God and Churchill HB Read online

  With all these formative influences, it’s easy to see how Hitler could allow himself to be revered as a messianic deliverer and how he gained power over the German people, Europe and the world itself.

  HITLER’S SPIRITUAL GUIDE

  The French philosopher Emmanuel Faye believes that Martin Heidegger was Hitler’s direct spiritual guide later in life, and that Heidegger viewed himself as ‘the “spiritual” Führer of Nazism’.15 Furthermore, according to Faye, ‘his writings continue to spread the radically racist and human life-destroying conceptions that make up the foundation of Hitlerism and Nazism.’16

  Heidegger, briefly rector of the University of Freiburg in the early Nazi era, gave philosophical credentials to the anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. This can be seen in his Black Notebooks, a personal philosophical diary written between 1931 and 1941 and released in 2014.17 According to Heidegger, questions of God and eternity are not relevant. What matters at the end of our lives is the cumulative impact of our existence in time. There is no real accountability or glory beyond death, so we must live fully and gloriously in the Zeitgeist to which fate has affixed us as individuals.

  According to this way of thinking, the Jews happened to be consigned by fate to live in a period of grandeur (for the German people) in which they were the tragic counterpoint (the race of ignominy) simply because they were there at that point in time. Heidegger inferred, however, that the German people had both the right and the responsibility to pursue their destiny.

  As it was for Churchill, civilization was a major theme for Hitler. However, their visions differed dramatically. From Hitler’s perspective, civilization meant the systemic order of the Reich, with its fascist control over the destiny of the Volk (the mass of the population). That destiny could be determined only by the Führer and his regime. In fact, in keeping with the views of Heidegger, the Führer was a spiritual leader, and each institution had to have its own Führer, carrying out the vision of the supreme leader.

  One cannot explore Hitler’s spiritual roots without finding the Frenchman, Arthur de Gobineau, buried deep in the soil. Gobineau, who wrote An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, believed that purity of race is the determining factor in the rise and fall of civilizations.

  In line with Gobineau’s theories, Hitler and the Nazis believed that the Jews had polluted the pure Aryan stock and that it was up to the Germans to restore racial purity.

  At the time, many Europeans and Americans were intellectually and spiritually prepared to accept Nazi theories. John Lukacs writes that, in the years before the war, ‘Hitler … appeared as the greatest leader and statesman that the German people had had in one thousand years – as well as the most powerful national leader in Europe, perhaps even in the world.’18 In fact, ‘he represented an enormous tide in the affairs of the world in the twentieth century.’19

  The American industrialist Henry Ford was among Hitler’s early admirers, as was Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy and ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940. Even former Prime Minister David Lloyd George initially ‘admired Hitler’, calling him ‘the greatest living German’.20 Lloyd George also ‘thought that Britain had no chance of winning [the] war against Hitler’s Third Reich’.21

  THE DAY GERMAN DEMOCRACY DIED

  On 30 January 1933, the stage was set for Hitler’s ascendance when the German President Paul von Hindenburg was forced to recognize the National Socialists as the leading party in the Reichstag, the German parliament. Reluctantly, Hindenburg called for Hitler, who was sworn in as Germany’s chancellor in a brief meeting. President Hindenburg was very popular among the German people, and Hitler therefore had to act with restraint, biding his time until he could control the president’s popularity and power.

  On the evening of 27 February 1933, as Hitler dined with Joseph Goebbels and family, Ernst Hanfstaengl, an aide to Hitler, telephoned to report that the Reichstag building was on fire. Goebbels and Hitler immediately went to the site. Hermann Goering was already there, claiming that the blaze was arson, started by the Communists. The accusation gained credibility when the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe, a known arsonist who had boasted that he would burn down the Reichstag, was arrested at the scene.

  Van der Lubbe’s short trial was a farce. Evidence was presented by experts, proving that the fire ‘had been set with considerable quantities of chemicals and gasoline’.22 William Shirer notes that the large quantity of chemicals and gasoline required to generate the conflagration would have been far too much for one man to carry. In an attempt to legitimize the allegation, Goering arrested the Communist parliamentary leader Ernst Torgler and the Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitroff. At trial, both Torgler and Dimitroff were acquitted, but van der Lubbe was found guilty and executed.

  Those who were truly responsible for the fire may never be known, but its occurrence created the advantage that Hitler needed to establish the Nazis as the only legitimate political party in Germany. The day after the Reichstag fire, Hitler pressured Hindenburg to sign a decree that Hitler claimed was ‘for the Protection of the People and the State’.23 The decree established draconian measures, including ‘restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property’.24

  Thus, on 28 February 1933, democracy died in Germany and was not to be revived for twelve long years, during which time millions would lose their lives as a result of Hitler and his Nazis. After the war, Winston Churchill hoped the world had learned a lesson from the way Hitler insinuated himself into power with the promise of bringing glory to Germany. During a speech given in Amsterdam on 9 May 1948, Churchill offered this warning:

  Tyranny presents itself in various forms, but it is always the same, whatever slogans it utters, whatever name it calls itself by, whatever liveries it wears. It is always the same and makes a demand on all free men to risk and do all in their power to withstand it.25

  Having legitimized both his party and its right to arrest, detain, and execute without trial those who were considered to be enemies of the state, Hitler looked to remove the remaining obstacles: President Hindenburg and those who stood in opposition to Hitler’s rule as dictator of Germany. Hindenburg was by this time very ill and dying, and Hitler knew that within a matter of weeks the president would be gone. He therefore focused his attention on others who might become thorns in his side and much more difficult to neutralize once Hindenburg was dead. On 30 June 1934, Hitler launched what came to be known as the Night of Long Knives, in which his primary opponents were removed, either through arrest or death.

  When President Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor and thus ruled Germany absolutely. Now free to do as he wished without fear of consequences, Hitler began to put his ultimate plans into effect – namely, to raise a perfect Aryan Germanic empire that the world would admire and fear, to declare war on the rest of Europe and to rid the world of Jews.

  Though Hitler had successfully secured the political position of the Nazi Party, he knew it was only a matter of time before those he trusted would attempt to oust him and seize control. Needing the unwavering support of the army and the adoration of the German people, Hitler endorsed the creation of a new oath of allegiance that recognized him as the ultimate power:

  I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.26

  The oath is similar to that of the British oath of allegiance to the monarch:

  I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. S
o help me God.

  However, there is a clear provision in the British oath not found in Hitler’s oath: the morality of law.

  A soldier in the British armed forces is called upon to bear true allegiance, unless an order contradicts the law of the land as laid out by Parliament. Therefore, if commanded to march into a shopping mall and randomly shoot unarmed people, it is a British soldier’s moral duty to question that order. In Germany under the Hitler Oath, questioning any order was a punishable crime; Hitler was the law.

  The Führer moved quickly to consolidate his power and expand the German economy by any means possible, including threats and acts of violence. Despite Churchill’s warnings between 1933 and 1939 of the rising evil in Germany, most observers were impressed by how quickly Hitler began to transform the ailing country he had inherited.

  Among other accomplishments, his full-employment policy led to the creation of the Autobahn, an infrastructural feat that was envied (and later would be adopted) around the world. As with other Nazi innovations, however, Hitler’s Autobahn was designed for more sinister reasons than the mere creation of a high-speed motorway for cars. His plan was to enable the quick and efficient movement of troops and munitions from one end of the country to the other, in preparation for war.

  Despite claims that Hitler was merely trying to restrain the communist Bolsheviks, the evidence indicates otherwise. The creation of a vast army, navy and air force, which began in 1933 and gained momentum in 1935 when Hitler reinstated conscription and announced that he would create an army of half a million men, proves beyond a doubt that Hitler’s intentions were not limited solely to the elimination of the Bolshevik movement. He was preparing for war.

  With his economic and employment policies in full swing, Hitler was now free to focus his attention on what he believed to be the cause of Germany’s past troubles and the primary obstacle to the ascendance of the new German empire: the Jews. The anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were an essential component of that dark scheme. Crucial to the plan was the emerging idea that the German people were a demographic mass, the Volk. If one was not part of the Volk, one was not a German and therefore was not entitled to the rights and protections of citizenship. According to the laws, Jews and other minorities were excluded from inclusion in the Volk.

  The Nuremberg Laws thus divided the German people into two major classifications: Aryan (pure-blooded Germans with four German grandparents) and non-Aryan (people of mixed ancestry). Aryans were afforded every privilege: citizenship, the right to marry and procreate with other Aryans, and the privilege to work for or on behalf of the government. The Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews and other non-Aryans – gypsies and blacks, for example – of citizenship and prohibited racially mixed sexual relations and marriages.

  Hitler’s direct action against the Jews – called God’s chosen people in the Bible – marked another turning point in his transformation into a false messiah. Just a year earlier, the Nazis had created and imposed a new ‘Lord’s Prayer’ and table grace, addressed directly to their Führer.

  The New Lord’s Prayer: Adolf Hitler, you are our great Leader. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon earth. Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end even with our lives. We praise thee! Heil Hitler!

  The New Table Grace: Führer, my Führer, sent to me from God, protect and maintain me throughout my life. Thou who hast saved Germany from deepest need, I thank thee today for my daily bread. Remain at my side and never leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light. Heil my Führer!27

  Hitler claimed he was sent by God and that Providence was guiding him on his path. His Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda had the audacity to parallel him with Jesus in a dictation that schoolchildren were ordered to write and learn:

  As Jesus freed men from sin and Hell, so Hitler freed the German people from destruction. Jesus and Hitler were persecuted, but while Jesus was crucified, Hitler was raised to the chancellorship… . Jesus strove for heaven, Hitler for the German earth.28

  Meanwhile, in Britain, as Churchill watched the military build-up in Germany and the growing spiritual adulation of Hitler, he knew it would take people of remarkable courage to defeat a force in which mysticism and might joined to destroy what he would increasingly refer to as ‘Christian civilization’.

  Later in life, Churchill would describe how learning to paint gave him a ‘heightened sense of observation of Nature’.29 Preparing colours for the canvas taught him how to see ‘the tint and character of a leaf, the dreamy purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim pale silhouettes of far horizons’.30 However, by the 1930s he was already able to discern the vagaries of human nature.

  With growing alarm, Churchill sensed that the British government wasn’t seeing the true picture of Hitler’s character. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain clearly did not perceive the Nazi leader as a potential enemy but rather as a fair-minded man who would happily negotiate an agreement and keep it. The nation itself dozed in the blissful assurances given by Chamberlain and others of his stature and position.

  Churchill, however, was not similarly deceived. When Hitler launched his blitzkrieg against Poland, violating the handshake-sealed ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Chamberlain, the war was on. As the House of Commons sat sombrely reflecting and recriminating, Churchill rose to address the prime minister. In despair over Chamberlain’s naivety, he quoted from the Bible, as he often did: ‘Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.’31

  Churchill knew that the British could not afford to come up short. They would have to stand and fight or be captured as a prime prize and enfolded into Hitler’s Third Reich, which was now on the march. Britain would need ‘weighty’ leadership for the fight ahead.

  5

  Prime Minister at Last

  When great causes are on the move in the world … we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells ‘duty’.

  WINSTON S. CHURCHILL, THE UNRELENTING STRUGGLE

  Before 1940, it was not easy for [Churchill] to be taken seriously as the man of destiny he believed himself to be.

  DAVID CANNADINE, ASPECTS OF ARISTOCRACY

  ON 7 APRIL 1935, Ralph Wigram, head of the Central Department at the Foreign Office, visited Chartwell, Churchill’s home in Kent. He stayed overnight, talking to Churchill about the fears he had of the coming danger and offering secret documented evidence that revealed the true figures of German air strength in comparison to Britain’s.

  A week later, Wigram sent Churchill the government’s assessment, ranking German first-line air strength at 800 aircraft against Britain’s 453.

  ‘These are grave and terrible facts for those who are charged with the defence of this country,’ Wigram noted in an internal minute entry.1 Churchill now knew more clearly than ever that he had been right in 1933 when he told Parliament that the renewal of war in Europe was ‘within a measurable distance’ as Germany attained ‘full military equality with her neighbours’.2

  As far back as 1931, Churchill’s first publicly spoken warnings had only been predictions. But now, thanks to the factual foundation that Wigram had supplied, Churchill felt the urgency of certainty. He immediately began to increase the pressure for a quick and thorough rearmament programme for Britain. He laid out the dire truth that Germany’s air strength would reach parity with Britain’s by the end of 1935, and unless the British government took action, the Nazis’ air force would be double the size of Britain’s by 1937.3 On 2 May 1935, when Churchill again spoke to the House of Commons, he grimly reported that ‘German ascendancy in the air is already a fact. The military part is far advanced, and the naval part is now coming into view.’4

  Only five months earlier, on 28 November 1934, Stanley Baldwin – then Lord President of the Privy Council – had assured the House that the British government woul
d see to it that ‘in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of our shores.’5 But during the May 1935 debate, the government continued to deny the truth Churchill had revealed.

  The Cabinet had met the previous day to discuss the matter, and they decided that the next day’s debate would not be ‘the occasion for further details’ but that they would reaffirm Baldwin’s earlier assurances.6 ‘The Government takes the earliest opportunity, at the opening of the present debate, to state publicly that the President’s declaration stands.’7

  Nevertheless, the May debate caused the government great discomfort. For the first time since his warnings began, and because of the documents Wigram had supplied him, Churchill had them on the run. Over the years leading up to the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939, Churchill’s credibility continued to grow. No matter how hard the government tried, they were unable to silence his voice.

  By the sixth month of the war, Britain’s neck was in Hitler’s noose, which was tightening moment by moment. Escape appeared impossible – not only because of the Nazi armies squeezing continental Europe and threatening British shores, but also because of the impossible political crisis within Britain itself.

  Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s naivety had been exposed by his dealings with Hitler, and his idealized, false hope for ‘peace for our time’ was now scorned by both Parliament and the people. He tried to lead on, but as the Germans continued their advance towards the English Channel, gobbling up the Low Countries and closing in on Paris, Chamberlain began to realize the impossibility of his leading Britain through the war alone.

  Forming a coalition government seemed like a wise choice, but both opposition parties, Labour and the Liberals, refused to be part of a governing coalition in which Chamberlain was prime minister.