Hitler's speech left a "shocking impression" on the audience

No one could accuse Hitler of a lack of honesty - at least no one from the leadership circles of the Wehrmacht. Around 180 high-ranking officers from the Army, Air Force and Navy were present on November 23, 1939, when the “Führer and Reich Chancellor” began to give a keynote speech at around noon in the conference room of the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

In his one-and-a-half-hour speech, he praised himself for "the firm will to make brutal decisions." On the other hand, the commanders present had to endure insults: "Who are these generals that I have to drive to war instead of the other way around?"

This is how Colonel-General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb recalled, who himself was one of the “slowers” ​​– like Generals Fedor von Bock and Gerd von Rundstedt, who were of equal rank, he had written down serious reservations about starting an offensive in the West. Presumably that's why Hitler invited to the keynote speech.

Leeb privately wrote a multi-page note immediately after the noon address. There are also three other postscripts by listeners to Hitler's speech: General of the Infantry Hermann Hoth, Lieutenant General Christian Hansen and Lieutenant Colonel in the General Staff Helmuth Groscurth made notes.

These four reports were written independently of each other, and they confirm the twelve-page version of Hitler's speech, which was apparently made from a professional shorthand. This bundle, neither dated nor signed, was considered so important by the Wehrmacht High Command that it was still one of the files that were transferred from Berlin to Flensburg in the spring of 1945. Allied investigators secured the paper there after the last Reich government under Admiral Karl Dönitz was deposed.

Hitler began the speech with a variant of his usual "party census", i.e. the description of his own rise. The senior military officers present must have disliked the third sentence: "The construction of the Wehrmacht was only possible in connection with the ideological education of the German people by the party." This is exactly what they wanted, as an organization dependent on the NSDAP, throughout the First World War active officers do not see their troops.

On the other hand, most of them agreed with another remark by Hitler: “When I came to power in 1933, a period of the most difficult struggle lay behind me. Everything that was there before was gone. I had to reorganize everything.” That corresponded to the impression of most of the listeners.

The commander-in-chief described his successes, i.e. Austria’s “annexation”, the crushing of Czechoslovakia and the victory over Poland, before looking to the future: “My decision is unalterable. I will attack France and England at the most opportune and fastest time."

The neutrality of Belgium and Holland did not interest him: "Nobody asks about it when we have won." Hitler even hinted that he knew who had started the First World War in 1914: "We will not justify the violation of neutrality as idiotically as 1914."

The war cannot be ended victoriously without an attack in the west. The chances of this are better than during the last German offensive on the western front in the spring of 1918: “Numerically, we have more than 100 divisions. Human replacement can be provided. The material situation is good.”

Then he added: "I beg you to transmit the determined spirit below." But this was not a request, because a threat immediately followed: "I will stop at nothing and destroy everyone who is against me."

Hitler's last sentences were, at least that's what the various postscripts suggest: "I will stand or die in this battle. I will not survive the defeat of my people. No capitulation on the outside, no revolution on the inside.”

Helmuth Groscurth, who had been an active opponent of National Socialism for years, wrote in his private diary: "A shocking impression of a mad criminal." Colonel Hermann von Witzleben noted that the speech divided the audience - "there was just as much outrage as almost enthusiastic approval “.

However, it is doubtful whether the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Generaloberst Walther von Brauchitsch, actually offered Hitler his resignation after this speech, as Erich von Manstein claimed in 1955 in his much-read but notoriously unreliable memoir “Lost Victories”. Even if it says so in Wikipedia, of course without proof.

Because Wilhelm von Leeb's diary shows that Brauchitsch actually wanted to say goodbye after a lecture to Hitler on November 5, 1939, but then found the order to attack. Leeb noted this on a separate sheet dated November 21, 1939, two days before Hitler's speech: "As a soldier, he (Brauchitsch, the editor) could no longer resign. Saying farewell to other generals is also out of the question. That would be mutiny.”

It was supposed to lead to world domination: the Nazis wanted to take Europe by storm with the “Blitzkrieg”. However, due to the successes of the brutal war of aggression, the leadership overestimated their possibilities.

Source: Die Welt/wochet

About an hour after the end of the speech in the conference room, on November 23, 1939 at 2:30 p.m., Hitler assembled the commanders-in-chief of the army groups, armies and army corps, i.e. just a good dozen generals, in his 390 square meter study. Here the focus was now quite specifically on military action, no longer on strategic considerations.

"Task of the armored units: break through as quickly as possible!" ordered Hitler, adding: "Not swing in the right wing like in 1914, but to the sea!"

This means that on November 23, 1939, the dictator was well aware of the proposal made by Erich von Manstein, who was little known at the time. The then lieutenant general and chief of staff of Army Group A had presented his plan for the attack in the west on October 31, 1939, which later became known in various forms as the "sickle cut plan".

This also included a new principle: "If tanks don't get through at one point, don't continue drilling, but start at other points," Wilhelm von Leeb recorded Hitler's words.

In the months that followed, numerous high-ranking generals opposed the daring plan of the ambitious rising star Manstein – but without success: Hitler stuck to it. In fact, this concept proved crucial to the German victory in the west in May and June 1940.

After making his pact with Stalin, Hitler gives the order to invade Poland. Great Britain and France then declare war on Germany.

Source: WORLD

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This article was first published in November 2019.