The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

24
Hitler’s Dilemma
WHEN HITLER HEARD the news that the French wanted an armistice, his
secretary, Christa Schroeder, saw him slap his thigh and laugh out loud with
joy. She then listened to Keitel hail him as the greatest warlord of all time.
What a victory it had been! They could scarce believe it. The French had
suffered around 120,000 dead and missing, the Belgians, 7,500, the Dutch
3,000 and the British around 5,000 killed in action with a further 70,000
prisoners and missing. Over 1.5 million men had been taken prisoner. The
Germans, on the other hand, lost 49,000 dead and missing, and 60 per cent
of those losses had occurred during the last ten days. Incredibly, the 1st
Panzer Division, the very spearhead of the entire campaign, had lost just
267 men killed in action, a little over 2 per cent of its number.
William Shirer was one of the journalists invited to witness the official
armistice signing at the clearing in the woods where the railway wagon-lit
stood. He was a little way away, but through binoculars watched Hitler step
out of his car and stride towards them. ‘I observed his face,’ wrote William.
‘It was grave, solemn, yet brimming with revenge. There was also in it a
springy step, a note of the triumphant conqueror, the defier of the world.’
By the terms of the armistice, France was divided. The north and
western seaboard would be occupied by the Germans, while the south
would be left as a puppet state headed by Pétain, with its government in the
small but elegant Auvergne spa town of Vichy. All France’s overseas
possessions were also to be governed by Vichy. Much to his
disappointment, Mussolini was not allowed to have the French fleet, but nor
were the British. Germany, now fully convinced that U-boats were the key
to naval success, agreed that the French navy should remain in port,
inactive, although, of course, Hitler could always change his mind about
that at a later stage.
Declaring the end in France to be the ‘most glorious victory of all time’,
Hitler ordered that bells should be rung in the Reich for a week and that
flags should be flown. The Third Reich was to celebrate. ‘How many
mothers and wives will thank God that the war with France has ended so