The traditional Hitler apologist line for his invasion of the USSR is that it was all a “pre-emptive strike” predicated on a perceived threat of imminent invasion from Moscow. That narrative was the one spun by Hitler and his generals – public-facing propaganda that continues to be dutifully repeated by Hitlerists today – to justify what was unmistakably pre-mediated aggression to secure Lebensraum. Several primary sources severely undermine those claims.
These are passages from the Goebbels diaries which show that Goebbels, who was repeating the general sentiments of Hitler and the top brass, perceived virtually no imminent threat from the USSR and in fact perceived them as being weak and vulnerable.
Entry November 1939
On the Führer. He again notes the disastrous condition of the Russian army. It is hardly usable as a fighting force.
Entry 15 March 1940
By the way, it is very good that the Russians no longer have a Germanic leadership; so they can never become dangerous for us. And if Stalin shoots his generals, we don’t even have to do that.
Entry 29 March 1941
The big operation comes later: against R. It is carefully camouflaged, only a few people know about it. It is initiated with extensive troop transports to the West. We divert suspicion in all directions, except to the East. A dummy enterprise is prepared against England, and then it’s back and forth in a flash. Ukraine is a good granary. If we sit there, we can last a long time.
That is a candid admission of their pre-meditated plan to attack Russia while deceiving the world about their plans to do so.
That passage is an entry dated 12 May 1941, in which Goebbels speaks about the tensions building with the USSR, saying “above all, we have nothing to fear from the Russians, either militarily or in terms of propaganda.” That’s a clear cut affirmation that the Germans were not fearful of a Russian attack.
Entry 22nd April 1941:
“Article in “Pravda”: Nothing against Germany, Moscow wants peace, etc. So Stalin has already smelt a rat and is waving the peace palm. So that’s how strong we are now. The Russian card no longer stings.“
So less than two months before the invasion Goebbels says Moscow wants PEACE and is WAVING THE PEACE PALM.
Entry 13 May 1941:
“A short walk through forest and meadow. The birch trees are green. How warm the sun shines. I have a great longing for peace, quiet, relaxation and a little happiness. But we only want to think about that when the war is over. Finished the newsreel in the evening. It turns out well after all, after being set to racy music. Watched some more English and Russian newsreels for comparison. This is no competition for us at all. Here you realise how far ahead we are of the others.“
Entry 12th June 1941:
“Report from Bessarabia and the Ukraine: the Russians are staring hypnotically at us and are afraid. They are not doing much. They will be overrun like no people before. And the Bolshevik spook will quickly come to an end. “
So just ten days before the invasion, the above passage suggests the Germans still perceived the Russians to be weak and AFRAID and would be a push over when invaded. It’s also an affirmation of their own pre-meditated invasion plans, “They will be overrun like no people before… the Bolshevik spook will quickly come to an end.”
Very clear.
Entry 14 June 1941:
“In East Prussia, everything is so massed that the Russians could inflict the most serious damage on us through pre-emptive air raids. But they won’t do that. They lack the courage to do so. You have to be bold if you want to win a war.“
So Goebbels muses about a possible Russian air raid, but affirms that “they won’t do that, they lack the courage”! Once again, no serious threat perceived eight days before the invasion.
Entry 15 June 1941:
“From intercepted radio messages, on the other hand, we can gather that Moscow is putting the Russian fleet on standby. So they are not quite as harmless over there as they pretend to be. But the preparations are extremely dilettante. Not to be taken seriously for a real action.“
Entry 16 June 1941:
“The Führer explains the situation to me in detail: the attack on Russia will begin as soon as our deployment is completed. That will be the case in the course of about a week. The campaign in Greece took a lot out of our equipment, so things are taking a little longer. It’s a good thing that the weather was a bit bad and the harvest in the Ukraine is not yet ripe. So we can hope to get most of it. It will be a mass attack on the largest scale. Probably the most massive that history has ever seen. The example of Napoleon will not be repeated. On the very first morning, the bombardment begins from 10,000 barrels. We’re deploying massive new artillery pieces that were intended for the Maginot Line but were no longer needed at the time. The Russians are massed right on the border, the best thing that can ever happen to us. While they spread widely across the country, they posed a greater threat. They have about 180-2 [00] divisions at their disposal, maybe a little less, at least about as many as we do. In terms of personal and material value, they cannot be compared with us at all. The breakthrough occurs at various points. They are rolled up smoothly. The Führer estimates the campaign to last about 4 months, I estimate a lot less. Bolshevism will collapse like a house of cards. We are on the verge of an unprecedented triumph.”
Entry 16 June 1941:
“We must act. Moscow wants to stay out of the war until Europe is tired and bled dry. Then Stalin wants to act, Bolshevise Europe and take up his regiment. He will be thwarted in this. Our action is as prepared as is humanly possible. So many reserves have been built in that failure is quite out of the question. There are no geographical limits to the action. We will fight until there is no Russian army left. Japan is in the alliance. The action is also necessary for this side. Tokyo would never get involved with the USA if Russia were still intact at its back. So Russia must fall for this reason too. England would like to keep Russia as a hope for the future in Europe. That was also Cripp’s mission in Moscow. It has not yet succeeded, the man bears his name wrongly. But Russia would attack us if we became weak, and then we would have the two-front war which we avoid by this preventive action. Only then will we have our backs. I rate the fighting strength of the Russians very low, even lower than the Führer. If an action was and is safe, then this one. We must also attack Russia to free people. An undefeated Russia is constantly forcing 150 divisions on us, whose men we urgently need for our war economy. This has to be intensified in order to carry out our weapons, submarine and aircraft programs in such a way that the USA can no longer harm us. Material, raw materials and machines are there for a 3-hour shift, but the people are missing. If Russia is defeated, then we can dismiss whole cohorts and build it, arm it, prepare it. Only then can the Luftwaffe attack England on a grand scale. An invasion is very unlikely anyway. So it means creating other guarantees for victory.”
Goebbels dabbles in a lot of the propagandistic messaging they were giving at the time of “freeing people” from Bolshevism, pre-emption, etcetera, but he muses again and again how the Russians are weak, they “want to stay out of the war until Europe is tired,” they won’t dare to act against Germany, etc. He even gives another reason for them to attack the USSR, to give Japan confidence to take on America: “Tokyo would never get involved with the USA if Russia were still intact at its back. So Russia must fall for this reason too.” Then he says they were going to take on England after Russia was defeated and its resources conquered: “If Russia is defeated, then we can dismiss whole cohorts and build it, arm it, prepare it. Only then can the Luftwaffe attack England on a grand scale.“
Entry 16 June 1941:
“The Führer says, right or wrong, we must win. This is the only way. And it is right, moral and necessary. And if we have won, who asks us about the method. We’ve got so much on our plate anyway that we have to win, because otherwise our whole people, we at the top with everything we hold dear, would be wiped out. So get to work! The Führer asks me what the people think. She thinks we are trading with Russia, but will be brave if we call her out. The Russian broadcasters are jammed by us to the greatest possible extent, and otherwise our soldiers now have the opportunity to get to know the homeland of the workers and peasants personally. They will all return as savage anti-Bolsheviks. This plague will be driven out of Europe. The time is ripe for that. In the Fuhrer’s view, the Taßdenmenti is just a product of fear. Stalin trembled at what was to come. His wrong game is put to an end. We will now organize the raw materials of this rich country. England’s hopes of wearing us down with a blockade are finally gone. And then the submarine war really starts. England will sink to the bottom.“
That last line again confirms the second motive, besides Lebensraum, for invading Russia: obtaining its vast natural resources which would help the German fight off the English in future battles.
Important to mention that Goebbels said “if we win, who will ask about the method?” What he’s saying is that if the Germans triumph in conquering Russia, the winner does not have to explain itself to the loser. Hitler himself said the same thing in an August 1939 speech:
“…on 22 August [1939] Hitler once again spoke to around fifty high-ranking officers he had summoned specially to the Berghof […] Hitler went on to describe his rapprochement with Russia, which excluded any risk from that quarter. All in all, there was only one final risk left, that some ‘chap’ would screw it up with an offer to mediate […] He told the generals he would ‘provide a propaganda pretext for starting the war, however implausible. The victor is never asked afterwards whether or not he told the truth. When starting and waging a war it’s not being in the right that matters, but victory.’ And he went on: ‘Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. 80 million people must get what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is in the right. The greatest harshness.’ For the generals this meant: ‘The military goal is the total destruction of Poland. Speed is of the essence. Pursuit to the point of complete annihilation.’” – Source: Peter Longerich, Hitler: A Biography
So what Hitler is saying there is that he is going to invade Poland, invent a propaganda pretext for doing so, the truth doesn’t matter if you win and that “might makes right”. He and Goebbels applied the same logic to the invasion of Russia.
A Goebbels diary entry from 30, August 1939 confirms that Hitler intended to strike Poland all along:
“The situation at the moment is something like this: Henderson delivered England’s answer. London is prepared to persuade Poland to negotiate on the basis of the Führer’s Reichstag speech. Beck is then to come to Berlin. The Führer wants a vote in the corridor under international control. In doing so, he hopes to perhaps extricate London from Warsaw and find an occasion to strike. London’s position is no longer as rigid as before. But it wants guarantees and proofs of confidence.”
Hitler sent two letters to Stalin in 1941 in which he deceived Stalin about his intentions towards Russia. He tries to make Stalin believe that Germany intended to invade England and not Russia and that any troop movements near Russia’s border was merely “training” for the future invasion of England.
December 31, 1940
I am using the occasion of sending New Year’s greetings and my wishes for success and prosperity to you and the people of Soviet Russia to discuss a series of questions that were raised in my conversations with Mr. Molotov and Mr. Dekanozov.
The struggle with England has entered a decisive phase, and I intend not later than the summer of the coming year to put an end to this rather drawn-out question by seizing and occupying the heart of the British Empire—the British Isles. I am aware of the difficulty of this operation but believe that it can be carried out, for I see no other way of ending this war.
As I wrote to you earlier, the approximately seventy divisions that I must keep in the Government General are undergoing reorganization and training in an area inaccessible to English aviation and intelligence. I understood from my discussions with Messrs. Molotov and Dekanozov that this has aroused in you understandable anxiety. Beginning in approximately March, these troops will be moved to the Channel and the western coast of Norway, and in their place, new units will be assembled for accelerated training. I wanted to warn you of this in advance.
In addition, I intend to use these troops to force the English out of Greece, and for this, it will be necessary to move them through Romania and Bulgaria. Those troops that will carry out the invasion of England from Norwegian territory will continue to utilize transit rights through Finland. Germany has no interests in Finland or Bulgaria, and as soon as we achieve our goals in this war, I will immediately withdraw my troops. . . .
I especially want to warn you of the following. The agony of England is accompanied by feverish efforts to save it from its inevitable fate. For this purpose, they are fabricating all possible foolish rumors, the most important of which can be crudely divided into two categories. These are rumors of planned invasions by the USSR into Germany and by Germany against the USSR. I do not wish to dwell on the absurdity of such nonsense. However, on the basis of information in my possession, I predict that as our invasion of the [British] Isles draws closer, the intensity of such rumors will increase and fabricated documents will perhaps be added to them.
I will be completely open to you. Some of these rumors are being circulated by appropriate German offices. The success of our invasion of the Isles depends very much on the achievement of tactical surprise. Therefore, it is useful to keep Churchill and his circles in ignorance of our precise plans.A worsening of the relations between our countries to include armed conflict is the only way for the English to save themselves, and I assure you that they will continue efforts in this direction with their characteristic slyness and craftiness. . . .
For a final solution of what to do with this bankrupt English legacy, and also for the consolidation of the union of socialist countries and the establishment of new world order, I would like very much to meet personally with you. I have spoken about this with Messrs. Molotov and Dekanozov.
Unfortunately, as you will well understand, an exceptional workload prevents me from arranging our meeting until the smashing of England.
That first letter was sent in response to a previous letter Stalin sent Hitler begging to know why Germany was amassing troops on the Soviet border:
Marshal Zhukov said that Stalin had told him in January 1941 that this letter from Hitler was in response to an earlier letter from Stalin (not yet disclosed) inquiring as to the reason for German troop transfers to Poland which seemed to be a hostile act directed at the USSR. This Hitler letter evidently was intended to allay those fears and explain their supposed purpose.
A third interesting aspect is Hitler’s deliberate lie that he had sent “approximately seventy divisions” to Poland for “reorganization and training” and to keep them away from “English aviation and intelligence.” While those reasons had a veneer of truthfulness, the real reason for the Germans’ continuing troop transfers to the East was to prepare for Operation Barbarossa.
In Hitler’s second letter to Stalin, he again deceives his socialist counterpart about Germany’s intention to invade the USSR, making it seem like the troop movements near the border were part of preparation to attack England:
May 14, 1941
I am writing this letter at the moment of having finally concluded that it will be impossible to achieve lasting peace in Europe, not for us, not for future generations, without the final shattering of England and her destruction as a state. As you well know, I long ago made the decision to carry out a series of military measures to achieve this goal. The closer the hour of a decisive battle, however, the larger the number of problems I face. For the mass of the German people, no war is popular, especially not a war against England, because the German people consider the English a fraternal people and war between them a tragic event.
… In this connection, a special warning is raised by the following circumstance. In order to organize troops for the invasion away from the eyes of the English opponent, and in connection with the recent operations in the Balkans, a large number of my troops, about eighty divisions, are located on the borders of the Soviet Union. This possibly gave rise to the rumors now circulating of a likely military conflict between us.
I assure you, on my honor as a chief of state that this is not the case. From my side, I also react with understanding to the fact that you cannot completely ignore these rumors and have also deployed a sufficient number of your troops on the border.
In this situation I cannot completely exclude the possibility of an accidental outbreak of armed conflict, which given the conditions created by such a concentration of troops might take on very large dimensions, making it difficult if not impossible to determine what caused it in the first place.
I want to be absolutely candid with you. I fear that some of my generals might deliberately embark on such a conflict in order to save England from its fate and spoil my plans. It is a question of no more than a month. By approximately June 15–20 I plan to begin a massive transfer of troops to the west from your borders. In connection with this, I ask you, as persuasively as possible, not to give in to any provocations that might emanate from those of my generals who might have forgotten their duty.
And, it goes without saying, try not to give them any cause. If it becomes impossible to avoid provocation by some of my generals, I ask you to show restraint, to not respond but to advise me immediately of what has happened through the channel known to you. Only in this way can we attain our mutual goals, on which, it seems to me, we are clearly in agreement.
So Hitler admits that he is the one who began amassing troops near the Soviet border and that Stalin only moved his troops in place in response to this:
In order to organize troops for the invasion away from the eyes of the English opponent, and in connection with the recent operations in the Balkans, a large number of my troops, about eighty divisions, are located on the borders of the Soviet Union. This possibly gave rise to the rumors now circulating of a likely military conflict between us. I assure you, on my honor as a chief of state that this is not the case. From my side, I also react with understanding to the fact that you cannot completely ignore these rumors and have also deployed a sufficient number of your troops on the border.
In a 1939 speech Hitler made it abundantly clear that his intention all along was starting another war:
Hitler wanted the war. It was the logical end to the path which he had taken since being appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933, and upon which conservative elites – generals, diplomats and industrial arms manufacturers – with few exceptions had willingly followed him. As the dictator himself emphasised in a speech to his commanders a few weeks after the conclusion of the Polish campaign in the autumn of 1939, he would never have undertaken to ‘educate the people, build up the Wehrmacht and rearm’ if he had not had the will to use force ‘right from the beginning’ [¹]. There was no room for the idea of lasting peace in Hitler’s social-Darwinist world view. Peace, Hitler often reiterated privately, would only ‘lead humanity into a quagmire’. Every generation, he believed, had to ‘steel itself anew and collect new experiences’.[²]
The only fault that can be attributed to the Western powers is that they failed to stay Hitler’s arm while that was still possible. They had tried everything they could, to the point of self-abnegation, to tame his drive for expansion in the interests of preserving peace in Europe. It was not until the policy of appeasement had definitively failed in the spring of 1939 that the Western powers decided to confront Germany’s Führer – too late to undermine Hitler’s determination to wage war, if indeed that drive could have been checked under any circumstances. By contrast, in order to buy time for a conflict it knew was coming, the Soviet Union temporarily allied itself with its mortal enemy and became complicit, in the short term, in Hitler’s policies of aggression.— Vᴏʟᴋᴇʀ Uʟʟʀɪᴄʜ, Hɪᴛʟᴇʀ Dᴏᴡɴꜰᴀʟʟ: 1939-45
[1] Hɪᴛʟᴇʀ’s sᴘᴇᴇᴄʜ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴀɴᴅᴇʀs, 23 Nᴏᴠᴇᴍʙᴇʀ 1939; Gʀᴏsᴄᴜʀᴛʜ, Tᴀɢᴇʙüᴄʜᴇʀ ᴇɪɴᴇs Aʙᴡᴇʜʀᴏꜰꜰɪᴢɪᴇʀs, ᴘ. 415. A ᴅɪꜰꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴛ ᴀᴄᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ ʜᴀᴅ Hɪᴛʟᴇʀ sᴀʏɪɴɢ, ‘Tʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴄɪsɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ sᴛʀɪᴋᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏs ᴇxɪsᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴍᴇ.’ Dᴏᴍᴀʀᴜs, Hɪᴛʟᴇʀ, ᴠᴏʟ. 2, ᴘᴀʀᴛ 1, ᴘ. 1423.
[2] Gᴏᴇʙʙᴇʟs, Tᴀɢᴇʙüᴄʜᴇʀ, ᴘᴀʀᴛ I, ᴠᴏʟ. 8, ᴘᴘ. 332ꜰ. (ᴇɴᴛʀʏ ꜰᴏʀ 18 Sᴇᴘᴛ. 1940). Iɴ Mᴀʀᴄʜ 1939 ɪɴ Sᴀɴ Fʀᴀɴᴄɪsᴄᴏ, Hɪᴛʟᴇʀ’s ꜰᴏʀᴍᴇʀ ᴀᴅᴊᴜᴛᴀɴᴛ Fʀɪᴛᴢ Wɪᴇᴅᴇᴍᴀɴɴ ʀᴇᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅɪᴄᴛᴀᴛᴏʀ ꜰʀᴇǫᴜᴇɴᴛʟʏ sᴀʏɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ᴏꜰ 1938: ‘Eᴠᴇʀʏ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ɴᴇᴇᴅs ᴛᴏ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ɢᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴀ ᴡᴀʀ.’ BA Kᴏʙʟᴇɴᴢ, N 1720/4.
Let’s not forget that in Chapter 14 of Mein Kampf Hitler outlines with vivid clarity his chief foreign policy goal was the invasion of Russia to expand Germany’s living space:
Therefore the only possibility that Germany had to conduct a sound territorial policy was to acquire new territory in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose, since they aren’t suited for large-scale European settlement. From the 19th century on, it was no longer possible to peacefully acquire such colonies. Therefore any attempt at such a colonial expansion would have meant an enormous military struggle. Thus it was more practical to undertake that military struggle for new territory in Europe, rather than to wage war for foreign acquisition.
If new territory were to be acquired in Europe, it should have been mainly at Russia’s expense. Once again, the new German Reich should have set out on the same road as was formerly traveled by the Teutonic Knights-this time to acquire soil for the German plow by means of the German sword, and thus provide the nation with its daily bread. Such a policy, however, could have only one possible European ally: England. Only by alliance with England was it possible to safeguard the rear of the new German crusade. And the justification for undertaking such an expedition was stronger than that of our forefathers. Not one of our pacifists refuses to eat the bread made from grain grown in the East; and yet the first plow here was “the sword’!
Moreover, as National Socialists, we must lay down the following principle regarding the nature of the foreign policy of a folkish State: A folkish State’s foreign policy must first of all bear in mind the duty of securing the existence of the race on this planet, which is embodied in this State. And this is done by establishing a healthy and natural relation between the number and growth of the population on the one hand, and the quantity and quality of the soil on the other.
Only a sufficiently large space on this Earth can assure a peoples’ free existence. The necessary extent of territorial expansion for settlement must not be estimated by present requirements nor even by the magnitude of its agricultural productivity in relation to the population.
…In the first volume, under the heading “Germany’s Alliance Policy before the War,” I have already explained that a state’s land area is of importance, not only as the source of the nation’s food, but also militarily and politically. Once a people is assured of its sustenance by the amount of soil, it must consider how to defend it. …Thus the German nation can assure its own future only as a world power.
…Germany today is no world power. Even if our present military weakness could be overcome, we still would have no claim to this title. What importance does a State have on this planet in which the relation of population to area is so miserable as in the present German Reich? In an era in which the world is being gradually divided among states–many of whom almost embrace whole continents–one cannot speak of a world power in the case of a structure whose political Motherland is confined to the laughable area of barely 500,000 square kilometers.
Furthermore we must consider the American Union as foremost among the colossal states, also Russia and China. Some of these spatial areas are more than ten times greater than the present German Reich. …Today we find ourselves in a world of great power-states, in which our own Reich is constantly sinking into insignificance.
If the National Socialist movement wants to be recognized by history as having a great mission for our people, it will have to painfully recognize the real truth of our situation in the world. It must courageously fight against the aimlessness and incompetence that has hitherto guided our German nation in foreign policy. Then, without respect for ‘tradition’ or preconceptions, it must find the courage to organize our national forces and set them on a path that will lead them away from the present restricted living space and toward new land and soil. Thus will the movement save us from the danger of perishing from this Earth or of serving others as a slave nation.
In contrast to the policy of those who represented that period, we must take our stand on the highest viewpoint regarding all foreign policy, namely: to bring the land into harmony with our population. Indeed, from the past we can only learn that the aim of our political conduct must lie in two directions: (1) land and soil as the objective of our foreign policy, and (2) a new, philosophically-established, uniform foundation as the goal of domestic political activity.
… I still want to briefly take a stand on the question of how far our territorial aims are ethically and morally justified. This is necessary because, unfortunately in our so-called folkish circles, there are all kinds of plausible big-mouths who try to persuade the German people that the aim of their foreign policy ought to be to right the wrongs of 1918, while at the same time they find it necessary to assure the whole world of folkish brotherhood and sympathy.
To demand the restoration of the 1914 borders is a political absurdity that’s fraught with such consequences as to appear criminal. The 1914 Reich borders were anything but logical. They were not really complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German nation, nor were they reasonable, in light of military-geographical effectiveness. …Even if it could be really carried out, the result would be so miserable that, by God, it wouldn’t be worthwhile to risk our people’s blood for it.
There can scarcely be any doubt whatsoever that only through bloodshed could we restore the 1914 borders.… Only an organized and concentrated national sentiment, turned into an effective force, can defy the international enslavement of peoples. This path is, and remains, a bloody one.
If we are convinced that the German future calls for the highest sacrifice, in one way or another, then we must set aside considerations of political expediency, establish a worthy goal, and fight for it. …… The 1914 borders are of no significance for the German future. They neither served to protect us in the past, nor do they offer any strength for the future. With these borders, the German people cannot attain an inner unity, nor can they assure their sustenance, nor, from a military viewpoint, are they advantageous, nor can they improve our relations with the other world powers–or better, with the real world powers. We won’t narrow the gap with England, and we won’t achieve the size of the American Union; indeed, not even France would be diminished in terms of world political importance.
State borders are made by man, and can be changed by man. The fact that a nation has acquired an enormous area is no reason why it should hold it forever. At most, it proves the strength of the conqueror and the weakness of the defeated. And in this strength alone lies the right. If the German people are imprisoned within an impossible area, and face a miserable future, this is not by the command of Fate, anymore than to oppose such affairs is to disobey it.
Just as no higher power has promised more territory to other nations than to the German, so it cannot be blamed for an unjust distribution of soil. Just as the soil on which we now live was not bestowed by Heaven on our forefathers–but had to be conquered by mortal risk–so too in the future our people will not obtain territory, and thus life, as a favor from above, but must win it by the power of a triumphant sword.
It can and will have significance only if it serves as a rear cover in the struggle for an enlargement of our peoples’ living space in Europe. Colonial acquisitions won’t solve that problem. This will happen only by the winning of settlement territory for our people, such as will extend the area of the Motherland and thereby not only keep the new settlers in the closest communion with the land of their origin, but will guarantee to this region the advantages that arise from a unified expanse.
We National Socialists must go still further: The right to land and soil becomes a duty when a great nation seems destined to go under, unless its land is extended. And that’s particularly true when the nation at hand is not some little group of Negroes but the Germanic mother of all life, which has given cultural shape to the modem world. Germany will either be a world power, or not at all. But in order to become a world power, it needs that size which gives it the necessary importance today, and gives life to its citizens.
Therefore we National Socialists have purposely drawn a line through our pre-war conduct of foreign policy. We resume where we left off, six centuries ago. We put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the south and west of Europe, and tum our eyes towards the land of the East. We finally shut off the colonial–and trade-policy of pre-war times, and pass over to the land-policy of the future.
But when we speak of new land and soil in Europe today, we must principally think of Russia and its subject border states. Destiny itself seems to wish to point the way for us here. In delivering Russia over to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian people of that intelligentsia that had once created and secured the Russian state. The organization of the Russian state-structure was not a result of Russian Slavic political ability, but rather was a marvelous example of the state-building capacity of the Germanic element amidst an inferior race.
Our task, and the mission of the National Socialist movement, is to develop the political insight in our people that will enable them to realize that their future aim is not the fulfillment of some new and wildly adventurous March of Alexander, but rather as the industrious labor of the German plow, for which the sword will provide the soil.
…It’s impossible for a coalition of cripples to attack a powerful state, if it’s determined to shed the last drop of its blood for its existence. As a folkish man who appraises the value of humanity by their race, I must recognize the racial inferiority of the so-called ‘oppressed nations,’ and this prevents me from linking my own peoples’ destiny with theirs. Today we must adopt the same position towards Russia. Present-day Russia, deprived of its Germanic ruling class, is not a possible ally in the struggle for German freedom, even setting aside the inner intentions of its new rulers. From a purely military viewpoint, a Russo-German coalition waging war against Western Europe, and probably against the whole world, would be catastrophic.
In Hitler’s last letter to General Keitel, he made it clear the war aim was winning new territory in the East:
The great victories had been due to him. The defeats and final failure had been due to others—to their “disloyalty and betrayal.” And then the parting valediction—the last recorded written words of this mad genius’s life: ‘The efforts and sacrifices of the German people in this war have been so great that I cannot believe that they have been in vain. The aim must still be to win territory in the East for the German people.’ – William Shirer, Rise & Fall of the Third Reich
Keitel in his post-war memoir, while trying to exonerate himself by employing the “pre-emptive strike” hoax, admits the German side didn’t have any clear information of an impending Russian invasion and decided to act first:
At that stage it was still not possible to determine whether the Russians were actually girding themselves for an attack or whether they were themselves only massing to ward one off… but the German invasion was soon to tear that veil of doubt aside.
Remember, that Hitler in his letters to Stalin admitted that Germany was amassing troops on the Soviet border and he even said that he understood Stalin’s anxiety about this and his decision to move his own troops to the border.
What all of this spells out is that the Germans are clearly the aggressors here and the Soviets were on the defensive.
More evidence from David Irving’s Hitler’s War:
Once more, on March 30 [1941], Hitler’s generals and admirals were summoned from all over Nazi-occupied Europe to hear a secret speech in Berlin. He explained at some length his decision to attack Russia, starting SIGNIFICANTLY with Britain’s refusal to make peace in June 1940. He spoke scathingly of Italy’s misfortunes, charitably distinguishing between the plucky but poorly led Italian soldiers and their bumbling and devious political and military commanders. ‘Why has Britain fought on?’ he asked. He identified two primary reasons – the influence of the Jews and of Britain’s international financial entanglements, and the dominant influence of the Churchill clique. The RAF’s night bombing of Germany boosted British domestic morale far more than it damaged German industry. Now Britain was hitching her fortunes to the United States and Russia, declared Hitler.
Of the United States he was not afraid. But Russia must be defeated now. ‘We have the chance to smash Russia while our own rear is free. That chance will not recur so soon. I would be betraying the future of the German people if I did not seize it now!’ Hitler urged his generals to have no compunctions about violating their treaty with Russia. Stalin had only cynically signed it; but he also urged them not to underestimate the Russian tanks or air force, or to rely too heavily on Germany’s allies in this fight. He drilled into his generals that this would be a war between great ideologies, and as such very different from the war in the west. ‘In the east cruelty now will be kindness for the future.’ The Russian commissars and GPU officials were criminals, and were to be treated as such. ‘It is not our job to see that these criminals survive.’
The Third Reich At War by Richard J. Evans confirms the view that Hitler planned to attack Russia all along:
Stalin personally vetoed proposals to disrupt the German military build-up by attacking across the Polish demarcation line. Reports from Soviet agents and even from members of the German embassy in Moscow that an invasion was imminent only convinced him that the Germans were playing hard-ball in their drive to extract economic concessions from him.
At the same time, Stalin realized that, as he told graduating military cadets in Moscow on 5 May 1941, ‘War with Germany is inevitable.’ Molotov might be able to postpone it for two or three months, but in the meantime it was vital to ‘re-teach our army and our commanders. Educate them in the spirit of attack.’ Delivered to young officers as a rhetorical message for the future, this was not a statement of intent. Stalin did not believe that the Red Army would be ready to deal with the Germans until 1942 or perhaps even 1943. Not only had the General Staff not drawn up any plans for an attack on the German forces, it had no plans for a defence against them either. Although the Germans mounted a large and sophisticated deception plan to conceal the true nature of their intentions, Soviet intelligence began to send in accurate reports that the invasion was planned for around 22 June 1941. BUT STALIN WOULD NOT LISTEN. Earlier reports that the invasion plans were to become operational on 15 May 1941, though correct at the time, proved wrong when the Germans delayed Barbarossa in order to mount the invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia.
Hitler later blamed Mussolini for the consequences, but in fact the weather in East-Central Europe in these weeks would have made an invasion of the Soviet Union inadvisable even had the German Leader not been obliged to step in to rescue his Italian ally from the imbroglio in Southern Europe. The Soviet agents who had made the prediction lost all credibility as a result. The capitalist forces in Britain, including the exiled Polish government, seemed to Stalin’s narrow and suspicious mind to be feeding false information to him about German intentions in order to lure him into a battle. Surely in any case the German Leader would not invade while the conflict with Britain was still unresolved. When an ex-Communist soldier deserted the German forces on 21 June 1941 and swam across a river to TELL THE RUSSIANS on the other side that HIS UNIT HAD BEEN GIVEN ORDERS TO INVADE the following morning, STALIN HAD HIM SHOT FOR SPREADING ‘DISINFORMATION’.
It’s true that Stalin had ignored dozens of detailed intelligence reports warning him that the German attack was imminent:
In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Russian military historian Arsen Martirosyan revealed that Soviet intelligence had named the exact, or almost exact, date of the invasion 47 times in the 10 days before Germany struck. Moscow knew of Nazi invasion plans from 1935, the historian argues, and was aware as early as 1936 of an attack plan called the Eastern Campaign.
It seems that Hitler himself all but let the cat out of the bag in May 1941, when he sent a letter to Stalin, who at the time was still a nominally friendly leader under the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact. According to Martirosyan, the Fuehrer notified the Vozhd of his plans to “redeploy his troops from the German-Soviet frontier to the west between 15 and 20 June approximately”. Substitute “east” for “west”, and you get the picture…
Ordinary Soviet border guards passed on most of the warnings of the coming invasion, Martirosyan said. Between 1 and 10 June, they captured 108 enemy spies and saboteurs, he told Komsomolskaya Pravda, and a further 200 or so in the final 12 days before the invasion. On 14 June, guards on the Belarusian section of the border relayed back to Moscow the correct date of the planned invasion, learnt from two captured saboteurs. The same date was revealed by saboteurs captured on 18 June. Border guard agents operating on the German-controlled side of the border also confirmed the date repeatedly, Martirosyan found, as did local civilians.
Most poignantly, perhaps, were the Polish women who gathered on the opposite bank of one frontier river on 15 June, cupping their hands around their mouths to shout warnings, in broken Russian, to the Soviet guards facing them. “Soviets, Soviets, the war is coming!” they were recorded as saying. “Soviets, the war will start in one week!”
One of the reasons Stalin kept ignoring the reports about Hitler’s inevitable betrayal of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was that Stalin personally liked Hitler. Historian John Lukacs tells us this:
CONAN: And then there is Stalin. Universally described as shrewd and suspicious, canny, but who could not bring himself to accept overwhelming evidence that an invasion was about to happen.
Mr. LUKACS: Now added to this comes a very important element that some people have known, and that’s Stalin had a liking for Hitler. Stalin greatly admired Hitler. The odd thing is that his respect and admiration for Hitler appeared in drips and drabs even after the war started, even toward the end of the war, here and there he dropped some quite comfortable remarks about Hitler, or rather he had admired. And another element connected with this is that Stalin had a great liking and respect for Germans and for Germany. And that goes back to pretty early in his career.
All of this demonstrably proves that the Germans, from the day Hitler laid out his ideas in Mein Kampf, were going to invade “Russia and its borderlands” in order to secure an extended living space. Hitler said with explicit candor that the only way for Germany to become a great power again and to compete with other world powers like England and the United States, it must achieve the necessary space that would make it competitive with its rivals:
We National Socialists must go still further: The right to land and soil becomes a duty when a great nation seems destined to go under, unless its land is extended. Germany will either be a world power, or not at all. But in order to become a world power, it needs that size which gives it the necessary importance today, and gives life to its citizens.
Hitler cultists today refuse to accept this evidence and continue to promulgate silly lies that all Hitler wanted was to take back the land lost after World War I, which is plainly contradicted by Hitler himself in Chapter 14 of Mein Kampf where he says that the 1914 German borders were insufficient living space:
To demand the restoration of the 1914 borders is a political absurdity that’s fraught with such consequences as to appear criminal. The 1914 Reich borders were anything but logical. They were not really complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German nation, nor were they reasonable, in light of military-geographical effectiveness. …Even if it could be really carried out, the result would be so miserable that, by God, it wouldn’t be worthwhile to risk our people’s blood for it.
The 1914 borders are of no significance for the German future. They neither served to protect us in the past, nor do they offer any strength for the future. With these borders, the German people cannot attain an inner unity, nor can they assure their sustenance, nor, from a military viewpoint, are they advantageous, nor can they improve our relations with the other world powers–or better, with the real world powers. We won’t narrow the gap with England, and we won’t achieve the size of the American Union; indeed, not even France would be diminished in terms of world political importance.
So Hitler disagrees with his modern acolytes about his own goals. Have these people even read the book they claim is their bible and foundational text of their ideology? Are they stupid or maliciously lying? Clearly the latter. They’re lying to rehabilitate Hitler’s image and make him appear as if the good guy in a bloodbath that he provoked with his pre-meditated invasions of both Poland and Russia.
