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第二次世界大戰時期

初期外交上的勝利

與日本結盟

在1938年2月，希特勒必須解決遠東外交困境，在中日交戰中，選擇持續與中國自1910年代建立的中德關係或與日本結合新聯盟。 在當時的軍隊強烈支持與中國持續友好關係，中德關係獲得外交部長與戰爭部長（被稱為「中國遊說團」）的支持，他們試著利用外交政策使歐洲遠離戰爭。 但在1938年初期，兩人被希特勒解職，希特勒任命里賓特洛甫為新任外交部長，他支持與日本建立軍事同盟，然而希特勒終止了中德關係，選擇了軍事上較現代化、較強大的日本。在之後的德國議會中，希特勒宣佈承認日本所扶持的滿洲國與聲明放棄一戰戰敗在太平洋所失去被日本取得的殖民地。希特勒命令終止德國一切對中國物資與人力的援助，而中國的蔣介石取消了中德經濟協定以作為報復，德國失去了自中國而來軍需原料，僅能從開放市場取得有限的貨物。

德奧合併

主条目：德奧合併

在1938年3月，希特勒迫使奧地利併入德國，同月14日成功進入維也納 。

吞併捷克斯洛伐克

在併吞奧地利成功後，希特勒對準了捷克斯洛伐克的蘇台德國。在1938年3月3日，英國駐德大使 與希特勒會談表明英國主張以國際聯合開發非洲殖民地換取德國承諾不發動戰爭以擴張領土，但希特勒對於東歐德國人的「生存空間」比聯合開發更感興趣，並認為德國在一戰後所失去的非洲殖民地因回歸德國而非聯合開發，因而拒絕了英國的主張。希特勒對於英國企圖以非洲領土強加德國在歐洲不利相當惱火。希特勒最後表明他寧可用20年等待前殖民地回歸而不同意英國換取和平的條件並終止了此次會議。 1938年3月28、29日，希特勒在柏林密會了在蘇台德區的德裔政黨 家鄉前線，同意Henlein以不被布拉格當局所實行的蘇台德區自治為理由換取德軍的侵略。1938年4月，Henlein向匈牙利外交部長表明，「不管捷克政府同意與否，他會一直提出更高的要求…他認為只有從事破壞行動才能使捷克政府加速垮台。」有人認為，希特勒不覺得蘇台德區的議題有什麼重要性，只是為了有入侵捷克斯洛伐克的藉口 希特勒計劃在捷克邊境建築大量軍事建物，鼓動蘇台德人暴動，最後以家鄉前線與捷克當局的糾紛作為侵略理由，以快速數天內的軍事行動在其他國家介入前取得捷克斯洛伐克，希特勒盡可能在秋收建立好被稱為西牆在萊茵蘭的防衛工事，而將侵略行動選定在1938年9月底或10月初。 1938年4月，希特勒命令okw開始謀劃侵略捷克斯洛伐克的綠色方案，造成歐洲區勢的緊張，被稱為五月危機，五月危機是一則錯誤的警告，謠傳捷克斯洛伐克將被入侵在即將進行選舉的週末

World War II

主条目：World War II

Early diplomatic triumphs

Alliance with Japan

Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka with Hitler in Berlin.

In February 1938, Hitler finally ended the dilemma that had plagued German Far Eastern policy, namely whether to continue the informal Sino-German alliance that existed with Republic of China since the 1910s or to create a new alliance with Japan. The military at the time strongly favored continuing Germany's alliance with China. China had the support of Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath and War Minister Werner von Blomberg, the so called "China Lobby" who tried to steer German foreign policy away from war in Europe. Both men, however, were sacked by Hitler in early 1938. Upon the advice of Hitler's newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler chose to end the alliance with China as the price of gaining an alignment with the more modern and powerful Japan. In an address to the Reichstag, Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied puppet state in Manchuria, and renounced the German claims to the former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan. Hitler ordered an end to arm shipments to China, and ordered the recall of all the German officers attached to the Chinese Army. In retaliation for ending German support to China in the war against Japan, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek canceled all of the Sino-German economic agreements, which deprived the Germans of raw materials such as tungsten that the Chinese had previously provided. The ending of the Sino-German alignment increased the problems of German rearmament as the Germans were now forced to use their limited supply of foreign exchange to buy raw materials on the open market.

Austria and Czechoslovakia

In March 1938, Hitler pressured Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphant entry into Vienna on 14 March. Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia.

On 3 March 1938, the British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson met with Hitler and presented on behalf of his government a proposal for an international consortium to rule much of Africa (in which Germany would be assigned a leading role) in exchange for a German promise never to resort to war to change the frontiers. Hitler, who was more interested in Lebensraum in Eastern Europe then in participating in international consortiums, rejected the British offer, using as his excuse that he wanted the former German African colonies returned to the Reich, not an international consortium running Central Africa. Moreover, Hitler argued that it was totally outrageous on Britain’s part to impose conditions on German conduct in Europe as the price for territory in Africa. Hitler ended the conversation by telling Henderson he would rather wait twenty years for the return of the former colonies than accept British conditions for avoiding war.

On 28 to 29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten Heimfront (Home Front), the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. During the Hitler-Henlein meetings, it was agreed that Henlein would provide the pretext for German aggression against Czechoslovakia by making demands on Prague for increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans that Prague could never be reasonably expected to fulfill. In April 1938, Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that “whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by all means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly”. In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intentions being to use the Sudeten question as the justification both at home and abroad for a war of aggression to destroy Czechoslovakia, under the grounds of self-determination, and Prague’s refusal to meet Henlein’s demands. Hitler’s plans called for a massive military build-up along the Czechoslovak border, relentless propaganda attacks about the supposed ill treatment of the Sudetenlanders, and finally, “incidents” between Heimfront activists and the Czechoslovak authorities to justify an invasion that would swiftly destroy Czechoslovakia in a few days campaign before other powers could act. Since Hitler wished to have the fall harvest brought in as much as possible, and to complete the so-called “West Wall” to guard the Rhineland, the date for the invasion was chosen for late September or early October 1938.

In April 1938, Hitler ordered the OKW to start preparing plans for Fall Grün (Case Green), the codename for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. Further increasing the tension in Europe was the May Crisis of 19–22 May 1938. The May Crisis of 1938 was a false alarm caused by rumors that Czechoslovakia would be invaded the weekend of the municipal elections in that country, erroneous reports of major German troop movements along the Czechoslovak border just prior to the elections, the killing of two ethnic Germans by the Czechoslovak police, and Ribbentrop's highly bellicose remarks to Henderson when the latter asked the former if an invasion was indeed scheduled for the weekend, which led to a partial Czechoslovak mobilization and firm warnings from London against a German move against Czechoslovakia before it was realized that no invasion was intended for that weekend. Though no invasion had been planned for May 1938, it was believed in London that such a course of action was indeed being considered in Berlin, leading to two warnings on 21 May and 22 May that the United Kingdom would go to war with Germany if France became involved in a war with Germany. Hitler, for his part, was to use the words of an aide, highly “furious” with the perception that he had been forced to back down by the Czechoslovak mobilization, and warnings from London and Paris, when he had in fact been planning nothing for that weekend. Though plans had already been drafted in April 1938 for an invasion of Czechoslovakia in the near future, the May Crisis and the perception of a diplomatic defeat further reinforced Hitler in his chosen course. The May Crisis seemed to have had the effect of convincing Hitler that expansion "without Britain" was not possible, and expansion "against Britain" was the only viable course. In the immediate aftermath of the May crisis, Hitler ordered an acceleration of German naval building beyond the limits of the A.G.N.A., and in the "Heye memorandum", drawn at Hitler's orders, envisaged the Royal Navy for the first time as the principle opponent of the Kriegsmarine.

At the conference of 28 May 1938, Hitler declared that it was his "unalterable" decision to "smash Czechoslovakia" by 1 October of the same year, which was explained as securing the eastern flank "for advancing against the West, England and France. At the same conference, Hitler expressed his belief that Britain would not risk a war until British rearmament was complete, which Hitler felt would be around 1941–42, and Germany should in a series of wars eliminate France and her allies in Europe in the interval in the years 1938–41 while German rearmament was still ahead. Hitler's determination to go through with Fall Grün in 1938 provoked a major crisis in the German command structure. The Chief of the General Staff, General Ludwig Beck protested in a lengthy series of memos that Fall Grün would start a world war that Germany would lose, and urged Hitler to put off the projected war. Hitler called Beck's arguments against war "kindische Kräfteberechnugen" ("childish calculations").

On 4 August 1938, a secret Army meeting was held at which Beck read his report. They agreed something had to be done to prevent certain disaster. Beck hoped they would all resign together but no one resigned except Beck. However his replacement, General Franz Halder, sympathised with Beck and together they conspired with several top generals, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (Chief of German Intelligence), and Graf von Helldorf (Berlin's Police Chief) to arrest Hitler the moment he gave the invasion order. However the plan would only work if both Britain and France made it known to the world that they would fight to preserve Czechoslovakia. This would help to convince the German people that certain defeat awaited Germany. Agents were therefore sent to England to tell Chamberlain that an attack on Czechoslovakia was planned and their intentions to overthrow Hitler if this occurred. However the messengers were not taken seriously by the British. In September, Chamberlain and Daladier decided not to threaten a war over Czechoslovakia and so the planned removal of Hitler could not be justified. The Munich Agreement therefore preserved Hitler in power.

Starting in August 1938, information reached London that Germany was beginning to mobilize reservists, together with information leaked by anti-war elements in the German military that the war was scheduled for sometime in September. Finally, as a result of intense French, and especially British diplomatic pressure, President Edvard Beneš unveiled on 5 September 1938, the “Fourth Plan” for constitutional reorganization of his country, which granted most of the demands for Sudeten autonomy made by Henlein in his Karlsbad speech of April 1938, and threatened to deprive the Germans of their pretext for aggression. Henlein’s Heimfront promptly responded to the offer of “Fourth Plan” by having a series of violent crashes with the Czechoslovak police, culminating in major clashes in mid-September that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts. In a response to the threatening situation, in late August 1938, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had conceived of Plan Z, namely to fly to Germany, meet Hitler, and then work out an agreement that could end the crisis. On 13 September 1938, Chamberlain offered to fly to Germany to discuss a solution to the crisis. Chamberlain had decided to execute Plan Z in response to erroneous information supplied by the German opposition that the invasion was due to start any time after 18 September. Though Hitler was not happy with Chamberlain’s offer, he agreed to see the British Prime Minister because to refuse Chamberlain’s offer would confirm the lie to his repeated claims that he was a man of peace driven reluctantly to war because of Beneš’s intractability. In a summit at Berchtesgaden, Chamberlain promised to pressure Beneš into agreeing to Hitler's publicly stated demands about allowing the Sudetenland to join Germany, in return for a reluctant promise by Hitler to postpone any military action until Chamberlain had given a chance to fulfill his promise. Hitler had agreed to the postponement out of the expectation that Chamberlain would fail to secure Prague’s consent to transferring the Sudetenland, and was, by all accounts, most disappointed when Franco-British pressure secured just that. The talks between Chamberlain and Hitler in September 1938 were made difficult by their innately differing concepts of what Europe should look like, with Hitler aiming to use the Sudeten issue as a pretext for war and Chamberlain genuinely striving for a peaceful solution.

When Chamberlain returned to Germany on 22 September to present his peace plan for the transfer of the Sudetenland at a summit with Hitler at Bad Godesberg, the British delegation was most unpleasantly surprised to have Hitler reject his own terms he had presented at Berchtesgaden as now unacceptable. To put an end to Chamberlain’s peace-making efforts once and for all, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany no later then 28 September 1938 with no negotiations between Prague and Berlin and no international commission to oversee the transfer; no plebiscites to be held in the transferred districts until after the transfer; and for good measure, that Germany would not forsake war as an option until all the claims against Czechoslovakia by Poland and Hungary had been satisfied. The differing views between the two leaders were best symbolized when Chamberlain was presented with Hitler’s new demands and protested at being presented with an ultimatum, leading Hitler in turn to retort that because his document stating his new demands was entitled “Memorandum”, it could not possibly be an ultimatum. On 25 September 1938 Britain rejected the Bad Godesberg ultimatum, and began preparations for war. To further underline the point, Sir Horace Wilson, the British government’s Chief Industrial Advisor, and a close associate of Chamberlain was dispatched to Berlin to inform Hitler that if the Germans attacked Czechoslovakia, then France would honor her commitments as demanded by the Franco-Czechoslovak alliance of 1924, and “then England would feel honor bound, to offer France assistance”. Initially, determined to continue with attack planned for 1 October 1938, sometime between 27 and 28 September, Hitler changed his mind, and asked to take up a suggestion, of and through the intercession of Mussolini, for a conference to be held in Munich with Chamberlain, Mussolini, and the French Premier Édouard Daladier to discuss the Czechoslovak situation. Just what had caused Hitler to change his attitude is not entirely clear, but it is likely that the combination of Franco-British warnings, and especially the mobilization of the British fleet, had finally convinced him of what the most likely result of Fall Grün would be; the minor nature of the alleged casus belli being the timetables for the transfer made Hitler appear too much like the aggressor; the view from his advisors that Germany was not prepared either militarily or economically for a world war; warnings from the states that Hitler saw as his would-be allies in the form of Italy, Japan, Poland and Hungary that they would not fight on behalf of Germany; and very visible signs that the majority of Germans were not enthusiastic about the prospect of war. Moreover, Germany lacked sufficient supplies of oil and other crucial raw materials (the plants that would produce the synthetic oil for the German war effort were not in operation yet), and was highly dependent upon imports from abroad. The Kriegsmarine reported that should war come with Britain, it could not break a British blockade, and since Germany had hardly any oil stocks, Germany would be defeated for no other reason than a shortage of oil. The Economics Ministry told Hitler that Germany had only 2.6 million tons of oil at hand, and should war with Britain and France, would require 7.6 million tons of oil. Starting on 18 September 1938, the British refused to supply metals to Germany, and on 24 September the Admiralty forbade British ships to sail to Germany. The British detained the tanker Invershannon carrying 8,600 tons of oil to Hamburg, which caused immediate economic pain in Germany. Given Germany's dependence on imported oil (80% of German oil in the 1930s came from the New World), and the likelihood that a war with Britain would see a blockade cutting Germany off from oil supplies, historians have argued that Hitler's decision to see a peaceful end to call off Fall Grün was due to concerns about the oil problem.

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini at the Munich Conference

On 30 September 1938, a one-day conference was held in Munich attended by Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini that led to the Munich Agreement, which gave to Hitler's ostensible demands by handing over the Sudetenland districts to Germany. Since London and Paris had already agreed to the idea of a transfer of the disputed territory in mid-September, the Munich Conference mostly comprised discussions in one day of talks on technical questions about how the transfer of the Sudetenland would take place, and featured the relatively minor concessions from Hitler that the transfer would take place over a ten day period in October, overseen by an international commission, and Germany would wait until Hungarian and Polish claims were settled. At the end of the conference, Chamberlain had Hitler sign a declaration of Anglo-German friendship, to which Chamberlain attached great importance and Hitler none at all. Though Chamberlain was well-satisfied with the Munich conference, leading to his infamous claim to have secured “peace in our time”, Hitler was privately furious about being “cheated” out of the war he was desperate to have in 1938. As a result of the summit, Hitler was TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.

Hitler enters the German populated Sudetenland region of Czechoslavakia in October 1938 which was annexed to Germany proper due to the Munich agreement

By appeasing Hitler, Britain and France left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy. Though Hitler professed happiness in public over the achievement of his ostensible demands, in private he was determined to have a war the next time around by ensuring that Germany's future demands would not be met. In Hitler’s view, a British-brokered peace, though extremely favorable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which proved that Britain needed to be ended as a power to allow him to pursue his dreams of eastern expansion. In the aftermath of Munich, Hitler felt since Britain would not ally herself nor stand aside to facilitate Germany’s continental ambitions, it had become a major threat, and accordingly, Britain replaced the Soviet Union in Hitler’s mind as the main enemy of the Reich, with German policies being accordingly reoriented. Hitler expressed his disappointment over the Munich Agreement in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken when he lashed out against the Conservative anti-appeasers Winston Churchill, Alfred Duff Cooper and Anthony Eden, whom Hitler described as a warmongering anti-German fraction, who would attack Germany at the first opportunity, and were likely to come to power at any moment. In the same speech, Hitler claimed “We Germans will no longer endure such governessy interference. Britain should mind her own business and worry about her own troubles”. In November 1938, Hitler ordered a major anti-British propaganda campaign to be launched with the British being loudly abused for their "hypocrisy" in maintaining world-wide empire while seeking to block the Germans from acquiring an empire of their own. A particular highlight in the anti-British propaganda was alleged British humans rights abuses in dealing with the Arab uprising in the Palestine Mandate and in India, and the "hyprocrisy" of British criticism of the November 1938 Kristallnacht event. This marked a huge change from the earlier years of the Third Reich, when the German media had portrayed the British Empire in very favorable terms. In November 1938, the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was ordered to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact into an open anti-British military alliance, as a prelude for a war against Britain and France. On 27 January 1939, Hitler approved the Z Plan, a five-year naval expansion program which called for a Kriegsmarine of 10 battleships, four aircraft carriers, three battlecruisers, eight heavy cruisers, 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers and 249 U-boats by 1944 that was intended to crush the Royal Navy. The importance of the Z Plan can be seen in Hitler's orders that henceforward the Kriegsmarine was to go from third to one in allotment of raw materials, money and skilled workers. In the spring of 1939, the Luftwaffe was ordered to start building a strategic bombing force that was meant to level British cities. Hitler’s war plans against Britain called for a joint Kriegsmarine-Luftwaffe offensive that was to stage "rapid annihilating blows" against British cities and shipping with the expectation that "The moment England is cut off from her supplies she is forced to capitulate" as Hitler expected that the experience of living in a blockaded, famine-stricken, bombed out island to be too much for the British public.

Destroyed Jewish businesses in Magdeburg following Kristallnacht

In November 1938, in a secret speech to a group of German journalists, Hitler noted that he had been forced to speak of peace as the goal in order to attain the degree of rearmament "which were an essential prerequisite ... for the next step". In the same speech, Hitler complained that his peace propaganda of the last five years had been too successful, and it was time for the German people to be subjected to war propaganda. Hitler stated: "It is self-evident that such peace propaganda conducted for a decade has its risky aspect; because it can too easily induce people to come to the conclusion that the present government is identical with the decision and with the intention to keep peace under all circumstances", and instead called for new journalism that "had to present certain foreign policy events in such a fashion that the inner voice of the people itself slowly begins to shout out for the use of force." In later November 1938, Hitler expressed his frustration with his more cautious advice he was receiving from some quarters Hitler called the economic expert Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, General Ludwig Beck, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the diplomat Ulrich von Hassell, and the economist Rudolf Brinkmann as “the overbred intellectual circles" whom were trying to block him from fulifilling his mission by their appeals to caution, and but for the fact that he needed their skills "otherwise, perhaps we could someday exterminate them or do something of this kind to them"

In December 1938, the Chancellery of the Führer headed by Philipp Bouhler received a letter concerning a severely physically and mentally disabled baby girl named Sofia Knauer living in Leipzig. At that time, there was a furious rivalry existing between Bouhler’s office, the office of the Reich Chancellery led by Hans-Heinrich Lammers, the Presidential Chancellery of Otto Meissner, the office of Hitler’s adjutant Wilhelm Brückner and the Deputy Führer's office which was effectively headed by Martin Borman over control over access to Hitler. As part of a power play against his rivals, Bouhler presented the letter concerning the disabled girl to Hitler, who thanked Bouhler for bringing the matter to his attention and responded by ordering his personal physician Dr. Karl Brandt to kill Knauer. In January 1939, Hitler ordered Bouhler and Dr. Brandt to henceforward have all disabled infants born in Germany killed. This was the origin of the Action T4 program. Subsequently Dr. Brandt and Bouhler acting on their own initiative, in the expectation of winning Hitler’s favor, expanded the T4 program to killing, first, all physically or mentally disabled children in Germany, and, second, all disabled adults.

In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by problems of rearmament, especially the shortage of foreign hard currencies needed to pay for raw materials Germany lacked together with reports from Göring that the Four Year Plan was hopelessly behind schedule forced Hitler in January 1939 to reluctantly order major defense cuts with the Wehrmacht having its steel allocations cut by 30%, aluminum 47%, cement 25%, rubber 14% and copper 20%. On 30 January 1939, Hitler made his "Export or die" speech calling for a German economic offensive ("export battle", to use Hitler's term), to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such high-grade iron needed for military materials. The "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939 is also known as Hitler’s "Prophecy Speech". The name which that speech is known comes from Hitler’s "prophecy" issued towards the end of the speech:

"One thing I should like to say on this day which may be memorable for others as well for us Germans: In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and I usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race which only received my prophecies with laughter when I said I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and it that of the whole nation, and I that I would then among many other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of the face. Today I will be once more the prophet. If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolsheviszation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

A significant historical debate has swung around the “Prophecy Speech”. Historians who take an intentionist line such as Eberhard Jäckel have argued that at minimum from the time of the “Prophecy Speech” onwards, Hitler was committed to genocide of the Jews as his central goal. Lucy Dawidowicz and Gerald Fleming have argued that the "Prophecy Speech" was simply Hitler's way of saying that once he started a world war, he would use that war as a cover for his already pre-existing plans for genocide. Functionalist historians as Christopher Browning have dismissed this interpretation under the grounds that if Hitler were serious with the intentions expressed in the “Prophecy Speech”, then why the 30-month “stay of execution” between the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, and the opening of the first Vernichtungslager in late 1941. In addition, Browning has pointed to the existence of the Madagascar Plan of 1940–41 and various other schemes as proof that there was no genocidal master plan. In Browning’s opinion, the "Prophecy Speech" was merely an manifestation of bravado on Hitler’s part, and had little connection with actual unfolding of anti-Semitic policies.

At least part of the reason why Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by seizing the Czech half of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 was to obtain Czechoslovak assets to help with the economic crisis. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on 15 March 1939, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

Start of the Second World War

As part of the anti-British course, it was deemed necessary by Hitler to have either Poland a satellite state or otherwise neutralized. Hitler believed this necessary on both strategic grounds as way of securing the Reich's eastern flank and on economic grounds as a way of evading the effects of a British blockade. Initially, the German hope was to transform Poland into a satellite state, but by March 1939 when the German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939. On 3 April 1939 Hitler ordered the military to start preparing for Fall Weiss (Case White), the plan for a German invasion to be executed on 25 August 1939 In August 1939, Hitler spoke to his generals that his original plan for 1939 had to “... establish a acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West” but since the Poles would not co-operate in setting up an “acceptable relationship” (i.e. becoming a German satellite), he believed he had no other choice other than wiping Poland off the map. The historian Gerhard Weinberg has argued since Hitler’s audience comprised men who were all for the destruction of Poland (anti-Polish feelings were traditionally very strong in the German Army), but rather less happy about the prospect of war with Britain and France, if that was the price Germany had to pay for the destruction of Poland, it is quite likely that Hitler was speaking the truth on this occasion. In his private discussions with his officials in 1939, Hitler always described Britain as the main enemy that had to be defeated, and in his view, Poland’s obliteration was the necessary prelude to that goal by securing the eastern flank and helpfully adding to Germany’s Lebensraum. Hitler was much offended by the British “guarantee” of Polish independence issued on 31 March 1939, and told his associates that "I shall brew them a devil's drink" In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the Admiral Tirpitz battleship on 1 April 1939, Hitler threatened to denounce the A.G.N.A if the British persisted with their "encirclement" policy as represented by the "guarantee" of Polish independence. As part of the new course, in a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April 1939, Adolf Hitler complaining of British “encirclement" of Germany, renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.

As a pretext for aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right for “extra-territorial” roads across the Polish Corridor which Germany had unwillingly ceded under the Versailles treaty. For Hitler, Danzig was just a pretext for aggression as the Sudetenland had been intended to be in 1938, and throughout 1939, while highlighting the Danzig issue as a grievance, the Germans always refused to engage in talks about the matter. A notable contradiction existed in Hitler's plans between the long-term anti-British course, whose major instruments such as a vastly expanded Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe that would take several years to complete, and Hitler's immediate foreign policy in 1939, which was likely to provoke a general war by engaging in such actions as attacking Poland. Hitler's dilemma between his short-term and long-term goals was resolved by Foreign Minister Ribbentrop who told Hitler that neither Britain nor France would honor their commitments to Poland, and any German-Polish war would accordingly be a limited regional war. Ribbentrop based his appraisal partly on an alleged statement made to him by the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet in December 1938 that France now recognized Eastern Europe as Germany’s exclusive sphere of influence. In addition, Ribbentrop's status as the former Ambassador to London made him in Hitler's eyes the leading Nazi British expert, and as a result, Ribbentrop's advice that Britain would not honor her commitments to Poland carried much weight with Hitler. Ribbentrop only showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis. In addition, the German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen tended to send reports that supported Ribbentrop's analysis such as a dispatch in August 1939 that reported Neville Chamberlain knew “the social structure of Britain, even the conception of the British Empire, would not survive the chaos of even a victorious war”, and so would back down. The extent that Hitler was influenced by Ribbentrop’s advice can be seen in Hitler's orders to the German military on 21 August 1939 for a limited mobilization against Poland alone. Hitler chose late August as his date for Fall Weiss in order to limit disruption to German agricultural production caused by mobilization. The problems caused by the need to begin a campaign in Poland in late August or early September in order to have the campaign finished before the October rains arrived, and the need to have sufficient time to concentrate German troops on the Polish border left Hitler in a self-imposed situation in August 1939 where Soviet co-operation was absolutely crucial if he were to have a war that year.

The Munich agreement appeared to be sufficient to dispel most of the remaining hold which the "collective security" idea may have had in Soviet circles, and, on 23 August 1939, Joseph Stalin accepted Hitler's proposal to conclude a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), whose secret protocols contained an agreement to partition Poland. A major historical debate about the reasons for Hitler’s foreign policy choices in 1939 concerns whether a structural economic crisis drove Hitler into a “flight into war” as claimed by the Marxist historian Timothy Mason or whether Hitler’s actions were more influenced by non-economic factors as claimed by the economic historian Richard Overy. Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg and Ian Kershaw have argued that a non-economic reason for Hitler’s rush to war was due to Hitler’s morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work. In the last days of peace, Hitler oscillated between the determination to fight the Western powers if he had to, and various schemes intended to keep Britain out of the war, but in any case, Hitler was not to be deterred from his aim of invading Poland. Only very briefly, when news of the Anglo-Polish alliance being signed on 25 August 1939 in response to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (instead of the severing of ties between London and Warsaw predicted by Ribbentrop) together with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honor the Pact of Steel, caused Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September. Hitler chose to spend the last days of peace either trying to maneuver the British into neutrality through his offer of 25 August 1939 to “guarantee” the British Empire, or having Ribbentrop present a last-minute peace plan to Henderson with an impossibly short time limit for its acceptance as part of an effort to blame the war on the British and Poles. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but did not immediately act. Hitler was most unpleasantly surprised at receiving the British declaration of war on 3 September 1939, and turning to Ribbentrop angrily asked “Now what?” Ribbentrop had nothing to say other then that Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador would probably be by later that day to present the French declaration of war. Not long after this, on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.

Members of the Reichstag greet Hitler in October 1939 after the conclusion of the Polish campaign

Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, 1940.

“ Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also ... Russia. ”

—Adolf Hitler in a public speech in Danzig at the end of September 1939.

After the fall of Poland came a period journalists called the "Phoney War". In part of north-western Poland annexed to Germany, Hitler instructed the two Gauleiters in charge of the area, namely Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser to “Germanize” the area, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this "Germanization" was to be accomplished. Hitler’s orders were interpreted in very different ways by Forster and Greiser. Forster followed a policy of simply having the local Poles sign forms stating they had German blood with no documentation required, whereas Greiser carried out a brutual ethnic cleansing campaign of expelling the entire Polish population into the Government-General of Poland. When Greiser, seconded by Himmler complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as “racial” Germans and thus "contaminating" German “racial purity”, and asked Hitler to order Forster to stop. Hitler merely told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him. Hitler’s handling of the Forster-Greiser dispute has often been advanced as an example of Ian Kershaw's theory of “Working Towards the Führer”, namely that Hitler issued vague instructions, and allowed his subordinates to work out policy on their own.

After the conquest of Poland, another major dispute broke out between different factions with one centering around Reichsfüherer SS Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Greiser championing and carrying out ethnic cleansing schemes for Poland, and another centering around Hermann Göring and Hans Frank calling for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich. At a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February, 1940, the dispute was settled in favor of the Göring-Frank view of economic exploitation, and ending mass expulsions as economically disruptive. On 15 May, 1940 Himmler showed Hitler a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", which called for expelling the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the remainer of the Polish population to a “"leaderless laboring class" Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct". Hitler’s remark had the effect of scuttling the so-called Karinhall argreement, and led to the Himmler-Greiser viewpoint triumphing as German policy for Poland.

During this period, Hitler built up his forces on Germany's western frontier. In April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, conquering the Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium in the process. These victories persuaded Benito Mussolini of Italy to join the war on Hitler's side on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.

Britain, whose forces evacuated France by sea from Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace rejected by the British, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. The Battle of Britain was Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion. The attacks began by pounding Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force. On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Treaty was signed in Berlin by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano. The purpose of the Tripartite treaty, which was directed against an unnamed power that was clearly meant to be the United States was to deter the Americans from supporting the British. It was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. By the end of October 1940, air superiority for the invasion Operation Sealion could not be assured, and Hitler ordered the bombing of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry, mostly at night.

In the Spring of 1941, Hitler was distracted from his plans for the East by various activites in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian forces there. In April, he launched the invasion of Yugoslavia which was followed quickly by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 23 May, Hitler released Fuhrer Directive No. 30.

Path to defeat

On 22 June 1941, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin two years earlier. A major historical dispute concerns Hitler's reasons for Operation Barbarossa. Some historians such as Andreas Hillgruber have argued that Barbarossa was merely one "stage" of Hitler's Stufenplan (stage by stage plan) for world conquest, which Hillgruber believed that Hitler had formulated in the 1920s. Other historians such as John Lukacs have contended that Hitler never had a stufenplan, and that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an ad hoc move on the part of Hitler due to Britain's refusal to surrender. Lukacs has argued that the reason Hitler gave in private for Barbarossa, namely that Winston Churchill held out the hope that the Soviet Union might enter the war on the Allied side, and that the only way of forcing a British surrender was to eliminate that hope, was indeed Hitler's real reason for Barbarossa. In Lukacs's perspective, Barbarossa was thus primarily an anti-British move on the part of Hitler intended to force Britain to sue for peace by destroying her only hope of victory rather than an anti-Soviet move. Klaus Hildebrand has maintained that Stalin and Hitler were independently planning to attack each other in 1941. Hildebrand has claimed that the news in the spring of 1941 of Soviet troop concentrations on the border led to Hitler engaging in a flucht nach vorn ("flight forward"—i.e. responding to a danger by charging on rather than retreating.) A third fraction comprising a diverse group such as Viktor Suvorov, Ernst Topitsch, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Nolte, and David Irving have argued that the official reason given by the Germans for Barbarossa in 1941 was the real reason, namely that Barbarossa was a "preventive war" forced on Hitler to avert an impeding Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory has been widely attacked as erroneous; the American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales"

This invasion seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. It also encircled and destroyed many Soviet forces, which Stalin had ordered not to retreat. However, the Germans were stopped barely short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph Hitler wanted. On 18 December 1941, the appointment book of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler shows he met with Hitler, where to in answer to Himmler's question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler's response is recorded as "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans"). The Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark recorded in Himmler’s book is probably as close historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the Holocaust.

Adolf Hitler in Reichstag during his speech against Franklin D. Roosevelt. 11 December 1941.

The destroyed 'Wolf's Lair' barracks after the 20 July 1944 plot

Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on 11 December 1941, four days after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and six days after Nazi Germany's closest approach to Moscow, set him against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).

In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad ended with the destruction of the German 6th Army. Thereafter came the Battle of Kursk. Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health, as indicated by his left hand's severe trembling. Hitler's biographer Ian Kershaw and others believe that he may have suffered from Parkinson's disease. Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms, although the evidence is slight.

Following the allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio, who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable, and some plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in Hitler's Führer Headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg, but Hitler narrowly escaped death. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people, sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation. The main resistance movement was destroyed, although smaller isolated groups continued to operate.

Defeat and death

主条目：Death of Adolf Hitler

By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the Germans back into Central Europe and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Hitler realized that Germany had lost the war, but allowed no retreats. He hoped to negotiate a separate peace with America and Britain, a hope buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945. Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities allowed the Holocaust to continue. He ordered the complete destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands, saying that Germany's failure to win the war forfeited its right to survive. Rather, Hitler decided that the entire nation should go down with him. Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who disobeyed the order.

In April 1945, Soviet forces attacked the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler's followers urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand in the National Redoubt. But Hitler was determined to either live or die in the capital.

On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") below the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery). The garrison commander of the besieged Festung Breslau ("fortress Breslau"), General Hermann Niehoff, had chocolates distributed to his troops in honor of Hitler's birthday.

By 21 April, Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defenses of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights. The Soviets were now advancing towards Hitler's bunker with little to stop them. Ignoring the facts, Hitler saw salvation in the ragtag units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner. Steiner's command became known as Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment Steiner"). But "Army Detachment Steiner" existed primarily on paper. It was something more than a corps but less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient created by the breakthrough of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. Meanwhile, the German Ninth Army, which had been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack north in a pincer attack.

Late on 21 April, Heinrici called Hans Krebs chief of the Oberkommando des Heeres (Supreme Army Command or OKH) and told him that Hitler's plan could not be implemented. Heinrici asked to speak to Hitler but was told by Krebs that Hitler was too busy to take his call.

On 22 April, during one of his last military conferences, Hitler interrupted the report to ask what had happened to General Steiner's offensive. There was a long silence. Then Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched, and that the withdrawal from Berlin of several units for Steiner's army, on Hitler's orders, had so weakened the front that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. Hitler asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room, and launched a tirade against the perceived treachery and incompetence of his commanders. This culminated in an oath to stay in Berlin, head up the defense of the city, and shoot himself at the end.

Before the day ended, Hitler again found salvation in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army. This new plan had Wenck turn his army—currently facing the Americans to the west—and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin. Twelfth Army was to link up with Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and, in the confusion, managed to make temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was ultimately unsuccessful.

On 23 April, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:

I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defense of the capital. The Battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle ...

The same day, second in command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Göring argued that, since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he should assume leadership of Germany as Hitler's designated successor. Göring mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler responded, in anger, by having Göring arrested. Later when Hitler wrote his will on 29 April, Göring was removed from all his positions in the government. Further on the 23 April, Hitler appointed General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Weidling replaced Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Helmuth Reymann and Colonel (Oberst) Ernst Kaether. Hitler also appointed Waffen SS General (SS Brigadeführer) Wilhelm Mohnke the (Kommandant) Battle Commander for the defense of the government sector (Zitadelle sector) that included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker.

By the end of the day on 27 April, Berlin was completely cut off from the rest of Germany.

On 28 April, Hitler discovered that SS leader Heinrich Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte). Hitler ordered Himmler's arrest and had Himmler's representative in Berlin Hermann Fegelein shot.

Cover of US military newspaper The Stars and Stripes, May 1945

During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front. Wenck noted that no further attacks towards Berlin were possible. General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) did not provide this information to Hans Krebs in Berlin until early in the morning of 30 April.

On 29 April, Hitler dictated his will and political statement to his private secretary, Traudl Junge. Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed this last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. On the same day, Hitler was informed of the violent death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on 28 April, which is presumed to have increased his determination to avoid capture.

On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide, shooting himself in the temple while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule. Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun (his mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater, doused in gasoline by SS Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche and other Führerbunker aides, and set alight as the Red Army advanced and shelling continued.

On 2 May, Berlin surrendered. In the postwar years there were conflicting reports about what happened to Hitler's remains. After the fall of the Soviet Union it was revealed from records in the Soviet archives that the bodies of Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs and Hitler's dogs, were secretly buried in graves near Rathenow in Brandenburg. In 1970, the remains were disinterred, cremated and scattered in the Elbe River by the Soviets. According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body and is all that remains of Hitler. The authenticity of the skull has been challenged by historians and researchers. DNA analysis conducted in 2009 showed the skull fragment to be that of a woman under the age of 40.