Hitler’s Foreign Policy

Was Hitler a master planner or Opportunist?

1. The intentionalist school.

a. The verdict reached by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal 1946 was that
the primary cause of war was Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy.
b. This view argues that from coming to power in 1933, Hitler had long term
goals of conquering Europe and acquiring lebensraum.
c. Andreas Hillgruber. Eberhard Jackel.
2. The opportunist school.
a. AJP Taylor’s Origins of the Second World War. He suggested that Hitler had
no fixed aims and exploited opportunities for expansion when they occurred.
3. The Functionalist school.
a. Karl-Dietrich Bracher.
b. View Hitler as a weak dictator with a chaotic regime, full of agencies
competing for his favour.
c. With this, domestic and external pressures shaped Hitler’s foreign policy and
drove him to war.
d. Tim Mason suggests that economic problems drove Hitler to was as a
distraction tactic.

Was there continuity in German foreign policy 1871 - 1945?

- AJP Taylor points out that both Gustav Stresemann in the 1920s, and Hitler in the
1930s sought land in the East.
- Fritz Fischer points out that Hitler wanted to reunite German speaking peoples, as
had been an objective of the pre-1914 Pan-German League.
- Fritz Fischer also states that far back Germany had wanted land in the East. This
manifested as Brest-Litovsk.

Discontinuity?
- Hitler wasn’t driven by obtaining land that had once been lost, but by obtaining land
in the East.
- For example, in 1938, Hitler dismissed a number of conservative commanders when
they expressed concerns that Hitler was going beyond simply revising the land lost in
Versailles.
- Ralf Dahrendorf / Friedrich Meinecke

What are the main sources of evidence for Hitler’s foreign policy aims?
- The 25 points. The original Nazi manifesto in 1920.
- Mein Kampf (1925)
- Hitler’s second book, 1928. Written but not published.
- Four Year Plan Memorandum, 1936. Hitler’s plans to prepare the economy for war.
- Hossbach Memorandum, 1937. Notes from a meeting outlined Hitler’s foreign policy
objectives and discussed when Germany would be ready for war.
 - Revising the ToV was not the ultimate goal for Hitler, but acted as part of the large
objective of winning lebensraum - breaking the treaty’s military restrictions was a
prerequisite for expansion.
- Hitler was committed to the creation of a Greater German Reich, which meant going
much further than the traditional nationalist programme.
- Hitler sought lebensraum for the German master race. The slavs would be slaves as
they were seen as inferior.
- Hitler didn’t deviate from the ideas he presented in Mein Kampf.

Was Hitler planning for Blitzkrieg or Total War?

- Hitler placed a huge emphasis on rearmament.
- 1933: 100 000 men, no tanks, no warplanes, limited navy tonnage.
- 1939: 1200 bombers, 98 army divisions, 2 battleships, 2 armoured cruisers, 17
destroyers, 47 u boats.
- 1936-1939 saw a massive increase in arms spending. 66% of German industrial
investment was devoted to war production.

- Historians are divided over whether Hitler had planned to get Germany prepared for
total war prior to 1939.
- Some historians contend that Hitler never planned full mobilisation of the economy to
war, because he wanted short Blitzkrieg campaigns. Germany would be able to
exploit the economic resources of a captured country before launching the next bout
of Blitzkrieg.
- According to this theory, Hitler’s strategy failed when he became locked in a war of
attrition with the USSR from June 1941.
- Richard Overy suggests that Hitler was planning for total war, but miscalculated in
1939 as he didn’t think invading Poland would provoke a general European war.

Hitler’s Foreign Policy - A Timeline

November 1937 - The Hossbach Memorandum.

- Hitler met with his military commanders and outlined his plans for Lebensraum from
1943-45.
- Hitler then dismissed his more conservative commanders.

March 1938 - The Anschluss

- Hitler was an opportunist. In Feb 1938, he summoned the Austrian chancellor to a
meeting and bullied him into appointing an Austrian Nazi as interior minister.
- The Austrian Chancellor was also to hold a vote on whether Austria wished to join
with German.
- Hitler threatened President Miklas with force to replace the chancellor with Seyss-
Inquart. Seyss-Inquart invited German troops into Austria.
- Following a virtually bloodless invasion on 12 March, the Anschluss was proclaimed.
In the Nazi-supervised vote, 99% of Austrians voted in approval of joining with
Germany.
1938 Sudeten Crisis
 - Hitler sought to pick a quarrel with the Czech government over the Sudetenland to
provide an excuse for invasion.
- Hitler saw the Czechs as an inferior race and a threat. They were allied with France
the USSR and threatened Hitler’s Eastern Expansion goals.

September 1938 The Munich Agreement

- Hitler encouraged the Sudeten German Party to keep on raising its demands so as to
prevent an agreement with the Czech government.
- Neville Chamberlain tried appeasement. He agreed that Hitler should occupy the
Sudetenland if it was the last bit of land he occupied.

March 1939 - Invasion of Czechoslovakia

- Appeasement failed. Hitler was not content with the union of all German speakers
and demanded of the Czech president that Nazi troops be allowed into
Czechoslovakia.
- Hitler took Czechoslovakia.

1939 Poland
- Britain had signed a Treaty with Poland on 31 March, promising to defend it.
- Britain began conscription in April.
- Hitler assumed both actions were a bluff.
- He demanded of Poland the return of Danzig, a mainly Germany city. Hitler also
demanded rail and road access across the Polish corridor.
- Poland rejected.

August 1939 - The Nazi Soviet Pact

- August, Hitler secretly approached the Soviet Government for an alliance.
- The Pact was published on 23 August.
- AJP Taylor cites it as evidence that there was no consistency to Hitler’s foreign
policy.
- Other historians suggest that this was part of Hitler’s plan for lebensraum. It was to
neutralise the USSR so that he could deal with Poland.

September 1929
- Sep 1, Hitler invaded Poland.
- Sep 3, Britain and France declared war on Hitler.
- They were unable to help Poland however, who