Book Three: The Road to War
- In this first chapter of Book Three: The Road to War, Shirer explains how Hitler managed to re-arm Germany while at the same time preaching his love of peace to his international listeners.
- Before he gets to that, though, he describes one early misstep: the Nazi murder of the Austrian Chancellor in June, 1934, as part of an attempted coup.
- Hitler pretended that he had nothing to do with the murder—which had been carried out by SS members disguised in Austrian Army uniforms—but Germany had been supplying Austrian Nazis with the weapons that the Austrians needed in order to wage terrorist warfare.
- On top of that, Hitler had also overseen formation of an Austrian Legion, several thousand soldiers camped along the Austrian border and ready to invade when the timing was right.
- Shirer concludes that the murder of the Austrian Chancellor was a failed Nazi putsch—one from which Hitler distanced himself when he saw that the coup had failed. As usual, the bloody-minded Fuehrer was willing to bide his time.
The Breaching of Versailles
- Aside from swelling the ranks of the German Army, developing submarines, and building up a military Air Force (which would be headed by Hermann Goering), Hitler was also working to develop the rubber and gasoline industries.
- Although the Nazis assumed that they were keeping things pretty well under wraps, Shirer records that Germany's rearmament was known to the Allies.
- Shirer charts some of the early negotiations that opened up between Britain, France, and Germany in the mid-1930s, as the Western powers attempted to strike a fine balance between giving Hitler some leeway while also guaranteeing the safety of nations like Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
- With his usual penchant for political scheming, Hitler decided to see if he could divide and conquer the Western powers—or, at the very least, distract and evade.
- Hitler decided to test the waters of European international relations by allowing Goering to leak the fact that Germany now had a military Air Force, in direct contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. He wanted to see what the Allies would do.
- Not only had the Allies already known about the Luftwaffe (Air Force), but they decided not to sanction Germany even after the Nazis admitted it openly.
A Saturday Surprise
- Hitler decided to push things further. In March 1935 he passed a law requiring mandatory military service and creating a standing peacetime army.
- Unless France and Britain did something about it, this meant the end of the Versailles military restrictions on Germany.
- They didn't.
- The only responses were formal protests and angry letters, as well as the signing of pacts of mutual assistance between France and Russia, and Russia and Czechoslovakia.
- Meanwhile, Hitler continued to preach his public message of peace and continued to reassure his international audience that Germany wasn't interested in the least in expanding its territory or invading anyone else's country.
- In a speech that he delivered in May 1935, he even outlined "thirteen specific proposals for maintaining the peace." (3.9.33) The rest of Europe found them very convincing. Really.
- Shirer argues that Hitler was doing a great con job on the British nation.
- Not only that, but he managed to sow discord between Britain and France.
- In June 1935, Britain agreed to strike a new arms agreement with Germany, one that would allow the Nazis to build up the German Navy far beyond the limits of Versailles.
- The Brits didn't bother to consult the French—nor their mutual allies the Italians—before they did it.
- Watching from the sidelines was Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy.
- When Britain established its new arms agreement with Germany, Mussolini figured that he might as well get while the getting was good. So he invaded Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), and waited to see what Britain and France were going to do about it.
- Neither nation did anything more than issue sanctions.
- Shirer concludes that not only had Hitler succeeded in driving a wedge between Britain and France, but he'd had the good luck to see Italy's alliance with the two Western powers fall apart as well.
- The Nazis were particularly happy about Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia, because they figured that one of two things would happen.
- Mussolini might be defeated in Africa, in which case Hitler could march on Austria, which Mussolini had been protecting.
- If Mussolini won, then he could partner with Hitler against the rest of Europe and Britain.
- A win-win.
A Coup in the Rhineland
- In this section Shirer describes another of the "tests" that Hitler administered as he worked to get a read on his international adversaries.
- The allies had withdrawn from the Rhineland as part of the Locarno Pact of 1925, which forbade Germany from militarily occupying that region. The region was demilitarized.
- In March of 1936, the German Army invaded the territory. The Nazi Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath contacted ambassadors of France, Britain, and Italy and told them what had just happened in the Rhineland.
- He criticized the Locarno Treaty (which Hitler had just broken), and put forth his own plan for peace in the region.
- Once again, Hitler had broken a formal treaty and immediately offered to renegotiate the peace on his own terms. Once again, the Western powers chose not to do anything.
- Shirer examines the British and French governments' reasons for choosing not to take military action against Hitler, and states unequivocally that had the French Army retaliated, it would have succeeded in reclaiming the territory.
- Hitler won this gamble, and Shirer writes that the long-term consequences would be catastrophic beyond imagining.
- The occupation of the Rhineland completely changed the balance of power in Europe.
- Shirer now turns away from the Rhineland in order to catch up with events in Austria. Meanwhile, Austria's new Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, decided that after the events in the Rhineland that they had to throw Hitler a bone.
- In July 1936, Germany and Austria signed a treaty guaranteeing Austria's sovereignty and declaring that Germany wouldn't meddle in its neighbor's internal affairs.
- But as Shirer notes, the treaty also contained a number of secret clauses and concessions to Nazi Germany, which, in Shirer's words, would soon spell doom for Austria.
- Shirer puts that doom aside for the moment, though, and trains his eyes on Italy and Spain, catching us up with Mussolini's ongoing aggressions in Abyssinia and describing the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
- He explains how Hitler turned the Spanish Civil War to his own military and political advantage, then describes the early negotiations between Germany and Italy that would soon lead to their partnership as "Axis" powers.
- He then discusses German-British and German-Japanese relations in the mid-1930s, making special note of the Anti-Comintern Pact (Comintern was an international Communist organization) that Japan and Germany signed together in the autumn of 1936. Italy signed the pact in 1937.
- Hitler was now feeling more and more sure that he could do what he wanted in Europe—up to a point—without worrying whether Britain and France would get involved.
- Shirer concludes on an ominous note (his favorite kind), writing that Great Britain and France failed to recognize that everything Hitler had been doing was a preparation for war. He thinks that the majority of the German people didn't realize it, either.
1937: "No Surprises"
- 1937 brought no surprises for Germany's international observers. Instead, Hitler used the year o consolidate the gains he'd made up until then and continue preparations for war.
- He continued to strengthen his relationship with Mussolini throughout 1937, and also developed a new foreign policy relationship with Belgium.
- Meanwhile, important changes were happening in the British government. In May 1937, Neville Chamberlain replaced Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister, and Chamberlain was now very anxious to reach some kind of settlement with Germany.
The Fateful Decision of November 5, 1937
- In November 1937, Hitler held a fateful meeting.
- He gathered his Minister of War and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, his Commander in Chief of the Army, his Commander in Chief of the Air Force, and his Commander in Chief of the Navy.
- He explained to his chiefs that Germany must be ready for war by 1938, and by 1943-45 at the very latest.
- Austria and Czechoslovakia would be first on his hit list