Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East

2. Decision

31 2 Decision At 3:00 P.M. on 6 July 1940, under a glittering early summer sun, an unadorned train pulled slowly into the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin amid scenes of jubilation and pure joy unequaled in German history. People had been gathering in the flower-strewn streets of the capital since early morning, many waiting over six hours for a chance to glimpse the Führer . “An unimaginable excitement filled the city,” exulted Joseph Goebbels in his diary, overcome by the festive mood of the “sea of humanity” that thronged the avenues. After a short discussion with Goering, who feared a British air attack on the city, Goebbels exclaimed, “Then the Führer arrived. A wild enthusiasm filled the train station. The Führer is deeply moved. Tears come to his eyes. . . . The storm of jubilation of a completely joyous people is indescribable. The Führer drove [to the Reich Chancellery] completely over flowers.” Once there, as Field Marshal Keitel lauded him as “the greatest military commander of all time,” Hitler soaked in the adulation of the wildly cheering throng below. For perhaps the only time during the Third Reich, Germans evinced a genuine enthusiasm for the war, sensing as they did that final victory was at hand.1 Even at this moment of ultimate triumph, however, disquieting notes of uneasiness intruded, as evidenced by Goering’s fears. Goebbels also betrayed a host of concerns nestled amid the triumphalism. “Even in Germany we have rather too much as too little optimism,” he wrote on 9 June. “One takes the victory too lightly.” Throughout this period of historic triumph, in fact, the propaganda minister kept an anxious eye on the two peripheral powers of great concern, noting both American attitudes and Russian actions. Above all, he took note of the inflammatory reports of the “Jewish press” in America designed to create, in his opinion , an atmosphere of hate toward Germany that would force President 32  OSTKRIEG Roosevelt, whom he regarded as a stooge of the alleged Jewish conspiracy , to intervene in European affairs. The rapid German triumph, however , eased his fears of direct American action against Germany, at least until after the November presidential election.2 Stalin was another matter. Although Goebbels conceded that the Soviet dictator had remained faithful to the spirit of the Nazi-Soviet Pact by rejecting British overtures in late May, he still brooded over his further actions in the Baltic and the Balkans. Goebbels noted anxiously on 16 June, “Lithuania has received a Russian ultimatum. . . . The Lithuanian answer did not satisfy Moscow. Russian troops marching into Lithuania .” Although Goebbels accepted with seeming equanimity Soviet demands on Latvia and Estonia and the growing pressure on Rumania to cede the provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina, his tone changed in July as he realized just how thoroughly Stalin meant to benefit from German success in the west. “Slavism is spreading across the entire Balkans. Stalin is utilizing the moment,” he recorded on 5 July. He then added ominously, “Perhaps later we will once again have to take action against the Soviets.” In late July, on receiving news of the Soviet absorption of the Baltic states, Goebbels conceded grudgingly, “That is our price for Russia’s neutrality,” a price that seemed too costly. Add to these concerns growing irritations over persistent food and fuel shortages, the increasingly pesky nightly British air raids, and frustrations at the inability to solve the Jewish problem, and Goebbels’s diary presented a surprisingly gloomy view of the situation in the summer of 1940.3 The German victory in the west had unquestioningly unleashed a wave of optimism, a feeling, as Goebbels put it, that “a new Europe is in being.” Despite this and his own newly confirmed opinion of his own genius, Hitler himself appeared uncertain and unsure how to proceed, especially since Great Britain continued to display a determination to fight on. “From all that he says it is clear that he wants to act quickly to end it,” noted Count Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, in his diary, adding astutely, “Hitler is now the gambler who has made a big scoop and would like to get up from the table risking nothing more.” The problem, however, was how to exit the game while ahead. Indeed, Goebbels admitted warily, “With England we still have a tough nut to crack.” On 29 June, the propaganda minister declared that “the decision whether war or peace must come soon” but conceded, “The Führer...