Was Hitler really surprised when England and France followed thru and declared war?

[wm]

So Deverell, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, adviser for operations on mainland Europe, who spent time in France and Germany, observed maneuvers of both the French Army and the Wehrmacht (the latter in presence of Hitler) knew nothing.

But Stalin who never was in France or Germany is the expert here.
That's logical, G-d's honest truth even.

The point is you were mistaken with that your "everyone expected" strawman.
When in fact the Chief of the Imperial General Staff didn't give the French Army much chance.

[ljadw]

I never said that Deverell knew nothing about the strength/weaknesses of the WM! I said that there is no proof that he had any knowledge of the strength/weakness of the WM .Besides: it is not on the CIGS to decide who was stronger : the WM or the French Army .
Besides : observing maneuvers does not give you knowledge of strength/weakness.
You put words in my mouth : I never said that Stalin was an expert, but that he believed in September 1939 that France would defeat Germany, a belief that was shared by every one outside Germany and by a lot of people in Germany : the French Army was the Army that won at Verdun,and it was inconceivable that it could be defeated .
What the CIGS said in 1937 was not shared by the British political and military leaders in 1939 .

[ljadw]

And a correction : Stalin did visit Germany in 1907 .

[historygeek2021]

When Dahlerus, speaking very quietly because he realized that Hitler’s “mental equilibrium was patently unstable,” pointed out the strength of Britain and France and their ability to blockade Germany, Hitler’s behavior became suddenly abnormal. His voice blurred, and he started to jerk out words and phrases as he stood in the center of the room, his eyes staring: “If there’s war, then I’ll build U-boats, build U-boats, U-boats, U-boats, U-boats ." He choked. When he had gained some self-control, he shrieked out violently, “I’ll build aircraft, aircraft, aircraft, and destroy my enemies!” Dahlerus was horrified and looked toward Goering, but Goering “did not turn a hair.”

Goering arranged a final meeting between Dahlerus and Hitler, at which the Führer performed lunatic gesticulations in order to emphasize his ability to fight Britain. Even Goering turned his back on the spectacle, though as they went in he had spoken with pride of his new right of succession.

From Goering: The Rise and Fall of the Notorious Nazi Leader, by Roger Manvell, pp. 319, 328.

Hitler clearly anticipated that the British would go to war in response to Germany's invasion of Poland, but went ahead with the invasion anyway.

Not sure that passage really shows he thought it would actually mean war, just that he was agitated enough to say he would destroy anyone that got in his way. Besides wasn't that meeting on September 26th and a discussion about negotiation terms with the Allies? Seems like a meeting 4 weeks into the war isn't a good indicator of what Hitler thought leading up to the war.

No, the first meeting was the night of August 26-27, the second was on September 1, both before Britain declared war.

[wm]

And a correction : Stalin did visit Germany in 1907 .

And presumably, he ascertained the capabilities of the Imperial German Army to breach the Maginot Line and not just attended another Marxist congress. You forgot he was there in 1945 too.

So what do we have?
- Hitler wrote we must stop at no sacrifice in our effort to destroy the French, but it seems according to you he, poor devil, didn't mean it,
- he said to his generals I thought that I would first turn against the West, but that's a fake, created presumably by that guy Lochner,
- Halder falsified his diary after the war to hide the fact Hitler dreamed about war with France,
- international agreements are nothing but pieces of paper, nobody keeps any agreement ever, especially the British in 1939 - although surprisingly they kept the agreement with Poland,
- Chamberlain wrote to Hitler just a few days before the war that he was determined to intervene on behalf of Poland, but it seems he lied,
- at the same time Hitler said My dear Goring, if the British ratify a treaty one day, they don't break it the next but obviously he was surprised when England followed thru.
- Jochen Thies was an idiot writing nonsense.

Something else?

[ljadw]

And a correction : Stalin did visit Germany in 1907 .

And presumably, he ascertained the capabilities of the Imperial German Army to breach the Maginot Line and not just attended another Marxist congress. You forgot he was there in 1945 too.

So what do we have?
- Hitler wrote we must stop at no sacrifice in our effort to destroy the French, but it seems according to you he, poor devil, didn't mean it,
- he said to his generals I thought that I would first turn against the West, but that's a fake, created presumably by that guy Lochner,
- Halder falsified his diary after the war to hide the fact Hitler dreamed about war with France,
- international agreements are nothing but pieces of paper, nobody keeps any agreement ever, especially the British in 1939 - although surprisingly they kept the agreement with Poland,
- Chamberlain wrote to Hitler just a few days before the war that he was determined to intervene on behalf of Poland, but it seems he lied,
- at the same time Hitler said My dear Goring, if the British ratify a treaty one day, they don't break it the next but obviously he was surprised when England followed thru.
- Jochen Thies was an idiot writing nonsense.

Something else?

Something else ?
A lot
1 What Hitler said in 1925,after the French occupation of the Ruhr,can not be used as an argument for what he did in
1939
2 What Lochner claimed is a fake .The same Hitler blamed imperial Germany for its attack on France .
3 Hitler had no plans for attacking France, thus he had no intentions : the plans for Fall Gelb were elaborated AFTER the French refusal to make peace with Hitler after the fall of Poland .If the French had accepted the German occupation of Poland, there would be no Fall Gelb .
4 Hitler had no reason to attack Poland,as France had already abandoned Poland as an ally 10 years before .
5 The agreement with Poland had nothing to do with the British DOW on Germany .
6 There is no proof for what is claimed that Hitler said to Goering .
Thies does nothing else than repeating the old debunked nonsense of Shirer .
You still do not understand/refuse to admit that Britain and France started WW 2 not for strategical ,military reasons but for ideological reasons : they would not have declared war before 1914 if Germany attacked an independent Poland .
The fact is that before 1914 and even in 1914 ,war was considered as a continuation of politics by other means .AFTER 1918 war was considered,by the influence of Wilson and such people, as a crime .
That's why Britain and France declared war in 1939 .
That's why Neville Chamberlain said on September 3 1939 that the war could only finish with the destruction of Nazism .
Asquith did not say in 1914 that the war could only end with the destruction of the Imperial German regime .

[Sid Guttridge]

Double post.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

Ahhh, your old standby "There is no proof....", which you use whenever the evidence doesn't agree with you. In those circumstances, no amount of evidence ever constitutes "proof" in your mind!

The conversation between Hitler and Goering is reported by an eyewitness, Nicolaus von Below, who was Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant. Unless you have some good reason not to accept eye-witness evidence by qualified authorities, then I would suggest that this is considerable enough evidence to be worth taking seriously.

Manstein's Fall Gelb was the fourth iteration. The third was presumed to have fallen into Allied hands. There were thus two earlier Fall Gelb plans before October 1939. Do you have a date for either or both of these?

However, as you say, the development of plans does not necessarily indicate intent to use them. Nevertheless, one has to wonder how Hitler was planning to recover Alsace and Lorraine otherwise?

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

I said : Hitler. I did not say : the Reichswehr or the Wehrmacht .That these had plans is possible but irrelevant,as there are no proofs that Hitler ordered such plans or knew about them .Besides, these plans were impossible to execute as Germany had not the forces to execute them .
No plans : no intention.
And , the existence of plans does not mean intention :after WW 1 US military had plans for a war with Britain .
If Hitler wanted back the Alsace,that does not mean that he had the intention to attack France,because everything would depend on the needed political,economic and military factors .
Decisions, intentions and plans are separate things .Plans are made in function of decisions and decisions are dependent ,not on plans, but on the needed circumstances .
I will look on what Frieser said about the iterations of Fall Gelb .

[ljadw]

I found the following about Fall Gelb
First version :19 October 1939
Second :29 October
Third : 30 January 1940
Fourth : 24 February 1940 .

[ljadw]

About what Hitler said to Goering : Wachtmeister did not give a source .And, it is still unclear when Hitler said this to Goering and about what version of the guarantee .
We know that the guarantee was only propaganda with electoral aims .We know also that notwithstanding the guarantee ,Britain tried to bribe Germany in August 1939 .
We know also that Hitler was wrong : Britain did not react when Germany violated Versailles and Locarno,although Britain had also signed both treaties .

[wm]

We have lots of speculations here without any hard evidence.
And even more non-sequiturs:
France abandoned Poland but declared war on Germany, presumably by mistake,
Hitler had no reason to attack Poland but attacked anyway,
Britain and France declared war because war was considered a crime - was Chamberlain aware of it, when did he say that?
Hitler didn't have plans to attack France (although he didn't intend to attack France in September 1939), but when he needed them in October he had.

That guy Lochner must have been an extraordinary magician if he was able to falsify 798-PS ("I thought that I would first turn against the West"), a document he never had access to.

[wm]

And Plan Z, given the highest priority: 4 aircraft carriers, 10 battleships, 230 ships in total.
What does the plan tell us about Hitler's peaceful intentions against the West?

[ljadw]

Plan Z tells us nothing about Hitler's intentions against the West .
But the construction of the West Wall tells us a lot about Hitler's intentions against the West .
In 1935 Germany had no surface fleet , thus it is only natural that it wanted to have again a surface fleet .
And that it had the highest priority is laughable :at the start of the war, Plan Z was cancelled .Besides,the realisation of Plan Z was impossible .
Germany's surface fleet could never be a serious threat for Britain .

[ljadw]

We have lots of speculations here without any hard evidence.
And even more non-sequiturs:
France abandoned Poland but declared war on Germany, presumably by mistake,
Hitler had no reason to attack Poland but attacked anyway,
Britain and France declared war because war was considered a crime - was Chamberlain aware of it, when did he say that?
Hitler didn't have plans to attack France (although he didn't intend to attack France in September 1939), but when he needed them in October he had.

That guy Lochner must have been an extraordinary magician if he was able to falsify 798-PS ("I thought that I would first turn against the West"), a document he never had access to.

There is no contradiction between the decision in 1929 to abandon Poland as an ally and the decision in 1939 to declare war ( for moralist reasons )after Hitler attacked Poland .
About Hitler's attack of Poland : every one knew what Hitler wanted ( it was the continuation of the policy of Weimar ) : he wanted to have back the territories Germany lost in 1918 and he wanted to eliminate Poland as an independent state .
No one had any objection against these aims, excepted the Poles . They told it to Hitler,adding :do it without war,otherwise the moralists will whine and there will be a global war .
Britain and France declared war,because the public opinion was moralist,otherwise they would have remained neutral : in 1914 France remained neutral when Germany attacked Russia,although Russia was more important for France than Poland .
About Hitler attacking France :plans follow the intention, the decision . Not the opposite .
Lochner was an American , a journalist , a pacifist, an anti-fascist. Thus no reason to believe one word of what he said .
He was nothing more than another Shirer .
His book ''What about Germany ''was written in 1942,thus nothing more than propaganda .
And what he wrote about Canaris was on the level of the Batman Stories.