Dan Snow's History Hit - Hitler's American Gamble

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 remains etched in public memory as the turning point of WW2. But in fact, it was Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States – four days later on December 11, 1941 – that changed everything. In this episode, Professor of International Relations at Cambridge University Brendan Simms tells Dan the story of those five unsettling days. Churchill did not sleep “the sleep of the saved and thankful” after the attack, as he later claimed. Japan’s leaders were unsure whether Hitler would honour a private commitment to declare war. Roosevelt knew that many Americans didn’t want their country to entangle itself in a conflict with the Third Reich as well as Japan. In the end, it was Hitler’s decision that ended the uncertainty, bringing the US into the European war and transforming world history. You can read more in 'Hitler's American Gamble', the new book by Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman. Please vote for us! Dan Snow's History Hit has been nominated for a Podbible award in the 'informative' category: https://bit.ly/3pykkds

Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. On the 11th of December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and with the USA embroiled in a war now in the Pacific against the Japanese Empire, Hitler took to the stage in the Reichstag and announced that Nazi Germany was declaring war on the United States of America. Now bear in mind, the USA had not declared war on Germany.

Now, bear in mind, the USA had not declared war on Germany. Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. Hitler's momentous decision meant that Roosevelt and Churchill had their wish. They could focus on what they believed was the primary threat, Germany, and then deal slightly later with the Japanese in South and East Asia and the Pacific. Roosevelt had a very tough time understandably convincing the American people to focus on Germany first given that Germany had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor but Hitler made it very easy as I said. As a result that decision that Hitler made is one of the most momentous of the Second World War, one of the most momentous of the 20th century. Why did Adolf Hitler declare war on the world's most powerful financial, industrial and agricultural power? He had a great deposit of minerals, a gigantic exporter of oil with a population of millions and millions of people that could be mobilized in its factories and its military units. It was a decision that would help to prove the undoing of Germany. In this podcast, I talk to Brendan Sims. He's a very brilliant academic. He's professor

of the history of international relations at the University of Cambridge. He's someone who's written many wonderful books. I'm a big fan of his magisterial survey of history from 1453 to the present Europe, the struggle for supremacy. But I've also got The 400 Men Who Decided the Fate of the Battle of Waterloo, The Longest Afternoon. Love that book asacy. But I've also got The 400 Men Who Decided the Fate of the Battle of Waterloo, The Longest Afternoon. Love that book as well. So I'm a longtime fan of Brendan Sims. Haven't ever had them on the podcast before. So it's a great pleasure to have him on now, because he's just written a new book alongside Charlie Lederman about this exact thing. Why Hitler came to that decision, how he made the decision that probably cost him the Second World

War, a decision that we've all been living with ever since. A decision that would propel America into a position of global military hegemony, accelerate things like the Manhattan Project, all sorts of stuff. Why did Hitler do it? Well, you're about to find out. That's one of the things about this podcast. This is a question you've probably often thought is about to be answered by one of the world's greatest experts. If you wish to listen to other podcasts without the ads, if you wish to watch TV shows over the Christmas period, it's miserable up here in the Northern Hemisphere. It's cold, it's raining, coronavirus looks like it's coming back a little bit. You're going to stay in your house, keep out of trouble.

History Hit TV is for you. The world's best history channel. All the good documentaries on there. All the good podcasts without the ads. Go to historyhit.tv. Works anywhere in the world where the internet works. Go and check it out. But in the meantime, here's Brendan Sims explaining one of the great mysteries of World War II. Enjoy.

Brendan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. Right, so the massive Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor happens at the beginning of December 1941, 80 years ago, as we're recording this now. For me, the key question has always been Japan brilliantly disguised its intentions, launches this stunning surprise attack. Did they tell Hitler, their German ally, that they were going to do that? Hitler knew Japan was intending to attack the United States, but he did not know the exact time or day of the attack, which took him completely by surprise. And another terrific example of the absolutely hopeless strategic,

operational, tactical collaboration between the Axis powers in the Second World War. It's hard to overstate how bad they were at coordination. The Japanese were not convinced that the secret would be safe with Hitler. But in fact, this was part of a state how bad they were at coordination. The Japanese were not convinced that the secret would be safe with Hitler. But in fact, this was part of a much broader problem within the Axis powers that they really didn't coordinate. Even after they came to a political agreement against the United States and the British Empire, they didn't really coordinate their strategy. There was a rough outline in 1942, but it never amounted to anything even close to the kind of collaboration you had between the Anglo-Americans. Now, take me through that moment.

Where was Hitler when he was told? How did he react? What was it like? Well, Hitler was in his headquarters in the Wolf's Lair at Rastenberg in eastern Prussia, where he was overseeing the war. And he suddenly gets a radio message. And he's absolutely astonished. He runs out across to another hut or barracks to communicate this to his astonished entourage. And he's so surprised he actually runs through the cold without a hat or coat. So he is completely astonished. But he's utterly elated, which may surprise one. But of course, he wanted Japan to attack the United States because he was convinced that war with the United States was inevitable. And he was determined that he would have the

Japanese distracting the Americans and indeed the British in the Pacific while he finished the job in Russia and in North Africa. The mind boggles. Why wasn't Hitler begging his ally to pursue their so-called Northern strategy, their other option. The voices in Tokyo were saying they should invade the Soviet Union, just as Hitler's forces were as close as they would ever be to the Soviet capital. Their intervention might just have been decisive. Indeed. And as we know, it was the fact that the Japanese were known not to be preparing to attack the Soviet Union that gave Stalin the confidence to withdraw men from the Far East and send them against Hitler in front of Moscow. So it does

seem an odd decision. But if you follow his own logic, it makes much more sense. And really, he's thinking two things. First of all, with regard to the Soviet Union, he didn't want the Japanese joining in. He certainly didn't want them during the summer and the autumn of all, with regard to the Soviet Union, he didn't want the Japanese joining in. He certainly didn't want them during the summer and the autumn of 1941 because he thought he could deal with the Soviet Union. And he didn't want to have to share the booty with the Japanese. But the second and much more important reason is that his main enemy by far is Anglo-America and in particular the United States. And what he wants the Japanese to do is not to get bogged down in a war against Stalin, in which, by the way, they'd done very badly in initial skirmishes in 1938 and 1939, but rather to tie down the British and the Americans in the Far East. That for him is much more important. Yes, yes, it's very important not to forget that 1939,

the undeclared war between Japan and the Soviet Union when the Japanese pushed into Siberia and were crushed by, among others, the great Zhukov, a great example of his skill with armoured warfare that he would demonstrate so effective on the Eastern Front later on. was still not actually formally at war against Hitler. It was supplying vast amounts of arms and supplies to the Brits. It was taking a, you might describe it as pretty robust, neutrality in the Battle of the Atlantic. But did Hitler base it? Had he just decided that the USA was effectively already in a state of war against the Third Reich? That's exactly what he thought. He was really convinced since the autumn, since October 1937,

that US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had it in for him, because at that time, Roosevelt gave a famous speech, the so-called quarantine speech in Chicago, where he said that the dictatorial powers, that is the German Reich, the Japanese Empire, and Mussolini's Italy, should be put under some form of international quarantine. Now, Hitler hears that speech and says, obviously, Roosevelt is against me. Now, don't misunderstand us as historians, myself and my co-author, Charlie Lederman. We're delighted, obviously, that Roosevelt was taking on Hitler. But if we're looking at it from Hitler's point of view, he sees Roosevelt as an enemy. And really from then on in, everything that Roosevelt does is directed against the German Reich.

So you mentioned the Lend-Lease Act. That's obviously hugely important because it sends huge amounts of military supplies to Britain and subsequently also to Stalin. There is the attacks on German submarines in the Atlantic, which you mentioned, but also something else one should add, very importantly, the Atlantic Charter of August 1941. When Churchill and Roosevelt meet, they issue a charter looking forward to the reconstruction of the world after the defeat of Nazism. And this, bear in mind, is before the United States is actually at war with the German Reich. Though from Hitler's point of view, indeed, the United States is already, in practical terms, at war with him. And what he wants to do is to ensure, first of all,

that open hostilities take place at a time of his choosing, and not to be surprised, like the German Reich was during the First World War by President Wilson's declaration of war. And secondly, to ensure that in that war, he has Japan on his side, distracting and tying down the British Empire, but particularly the United States in the Far East. So that's his thinking. Okay, so Hitler's elated, he's happy, he's running around without his coat on a cold winter's day. Take me through the next couple of days building up to his, well, extraordinary decision. So there's really two uncertainties we're looking at here. We tend to think of the period after Pearl Harbor as a time when everything becomes clear.

The United States, having long been in kind of a limbo, not war, not peace, undeclared war, as some people have called it, finally comes into the Second World War. But of course, what happens on the 7th of December is not the United States joining the war by which contemporaries understood the European war, but it resulted in a new war between the Japanese Empire and the British Empire and the United States. The United States was not yet at war with the Japanese Empire and the British Empire and the United States. The United States was not yet at war with the German Reich. And so we have a double uncertainty here. We have an uncertainty in Tokyo. Will the Germans, will Hitler actually deliver on his promise to join this war? We know that Hitler planned to do so, and we know why, but they couldn't be sure. And there are a lot of voices in Tokyo at this time who are saying the Germans are going to do so, and we know why, but they couldn't be sure. And there are a lot of voices in Tokyo at this time who are saying, the Germans are going to do the dirty on us. They are going to patch

up relations with the British Empire, and we're going to be facing the white races on our own. And of course, if you look at what Hitler did, particularly with Stalin in 1939, he had concluded this pact, the Hitler-Stalin pact, which had completely shocked the Japanese. They hadn't been consulted on it. And of course, as we've just mentioned, they'd actually been in armed conflict with the Soviet Union. So that came as a shock. So there were many people in Tokyo who said this could happen again. And then, of course, they saw how Hitler had simply abandoned his pact with Stalin. So massive uncertainty in Tokyo whether Hitler is actually going to join them and whether they might not be left to face the United States on their own. The other uncertainty is in London and in Washington,

because, again, we tend to believe Churchill when he wrote in his memoirs that on hearing the news of Pearl Harbor, I slept the sleep of the saved and that everything would now be all right. But of course, that wasn't clear at all, because he was now at war, the British Empire was now at war with Japan in the Far East and doing very badly, losing, for example, Prince of Wales and Repulse on the 10th of December. But the United States was not yet at war with Germany. So he was spared the nightmare scenario of facing the Japanese on his own. But he had an extra war on his hand, and he didn't have the United States against the Germans. And there was a final factor, which was that Lend-Lease was

now under threat. Because of course, Roosevelt was under huge pressure from American isolationists to stop Lend-Lease, because they were accusing him of giving all their best weapons to Churchill and to Stalin. And these would now be needed in the Far East. So for four days or so, nearly five days, there's huge unsolvency following Pearl Harbor. This is Dan Snow's History. We're talking about Hitler's momentous decision. We declared war on the USA. More coming up. What do Tudor men like their women to look like? They should have broad shoulders, fleshy arms, fleshy legs and broad hips. What did 17th century Londoners think of coffee? A syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes.

And what did executioners wear? A lot of these guys, they were clothes horses because it's a big public spectacle. All the eyes are on you. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and in my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everything from monasteries to the Medici, sex to spying, wardrobes to witch trials. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings

and Popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so now we get to the heart of it. Why on earth does Adolf Hitler declare war against the United States of America? In order to answer that question, we need to understand two things. One is that this decision was not driven by ignorance and insouciance. It was not the case that he underestimated the power of the United States. In fact, he was completely obsessed with the power of the United States.

And we know this because a great deal of what he wrote in the 1920s, particularly in the so-called second book, concerned the power of the US, which he regarded as the great industrial force, the great racial force. The Americans were made up, in his view, of Anglo-Saxons from the British Isles, and the best elements of the German people had emigrated to the United States. And his trauma was really the trauma of the First World War, which was the moment where, in his view, German immigrants had come back to fight the Reich in Europe. So he was very much afraid of the United States. But at the same time, by 1941, he'd come to the view that the United States under President Roosevelt was completely his enemy, was totally dedicated to his destruction, and therefore

he needed to preempt the United States. What he tried to do was to warn off the United States by warning Roosevelt that if there was war in Europe, the Jews, whom he blamed for all these machinations, the Jews in Europe would pay the price. And while he had murdered already about a million Jews in the Soviet Union, the Jews of Central and Western Europe, although in grave peril, were still alive. So what Hitler decides to do on the 11th of December is to step before the German Reichstag at three o'clock in the afternoon. And that timing, by the way, is chosen so that the speech can be heard not merely by the Germans and by other Europeans, but it can also already be heard

in the United States where people will already be up. And it can still be heard in Japan where people will not yet have gone to bed. So this is conceived by Hitler as a truly global moment where he is going to declare war on the United States, or to be more precise, to recognize that a state of war de facto exists. And so he lists all his grievances against the United States. I've already mentioned most of them, also adds that this is the fault in particular of world Jewry, which he holds responsible for this. And so it culminates in the declaration of war. And on the following day, on the 12th of December, he meets all of his political leaders, the Goliaths, the regional leaders. And he says to them, I warned Roosevelt,

I warned the Jews that if we have a world war, another world war, the Jews in Europe will pay the price. Now we have the world war, he says, and therefore now the Jews in Europe must pay the price. And we believe, and we're not the only ones to think this, that this is really the moment where Hitler decides to operationalize the murder, not merely of the Eastern European Jews, which in a sense was a done deal, but of the Central and Western European Jews as well. So it's a really consequential day, the 11th of December. I was actually thinking about this the other day. I was thinking about in terms of the German-Austrian general staffs in 1914, Hitler deciding to invade the Soviet Union in 1941, and then, of course, Hitler deciding to declare war on the USA in late 1941. It's this bizarre thinking that you can get into, which is the absolute axiomatic belief that war is inevitable, but in the long term, you're almost certainly going to lose it. But if you strike now, you might just win it. So you precipitate the war that you're trying to avoid.

It's a circular argument that's led to so many of the great strategic errors of the 20th century. Yes, indeed. And it's very important to be clear that the scenario I'm describing and the mindset that Hitler is reacting, with which Hitler is reacting to it, this scenario is, of course, one pretty much entirely of his own making. He has encircled himself. He has launched into a war against, first of all, the British and the French, well, the Poles, and then the British and the French, the Soviet Union, and so on. So, indeed, he has created the situation that he finds himself in on the 11th and the 12th of December. What we try to do in the book is to explain how he actually got there, the stages, the worldview, this sort of sense that he is one of the have-nots of the world, that the German Reich is being

excluded from control of the world's assets, that it's being dominated by the so-called Anglo-Saxon powers, that is to say, the British Empire and the United States, by the forces of international capitalism, and of course, what he calls the forces of international jury. If you accept all those premises, which of course we can't as historians, but we need to understand them as historians. If we accept those premises, then it's easier to see how he ended up in that position on the 11th and the 12th of December. And just as he had decided to invade the Soviet Union in 1941, because he kind of rightly guessed that the Red Army was only going to strengthen, the equipment was improving, officers were being

rehabilitated, it was getting far more effective. In the same way, if you are going to fight the USA, it's worth doing it now before they have a chance to this massive rearmament program that's underway. And they'll be completely untouchable by the mid 1940s. That's correct. So what Hitler sees is basically a very small window of opportunity. His analysts are telling him really that the United States will not be fully ready to fight before the summer or the autumn of opportunity. His analysts are telling him, really, that the United States will not be fully ready to fight before the summer or the autumn of 1942, probably won't hit European beaches before 1943. In fact, that was not completely off, but probably over-optimistic, because as we know, D-Day only happened in 1944. So from Hitler's point of view, he has this six to nine month window within which the Japanese are to tie down

the Americans, deliver a catastrophic political effect, possibly even destabilize Roosevelt, certainly destabilize Churchill. Great hopes on Hitler's side that the losses in the Far East will bring down Churchill, and indeed they damaged him. Churchill famously says in his memoirs that the loss of the Prince of Wales and repulse to Japanese bombers on the 10th of December 1941 was the biggest shock he ever received during the war. So Hitler thinks he can do this, and then in the intervening time, not so much completely defeat Stalin, but capture a sufficient amount of the Soviet Union to create what he calls a blockade-proof area. And with a blockade-proof area, which has sufficient grain, sufficient raw materials, sufficient oil, he will have a chance

of surviving the British blockade and the Anglo-American onslaught. That's his calculation. God, these people make the most extraordinary decisions with these vast consequences. It's amazing. You've set the whole thing out quite rationally as a statesman, a strategist. Let's finish up now by talking about Hitler the man, Hitler's emotions, his health, his mental state. What do you think was going on at that point in his life and career? What was his mindset, his personality, his mood, his medication? What's going on? It's well known, of course, that Hitler was by this stage already quite heavily medicated. He's an awful lot more heavily medicated later on during the war, but he's taking substances,

some of them consciousness altering. Even at this time, he'd had a brief collapse in August 1941. time he'd had a brief collapse in August 1941. Having said all that, what is remarkable is how functional Hitler is within these parameters. He is able to conduct the war to keep all the different fronts in his mind, because we have to remember that he's looking here not merely at the Eastern Front, which we've hardly mentioned, but which is beginning to break through in his consciousness at this time as a disaster zone because of the Soviet offensive on the 5th of December. Doesn't really register at first, but by the following week, much more so. He's looking at what's happening in North Africa. He's thinking about Vichy France. He's wondering what the entry of America will do to Vichy France. Will he have an open flank there? He's worrying about the state of the Catholic Church. Many, many different things on his mind. And of course, the so-called Jewish

question, as he phrased it. Despite all of that, Hitler in medical terms is functional. He's having his meetings. He's giving rational and coherent replies. Of course, only rational and coherent within his own worldview. So the kind of scenes that we're familiar with from Downfall that have become so iconic, those are not scenes that we see in December 1941. This is a Hitler who makes a catastrophic mistake, certainly, a man who is clearly enthralled to a bizarre worldview, but he is acting within his own framework in a rational and largely cool manner. It hardly needs to be said, but let's rehearse the importance of the USA joining the

war against Germany. What impact did the USA have now that it was lined up alongside Germany's enemies? How important is this decision of Hitler's? It's absolutely critical because, of course, the US economy, which in the First World War, Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, described as this great boiler which would be lit. And Churchill picks up that language in the Second World War. That boiler is really fired up from December 1941. And although it had been supplying Hitler's enemies to a quite considerable degree before that moment. Of course, in the remaining three years or so of the war, it makes a critical difference, not only in terms of the United States'

direct impact in terms of landing in Europe, in terms of the bombing campaign, not only in terms of supplies given to the British, but also in supplies given to the Soviet Union. I mean, even President Putin, who had no incentive to overestimate this, said that about 7% of the Soviet Union's war economy came from the Allied side. Now, that, in my view, is a serious underestimate. It's also a quantitative estimate. In qualitative terms, the impact was much greater still. There would have been no mobility for the Red Army across Eastern Europe without the trucks and the jeeps supplied by the United States, and indeed also war materials supplied by the British. So the entrance of the

United States into this war was fundamental, both militarily and, as I said, also in terms of the murder of the Jews. So for this reason, I think, both Charlie Lederman and I argue that the real turning point of the Second World War isn't actually the 7th of December. Important, though, that date was. The really key moment is the 11th of December, 1941, when Hitler declares war on the United States, because from then on, there's no way back. Now the United States is truly, fully in the war. Brendan, thank you very much for coming on. What's the book called? Hitler's American Gamble, Germany's March to Global War

after Pearl Harbor. Go and get it, everyone. It's brilliant. Thanks for coming on. Thank you very much, Stan, for having me. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all work out. And finish.

Thanks, folks. We've reached the end of our episode. Hope you're still awake. Appreciate your loyalty, sticking through to the end. If you fancied doing us a favour here at History Hit, I would be incredibly grateful if you would go and wherever you get these pods, give it a rating, five stars or its equivalent, a review would be great. Please head over there and do that, it really does make a huge difference, it's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account, so please head over there, do that. It really does make a huge difference. It's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account. So please head over there, do that. Really,

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