Something like that...
Posted on 12/11/2013 5:51:00 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Editor's Note (1999): In his new book, A Republic, Not an Empire, Patrick Buchanan claims that as of mid-1940 Hitler "was driven by a traditional German policy of Drang nach Osten, the drive to the East." He did not want war with the West, insists Buchanan. (Pp. 268-69.) Why then did Hitler, following Pearl Harbor, declare war on the United States? Buchanan insists this was the irrational act of a madman. In fact, insists Gerhard Weinberg, it was consistent with an objective Hitler had long nourished.
It had been an assumption of Hitler's since the 1920s that Germany would at some point fight the United States. As early as the summer of 1928 he asserted in his second book (not published until I did it for him in 1961) that strengthening and preparing Germany for war with the United States was one of the tasks of the National Socialist movement. Both because his aims for Germany's future entailed an unlimited expansionism of global proportions and because he thought of the United States as a country which with its population and size might at some time constitute a challenge to German domination of the globe, a war with the United States had long been part of the future he envisioned for Germany either during his own rule of it or thereafter.
During the years of his chancellorship before 1939, German policies designed to implement the project of a war with the United States had been conditioned by two factors: belief in the truth in the stab-in-the-back legend on the one hand and the practical problems of engaging American military power on the other. The belief in the concept that Germany had lost the First World War because of the collapse at home -- the stab in the back of the German army -- rather than defeat at the front automatically carried with it a converse of enormous significance which has generally been ignored. It made the military role of the United States in that conflict into a legend. Believing that the German army had not been beaten in the fighting, Hitler and many others in the country disbelieved that it had been American participation which had enabled the Western Powers to hold on in 1918 and then move toward victory over Germany. They perceived that to be a foolish fable, not a reasonable explication of the events of that year. A solid German home front, which National Socialism would ensure, could preclude defeat next time; the problem of fighting the United States was not that the inherently weak and divided Americans could create, field, and support effective fighting forces, but rather that they were so far away and that the intervening ocean could be blocked by a large American fleet. Here were the practical problems of fighting America: distance and the size of the American navy.
To overcome these practical obstacles Hitler built up the German navy and began work on a long-range bomber -- the notorious Amerika Bomber -- which would be capable of flying to New York and back without refueling. Although the bomber proved difficult to construct, Hitler embarked on a crash building program of superbattleships promptly after the defeat of France. In addition, he began accumulating air and sea bases on the Atlantic coast to facilitate attacks on the United States. In April 1941 Hitler secretly pledged that he would join Japan in a war on the United States. This was critical. Only if Japan declared war would Germany follow.
As long as Germany had to face the United States essentially by herself, she needed time to build her own blue-water navy; it therefore made sense to postpone hostilities with the Americans until Germany had been able to remedy this deficiency. If, on the other hand, Japan would come into the war on Germany's side, then that problem was automatically solved.
Hitler was caught out of town at the time of Pearl Harbor and had to get back to Berlin and summon the Reichstag to acclaim war. His great worry, and that of his foreign minister, was that the Americans might get their declaration of war in ahead of his own. As Joachim von Ribbentrop explained it, "A great power does not allow itself to be declared war upon; it declares war on others." He did not need to lose much sleep; the Roosevelt administration was quite willing to let the Germans take the lead. Just to make sure, however, that hostilities started immediately, Hitler had already issued orders to his navy, straining at the leash since October 1939, to begin sinking American ships forthwith, even before the formalities of declaring war. Now that Germany had a big navy on its side (Japan's), there was no need to wait even an hour.
********
This article is excerpted from Gerhard Weinberg's Germany, Hitler, and World War II (Cambridge University Press: 1995). It is reprinted with permission of the author and publisher and was reposted at TomPaine.com in 1999.
The Korean civilian security guards at our intelligence compound carried M-1s and M-14s. I always joshed with them that they were trading weapons with me when the balloon went up, whether they liked it or not. As a sorta NCO I had a .45, as well.
Something like that...
First, all of the blather printed here should be ignored. Hitler declared war on the US for two reasons, neither of which had anything to do with plans to invade.
beat me to it...
From what I have read years ago, Germany tried to get Mexico into the first world war. They failed.
They tried again in the Second World war. The Mexican people wanted war with the US and when Mexico DID declare war the people were ecstatic! Till they found out Mexico had declared war against GERMANY!
Hitler believed he could beat the U.S. because he thought they were decadent and degenerate....mainly by watching Hollywood movies and the America News Media....even then, they were causing problems for our country. The reason he started the Battle of the Bulge, was because he still believed that the American soldier was inferior and couldn't fight (instead of using the bulk of his resources to fight the Russians).
Finally, there was a reason World War II didn't have an anti-war movement like all the other wars we've had since the Revolution- Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and all Leftists and Democrats had to do anything to come to the aid or their hero-country..
Hitler had a good thing going till he attacked the USSR and then this declaration on US.
It shows that he was very small minded but got some great opportunities and luck for a while.
Notice Japan stabbed Hitler in back and didnt declare war on USSR in return.
@ Post 20 - I agree.
Had Hitler been more patient the world would look far different today. His biggest mistake was believing Germany would easily secure the Eastern front. His second mistake was his fantasy that the British people (and possibly the U.S.) would come over to his side when they saw the glory of the Third Reich.
Hitler didn’t even TRY to come up with a long-range bomber. He would have one if he did
No, mutual assistance agreement.
German generals were shocked Hitler declared war on America. His greatest folly and there were a lot of them but that one took the cake.
Good points. Also the Battle of Moscow was in full swing, with the Soviets just beginning their counter-attack. No doubt Hitler believed victory was imminent, given his contempt for Russian military ability. As you point out, he didn’t know about the Japan-Soviet agreement that allowed Stalin to move dozens of divisions from Siberia to Moscow.
If Japan had invaded Siberia at the same time the panzers were driving on Moscow, the USSR would have fallen and world history would be a lot different.
they had nothing to invade with; the japanese were committed to conquest of SE asia with its tin/rubber/oil. all their armies were holding china or preparing to move into philipines and malaya..
moving on siberia would have made no sense.
Same here. It got a little bitter with Germans calling captured Americans, particularly troops with German surnames—’scheiss amis’ (s*** friends).
Screw them. They always looked sharp in those snappy uniforms,
surrendering!
In the U.S., I recently read Britain has the highest preponderance of descendants in the U.S. Britain includes Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. Sometimes people tend to only count descendants from England, and often mistakenly refer to all of Britain as England, which then skew the results and show most descendants come from German ancestry. Germany runs a close second. Many of my friends have German ancestry, a hard working bunch who share very similar traits with the Brits (not surprising since teutonic tribes flooded Scotland many years back).
WW II was Three wars all fought at the same time.
1. Germany and the west. 1939—41
2. Germany and Soviet Union—1941-1845
3. US and Japan 1941—1945
67 million died—3% of the worlds population—the most killed by starvation and disease. Russia and China lost the most in people. The world lost the best and the bightest in this grim and terrible conflict. It took decades to rebuild. Let us pray that we never face a war of this size and savagery.
Well, we didn’t have Hugo Boss designing our uniforms.
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