The World at War
By bluffing once too often, and the realization by the British parliament that it had scarcely any honour left, Hitler found himself at war with the world, will he, nihil he. His attack on Poland led to Britain and France declaring war, both of whom were the major colonial powers and, theoretically at least, able to call on the whole of the manpower in those colonies. The only major power still neutral was America, while Russia had been bought off. But this was a very temporary arrangement, not least in Hitler’s own mind. Once he had reduced Europe to slavery, he still had no extra lebensraum, that mythical place where he was to expand his Aryan hordes, most of whom were as yet unborn; Barbarossa showed his treaty with Russia to be the sham it always was. Engaging Russia with a Britain at his back still unbeaten and America behind them known to be assisting while still ‘neutral’, is yet another instance of Hitler’s obsessive insanity.
He did, however, have the sense to see that he needed an America not yet at war with anyone, while he was dealing with Russia. He issued orders and instructions, on the one side, to leave American ships, merchant and Navy, alone, while on the other, he tried to get Japan to start war in the Asia-Pacific region that would lead America to divert effort to strengthening their forces in Hawaii and the Philippines. As the invasion of Russia started to falter in October 1941, he also asked Japan to attack Vladivostok but what he had not reckoned on was that Japan had its own plans and these were bound to bring America into a war. Fatefully, Hitler, in March 1941, without being asked, had promised the Japanese that Germany would help them in any conflict with America.
Japan, like any aggressor, needed to feel that its rear was secure – and leaving America’s Pacific fleet unharmed in Pearl Harbour, while they started on their conquests in Asia, was unthinkable. This was something that neither Hitler nor any of his military thinkers seemed to have considered and so the bombing of the American fleet in Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941 came as a complete, and unwelcome, surprise. Roosevelt and Congress took the immediate step of declaring a state of war existing with Japan, but not with Germany or Italy. In Berlin, Hitler hesitated for a few days but then declared war on America on 11th , for no very clear reasons other than to allow his U-boats to attack all boats in the continuing Battle of the Atlantic. It seems, from testament given after the war, that Hitler grossly underestimated America’s strength and, equally, overestimated that of Japan and made assumptions that had no basis, except as wishful thinking, about the relative efforts America would make in Europe and the Pacific. What is certain is that he had no need to make any declaration, particularly as it was becoming apparent that Russia was not going to be a walk-over.
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