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

794 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHand sunk while on convoy duty, with the loss of 100 men of 145 in its crew,including all its seven officers. Thus, long before the final formalities of declaringwar, a shooting war had begun.JAPAN PLAYS ITS OWN GAMEJapan, as we have seen, had been assigned by Hitler the role not of bringingthe United States into the war but of keeping her, at least for the time being,out of it. He knew that if the Japanese took Singapore and threatened Indiathis would not only be a severe blow to the British but would divert America’sattention – and some of her energies – from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Evenafter he began begging the Japanese to attack Vladivostok he saw in this a meansnot only to help him bring Russia down but to further pressure the United Statesinto remaining neutral. Strangely enough, it never seems to have occurred tohim or to anyone else in Germany until very late that Japan had her own fish tofry and that the Japanese might be fearful of embarking on a grand offensive inSoutheast Asia against the British and Dutch, not to mention attacking Russiain the rear, until they had secured their own rear by destroying the United StatesPacific Fleet. True, the Nazi conqueror had promised Matsuoka that Germanywould go to war with America if Japan did, but Matsuoka was no longer in thegovernment, and, besides, Hitler had constantly nagged the Japanese to avoid adirect conflict with America and concentrate on Britain and the Soviet Union,whose resistance was preventing him from winning the war. It did not dawn onthe Nazi rulers that Japan might give first priority to a direct challenge to theUnited States.Not that Berlin wanted the Japanese and Americans to reach an understanding.That would defeat the main purpose of the Tripartite Pact, whichwas to frighten the Americans into staying out of the war. For once Ribbentropprobably gave an honest and accurate appraisal of the Fuehrer’s thoughts onthis when he told an interrogator at Nuremberg:He [Hitler] was afraid that if an arrangement were made betweenthe United States and Japan this would mean, so to speak, the backfree for America, and the unexpected attack or entry into the war bythe United States would come quicker . . . He was worried about anagreement because there were certain groups in Japan who wantedto come to an arrangement with America. 1097One member of such a group was Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, who arrivedin Washington in February 1941 as the new Japanese ambassador and whoseseries of confidential conversations with Cordell Hull which began in March,with the aim of settling peacefully the differences between the two countries,and which continued right up to the end, gave considerable worry to Berlin. ∗Navy records this was not the first such occasion. The official U.S. naval historian confirmsthat as early as April 10 the Niblack (See above, p. 791.) attacked a U-boat with depthcharges. (Samuel Eliot Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in WorldWar II, Vol. I, p. 57.)∗ ”I credit Nomura,” Hull wrote later in his memoirs, ”with having been honestly sincerein trying to avoid war between his country and mine.” (The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, p.987.)