Who set Hitler against Stalin?. Nikolay Starikov

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СКАЧАТЬ premise for the winning of lost territories is the intensive advancement and strengthening of the remaining remnant State as well as the unshakable decision <…> to consecrate at the given moment to the service of the liberation and unification of the whole nation <…>: that is, setting aside the interests of the separated regions.

      Hitler is not going to claim back the “separated regions”! Just because an alliance with Britain is Germany’s only chance to recover and regain its bygone grandeur. This goal is worth any sacrifice. The victorious Britain must have no fears to rearm Germany, as long as the arms will be used for quite different purposes, such as conquering new territories for the benefit of both nations.

      National fates are solidly welded together only through a perspective of a common triumph, in the sense of common gains, conquests, in short, a joint expansion of power.

      What “conquests” does Hitler plan to set out on for Germany and England to benefit from? This is the subject of the next chapter (Chapter 14) in Mein Kampf, with a tell-tale title – Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy. This chapter is the most favoured source of quotation for many Soviet historians. However, it cannot well be understood without the previous chapter; so I must ask for an excuse from my readers for these long quotations. Now this Chapter 14 is extremely important for the understanding of the roots of the Second World War. But to be able to find a reply to what really happened on June 22, 1941, still more important is the direction of thoughts that had formed themselves in the head of the future Führer and Reichschancellor Adolf Hitler before it all began.

      In Chapter 14, Hitler expounds where the Nazi will send the German troops after being armed by the First World War victors.

      The demand for the re-establishment of the frontiers of the year 1914 is political nonsense of such a degree and consequences as to look like a crime.

      Let me remind that Germany’s defeat in the First World War resulted in massive forfeiture of its territories. These territories were grabbed by France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. The overseas colonies were re-colonised by the United Kingdom. A demand to return these territories would mean war with the countries that now occupied them. Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania are controlled by the Union Jack, while France is its number-one ally. The British will have no interest in such a war, hence no desire to sponsor it. For this reason, Hitler attempts to dissipate their doubts once and for all. We don’t want back our Alsace and Lorraine, says he, you may rest on it. There are other places of interest – far to the East, far beyond Poland and Lithuania.

      With this, we National Socialists consciously draw a line through the foreign-policy trend of our pre-War period. We take up at the halting place of six hundred years ago. We terminate the endless German drive to the south and west of Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east. We finally terminate the colonial and trade policy of the pre-War period, and proceed to the territorial policy of the future.

      But if we talk about new soil and territory in Europe today, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal border states.

      That’s clear enough, isn’t it? “We draw a line through the foreign-policy trend of our pre-War period” means no expansion of Germany to the territories it strove to occupy before the First World War, namely, China, Africa, and Asia. As it is, those lands are already divided among the English, the French, and other European nations. Even America has an axe to grind on these continents. Hitler won’t go there – he will go to Russia. There is land enough for everybody there; not only for the Germans, but for the British as well!

      Like an experienced clairvoyant, Hitler strives to dispel all the doubts and shilly-shally of the British intelligence services for who he intended his book. An alliance between Germany and Russia is the perennial nightmare for the Anglo-Saxondom. What happens if these two continental powers become friends? In that case, arming Hitler’s Germany might be “cruising for a bruising”, once he starts claiming the world hegemony in a tie with the Soviet Union.

      Such jejune speculations are utterly ruled out in Hitler’s book.

      The former Russia, divested of its German upper stratum, is, entirely aside from its new rulers’ private plans, no ally for a struggle of the German nation for freedom. Considered purely militarily, in the event of a Germano-Russian war against Western Europe, which would probably, however, mean against the entire rest of the world, the relations would be simply catastrophic. The struggle would proceed not on Russian but on German soil, without Germany being able to get from Russia even the slightest effective support.

      After these reassuring words, the author again addresses his target audience – those in London, not in Berlin. Considering exactly who the following words are addressed to, one can’t but see the book in a different light.

      See to it that the strength of our nation is founded, not on colonies, but on the European territory of the homeland. Never regard the Reich as secure while it is unable to give every national offshoot for centuries his own bit of soil and territory.

      It seems Hitler has made his point quite clear already; basically, he owns that:

      • he stands for an alliance with Britain;

      • blessed by the English and French to rearm Germany, he is ready to attack and conquer the Soviet Union not only in the interests of Germany, but in those of other “forward-looking” nations;

      • he is prepared to withdraw claims to restore the former German territories that have been occupied by his Anglo-Saxon “friends”.

      Clear as it is, Hitler keeps harping on the same string of a British-German alliance, as if to make assurance double sure.

      The most important is first the fact that an approach to England and Italy would in itself in no way evoke danger of war. The only power which would come into question as opposing the alliance, France, would not be in a position to do so.

      Besides, why should France stand up against Hitler who, though calling France Germany’s enemy, is going to make his conquests in the direction of Smolensk and Kharkov and not Marseille and Toulon?

      A further consequence would be that Germany would be freed from its adverse strategic situation at one blow. The most powerful protection of the flank on one side, the complete guaranty of our supply of the necessities of life and raw materials on the other side, would be the blessed effect of the new order of States.

      In all events and circumstances, Hitler sees his alliance with Britain as a panacea for all the pains and aches of the German nation. A kind of balm on the wounds of the fatally injured country.

      But almost more important would be the fact that the new union of States comprises a capacity for technical performance which, in many respects, is almost mutually complementary. For the first time Germany would have allies who do not suck like leeches on our own economy, but which both could and would contribute their share to the richest completion of our technical armament.

      You are still in the dark about the proposed source of the technologies, money, and ammunition? About those with whose help Hitler could not dispense in his war plans? Why, he writes quite openly about it. The concluding chapters of Mein Kampf are one endless train of eulogy on the United Kingdom, page after page.

      The English mother country is really only the great capital of the British world empire <…>

      The greatest world power of the earth <England> and a youthful national State would constitute different premises for a struggle in Europe <…>

      England means everything for us СКАЧАТЬ