rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

VICTORY IN THE WEST 677To be sure, his long speech was swollen with falsifications of history andliberally sprinkled with personal insults of Churchill. But it was moderate intone, considering the glittering circumstances, and shrewdly conceived to winthe support not only of his own people but of the neutrals and to give the massesin England something to think about.From Britain [he said] I now hear only a single cry – not of thepeople but of the politicians – that the war must go on! I do notknow whether these politicians already have a correct idea of whatthe continuation of this struggle will be like. They do, it is true,declare that they will carry on with the war and that, even if GreatBritain should perish, they would carry on from Canada. I canhardly believe that they mean by this that the people of Britain areto go to Canada. Presumably only those gentlemen interested in thecontinuation of their war will go there. The people, I am afraid, willhave to remain in Britain and . . . will certainly regard the war withother eyes than their so-called leaders in Canada.Believe me, gentlemen, I feel a deep disgust for this type of unscrupulouspolitician who wrecks whole nations. It almost causesme pain to think that I should have been selected by fate to dealthe final blow to the structure which these men have already settottering . . . Mr. Churchill . . . no doubt will already be in Canada,where the money and children of those principally interested in thewar have already been sent. For millions of other people, however,great suffering will begin. Mr. Churchill ought perhaps, for once, tobelieve me when I prophesy that a great Empire will be destroyed– an Empire which it was never my intention to destroy or even toharm . . .Having thus tilted at the dogged Prime Minister and attempted to detachthe British people from him, Hitler came to the point of his lengthy speech.In this hour I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience toappeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain asmuch as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make thisappeal since I am not the vanquished begging favors, but the victorspeaking in the name of reason.I can see no reason why this war must go on. ∗∗ There was a colorful scene and one unprecedented in German history when Hitler suddenlybroke off his speech in the middle to award field marshals’ batons to twelve generals anda special king-size one to Goering, who was given the newly created rank of Reich Marshalof the Greater German Reich, which put him above all the others. He was also awardedthe Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, the only one given during the entire war. Haider waspassed over in this avalanche of field marshal awards, being merely promoted one grade, fromlieutenant general to general. This promiscuous award of field-marshalships – the Kaiser hadnamed only five field marshals from the officer corps during all of World War I and not evenLudendorff had been made one – undoubtedly helped to stifle any latent opposition to Hitleramong the generals such as had threatened to remove him on at least three occasions in thepast. In achieving this and in debasing the value of the highest military rank by raising somany to it, Hitler acted shrewdly to tighten his hold over the generals. Nine Army generalswere promoted to field marshal: Brauchitsch, Keitel, Rundstedt, Bock, Leeb, List, Kluge,Witzleben and Reichenau; and three Luftwaffe officers: Milch, Kesselring and Sperrle.