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

718 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHThe Nazi warlord then elaborated on his strategic plans which, it was obviousto the generals, had been ripening in his mind for some time despite all hispreoccupations with the fighting in the West. The operation, he said, would beworth carrying out only if its aim was to shatter the Soviet nation in one greatblow. Conquering a lot of Russian territory would not be enough. ”Wipingout of the very power to exist of Russia! That is the goal!” Hitler emphasized.There would be two initial drives: one in the south to Kiev and the DnieperRiver, the second in the north up through the Baltic States and then towardMoscow. There the two armies would make a junction. After that a specialoperation, if necessary, to secure the Baku oil fields. The very thought of suchnew conquests excited Hitler; he already had in mind what he would do withthem. He would annex outright, he said, the Ukraine, White Russia and theBaltic States and extend Finland’s territory to the White Sea. For the wholeoperation he would allot 120 divisions, keeping sixty divisions for the defenseof the West and Scandinavia. The attack, he laid it down, would begin in May1941 and would take five months to carry through. It would be finished bywinter. He would have preferred, he said, to do it this year but this had notproved possible.The next day, August 1, Haider went to work on the plans with his GeneralStaff. Though he would later claim to have opposed the whole idea of an attackon Russia as insane, his diary entry for this day discloses him full of enthusiasmas he applied himself to the challenging new task.Planning now went ahead with typical German thoroughness on three levels:that of the Army General Staff, of Warlimont’s Operations Staff at OKW, ofGeneral Thomas’ Economic and Armaments Branch of OKW. Thomas was instructedon August 14 by Goering that Hitler desired deliveries of ordered goodsto the Russians ”only till spring of 1941.” ∗ In the meantime his office was tomake a detailed survey of Soviet industry, transportation and oil centers bothas a guide to targets and later on as an aid for administering Russia.A few days before, on August 9, Warlimont had got out his first directivefor preparing the deployment areas in the East for the jump-off against theRussians. The code name for this was Aufbau Ost – ”Build-up East.” On August26, Hitler ordered ten infantry and two armored divisions to be sent from theWest to Poland. The panzer units, he stipulated, were to be concentrated insoutheastern Poland so that they could intervene to protect the Rumanian oilfields. 946 The transfer of large bodies of troops to the East † could not be donewithout exciting Stalin’s easily aroused suspicions if he learned of it, and theGermans went to great lengths to see that he didn’t. Since some movements werebound to be detected, General Ernst Koestring, the German military attache inMoscow, was instructed to inform the Soviet General Staff that it was merely aquestion of replacing older men, who were being released to industry, by youngermen. On September 6, Jodl got out a directive outlining in considerable detail∗ In his report on this Thomas stresses how punctual Soviet deliveries of goods to Germanywere at this time. In fact, he says, they continued to be ”right up to the start of the attack,”and observes, not without amusement, that ”even during the last few days, shipments ofIndia rubber from the Far East were completed [by the Russians] over express transit trains”– presumably over the Trans-Siberian Railway. 945† The Germans had kept only seven divisions in Poland, two of which were transferred tothe West during the spring campaign. The troops there, Haider cracked, were scarcely enoughto maintain the customs service. If Stalin had attacked Germany in June 1940, the Red Armyprobably could have got to Berlin before any serious resistance was organized.