Hitler’s grandiose aims

Press, 1 September 1989, Page 12

Hitler’s grandiose aims

In this, the second part of a four-part series on the Second World War, NAYLOR HILLARY traces the last months leading to war with Germany and looks at how Japan became involved.

EARLY IN 1939 Hitler’s troops overran the rump of Czechoslovakia, the final indignity which persuaded Britain and France, belatedly, that Hitler’s plans had to be stopped somewhere. Already the Germans were demanding parts of Poland that had a German-speaking population. The Western democracies gave guarantees to the Poles that they would fight to preserve Poland’s integrity. The final impetus for the German attack on Poland came in the non-aggression treaty signed late in August, 1939, between Hitler and the Soviet leader, Josef Stalin. It was, in fact, a treaty of aggression against Poland.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France demanded the Germans withdraw and when their ultimatum expired with German troops still advancing on Warsaw, the two Western democracies declared war on Germany, at 11 a.m. on September 3. In the next six weeks the two dictatorships — Nazi and Communist —

carved up Poland. The German-Russian treaty also gave Stalin a free hand in other parts of eastern Europe. The Soviet Union, in the months that followed, took territory from Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Romania. It has not been returned.

In exchange, Hitler was left free to overrun much of Western Europe. His task was made easier by his Soviet connection, especially in France where the Communist Party, acting on instructions from Moscow, preached non-resistance to Hitler.

Stalin placed at Hitler’s disposal the vast economic re-

sources of the Soviet Union. There was a grim irony in the outcome when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union two years later using Soviet oil and steel. In a world of distrust, Stalin, the Soviet dictator, appeared to have been one person who went on trusting Hitler, the German dictator.

Hitler’s full programme, as set out in his own writings from the 19205, can be summarised as follows:

First, gain control of Germany itself and begin a process of cleaning out non-Germanic elements in the population. Second, destroy the Versailles settlement and establish Germany as the dominant power in Central Europe. By the late 1930 s Hitler had shown these aims could be achieved, and without war. Third, and crucial to his vision of Germany, he intended to destroy the Soviet Union in a short savage war, to remove the threat of communism, and to provide space for German expansion to the east. By establishing colonies of racially,approved peoples Hitler intended to create an economic and strategic base from which to secure a continental empire across Europe in which countries such as France and Italy would be no more than satellites.

in the fourth stage Germany would demand, or take, a colonial empire in Africa. Added to a vast new navy, this would make her a world superpower,

comparable with Britain, the United States and Japan. In a final stage, probably after his death, Hitler envisaged a decisive struggle between Germany and the United States for domination of the world.

No-one since Napoleon more than a century before had thought in such terms. Quite simply, Hitler intended that Germany, in his lifetime or shortly afterwards, should rule the world.

Mussolini’s Italy was a reluctant participant on Germany’s side in World War 11. Mussolini sought foreign conquests, but was not prepared to risk much for them. Italy had taken part of North Africa (now Libya) from the Turks in 1912 and' had established a colony in Somalia, in East Africa. To these Mussolini added Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1936 after a war in which air attacks and poison gas were used against primitive tribesmen.

That year the Italians, incensed by condemnation of their conquest from Britain and France in the League of Nations, established an “Axis” with Hitler’s Germany. It was backed up in 1939 by a formal alliance, the Pact of Steel, and when Hitler took over Czechoslovakia Mussolini imitated him by occupying Albania.

Germany and Japan had also signed an Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936 which Italy joined a year later. It was directed at the fear of Soviet expansion and became

the principal link between the three aggressors of World War 11. Japan’s decision to go to war was based on grounds that echoed some of those of the Germans: a belief in the racial and cultural superiority of the Japanese; a desperate need to gain assured access to raw materials such as oil; and a belief that other countries — Britain and the United States, especially — were denying Japan its rightful place on the world stage. Japan had absorbed Korea and Taiwan as colonies many years before; she had received a handful of German possessions in China and among the northern Pacific Islands as part of the general division of spoils after World War I (in which the Japanese played a small part on the side of the Allies). By the late 1930 s the Japanese were bogged down in an aggressive war to control China. They overran northern China and coastal cities further south, but this brought few resources and no decisive victory. It also brought economic sanctions from the Western democracies, thus increasing Japan’s shortages of raw materials. Expansion into South-East Asia, in pursuit of oil, rubber, tin, and food, looked irresistible, especially once Britain and France were on the defensive against Germany in Europe. French Indo-China was occupied in mid--1941 as a jumping off place for

further attacks on British, American and Dutch territories. From 1938 Japan was ruled by military leaders. Political parties were suppressed and the emperor was reduced to a figurehead. The military proposed to build in eastern Asia a “Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” — a Japanese empire from Alaska to India, and including Australia and New Zealand. As a first step, the Japanese Navy intended to destroy American sea power with a surprise attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. Japan then envisaged a short, successful war of conquest in Asia.' There was an assumption that Britain and the United States would accept Japanese successes and sue for peace. There was no plan to invade America, or even to attack her industrial capacity to make war. There was vague talk of linking up with a German advance into India through the Middle East. The two aggressors also agreed to divide their spheres of interest at longitude 70 degrees east — which runs through what is now Pakistan. Neither reached the line. In spite of rapid success in the six months after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December, 1941, the Japanese had miscalculated utterly the reaction of the United States. America entered the war as an angry, moralistic, determined, and united country. Such was its huge industrial capacity that even while the United States gave priority to the war against Hitler, the Americans Were still able to destroy Japan’s Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in less than four years.

Tomorrow: Germany overruns Europe, Japan overruns Asia.