During the period 1938 to 1941, the years of the Nazi regime's greatest foreign and military triumphs, some of which were achieved in partnership with the despised Soviet Union, it might plausibly be argued that, despite all the denunciations, appeals and warnings against the supposed Bolshevik threat, Hitler finally revealed himself as the supreme opportunist in matters of diplomacy, although that in itself need not necessarily preclude an ideological dimension to his foreign policy. Indeed, it might appear that from the winter of 1937-38 onwards the German campaign against Bolshevism ground to an abrupt halt. This was because on the one hand a series of unexpected crises arose that had to be addressed and on the other the failure of German policy towards Britain meant that Hitler was forced to adjust his original intentions towards that power. Yet, a strong case can also be made to demonstrate that, although anti-Bolshevism per se undeniably took a back seat in comparison with the emphasis attached to it in earlier years, especially, in the context of 1938-39, in relation to considerations, however insincerely advanced, of national self-determination, it was used periodically for tactical purposes, notably during the Munich crisis, in pursuit of the broader aim of positioning Germany for what in 1940 Hitler reputedly termed the 'great and real task - the conflict with Bolshevism' in which- self evidently - ideological factors played a significant role.1

Part of the problem in placing anti-Bolshevism in the general context of German policy, and of Hitler's long-term aims during the years 1938-39, is the significance that is justifiably accorded to the meeting he held with his senior military and diplomatic advisers at the Reich Chancellery on 5 November 1937, the so-called Hossbach Conference.2 We do not intend to dispute the general importance of that gathering for any understanding of Hitler's ultimate aims for Germany in Europe or the means through which, in certain eventualities, he would seek to achieve them. Nevertheless, due to the central position the Hossbach Conference occupies in the historiography,3 coupled with the fact that during 1938-39 Hitler undeniably had to adjust to a series of events not entirely of his own making, other aspects of German policy can become obscured, overshadowed or even ignored.

The central question arising from the Hossbach Conference in the context of this study concerns Hitler's failure at any point in the proceedings to refer specifically to Bolshevism and other issues relating to ideological struggle, and his silence on the planned seizure of vast tracts of land in the USSR. Given the purpose of the conference, however, or rather the way Hitler's monologue developed according to the record, these failings can hardly be considered particularly surprising, precisely because he was speaking about the realization of his immediate aims, namely the preliminary objectives that had to be secured before the real quest for Lebensraum began, and the risks that Germany could afford to run in pursuit of them. Despite the omission of any reference to Bolshevism, the Hossbach Conference demonstrated nothing if not the consistency of Hitler's view that Germany required large-scale territorial expansion to secure its future, for which the absorption of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the chief focus of Hitler's remarks, would be necessary prerequisites. In this sense any specific reference to the USSR or to the ideological bases of the envisaged conflict with Russia would have been superfluous. They would probably only have further alarmed Neurath, Blomberg and Fritsch who were already sufficiently anxious about Hitler's assessment of the probable reaction of Britain and France in the event of German aggression in central Europe. Moreover, from Hitler's statement that Germany, having improved its strategic situation, would proceed to solve the Lebensraum problem by 1943-45 at the latest, it is not as if they could have been left in any doubt about the scale of what was intended, or that they could have interpreted the totality of his aims as being limited to the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

In this context it is important to note that both before and after the events of 5 November the Fuhrer reinforced his message about the plague of Bolshevism, the folly of those who underestimated it and, almost now as an afterthought, the need for European solidarity against it. During his dosing speech at the Nuremberg rally on 13 September, for example, Hitler reiterated and reinforced much of what his propaganda minister had said in his own address, which, in the eyes of one German journalist, had marked the onset of the 'final struggle' with Bolshevism, the destruction of which remained Germany's 'world mission'.4 Both Goebbels and Hitler were undeniably critical of democracy in their speeches, but it is crucial to note that the criticisms were linked to the continued failure of the Western powers to acknowledge the extent of the threat facing them and their failure to appreciate Germany's services as a bulwark against the USSR. In the circumstances, this was clearly a reference to Britain.

Congratulating his movement on its success in making the Reich immune from Bolshevik infiltration, Hitler noted how this had set Germany aside from the 'supposed' victors of the First World War who had since fallen victim to 'the creeping poison of internal dissolution'. It was as well that Germany was strong in present circumstances because, with Italy, it stood at the forefront in a struggle against a 'veritable world sickness', a 'plague which devastates whole peoples'. Hitler was highly critical of the 'willful blindness' of those who continued to deny or ignore the threat from Moscow and, in terms redolent of the preamble to his memorandum on the four-year plan of August 1936, stated that much as the democracies might like to wash their hands of communism, 'concern themselves with Communism they must one of these days' otherwise their political systems would 'in one way or another ... fall in ruins'. Europe constituted a community of nations, he averred, and it would stand or fall as such in the face of the 'poisonous infection' of Bolshevism. Having set down its roots in Russia following its decimation of the Germanic elite, 'Jewish Bolshevism' had established 'a base of operations and a bridgehead from which it can attempt further conquests'. As such, the problem was thus 'no longer confined to Russia'; it had become a 'world question which must be determined in one way or another'. Germany was not about to permit the progress of Bolshevism to destroy it politically and economically - nor should other countries, warned Hitler, appearing once more to urge the European states to stand together in the face of the mounting dangers. Germany, he continued, had no wish to isolate itself; on the contrary, it was anxious to cooperate with those who similarly aspired to the development of a true European community. By the same token, however, the Reich categorically refused to be 'united with those whose programme is the destruction of Europe and who make no secret of that fact'.5

The German chancellor's New Year proclamation to the NSDAP, issued from Munich on 1 January 1938, in which he proudly referred to the improvement that had been effected in the world position of the Reich since 1933, echoed these latter points. Germany, with its powerful friends - an unmistakable reference to the triangular Anti-Comintern Pact - had helped to create 'an international element of self-confident order', which stood in sharp contrast to the 'meanderings of those dark powers which Mommsen once described as the enzyme of decomposition for all peoples and all states'. It was, he declared, 'this new framework of true cooperation between the peoples which will ultimately be the downfall of the Jewish-Bolshevist world revolt!'6 A short time earlier, in a conversation with Goebbels about the purges currently taking place in the USSR, Hitler had given an intimation of the pivotal role to be played by Germany in this process. Stalin must be mentally sick, he exclaimed en route to Munich. 'Crazy! Otherwise there is no explanation for it all. Has to be exterminated.'7

Before the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis and a series of developments in Austria necessarily engaged his attention,8 and notwithstanding the different focus of his statements at the Hossbach Conference, Hitler seemed as preoccupied with the threat of Bolshevism as ever. In conversations with the Polish foreign minister, Josef Beck, and the Yugoslavian minister president, Milan Stoyadinovich, on 14 and 17 january respectively, he expatiated at length on the subject of communism and Russia; to Stoyadinovich in particular he had criticized the British for their short-sighted indifference to the peril of Bolshevism.9 Having weathered the storm created by the Blomberg-Fritsch affair, and with German designs on Austria brought one step closer to realization by the Berchtesgaden Agreement, Hitler would be given a further reminder of the scale of his original miscalculation about Britain and the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance when on 3 March the British proposed a colonial settlement in return for guarantees of Germany's commitment to appeasement in Europe.10 After registering his barely concealed contempt for any such idea, Hitler proceeded forcefully to assert Germany's right to dominate central Europe, highlight the military danger posed by the Soviet Union, insist on the futility of all attempts to cooperate with the USSR, and finally to castigate the Western powers for their failure to respond to his past offers of friendship, which had been geared towards a 'unification of Europe without Russia'.11

Eight days after this conversation took place the German army rolled into Austria. The details of the Anschluss need not detain us here, not least because it has already been established that in the case of Austria the Nazi political leadership perceived anti-Bolshevism as having at best a negligible influence on the development of the evolutionary solution of the Austrian question, which Hitler had favoured since 1934.12 According to the German government the Anschluss was, to all intents and purposes, a 'family affair' in which people of a common blood and heritage were united, thereby rectifying one of the most glaring and unjust denials of self-determination to have emerged from the 1919 peace settlement.13

During the crisis that culminated in the Munich Agreement in September 1938 the Germans again focused their attention on the denial of self-determination to the Sudeten German minority, which, under the Treaty of Versailles, had been incorporated into Czechoslovakia. Shortly after the Anschluss, which had created a new strategic balance in southeast Europe distinctly inimical to Czech security, Hitler received the leader of the Sudeten Germans, Konrad Henlein, and instructed him to use the grievances of his followers to create a crisis in Czechoslovakia that would ultimately provide Germany with a pretext for armed intervention.14 As had recently been the case with Austria, nationalist aspirations would thus again provide an ideal cover under which to take the first preparatory steps towards the conquest of Lebensraum in Russia and the concomitant annihilation of Jewish Bolshevism'. What made the Czechoslovakian case different from that of Austria, and what in effect transformed it into a major international crisis that brought Europe to the brink of war, was first the fact that Czechoslovakia was a formidable military power in its own right, and thus both a threat to Germany's eastern flank and a barrier to its eastward expansion, and second that it was an ally of both France and the Soviet Union.

In view of the events of the summer of 1938, it might easily be assumed that Hitler harbored a particular dislike for Czechs, which partly explains the relish and enthusiasm with which he plotted against and ultimately destroyed their country. Yet such an impression is barely substantiated by an examination of the contemporary evidence. Brigitte Hamann, for example, has found that, apart from one incidental remark to his close friend August Kubizek, 'no other anti-Czech utterances are documented from Hitler's Vienna years'.15 Similarly, in the future chancellor's writings of the 1920s, Czechoslovakia is hardly mentioned save for one passing reference in the Zweites Buch to its position as France's ally. The point was made not so much to highlight a distinct threat to the Reich from southeast Europe, but to demonstrate once more that Germany's 'most dangerous enemy' was France, as 'she alone, thanks to her alliances, is in a position to be able to threaten almost the whole of Germany with aircraft'.16 It is perhaps worth noting that this military factor also applied to Poland, with which Hitler sought and for a time achieved a reasonable working relationship rooted in opposition to Bolshevism. Indeed, this is not the only similarity to be drawn between the position of Poland and Czechoslovakia in German calculations, for both also contained large German minorities and were clearly important in geostrategic terms in view of Hitler's aims in Russia. Moreover, it should be recalled that in the early 1930s it was Poland rather than Czechoslovakia that had first taken fright at the growth of German nationalism by concluding in 1932 a treaty of non-aggression with the Soviet Union. By that time Hitler had already mentioned Czechoslovakia in the context of a German-led economic bloc against the USSR.17 Before the Czechs effectively sealed their own fate in 1935 by entering into a military alliance with Russia, there are indeed signs that Hitler was at least prepared to explore the possibility of an arrangement with Czechoslovakia not dissimilar to the one he was to achieve with Poland.18

Whatever Hitler's original intentions vis-a-vis Czechoslovakia, there can be little doubt that the alliance President Masaryk signed with Stalin within two months of the reintroduction of conscription in Germany primarily determined that power's position in his calculations after the spring of 1935. Hitler rarely found himself in complete agreement with his career diplomats, but even he is unlikely to have questioned their characterization of the Czech Soviet alliance of 16 May 1935 as being 'unilaterally and exclusively directed against Germany'.19 More importantly, especially in view of the Franco-Soviet Pact, which had been concluded two weeks earlier, France, Russia and Czechoslovakia now constituted, in the words of Richard Meyer, head of the Wilhelmstrasse's eastern European division, 'a single political and military instrument'; as such, the Czech-Soviet treaty was an event of 'decisive importance' for Germany. By virtue of their alliance with Russia, the Czechs had 'assumed a heavy political responsibility and have created a serious danger', for they would now 'necessarily become involved in any conflicts arising in the East'.20

Indeed, the dangers inherent in the new arrangements were apparent for all to see, not least as shortly after the conclusion of its alliance with the USSR the international press began to refer to Czechoslovakia as a 'deployment zone' for Soviet forces, particularly the Soviet air force, in the heart of central Europe.21

The evocative image of Czechoslovakia as a 'Soviet aircraft carrier' was a· veritable gift for the Nazi regime and, from mid-1935 onwards, it was exploited on every conceivable occasion. Such was the emphasis placed on the issue in Berlin that, following a short visit to the German capital in early 1936, Ernst Eisenlohr, the German minister to Prague, told Masaryk's successor, Edouard Benes, that in every Government office I entered, every conversation I had started with the phrase 'Czechoslovakia is the aircraft carrier of Soviet Russia'. In the press and in private conversations the fear was repeatedly expressed that Czechoslovakia was making ready airfields for the Russian Air Force and was building factories for the repair of Russian aircraft, and that a Russian squadron was already stationed there.22

Unsurprisingly, given the general anti-Bolshevik tenor of the speeches at the 1936 Nuremberg rally, this aspect of the European situation received ample comment from the Nazi leaders in their addresses to the rank and file of the NSDAP. 'The Bolshevists state that they are conducting a campaign against militarism,' Rosenberg had declared on 9 September, but this was hardly borne out by the fact that on the western frontier of the USSR the Jewish managed Soviet army', buttressed by its alliances with France and Czechoslovakia, was waiting for revolutionary conditions to develop in the west that would permit it finally to launch its 'attack on Europe'.23

Hitler made the same point more succinctly during his speech to the Reichstag on 30 January 1937. The Franco-Soviet and CzechSoviet treaties, he declared, had simply delivered 'Central Europe to Soviet Russia as the field of play for its gigantic forces'. 24 N evertheless, the concern of the Nazi regime about the extent of Soviet ideological influence in Czechoslovakia remains difficult to determine, not least because, irrespective of the scale of its supposed political subservience to Moscow, the Czech state, if it refused to accept German dictation, had to disappear purely on geostrategic grounds in view of the future quest for Lebensraum in Russia. Ideological considerations did, however, playa role in the development of German policy towards Czechoslovakia during the mid-1930s, and especially at the time of the Munich crisis of 1938. The archives reveal that by early 1936 reports assessing the attitudes of the main political parties in Czechoslovakia towards communism were finding their way to the Reich Chancellery via the Berlin based Sudetendeutscher Dienst. What use was made of this information is unclear, but at the very least it surely provided further ammunition for the Nazi propaganda machine.25 In 1937 the Antikomintern also apparently planned to establish a 'Czechoslovak League for Defence against Bolshevism', which, according to Eisenlohr, would operate primarily under German influence and the promotion of which 'even in this country would undoubtedly be in our interests'.26

For their part the Czechs, fully alive to the blow dealt to their security by the reoccupation of the Rhineland in March 1936, vainly sought a rapprochement with Germany in the months that followed. The Czech authorities were subsequently at great pains to profess their dislike of the Soviet connection, even to the extent of offering to cooperate with the Gestapo to eradicate communist propaganda on their territory.27 Czechoslovakia would 'strive in the future for the greatest integrity towards Germany', Benes had told the Austrian minister in Prague in November 1937. 'Her close relations with Russia, which were always being thrown in his teeth, had nothing whatsoever to do with any similarity of ideologies', but 'arose from the necessity of the balance of power in Europe and from the realization that Russia represented a political reality, regardless of the regime which was in the saddle there'.28 Any such assurances were destined to fall on deaf ears in Berlin where, long before Hitler made his intentions explicit at the Hossbach Conference, the idea that Czechoslovakia's days were numbered had been freely expressed, notably by Goring to Malcolm Christie, a former British air attache to Berlin and confidant of Sir Robert Vansittart. 29 By the beginning of 1938, with the aggressive intentions expressed at Hossbach already incorporated in a crucial revision to existing military plans concerning Czechoslovakia, it was simply a question of when, not if, Germany would pick its moment to move against Prague. As Gerhard Weinberg writes, the opinion expressed by the German ambassador to Rome that Hitler would require a few months to 'digest' Austria before proceeding to tackle Czechoslovakia is 'probably an accurate reading of Hitler's time schedule at the beginning of April 1938'.30

In view of the considerable force that attached to the case of the Sudeten minority, German dealings with the other great powers over the spring and summer of 1938 were largely concerned with emphasizing the principle of self-determination and its wrongful denial to the German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia. At the same time they lent support to Henlein who set out his case during a public speech at Karlsbad on 24 Apri1.31Ironically, before the 'May crisis' persuaded Hitler to set 1 October 1938 as the latest start date for a military strike against Czechoslovakia,32 it was Britain and France rather than Germany that seemed intent on raising the spectre of Bolshevism in connection with the Czech Sudeten dispute, thereby hoping to exercise a restraining influence in Berlin on the basis that only the communists stood to benefit from a European conflict.33 Despite Ribbentrop's attempts to highlight the futility of the Runciman mission by castigating the Prague government as being 'strongly influenced by Bolshevik ideas' and, as such, 'the real obstacle to the pacification and peaceful settlement of Europe',34 German diplomacy did not lay particular emphasis on Czechoslovakia's ties to the Soviet Union during the summer of 1938.

Following Hitler's meeting with Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden, which, contrary to Hitler's aims, at least left the way open for a negotiated settlement, the Wilhelmstrasse and Nazi press shifted emphasis and, while continuing to stress ethnic aspects, brought anti-Bolshevik factors increasingly to the forefront. On 17 September, for example, following a question from Mussolini about the precise nature of German aims in the current crisis, Ribbentrop, characteristically skirting the enquiry, proceeded to inform the Italian ambassador that there was 'no doubt that, with chaos increasing in Czechoslovakia, the Bolshevik element was gaining ground, just as in Spain', and for that reason 'the necessity arose of achieving an immediate radical solution'.35 The French ambassador in Berlin, Andre Francois-Poncet, noted a distinct change in the attitude of the German press during the week separating the meetings at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg, during which time, he informed Bonnet on 22 September:

The Reich press has ceaselessly maintained that Moscow and the Communists were, more and more, the real inspiration and instigators of Czechoslovak policy, that Czechoslovakia had thereby become a peril, a red peril for Europe, and that finally M. Benes, as the instrument of Bolshevism and the discredited and suspect head of a country in the process of complete disintegration, was no longer a partner with whom one could do business.36

Even in the aftermath of Munich, or perhaps because of it, the Germans continued to refer to Czecho-Slovakia, as it was now known, as an outpost of Bolshevism. Speaking on the second anniversary of the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact, Ribbentrop announced that, like Spain and China, Czechoslovakia had been 'another point of departure for world revolution, but here too Bolshevik intentions had been nipped in the bud by the iron determination of the Fuhrer'.37 Following the seizure of Prague Hitler could not resist a reference during his speech of 28 April 1939 to the role of the former Czechoslovakia, which had been, 'no other than to prevent the consolidation of Central Europe' in order to 'provide a bridge to Europe for Bolshevik aggression'.38 Years later, as if to emphasize the depth of the bond that united Czechoslovakia and the USSR, he would reflect that it would be the Czechs who would be most put out by the decline of Bolshevism 'for it is they who have always looked with secret hope to Mother Russia'.39

If for the most part German diplomacy had downplayed the anti Bolshevik factor in handling the Sudeten crisis, the same certainly cannot be said of the Nazi propagandists who, in 1938, produced numerous publications, largely under the auspices of the ProMi and APA, devoted to Czechoslovakia's ties with Bolshevik Russia.40 Most prominent among these was a 70-page essay by Hans Krebs, a senior figure in the Reich ministry of the interior, simply entitled 'Prague and Moscow', which appeared as volume 7 of Bolschewismus, the long-running series edited by Georg Leibbrandt of the AP A. As the title suggests, Krebs's essay purported to expose the numerous links between democratic Czechoslovakia and the USSR, but the real message was contained in the brief foreword by Krebs's chief, Wilhelm Frick. 'Prague and Moscow', he wrote, not only demonstrated the dangers to which Germany and Europe were exposed as a result of the 'Czech-Bolshevik war preparations', but also highlighted the need for firm and rapid action to bring an end to a situation that was a constant source of European unrest and, moreover, made German people the victims of foreign hatred. The oppression of the Sudeten German minority, which had been carried out with 'Hussite hatred and Bolshevik blood lust', clearly demonstrated the danger posed to peace, order and central European culture by the alliance between Moscow and the Czech state.41

Beginning with an introduction to the historical ties between the Czechs and pan-Slavism, Krebs took his readers through a series of rather repetitive chapters dealing inter alia with the links between pan-Slavism and Bolshevism, the origins of the Czech-Soviet mutual assistance pact, the scale of subsequent military collaboration, the activities of some 400 Bolshevik or Bolshevik inspired organizations, groups and clubs in Czechoslovakia, and the operations of the 'League of Friends of the Soviet Union', notably its promotion of visits by Czech nationals to the USSR, which the Soviet authorities exploited to prepare Czechoslovakia for its role as the 'springboard of world revolution' in central Europe. The Czech foreign minister may have described Czechoslovakia as a bulwark against Bolshevism, noted the author, but as the 'bridge to the Bolshevization of Europe', it was in fact the very opposite.42 Some crude graphics accompanied Krebs's text, including a series of postage stamps depicting Soviet tanks, infantry and aircraft, which carried heroic captions affirming Russia's commitment to Czechoslovakia and celebrating the strength of the Red Army. Also included was a map, supposedly drawn up by Czech imperialists before 1914, in which two-thirds of the Second Reich had been either directly absorbed into a 'Greater Slavic Empire' or reconstituted in a new Habsburg empire. Almost inevitably the pamphlet contained a map of Czechoslovakia detailing the locations of Soviet airfields - with names given in Russian for added effect.

In a further publication, The Betrayal of Europe, a 200-page book hastily thrown together in the offices of the Antikomintern in the aftermath of the 'May crisis', Karl Vietz explored similar themes. No longer able to suppress the seven-million foreign nationals living in their state, and realizing that the injustices meted out to these unfortunates represented a challenge to their co-nationals (Muttervolk), Vietz argued that the Czechs had been forced to seek allies and had found a willing partner in the USSR. In return for Moscow's aid in suppressing the ethnic minorities incorporated in the Czech state, Prague had made available its territory to the 'world enemy' as a gateway into the heart of Europe. The consequences of this catastrophic folly were threefold: first, ethnic groups that the Czechs had oppressed had been delivered to the Bolshevik terrorists and threatened with the destruction of their national identity; second, Czechoslovakia's neighbors, Germany, Hungary and Poland, had been forced to endure on their borders not only a 'seat of Bolshevik pestilence' but also an advanced deployment zone for the Soviet armed forces; third, Europe in general had suffered from the existence of Czechoslovakia, which sought to sabotage any policy aimed at promoting peace, and which, through its very existence, constituted a permanent threat of conflict. 'The betrayal of Europe', wrote Vietz, was thus at the heart of the Czech mission in Europe.43

Throughout the Czech crisis the focus of the European powers had been fixed on the perceived grievances of the Sudeten German minority in Czechoslovakia and the possibility of a major conflict arising from the resulting tensions between Berlin and Prague. It was on that basis that the crisis had arisen and, to all outward appearances; it was on that basis that a settlement was finally reached. Yet, German diplomacy, and to a greater extent German propaganda, had not lost sight of the capital to be made from Czech ties to the Soviet Union in the pursuit of aims that ultimately had a much greater goal than the reunification with the Reich of 3.5 million so-called Reichsdeutsche. In so far as the destruction of Czechoslovakia, effected in March 1939, was a crucial step on the road to conflict with Russia, and thus the eradication of Soviet Bolshevism, the use of anti-communism alongside self-determination during 1938-39 had been a significant factor in what Hitler later called a triumph for 'propaganda in the service of an idea'.44

That Hitler was inwardly unconvinced of that triumph was demonstrated by his hostile reaction to the Munich Agreement, which left him both determined to destroy what remained of Czechoslovakia as soon as a favorable opportunity arose and deeply resentful of British interference in a question that, to his mind, had always been an exclusively German concern.45 Munich had deprived the Fuhrer of the control of Czechoslovakia he needed to achieve his longer-term goals. Above all else, he believed that Britain's actions had thwarted his plans. With this latest evidence of Britain's opposition to his European ambitions fresh in his mind, Hitler was forced to consider the possibility that, contrary to his original intentions, he might have to fight Britain, or at least force it to drop its interest in continental affairs, before he eventually moved east for the struggle with Bolshevik Russia.46 In these circumstances the position of Poland, which Hitler previously conceived of as a desirable component in an anti-Soviet alliance, assumed added significance. If he were to proceed first against the West, it was vital to secure Germany's eastern flank, not least because the Polish alliance with France was still technically operational. Alternately, should it be possible to move east without a prior conflict with Britain and France, Poland would have to be squared. As Gerhard Weinberg observes, to fulfil his programme in eastern Europe Hitler 'needed either Poland's acquiescence or that country's destruction; any truly independent Poland would be a bar to his aims; and in the immediate future he especially wanted Poland quiet while he settled with England and France'.47

It is in this context that Germany's efforts after Munich to persuade Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact should be understood. From 1934-35 until the autumn of 1938 those efforts had had as their principal purpose the recruitment of Poland as an ally against the USSR;48 and it is in that sense that Hitler's remarks to Beck, referred to earlier, and his warm reference to Polish German collaboration in his speech of 20 February 1938 are to be interpreted.49 In the negotiations that followed Munich, however, from Ribbentrop's conversations with Lipski in October-November 1938, through Hitler's reception of Beck in Berlin in January 1939, to Ribbentrop's visit to Warsaw later that month, the Germans were essentially requiring Poland to accept the status of a satellite, a condition that would be demonstrated through concessions over Danzig and the Corridor and, more importantly, by its immediate accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact. 50

It was clear when Ribbentrop met Lipski on 24 October 1938 that the Poles were unwilling to comply with these German wishes. Despite its hostility to the USSR and its superficially cordial relations with Germany, Poland remained determined to maintain a balance between its neighbors. It hoped that by not leaning too heavily towards one, it would not antagonize the other. Following a steep rise in German-Polish tension at the turn of the year, and notably under the impact of Hitler's seizure of Prague in mid-March 1939, Poland accepted a guarantee of its territorial integrity from Britain and, in so doing, effectively sealed its own fate. By revealing itself as an accomplice of Britain, as Hitler viewed it, Poland had made its choice, thus answering in a roundabout way the fundamental question the German-Polish negotiations had posed in the previous six months. Although for a time afterwards he appears to have clung to the hope that the Poles would ultimately yield to German pressure, it was clearly necessary to make plans for a military solution, a contingency that Hitler addressed on 3 April 1939 when he issued the directive for Fall Weiss, the German plan for an attack on Poland, according to which the German armed forces were to be ready for action at any time after 1 September.51

Seven weeks later Hitler spoke to his senior military personnel at the famous conference of 23 May 1939 and instructed them on the purpose of the coming conflict with Poland. In essence, the Fuhrer repeated the basic point he had made at the Hossbach Conference 18 months earlier to the effect that Germany's economic problems could only be solved by the conquest of lands adjacent to the Reich. In the present dispute with Poland therefore, 'it is not Danzig that is at stake'; rather, it is 'a matter of expanding our living space in the East'. There would be no repetition of the Czech crisis, he warned. 'This time there will be war. Our task is to isolate Poland. Success in isolating her will be decisive. It must not come to a simultaneous showdown with the West.'52

Having taken the decision to proceed militarily against Poland, Hitler's main concern in the summer of 1939 was how to ensure British non-intervention in the forthcoming conflict. The most effective way to achieve this objective was to deprive Britain of the means effectively to come to the assistance of Poland, which, in the circumstances, amounted to forestalling British efforts to secure an alliance with the USSR in which London had been engaged since May. The story of the ensuing 'race to Moscow' has been told many times and need not be repeated here. Although some of the recent research on Soviet policy in 1939 has tended to emphasize Stalin's preference until fairly late in the day for an association with the Western powers,53 compelling reasons ultimately led the Soviets to choose alignment with Berlin. The essential arguments had been well summarized in late July during a conversation between Julius Schnurre of the Wilhelmstrasse's economic policy department and Georgi Astakhov, counselor of the Soviet embassy. 'What could Britain offer Russia?' asked Schnurre rhetorically.

At best participation in a European war and the hostility of Germany, hardly a desirable end for Russia. What could we offer as against this? Neutrality and keeping out of a possible European conflict and, if Moscow wished, a German-Russian understanding on mutual interests which, just as in former times, would work out to the advantage of both countries. 54

On the basis of this logic Germany and the USSR were able to find ground for an agreement that shocked the world.

Conclusion:  Hitler's world view, shaped by personal observations and experience and refined through his encounters with individuals such as Rosenberg, emerged as a compound of ideological and powerpolitical considerations that combined to create what has been called, with considerable justification, a programme for the foreign policy that in broad outline he sought to pursue during his years as chancellor. After 1933 it can clearly be seen how Hitler sought to steer a course that corresponded essentially with the programmatic ideals of the 1920s. The ideological dimension of the programme, which was refined to take account of changing world conditions after 1928, was manifested in two ways: the pursuit of alliances with those great and middle powers that shared his antipathy for the USSR, and would thus conceivably have little objection to its destruction by Germany; and anti-Bolshevism per se, manifested, for example, in the dismantling of the Rapallo relationship with Russia after 1933, and German policy during the Spanish Civil War. After 1935 German diplomatic efforts to pursue the programmatic goals in relation to the USSR were loudly supplemented by the activities of the German propaganda ministry, which established the Antikomintern in an attempt to mount a wideranging, centralized and coordinated campaign against Bolshevism. The problems in reconstructing the work of the ProMi, and in particular the Antikomintern, have been referred to at an earlier stage of this study, but even from the limited records that have survived it is apparent that the anti-Bolshevik activities of both organizations, particularly in the years 1935-37, were varied and considerable.

In certain areas, as in France between 1933 and 1936, Hitler demonstrated that there was a degree of flexibility in his ideological framework, for, although there were questions that encumbered Franco-German relations from the ideological perspective, he was prepared at least for a time to consider the possibility of an association with France on the basis of anti-Bolshevism. Moreover, the success of the programme, and Hitler's ability to pursue it with conviction and vigour, depended on his retaining the initiative, which, to a considerable extent he succeeding in doing until 1937. In one obvious case, namely that of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, he was forced temporarily to compromise his principles in order to solve an isolated and immediate problem. Yet, despite this glaring exception to the rule, the essential force of Hitler's remark to Burckhardt in August 1939, only days before the German chancellor authorized the treaty with Stalin, that everything he undertook was directed against the USSR, held good throughout his period as chancellor, even during the era of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Towards the close of 1937, when it had become clear that Britain and Poland were not prepared to play the roles allotted to them and, indeed, that the Anti-Comintern Pact had failed in its function to raise support for the isolation of Russia, Hitler readjusted his priorities and fixed a loose timetable for action at the Hossbach conference, following which he became enmeshed in a series of internal and external crises, which necessarily shifted the focus temporarily away from ideological issues. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten in this connection that the destruction of Czechoslovakia, Poland and France during 1939-40 was undertaken with a greater goal in view, that of seeking to create favourable conditions for the ultimate showdown with Bolshevism. During this period the focus of German propaganda also shifted to align with the immediate requirements of German diplomacy and, from mid-1939 onwards, propaganda of any complexion directed against the Soviet Union virtually ground to a halt.

In 1941, when Hitler finally turned against the USSR, ideology, diplomacy, propaganda and vicious racism were collectively brought to bear against Jewish Bolshevism' in the shape of the orders issued for the conduct of the war in the east, the attempted mobilization of other powers and volunteer units against the USSR, the various anti-Jewish and anti-Bolshevik campaigns Goebbels orchestrated, and finally the onset of genocide against Soviet Jewry and other hapless unfortunates. The German crusade against the USSR was indisputably an ideological conflict first and foremost, an uncompromising fight to the finish between bitter and irreconcilable enemies. As Hitler remarked on 2 April 1945:

If we are destined to be beaten in this war, our defeat will be utter and complete. Our enemies have proclaimed their objectives in a manner which leaves us no illusions as to their intentions. Jews, Russian Bolshevists and the pack of jackals that follows, yelping at their heels - we know that none of them will lay aside their arms until they have destroyed and annihilated National Socialist Germany and reduced it to a heap of rubble. In a ghastly conflict like this, in a war in which two so completely irreconcilable ideologies confront one another, the issue can inevitably only be settled by the total destruction of one side or the other. It is a fight which must be waged, by both sides, until they are utterly exhausted.

Hitler's aim to destroy Bolshevism as a political force, an ambition that can be traced back to his earliest political activities, is sometimes referred to in the literature on the origins of the Soviet German war almost as a subsidiary determinant of Operation Barbarossa; sometimes it is virtually overlooked; sometimes it is labelled a convenient cover for a policy of naked imperialism. Yet, as I have sought to demonstrate in this book, it lay at the very heart of Hitler's political philosophy. The destruction of international Bolshevism has to be viewed in the context of and in conjunction with the so-called Jewish problem' and the much vaunted quest for Lebensraum in eastern Europe. These concepts must be considered parallel with and complementary to one another; it is futile and misleading to seek to disentangle them, as if they exist independently of one another.

Shortly before his death, when the quest for Lebensraum was a distant memory, and anti-Bolshevism a sentiment capable of firing only the most fanatical of his followers, Hitler peered into the future and saw, in much the same way as British and American planners were beginning to see, a new conflict on the horizon. Four weeks before his death, he announced:

With the defeat of the Reich and pending the emergence of the Asiatic, the African, and, perhaps, the South American nationalisms, there will remain in the world only two Great Powers capable of confronting each other - the United States and Soviet Russia. The laws of both history and geography will compel these two Powers to a trial of strength, either military or in the fields of economics and ideology.

Two months later, Ribbentrop, who in October 1945 would have the gall to wish the Western powers better luck than Germany had enjoyed in handling the Soviet Union,14 was questioned about Hitler's reaction to Stalin's annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in June 1940. The former foreign minister, who, in stark contrast to the nervous wreck who took the stand at Nuremberg, appeared relatively relaxed and assured during his interrogation by political officers of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), one British, the other American, spoke of certain 'arrangements' that Germany had arrived at with Russia during the negotiations of August-September 1939. When asked whether these arrangements had not in fact catered for the annexation of Bessarabia by the USSR, Ribbentrop made a simple reply, with 'a smile and an expression of mock embarrassment', to which might well have been added a touch of Schadenfreude because the Anglo-Americans now faced the problem of how to contain the Soviet colossus in central Europe. 'Must I answer that question?' he enquired innocently, 'After all, Russia is one of your allies.'
 

1. Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, p. 145.

2. For the record of the meeting see ADAP, D/l, no. 19, memorandum by Hossbach, 10 November 1937.

3. On the historiographical controversy generated by the Hossbach conference see D. Kluge, Das Hoflbach-'Protokol': Die ZerstOrung einer Legende, (Leoni am Stamberger See, 1980). For an assessment of the significance of Hitler's remarks within the general context of Germany's foreign policy options in late 1937 see]. Wright and P. Stafford, 'Hitler, Britain and the Hossbach Memorandum', Militiirgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 42 (1987) pp. 77-123; similarly Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, pp. 35ff.

4. BK, ZSg. 101/31, Kausch to DeTtinger, 9 September 1937.

5. This and previous quotations taken from Der Parteitag der Arbeit vom 6 bis 13 September 1937. Offizieller Bericht iiber den Verlauf des Reichsparteitages mit sämtlichen Kongreßreden (Munich, 1938) 'Die große Schlußrede des Fuhrers auf dem KongrelS', pp. 356ff.

6. Domarus, U2, I January 1938, New Year proclamation to the NSDAP, p. 773. During the Kampfzeit Hitler had repeatedly quoted - quite out of context - the observation of the German historian Theodor Mommsen that the Jews were 'the ferment of decomposition of all peoples and states'. See, for example, HSA, no. 293, 'Ein Riesenbetrug'. Stichworte zu einer Rede, undated. Internal evidence suggests after 21 September 1921; ibid., no. 377, 'Die "Hetzer" der Wahrheit'. Rede auf einer NSDAP-Versammlung, 12 April 1922.

7. TB]G, U5, 22 December 1937. This was not Hitler's first reference to the purges of the Soviet armed forces that had decimated the leadership corps during 1937. As was the case with many of his contemporaries, Hitler was baffled by these developments. 'Stalin is surely mad', noted Goebbels, paraphrasing the chancellor on 10 July 1937. 'There can be no other explanation for his rule of blood [Blutregiment]. Then again, Russia knows nothing apart from Bolshevism. That is the danger that one day we will have to shatter.' Ibid., II4, 10 July 1937.

8. On the significance of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis see Kershaw, Hitler: Nemesis, pp. 5Iff.; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, pp. 43ff. On the course of the Anschluss see Gehl, Austria, Germany and the Anschluss, pp. 166ff.

9. BBL, R90Il60971, memorandum by Neurath, 14 January 1938; ADAP, DN, no. 163, memorandum by Heeren, 17 January 1938.

10. On the origins of this further British approach for a general settlement with Germany see A. Crozier, Appeasement and Germany's Last Bid for Colonies (London, 1988). For a detailed analysis of Hitler's attitude to the colonial question in the 1930s see K. Hildebrand, Yom Reich zum Weltreich: Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage, 1919-1945 (Munich, 1969).

11. ADAP, DII, no; 138, memorandum by Schmidt, 3 March 1938, enclosed in Neurath to Henderson, 4 March 1938.

12. On Hitler's attachment to the evolutionary path towards the Anschluss and the events of February-March 1938 in general see Gehl, Austria, Germany and the Anschluss.

13. See ADAP, DII, no. 308, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 17 February 1938.

14. Ibid., D/lI, no. 107, unsigned report with enclosures, [28?] March 1938.

15.  Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 462-3.

16. Hitler, Zweites Buch, p. 148.

17. Wagener, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, p. 161.

18. ADAP, ClIIII, no. 68, memorandum by Kopke, 15 November 1933.

19. Ibid., ClIVII, no. 128, Koch to AA, 3 June 1935.

20. Ibid., no. 105, AA Circular, 25 May 1935.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., CIIV/2, no. 580, Eisenlohr to AA, 23 February 1936.

23. BBL, NS8/44, The Final Fight Between Europe and Bolshevism. Address delivered by Mr Alfred Rosenberg at the Party Rally, Nuremberg 1936 (Munich, 1936) p. 21. In his speech the previous day Goebbels had spoken on similar lines, referring to the supposed Soviet air bases in Czechoslovakia as 'the starting points from which the Red bombers will attack Europe'. Goebbels, Bolshevism in Theory and Practice, p. 22.

24. VB, Sondernummer, 31 January 1937. Five days later, speaking in Hamburg, Goebbels too characterized the Czech-Soviet alliance as a 'great danger to European peace'. As such, it constituted an ideal instrument to help foment that chaos on the continent that the Soviets required in order to realize their 'nefarious schemes'. PRO, F0371/20709/C1092. Phipps to Fa, 8 February 1937.

25. BBL, R43II/1496, 'Sudetendeutscher Dienst. Sonderausgabe. Die Parteien in der Tsechoslowakei und ihre Stellung zum Bolschewismus', 19 March 1936.

26. PRO, GFM34/1265, Eisenlohr to AA, 7 June 1937.

27. On the abortive Czech-German contacts after the Rhineland reoccupation see Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I, pp. 312ff; for the assurances made by Prague to Berlin in late 1937-early 1938 see ADAP, D/II, no. 17, memorandum by Mackensen, 9 November 1937; ibid., no. 47, Eisenlohr to AA, 12 January 1938; ibid., no. 56, Eisenlohr to AA, 16 February 1938; BBL, R43II/1496a, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 31 March 1938.

28. BBL, R43III1496a. Papen to Hitler, 1 December 1937.

29. Christie Papers, CHRS 180/115, record of a conversation with Goring, 3 February 1937 [Waddington collection].

30. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, p. 337.

31. On the Munich crisis in general see K. Robbins, Munich 1938 (London, 1968); T. Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (London, 1979). Apart from the detailed treatment of German policy in Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, p. 313ff, see R. Overy, 'Germany and the Munich Crisis: A Mutilated Victory?', in 1. Lukes and E. Goldstein (eds) The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II (London, 1999) pp. 191-215.

32. For details of the May crisis and its repercussions see Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, pp. 367ff; ADAP, DNII, appendix H (iii) , memorandum by Wiedemann, undated. Internal evidence suggests early September 1939.

33. ADAP, D/II, no. 144, Welczeck to AA, 1 May 1938; ibid., no. 189, minute by Weizsacker, 22 May 1938.

34. Ibid., no. 379, Ribbentrop to Halifax, 21 August 1938.

35. Ibid., no. 510, unsigned memorandum, presumably by Ribbentrop, 17 September 1938.

36. Documents Diplomatiques Franl;ais 1932-1939, serie 2, vol. XI (Paris, 1977) no. 291, Francois-Poncet to Bonnet, 22 September 1938.

37. PRO, F0371/21639/Cl4632, Ogilvie-Forbes to FO, 25 November 1938.

38. Domarus, IIIl, 28 April 1939, speech to the Reichstag, p. 1151.

39. Jochmann, Monologe, 21 September 1941, p. 64.

40. In the wake of the 'May crisis' the Antikomintern's Nachrichtendienst reported that a 'Bolshevik rabble' had defaced the Masaryk monument in Mahrisch-Schoenberg with the aim of inflaming public passions against the Sudeten Germans. See Hoover, GDAV, box 180, AKND, 24 June 1938.

41. H. Krebs, Prag und Moskau (Munich, 1938) p. 3. Other publications included a selection of previously published material from the pen of Leibbrandt, which appeared under his name as Moskaus Aufmarsch gegen Europa (Munich, 1938). There was also a collection of 12 lectures by Rosenberg, Leibbrandt and a number of academics in a volume entitled Europas Schicksal im Osten (Breslau, 1938) edited by Hans Hagemeyer. The contributions dealt generally with aspects of German activity in eastern Europe apart from one essay, conspicuous by its inclusion, by Dr Karl Viererbl of the University of Berlin entitled 'Cultural Bolshevism and the Hatred of Germanism in Czechoslovakia.'

42. Krebs, Prag und Moskau, p. 23.

43. K. Vietz, Venat an Europa: Ein Rotbuch iiber die Bolschewisierung der Tschecho-Slowakei (Berlin, 1938). Note the separation of the two compounds in the title, presumably to highlight the artificial nature of the Czechoslovak state. The Czech press deemed the book an exercise in 'war propaganda'. PRO, F0371/21763/8395. Newton to FO, IS August 1938.

44. W. Treue, 'Die Rede Hitlers vor der deutschen Presse 10 November 1938', VfZ, 6 (1958) pp. 175-91, here p. 186.

45. See ADAP, D/lV, no. 81, directive by the Fuhrer for the Wehrmacht, 21 October 1938; E. Kordt, Wahn und Wirklichkeit: Die Außenpolitik des Dritten Reiches. Versuch einer Darstellung (Stuttgart, 1947) p. 135. On Hitler's general reaction to Munich see Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül, pp. 187ff; Kuhn, Hitlers aussenpolitisches Programm, pp. 233ff; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, 1I, pp. 465ff.

46. Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül, pp. 204ff.

47. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II, p. 484.

48. Earlier initiatives in this direction have been described above. See also BK, NSI0/91, Raumer to Ribbentrop, 17 August 1937; ADAP, DN, no. 34, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 31 March 1938.

49. Domarus, 1/2, 20 February 1938, speech to the Reichstag, p. 802.

50. For the most important German-Polish exchanges see ADAP, DN, no. 81, record of a conversation between Ribbentrop and Lipski, 24 October 1938; no. 101, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 19 November 1938; no. 119, record of a conversation between Hitler and Beck,S January 1939; no. 120, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 9 January 1939. See also ibid., DNI, no. 101, memorandum by Ribbentrop, 26 March 1939.

51. ADAP, DNI, no. 149, directive by Keitel, 3 April 1939; ibid., no. 185, directive by Hitler, 11 April 1939.

52. Ibid., no. 433, minutes of a conference, 23 May 1939.

53. See Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War, pp. 62ff. For a different view see Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, pp. 160ff.

54. ADAP, DNI, no. 729, memorandum by Schnurre, 27 July 1939.

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