, V/2, no 15, '''Nationalsozialistische Weltauffassung gegen Ideenlosigkeit und Dilettantismus"; Schreiben an Franz von Papen', 16 October 1932. On the military aspect, see Hitler's letter to von Reichenau of 4 December 1932 published in A. Adamthwaite, The Lost Peace: International Relations in Europe 1918-1939 (London, 1980) pp. 131-6.

41.      RSA, IV/3, no. 16, interview with La Stampa, 31 January 1932. See also J. Petersen, Hitler-Mussolini: Die Entstehung der Achse Berlin-Rom 19331936 (Tubingen, 1973) pp. 24-6,44-8.

42.      See, for example, RSA, V/2, no. 4, interview with II Tevere, 4 October 1932.

43.      In June 1932, in a conversation with Prince Starhemberg, the Austrian Heimwehr leader, Mussolini condemned the Nazis' virulent antiSemitism as 'stupid and barbarous'. See Prince Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of Ernst Rudiger Prince Starhemberg (London, 1942) p. 24.

44.      See ADAP, B, XIX, no 105, Bulow circular, 8 December 1931; H-A.
Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, 1933-1938 (Frankfurt am Main, 1968) pp. 73-5; F. W. Winterbotham, The Nazi Connection (London, 1978) pp. 30ff.

45.      PRO, F0371/15217/C9862, FO minute, 31 December 1931. The conversation had actually taken place on 4 December.

46.      Ibid., F0371/16751/Cl0679, minute by Collier, 13 December 1933.

47.      K. Ludecke, I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi who Escaped the Blood Purge (London, 1938) p. 422.

48.     As a representative example see W. Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict (London, 1965) pp. 158-9.

49.     Wagener, Memoirs of a Confidant, pp. 173-4 (emphasis in the original).

50.     Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 413.

51.     VB, 17 September 1925.

52.     Hitler, Zweites Buch, pp. 174-5. See also p. 223.

53.     Ibid., p. 223.

54.     E. M. Robertson, 'Zur Wiederbesetzung des Rheinlandes 1936', VfZ, 10 (1962) pp. 178-204, here p. 194, memorandum by Hassell, 19 February 1936.

55.     Wagener, Memoirs of a Confidant, p. 165.

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