531. Hitler's War on Poland: The Pact with Stalin (Part 2)

By the 11th of April 1939, Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were in the process of drawing up a plan of attack for Poland, the Poles having resisted Germany’s attempts to make them hand over Danzig and turn themselves into a satellite state. Now, with a new military alliance between France, Britain and Poland established, the time has come for Hitler to throw the dice and cast Europe into the long predicted war. Yet, at this most crucial and long awaited moment of his career, Hitler found himself in a state of emotional distress. Uncertain of whether France and Britain would join the war upon his invasion of Poland, and aware of Germany’s economic turmoil, the stakes had never been higher. He therefore decided to make a deal with his greatest ideological enemy - Joseph Stalin - forming an alliance with Russia, with the intention of dividing up Poland between them. Then, on the 1st of September, Hitler gave a landmark, excoriating address at the Reichstag, declaring war on Poland and tearing up his naval pact with Britain. War, it seemed, had become truly inevitable. Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the build up to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, one of the darkest episodes of all time, and the moment that the Second World War truly began. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restishistory It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Jack Meek Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Tom Holland?

  This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked.

• 0:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realizes, or rather, everybody else realizes, that there is a vast continent out there. And it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people?

• 0:45Tom Holland?

  So they asked over 100,000 people. And what came back wasn't just fear, there was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/RestIsHistory and keep thinking.

• 1:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. We obviously love history here. It's always a treat to make a new discovery, especially in unexpected ways.

• 1:17Tom Holland?

  Which is exactly what happens on TikTok. Like, you know coffee? You make it, add milk, drink it. Nothing more, except...

• 1:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Except, when you hop on TikTok, you don't just learn how to make an authentic cappuccino. You can also discover videos about how in the 1700s, people would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it.

• 1:44Tom Holland?

  And suddenly, you're imagining how people lived, drank, socialized. Makes you wonder, what will baffle historians about us? And that's the joy of TikTok. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different.

• 1:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Observe the North American dad, 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.

• 2:49Tom Holland?

  This night, for the first time, Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m., we have been returning their fire. And from now on, bombs will be met by bombs. Whoever fights with poison gas will be fought with poison gas. Whoever departs from the rules of humane warfare can only expect that we shall do the same. And I will continue this struggle against any enemy until the safety and rights of the Reich are secured. I am asking no more of any German than what I did myself for four years.

• 3:31Tom Holland?

  There will be no hardships that I do not share. From this moment on, my entire life belongs to my people. I want nothing else now than to be the first soldier of the German Reich. I have now put on the same uniform that was once so dear, so sacred to me. I will only take it off when victory is won, or else I will not live to see it. So Dominic, the unmistakable tones there of Adolf Hitler, and he was addressing the right. Stag on the 1st of September 1939. And this was on the occasion of the Declaration

• 4:15Tom Holland?

  of War on Poland, which in effect, I know that historians of China may disagree, but let's run with this. It's basically the outbreak of the Second World War.

• 4:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Tom Holland?

  And I gave him there, you know, doing his kind of rant, people on YouTube will be able to see me gesticulating and all of that frothing.

• 4:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Tom Holland?

  But actually, he was quite hesitant, really, wasn't he? He kind of occasionally stumbled over his words, seemed a bit nervous.

• 4:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 4:39Tom Holland?

  You know, he's, he's been looking forward to this great moment. And now when it's come, I mean, is there kind of a slight measure of doubt?

• 4:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  There is, I think, a lot of stress. I think Hitler's not the devil. He's a human being. He's made of flesh and blood. And at this crucial moment in his career, the moment that his life, his political career has been building towards, the outbreak of the war in Europe that he has been predicting for so long. I think he's, he's in a bit of an emotional state, actually. He's in a bit of a mess because he doesn't know whether Britain and France are going to enter the war or not. Everything is in play. And yeah, he, he actually got the time wrong. So he said 5:45, but it was actually 4:45. He stumbled there and said the wrong time. And he was very, very hesitant and with good reason, right? This is the moment that he throws the dice and we all know what the consequences for Europe will be, but also the consequences for Hitler himself. He looks the head there

• 5:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  to his own death. I won't take this uniform off unless either victory is won or I am dead. And he's already, I think, anticipating what he will do if things go wrong, i.e. the Wagnerian fate.

• 5:42Tom Holland?

  Yeah, dead of the funeral pyre of his capital.

• 5:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. So this is the second episode of our trilogy about the Nazi war on Poland. And we ended last time, Tom, as you may remember, with Hitler and his generals drawing up their plan of attack on the 11th of April, 1939. The Poles have resisted their attempts to persuade them to give up Danzig and to turn themselves into a satellite state. So he's drawn up this plan for an attack on Poland. And it's about the same time in April that Joachim von Ribbentrop, very much not somebody admired by the rest of history, it's fair to say, for all kinds of reasons, sartorial and ideological.

• 6:19Tom Holland?

  Tailoring, I think, high on the list.

• 6:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Tailoring, very high on the list. That he suggests an idea that on paper seems completely unthinkable, which is, why don't we do a deal with our ideological arch enemy, Stalin, and divide up Poland between us? And we'll be following that story in today's episode. But the man you've been ventriloquising there in an impression that may get you cancelled, it's kind of hard to tell, isn't it?

• 6:40Tom Holland?

  I don't think so.

• 6:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  You don't think so?

• 6:41Tom Holland?

  No.

• 6:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think there was a lot of gusto there.

• 6:43Tom Holland?

  Well, I mean, I think if you're conveying a sense of Hitler's manic demonic energy.

• 6:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  You've got to go for it.

• 6:49Tom Holland?

  You've got to go for it, haven't you?

• 6:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  I suppose you do. Yeah, I suppose you do.

• 6:53Tom Holland?

  I mean, it's important to feel what's motivating and driving him, or else you don't understand the war.

• 6:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, method acting. Anyway, Hitler himself, right, he's 50 years old. He had celebrated his 50th birthday on the 20th of April, 1939, so just nine days after the plan was drawn up for the destruction of Poland. And to mark the big day, I mean, it is one of the most extraordinary birthday parties in history. Goebbels organised what Ian Kershaw, Hitler's great biographer, called "an astonishing extravaganza of the Führer cult." So they have a huge parade of limousines down this new road, this new avenue in Berlin called the East West Axis, which has been planned as the main boulevard of the new capital of Germania. Berlin will be renamed in time, Germania, that's Hitler's plan.

• 7:40Tom Holland?

  And this is what Hitler's been chatting about with Albert Speer.

• 7:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, interminably.

• 7:44Tom Holland?

  Yeah, drawing up little plans and big domes and things.

• 7:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. They have huge torchlit parades and at midnight, so midnight's the moment, basically, that Hitler's birthday begins, Speer presents him with a big model for the new triumphal arch that they are planning, which would be the biggest triumphal arch in the world.

• 8:02Tom Holland?

  Yes, so much bigger than the Arc de Triomphe.

• 8:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. And then the next day, there's a gigantic military parade, a five-hour military parade, and Hitler stands, you know, he doesn't sit down, he stands and watches the whole thing and he's clearly delighted. And again, this is a reminder of how strange Hitler is, because I think for most dictators, this would be the apotheosis, the climax. You've turned 50, you've conquered, you know, everything. You've, you've achieved all the foreign policy goals of any German nationalist, pretty much.

• 8:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  This is the point to stop and slow down and enjoy it.

• 8:33Tom Holland?

  And also, you're not well, are you? You're necking quantities of gun oil and stuff.

• 8:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 8:37Tom Holland?

  You're popping amphetamines.

• 8:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, absolutely. But as Ian Kershaw points out, 50 is an age where a lot of people tend to take stock. It's your classic kind of midlife crisis moment.

• 8:47Tom Holland?

  So his midlife crisis is starting the Second World War. I mean, some people go to the gym, some people buy a red motorbike.

• 8:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Tom Holland?

  Other people start world conflicts.

• 8:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, that's Hitler, as Kershaw said. He spends all the time thinking about his own approaching death. Death is on his mind all the time. He has a sense of loss of vigour, great anxiety about his health, and this tremendous sense of time running out. It's really important to him to strike soon. Most of his high command are ultimately desperate to avoid war with the West because they think, why gamble everything? Why risk everything when we've achieved so much? You know, we're in power. We enjoy being in power. We don't want to throw that away. That's what, that's how most authoritarians and dictators think. Not Hitler, he must have his war. So eight days after his birthday, he gives a landmark speech at the Reichstag. He renounces the non-aggression pact with Poland. So, Tom, this is picking up your

• 9:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  point from last time about what are these pacts worth? The answer is nothing. He also tears up the naval treaty with Britain. And for the first time, he publicly lays out the grievances that he and Ribbentrop have prepared. So that's Danzig, which we heard about last time, and the Polish Corridor. And then a month goes by and he summons his commanders to the Reich Chancellery and he gives them the full Adolf Hitler bingo card. So we're being strangled economically, we need more living space, our racial destiny, all of this kind of stuff.

• 10:10Tom Holland?

  Jews?

• 10:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, the Jews are behind everything, of course. He says, Poland is the target. Absolutely, there will be war. But here he goes beyond anything that he has said to his generals before. For the first time, he does not talk, he explicitly rules out, in fact, a friendship or alliance with the other Anglo-Saxon Germanic world power, which is Britain, or England, as he always calls it. He had always talked in the long run about some kind of deal with England. You know, that basically was part of his vision.

• 10:41Tom Holland?

  Germany rules Europe.

• 10:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 10:44Tom Holland?

  And what had been Russia and Britain rules the rest of the world, basically.

• 10:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. But now, for the first time, he says explicitly, England is our enemy. And the showdown with England is a matter of life and death. So he's already beginning to recalibrate his attention a little bit from the east towards the west to see the west as an ideological large enemy as well. And for the first time, we have a preview of what's going to happen in 1940. He says, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot. We will have to take Holland and Belgium. We'll take France. We can easily take France. Of course, he is right. They do easily take France.

• 11:17Tom Holland?

  But to his generals, it's mad, isn't it?

• 11:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Tom Holland?

  Because on the western border, Germany is outnumbered six to one by the French.

• 11:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. And as we will see in next week's episode, as the war begins, there is a case that, you know, if the French had shown a little bit more gumption.

• 11:32Tom Holland?

  Had gone in, gone in hard.

• 11:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, there would have been a very different outcome. But he says, we can take France. We'll take the Atlantic seaboard and the Channel, and that will allow us to blockade England. We'll strangle England and bring them to their knees. The only question in his mind is the timetable. I think at this point, he's still thinking, we do Poland this year, and then maybe, you know, the west, Western Europe, in a couple of years' time.

• 11:55Tom Holland?

  But so he doesn't think that invading Poland will bring Britain and France into the war? Because he despises them as little worms, their leaders.

• 12:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  And that will run through today's episode. He, his misjudgment, Hitler's judged his foreign policy coups very cleverly up to this point. But I think from this point on, or rather from the, the final attack on Czechoslovakia that we did last time, from that point on, I think he completely misreads London.

• 12:19Tom Holland?

  Do you think that's because he's actually met the British and French leaders in person?

• 12:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's a good point, actually. It's funny that he, he starts to get them wrong after he's met them. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think vanity is part of it. He feels he was so affronted by Chamberlain and Chamberlain getting applause in, in Munich and so on. And he has such personal contempt for Chamberlain that he just can't take him seriously at all. But also, I think by this point, A, Hitler's off his head on gun oil. But B, but B, he has completely drunk the Fuhrer Kool-Aid. You know, he, he's, he now thinks, all this business about I've been chosen by Providence.

• 13:01Tom Holland?

  Yeah, he's all into that.

• 13:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  You don't want to lead everything's like that. I mean, that's mad. Anyway, that spring and summer, Ribbentrop's diplomats lay the foundations. They make all these more non-aggression pacts, which, as you will know, Tom, are worthless, with people like the Danes, the Latvians, the Estonians. We shall see, of course, what these non-aggression pacts are worth. He does a deal with Yugoslavia for its copper. He does a deal with Romania for its oil and its wheat. So these are clever deals. These are stocking up. It's like playing a board game.

• 13:28Tom Holland?

  It is. And presumably, the player that Hitler is, you know, on the other side of the gameboard is France, who had been, which a country that has traditional links with a lot of these countries had tried to forge a kind of military alliance. But presumably, in the wake of Munich, is totally shot. No credibility left at all. And I wonder also whether, by this point, there is a sense across most of Europe, and maybe across most of the world, that democracy itself is shot.

• 13:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 13:59Tom Holland?

  That fascism is the face of the future and that, you know, the democracies with their shabby leaders and their kind of old-fashioned clothes are just heading towards a scrapheap of history.

• 14:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Totally there is, Tom. I think you're absolutely right. And I think that's been running through the 1930s, within the democracies themselves, of course. Lots, all these, you know, bright young men at Cambridge who are Stalinists, for example.

• 14:22Tom Holland?

  Yeah, they want to be on the right side of history. And Chamberlain and Deladier are not on the right side of history.

• 14:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  They look stuffy, they look boring, they look thither-y, they look weak. And if you're, as you say, if you're a government in Eastern Europe, looking for an ally, you say France, really? I mean, they were great allies of Czechoslovakia, and where are they now? Whereas you think Hitler wins, you know, he judges things correctly, he's decisive, he's strong, you know, that's, that's the calculation that a lot of these people are making.

• 14:52Tom Holland?

  But also the ideology behind it, the kind of the, the image of, of strength and power, that maybe, you know, this is the future.

• 14:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, seductive, it's glamorous, it seems modern. Exactly right. Exactly. Now, one person who has a little, a little bit ambivalent is Mussolini. Mussolini doesn't want a war at all, but he's basically tricked into signing the Pact of Steel, a renewed, deepened military alliance.

• 15:14Tom Holland?

  I mean, honestly. I mean, if you're signing something called the Pact of Steel, you should know what you're getting yourself into.

• 15:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  With a load of people who've got skull and crossbones on there.

• 15:23Tom Holland?

  I mean, you know, there are clues there.

• 15:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  But Ribbentrop says to him, listen, don't worry. I mean, we're not thinking about war for five years, which is, I mean,

• 15:31Tom Holland?

  That's all right then.

• 15:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Ribbentrop. And Mussolini says, oh, well, fine. Fair enough. Yeah, we'll do it. All that summer, Hitler does his usual trick that he'd done last time of basically trying to pretend that he hasn't got any military plans at all. So he just goes on a tour of his childhood haunts in Austria. He goes to Bayreuth to listen to Wagner. I know you're a great devotee of Wagner, aren't you, Tom? So again, a disturbing similarity.

• 15:52Tom Holland?

  Another pointer of comparison.

• 15:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:55Tom Holland?

  He's got Unity Mitford with him.

• 15:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, and you love the Mitfords. Oh, my God.

• 15:58Tom Holland?

  Yeah, it's all stacking up. And he goes to this huge festival of German culture in Munich, doesn't he? Which has become a kind of annual celebration of basically artworks. Who is it? There's an artist who's who's called the pubic hair artist or something, because he's always he's always sculpting kind of nudes, German nudes. And Goebbels is all over this. And he goes there and ogles all the women who are wearing kind of exotic German costumes and things. It's all quite odd.

• 16:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  And of course, he spends loads of time in the Eagles' Nest, going for walks and like talking to Spear about triumphal arches and watching terrible films and stuff. Meanwhile, just as in the Czech crisis, Goebbels' propaganda machine is kind of has cranked up, pouring out all these grievances. And what they will do, just as in the Sudetenland, they'll take a genuine, often a local grievance with a grain of truth, and then massively amplify and exaggerate it into a colossal injustice. So this time, remember last time it was a guy who was basically a PE teacher called Konrad Henlein?

• 16:58Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  And now there's a fellow called Albert Forster. He's the Nazi Party chief in Danzig. He came from the same town, interestingly, as Henry Kissinger, called Furt, in Franconia. Kissinger, of course, a refugee from Nazi Germany. I mean, a huge part of Kissinger's makeup is that experience.

• 17:15Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Anyway, there's this huge stream of stories saying, basically, you know, ethnic Germans in Poland are being beaten up, they're being attacked, all of this kind of thing. Now, it is true that Poland has a much more nationalistic government than Czechoslovakia did. But as Richard Evans says in his book on the Third Reich, these stories are nevertheless massive exaggerations at best and complete inventions at worst. And what Forsters goons will do is they will stage provocations to try and get a Polish counter reaction. So they take a great offence at the fact that Poles have things like customs offices and post offices in Danzig, and they're always claiming that Polish postmen and customs inspectors are kind of beating up Germans and all of this kind of thing. And the thing is that

• 18:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  this has a very ready audience in Germany. We talked before, didn't we, in the Munich episodes, about what ordinary Germans make of all this kind of thing? Do they believe it? And I think a lot of ordinary Germans absolutely swallow this stuff. They've been primed to swallow this, actually, by decades, if not centuries, of prejudice against the Poles.

• 18:21Tom Holland?

  But I suppose Danzig is slightly different to, say, Austria or the Sudetenland, in that those were never part of Germany, whereas Danzig had been part of Germany.

• 18:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 18:30Tom Holland?

  So it'd be like, for us, I don't know, Bournemouth was an open city or something. You'd think, hmm.

• 18:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  I suppose, I mean, Danzig has, Danzig, there had been tough periods where Danzig had been Polish, so it had changed hands.

• 18:41Tom Holland?

  So maybe Berwick.

• 18:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, maybe Berwick is a good example. Danzig, don't forget, the population is 90% German, and most ordinary Germans would absolutely say Danzig ought to be part of Germany. It's bonkers that it's a free city. They don't like the Poles. You know, they are really the one nationality that most Germans are united in regarding as backward and dirty and all of that kind of thing. And most people, that they simply can't conceive that the Western powers would fight for Danzig. After all, you know, they didn't fight for the Sudetenland. Why would they fight for what is obviously a German city? That's the way they think about it. So while all that's going on, Hitler is planning this diplomatic coup. So if you're Hitler and you look at this, the one thing you fear most is that

• 19:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  you would fight Britain and France in the West, and Poland, and the Soviet Union in the East. Now, a deal with the Soviet Union, obviously it would be a massive U-turn because so much of Hitler's ideology is based on anti-Bolshevism. But all this time, Ribbentrop has been saying to him, I mean, just think, if we did have a deal with Stalin, it would solve so many problems. Is it really so outlandish? Isn't it a good idea? You know, shouldn't we think about it? And the good news for the Nazis is that from Stalin's point of view as well, the timing is absolutely perfect because Stalin has just had this, the Great Terror.

• 20:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  He has just killed almost a million people in two years, including almost all of the top brass of the Red Army and the people who run all the munitions factories and all of the technical experts and all of these people. He's killed all these people. The Red Army is in an absolute mess, total shambles. He knows that one day Hitler will attack him because Hitler has been saying that for two decades. He knows he's in no state to resist. So he thinks, well, why not? I mean, why not buy ourselves a little bit more time? Because although he knows as well, of course, that Britain and France, you know, they've made informal kind of feelers about a deal with Stalin, but he knows that they despise him. And he also thinks they're weak, right?

• 20:51Tom Holland?

  I think it's that that's more important because obviously Hitler despises him too. I mean, everyone hates him.

• 20:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Tom Holland?

  But it's the perceived weakness of Britain and France, surely. Because Stalin is a strong man and so he respects.

• 21:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Tom Holland?

  Even if he fears other strong men.

• 21:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  The British and French do send a military mission to talk to Stalin. Have you seen this? And it was led by a man called Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfordly Plunkett, Ernol Earl Drax.

• 21:16Tom Holland?

  It just seems disrespectful of Stalin not to respond to a.

• 21:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  A man with so many names.

• 21:21Tom Holland?

  Yes. A peace mission led by a man with so many names. Yes.

• 21:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  But this guy's quite a junior guy and the French send, I think, an even more junior person. And Stalin is like, what are these people and are not serious? I mean, they're never going to give me a proper deal. Like, it would have to answer to their parliaments and all that. This isn't going to go anywhere.

• 21:35Tom Holland?

  And that's another key thing, isn't it?

• 21:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Tom Holland?

  That the British and French governments do have parliaments and electorates to answer to.

• 21:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 21:42Tom Holland?

  Whereas neither Hitler nor Stalin have to worry about that.

• 21:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 21:45Tom Holland?

  And obviously communists and fascists respectively will be appalled at the idea of cozying up to the enemy. But who cares? They'll just have to lump it.

• 21:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. So Stalin, that spring, started to send out signals to the Germans. He started to make speeches attacking the West. He sacked his long-serving foreign minister, Maxim Litvinov. Who hated

• 22:08Tom Holland?

  He's Jewish, isn't he?

• 22:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  He was Jewish and hated the Nazis and had been trying to work for years for better relations with the West. And he replaces him with Vyacheslav Molotov, named after the hammer.

• 22:19Tom Holland?

  So like Charles Martel?

• 22:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, like Charles Martel. Molotov means hammer in Russian. So Molotov is the ultimate kind of Stalin ultra loyalist and is not Jewish. And the Nazis take that as a very promising sign. Ribbentrop, you know, Ribbentrop loves this idea of a deal because of course, A, it would stab Britain in the back, which I mean, he hates Britain and he can't wait. Yeah, what a coup that would be. But also for Ribbentrop, Ribbentrop is the ultimate courtier. He wants to cement his position as Hitler's most effective and most loyal underling, especially vis a vis his great enemy Göring. So Ribbentrop is kind of working very hard on this all through the summer. And on the fifth of August, a Soviet diplomat says to him, you know, Stalin

• 23:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  is actually quite interested in this. You know, this could, this could happen. And then they get this great breakthrough on the night of the 19th of August. So the first of all, the Soviets agree after months of on off talks, they agree a trade deal with the Nazis. They will sell them raw materials in return for German manufactured goods. And then Hitler and Ribbentrop are at the eagle's nest, overlooking this amazing sort of panorama of the mountains on the German Austrian border. And they get a call. Stalin would like to open talks about a deal, a non-aggression pact. I mean, we know what they're worth, but more importantly, a deal to divide up Poland between them. And he's, and he's inviting

• 23:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Ribbentrop to Moscow to conclude the deal. Now Ribbentrop, as you can imagine, is absolutely thrilled by this. Stalin says, I'd like you to come in a week on the 26th of August. And at that, Hitler's face falls a little bit when he hears the news. He says, oh, that's very late. I really need the army to strike Poland, you know, latest 1st of September because once it starts raining, that will turn the flat fields of Western Poland into a quagmire. That'll be very bad for our tanks. So really, we would ideally like this deal earlier. And Hitler does something extraordinary. He intervenes personally. He sends a personal

• 24:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  message to Stalin via the German embassy in Moscow. Please can Ribbentrop come earlier to Moscow? This makes an incredible impression on Stalin. Stalin has always been treated by the West as a complete pariah, as a kind of madman, you know, an animal loose in the world of civilized human beings. And here is Hitler, who has demonised Stalin for so long, treating him as an equal, treating him with respect, saying, asking very politely, please can my foreign minister come a week earlier?

• 24:55Tom Holland?

  So a tribute to the efficacy of good manners?

• 24:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, I guess so, Tom. Because two days later, on the afternoon of the 21st of August, Stalin sends a telegram back and he says, oh, that would be lovely. Ribbentrop will be very welcome here in two days' time, on the 23rd of August. And Hitler inevitably is with Albert Speer at the eagle's nest when he hears-

• 25:17Tom Holland?

  More architectural chit chat.

• 25:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, balustrades or something, when he gets the news. And Speer wrote an account of this. He said, Hitler stared into space for a moment. He flushed deeply, then he banged on the table so hard that the glasses rattled and he exclaimed in a voice breaking with excitement, I have them, I have them. And then he called for champagne.

• 25:40Tom Holland?

  And who do you think the them is?

• 25:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's so, I was thinking about that. I think it's Britain and France. I think at this point-

• 25:47Tom Holland?

  Or the Poles as well?

• 25:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Possibly the Poles as well, of course. But I think he is maddened with hatred now of the West, Hitler. Because he feels they cheated him of his war and then they gave the Poles their guarantee. You know, he's a bitter, he's a bad man, Adolf Hitler, Tom, what can I say? Anyway, the news breaks, they announce the news in Berlin just a couple of hours later, so just before midnight on the-

• 26:14Tom Holland?

  So they don't keep it secret?

• 26:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, this is an interesting thing. Until I'd read up on this, this was a revelation to me.

• 26:21Tom Holland?

  I'd always thought it was done kind of back channels and-

• 26:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Know that the reaction to the Nazi Soviet Pact actually comes before the pact is formally signed. So they announce the news, Ribbentrop will be flying to Moscow to conclude a deal with Stalin. And now some old, you know, longstanding Nazis are appalled. And actually, there are stories of people throwing down their badges outside party headquarters in Munich, Munich where the Nazi party began. People who would be very, very anti Bolshevik and would have been for 20 years, who were like, what? The Bolsheviks are our greatest enemies and they're throwing their badges away. But lots of Germans actually think, oh brilliant, now we won't have a war with Russia. And that's such a relief. Isn't that wonderful? You know, great news because of course they don't want war.

• 27:06Tom Holland?

  The communists, of course, are kind of, they're more, I guess, kind of ideologically principled on this kind of thing, I guess.

• 27:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think, I think bewildered is the, yeah, bewildered and confused. If you're a Stalinist, of course, you just say, well, Stalin is the great genius. But there are definitely a lot of communists who are proper Marxists who are appalled by this and who are really troubled by it. But then lots of people make up excuses. They say, well, Stalin had no choice. He was abandoned by the West, all of that kind of thing. So the next day, the 22nd, Hitler convenes a big summit at the, at the Burgoff at the Eagle's Nest. He gets 50 senior officers and Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop has packed his bags and is poised to fly. And Hitler says, this is a really important meeting. I don't want anyone to take any notes. It is absolutely top secret. But because it's so important, some of them write down their recollections afterwards.

• 27:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  So we kind of know what Hitler said. And even by his own standards, it's a, it's an extraordinary performance. He says, I'd always planned for a European war and I'd always thought we'd fight west and then east. But I've changed my mind. It's because of the economic situation, because the wheels are about to come off our economy. And he says to them, the reason we're doing this now is because of me, because I'm actually such an extraordinary person. Everything depends on me because of my political talents. There will never again in the future be a man with more authority than I have. I mean, imagine listening to this from your boss. I could be eliminated at any time by a criminal or a lunatic. No one knows how much longer I shall live. Therefore, we'll, we'll have to have the war now because, I mean, I could be dead in a year. Who knows?

• 28:37Tom Holland?

  You'd be worried, I guess, if you were kind of human resources manager, if you heard the, the boss of your organisation talking like that.

• 28:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  You would. Now, this is when he comes out with his line about Britain and France being little worms. He says, I saw them in Munich. They won't fight.

• 28:51Tom Holland?

  Yeah. So it's that personal contact again, isn't it?

• 28:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 28:53Tom Holland?

  I've looked into their eyes and I've seen that they're wimps.

• 28:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. And then as for the deal with the Soviet Union, he says, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's an unusual departure for a fascist. However, he says. I know that Stalin is a very sick man. I mean, talk about projection. Stalin, he says, is a very sick man. After Stalin's death, we'll rip up the deal and we will break the Soviet Union and then there will begin the dawn of the German rule of the earth. Imagine listening to that with a straight face. I mean, obviously, these guys do listen to a straight face. Now, after lunch, he outlines the plans for how they're going to fight the war in Poland. We'll talk about that next week in Monday's episode about the war in Poland itself. So we'll just leave the speech at that point. Because this is the

• 29:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  point when Ribbentrop leaves. Ribbentrop excuses himself after lunch. He flies to Berlin. Then he gets on Hitler's, he changes planes to Hitler's private Condor plane and he flies to East Prussia. He spends the evening in East Prussia and he's nervously going over his notes for the meeting with Molotov the next day. And then on the early morning of the 23rd, Ribbentrop flies on to Moscow. What an extraordinary moment this is. I mean, imagine what's going through his, his mind. Yeah. You know, and he takes with him, by the way, Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffman, who's a great source on this. And we'll be talking about the, some of the, the comic activities with photographs later on. Cigars, isn't it?

• 30:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Cigars and photographs and, and drinking. So Ribbentrop finally lands in Moscow and he is met by sort of grim faced men with cars straight away. And he is driven directly to the Kremlin. The seat of communism on earth. I mean, what an incredible moment this is. And he's escorted into this long, sort of gilded marble hall with chandeliers and whatnot. And waiting at the end, there's Molotov. But to his surprise, there's also another man, a, a small man with very familiar features. Does he have a moustache? A gigantic moustache is of course Stalin. Now, Ribbentrop didn't know that Stalin was going to be there to meet him. So he's a bit taken aback. And Ribbentrop comes out

• 31:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  with his sort of polished, diplomatic, you know, we're lovely to be building a new relationship. Yeah. Been looking forward to this moment for years. And Stalin is very relaxed and jovial and Stalin says, we've poured buckets of filth, he uses a much more earthy word than filth, over each other for years. He says, but there's no reason we can't bury the hatchet now. Come on, let's bury the hatchet. And Ribbentrop kicks off with a very, very Hitler idea. Let us stun the world with a non-aggression pact to last 100 years.

• 31:36Tom Holland?

  Very Dr. Evil.

• 31:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's very Dr. Evil. And Stalin, and Stalin kind of laughs and he says, if we say this pact will last for 100 years, people will laugh at us for not being serious. I suggest 10 years. 10 years is more reasonable. There's the difference between Hitler and Stalin, right?

• 31:50Tom Holland?

  But both of them must equally know it's not going to last.

• 31:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course they do.

• 31:54Tom Holland?

  Even 10 years.

• 31:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course they do.

• 31:55Tom Holland?

  I mean, it's all just shadow boxing.

• 31:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Absolutely it is. So the pact is one thing, but of course, the really important thing is the secret protocol to divide up Europe between them. And Ribbentrop says, here's Hitler's offer. You can have Finland, you can have Estonia, you can have most of Latvia, you can have eastern Poland up to the river Vistula and the San, and you can have the Romanian region of Bessarabia, which is modern day Moldova, which of course they do get. And Stalin says, that's all great, but I would also like the coast of Latvia. And that's a bit of a stumbling block. And Ribbentrop says, I'll have to, I'll have to ring Hitler. I can't agree to that. I'll have to ring Hitler. Now Hitler is at the eagle's nest. And it's an extraordinary scene, actually. He's pacing up and down very nervously

• 32:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  on the terrace. He's very tense. His adjutant was with him, Nicholas, Nikolajus von Bellov, and he described, he said, it was a beautiful evening, an August evening in the mountains, and the sun was setting. Von Bellov said, as we strolled up and down, the eerie turquoise coloured sky to the north turned first violet and then blood red. At first, we thought there must be a serious fire behind the Untesberg, the mountain. But then the glow covered the whole northern sky in the manner of the northern lights. I was very moved and I told Hitler that it augured a bloody war.

• 33:14Tom Holland?

  That's nice.

• 33:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's moving, moving thing to say. And Hitler replied, that if it must be so, then the sooner the better. For the more time went by, the bloodier it would be. And at that point, the phone rings. And everybody's like, oh my God, the phone's ringing. It's the news from Moscow. And Hitler picks up the phone and he just listens in silence. He doesn't say anything. And then he puts the phone down and he still says nothing. And then he says, bring me a map.

• 33:41Tom Holland?

  So a map of the Baltic States.

• 33:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Someone brings him this map and Hitler stares at it. And then half an hour later, he's like, okay. And he rings back and he says, yes, agreed. Now, back in Moscow, Ribbentrop puts down the phone and he says, it's on. So they finalize the details. At midnight, Stalin's servants bring in caviar and vodka and Crimean sparkling wine.

• 34:06Tom Holland?

  So Ribbentrop would have enjoyed that.

• 34:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Was a sparkling wine.

• 34:10Tom Holland?

  That's true. Maybe he could have a.

• 34:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Tom Holland?

  Maybe.

• 34:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Maybe they did a little tasting.

• 34:14Tom Holland?

  Put me in touch with your supplier.

• 34:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes. And they light up a load of cigarettes and they start making toasts. Stalin incredibly makes this toast. He says, I know how much the German nation loves its Fuhrer. I should like to drink to his health. And he leaves.

• 34:29Tom Holland?

  He keeps that quiet in 1943.

• 34:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  He does indeed. Yes, he did. He didn't talk often about that toast. Now, the documents are ready. They've been finalized and they're must, they're prepared to sign. At this point, Hoffman, the photographer, comes in and he sets up this huge tripod and his camera and everything. And Stalin says, hold on, hold on, on. You can't take photos like this. Like, we have to clear all the glasses away, all the caviar. Because otherwise people will say they signed this pact when they were absolutely wasted. And that's really bad publicity. So they clear the stuff away and then Hoffman takes the photos. And these are the photos that you see if you Google it. So you see Molotov and Ribbentrop, very smart suited, actually, given the abuse we've given Ribbentrop about his suits.

• 35:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's signed, they're signing and Stalin is in the background beaming, looking very jolly because he's tanked up on vodka and sparkling wine in his kind of beige tunic.

• 35:20Tom Holland?

  Moustache bristling.

• 35:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  And then Ribbentrop rings Hitler again. Hitler inevitably has been watching a film with Goebbels. But he's not really been enjoying it because he's too nervous. He wants to find out how it's going. And Ribbentrop says, brilliant, it has been a complete success. We have everything we wanted. And Hitler says, congratulations. And then Hitler says, that will hit them like a bombshell.

• 35:46Tom Holland?

  Well, when we get bombshells in the rest of history, we generally like to take a break. So I think that is what we will do.

• 35:56Tom Holland?

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• 36:09Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 37:38Tom Holland?

  Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. And Dominic, a bombshell has just exploded in the form of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

• 37:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  It has.

• 37:46Tom Holland?

  Hitler and Stalin have divided up Eastern Europe between them. And how does this all go down?

• 37:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Ribbentrop flies back to Berlin to a hero's reception. Not surprisingly, Hitler hails him, says, you know, "Well done, mate, brilliant. You are second Bismarck." And of course, to Ribbentrop, that is music to his ears. Ribbentrop and Hitler now. They're absolutely convinced this has guaranteed them a free hand against Poland. With the Soviet Union out, there is no way Britain and France will fight. They're convinced of this. Now, I mentioned the photographer Heinrich Hoffman. He has come back too, and he's been developing his photographs of the signing, which Stalin had said, clear the glasses away. And he goes into the Reich Chancellery to show them to Hitler. Hitler is obsessed with Stalin. He is absolutely obsessed. He's bombarded.

• 38:34Tom Holland?

  He's his only peer, isn't he?

• 38:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, I think so. Hitler had said, there are only three great men in the world. They are me, Stalin and Mussolini, and Mussolini is definitely third.

• 38:43Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Stalin is the other great man. And he's just fascinated with Stalin. And he says to Hoffman, does he order people? Does he order them? Or does he cloak his orders in the guise of wishes? What about his health? Does he really smoke so much? How does he shake hands? What's his handshake like? And then there was-

• 39:02Tom Holland?

  It's just a shame they never met, isn't it? Oh, they'd have got on so well.

• 39:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  A lot of the Nazis, we know this from Ted Heath. Did you know this? Ted Heath went to a Nuremberg rally, the future British Prime Minister, when he was on a kind of gap year in Germany.

• 39:16Tom Holland?

  Yeah, yeah, in 1938.

• 39:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. And he said he met Himmler and Göring and all that. He said they had terrible handshakes by and large, very limp, drooping handshakes. And I would imagine Hitler had a poor handshake. Stalin, I don't know.

• 39:28Tom Holland?

  I think he'd have a crunching handshake.

• 39:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Stalin's a bear hug kind of man, isn't he?

• 39:32Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  The thing that Hitler was really fixated on, have you seen this? Stalin's earlobes.

• 39:36Tom Holland?

  Yes, because that's a sign of Jewishness, isn't it?

• 39:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  He says, are they ingrown and Jewish or are they separate and Aryan? And the photographer Hoffman says they're separate. And Hitler apparently is delighted by that. He says, oh, that's brilliant. I'm so pleased. I'm glad that Stalin's got Aryan earlobes. And then they get out the photographs and Hitler's face falls to the floor. What? He says, oh, what a pity. There's not a single one of these photographs we can use. And Hoffman, who considers himself quite a good photographer, is quite displeased by this. Yeah, why? And Hitler says, well, in every single photograph Stalin is smoking. And he says the German people would take offence at this.

• 40:13Tom Holland?

  Because Hitler's very anti-smoking, isn't he? Because you were saying in the previous episode, how he spent his time, you know, wanting to ban them.

• 40:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. Hitler wanted to reduce nicotine and cigarettes.

• 40:23Tom Holland?

  He's a health and safety Nazi.

• 40:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's a health and safety Nazi. Exactly. Exactly. He's a nanny state Nazi, what can I say? Hitler says, "The signing of a pact is a solemn act, which one does not approach with a cigarette dangling from one's lips. Such a photograph smacks of levity. See if you can paint out the cigarettes." And so the photographs, released to the press by Hoffman, have been doctored and Stalin's cigarettes will be taken out.

• 40:50Tom Holland?

  So it's so Orwellian, isn't it? First they came for the cigarettes.

• 40:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's true, yeah. Then, yes. So Stalin's reaction, it's fair to say, is a little bit less eccentric. So Stalin met his entourage the next day and his underlings had gone out and shot a load of duck. He loved eating duck. So they're eating all this duck and Stalin's in brilliant form. He's never been happier. And he says, you know, he's a smarter man than Hitler, frankly. He says, "Of course, it's all a game to see who can fool whom. I know what Hitler's up to. He thinks he's outsmarted me, but it's actually me who has tricked him." Although, having said that-

• 41:24Tom Holland?

  Well, is that true? I mean, you know, Hitler's- Hitler's the one who launches the surprise attack.

• 41:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, but who laughed? Who's got the last laugh, Tom?

• 41:31Tom Holland?

  True.

• 41:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, yeah. Anyway, they're both bad men, let's be frank about it. Now, in the rest of the world, the reaction, of course, is total shock. Among the communists, in British newspapers and French newspapers and so on, Neville Chamberlain is a broken man because of this. Joseph Kennedy, the American ambassador, said, "He looks like a broken man." He said he could think of nothing further to say or do. He felt that all his work had come to nought. "I can't fly again because that was good only once." In other words, Chamberlain recognises, there's no possibility now for any more appeasement. The whole constellation has changed. However-

• 42:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Britain will not change its approach. So this is one thing that Hitler really misjudged. Hitler was convinced that this marked the end of the British and French guarantee to Poland, that there's no way they would fight. But actually, the 22nd of August, the day that the news of the signing of the pact reached London, the British Cabinet reaffirmed its commitment to Poland. And they decided to send the ambassador in Berlin, Neville Henderson, to the Eagle's Nest with a letter to Hitler to say, don't get this wrong, we are not going to change, we are still completely committed to Poland.

• 42:45Tom Holland?

  And how does this go down with Hitler?

• 42:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Poorly, I think it's fair to say. So we talked about Henderson last time, he loves a carnation, he's an old Etonian, he's got a gigantic moustache, he's very elegant.

• 42:56Tom Holland?

  Family linked to Alice in Wonderland.

• 42:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. So Henderson turns up at the Eagle's Nest and Hitler just starts ranting and raving about it. He can't believe that the British are doing this. Hitler says, you know, we've wanted to be friends with you, you clearly hate us, we will fight you to the last man. And Henderson is very upset by this because he has spent his career trying to get in with the Nazis, he sees that as his task.

• 43:19Tom Holland?

  Well, he's a great man for thinking that there are moderates, aren't there?

• 43:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 43:22Tom Holland?

  So there are extreme Nazis and there are moderate Nazis.

• 43:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Tom Holland?

  And I think, I think it's fair to say he's probably not right about that.

• 43:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's not right at all. He's a brilliant lesson in self-delusion. And Henderson is really upset by Hitler's reaction. He basically storms out and, you know, on the verge of tears or verge of a massive outburst of rage or something.

• 43:41Tom Holland?

  I don't think someone who went to Eton in the first half of the 20th century would, would blub.

• 43:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  You don't think so? You don't think Roy Stuart would break down in such similar circumstances?

• 43:50Tom Holland?

  Roy Stuart's a later Etonian.

• 43:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay.

• 43:52Tom Holland?

  But the, but the early ones.

• 43:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  You don't think they would?

• 43:56Tom Holland?

  No, I mean, that's the whole point of going to Eton is you get beaten if you show a kind of single trace of emotion.

• 44:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  All right. Well, Henderson, I think, does, is very emotional at this point because all his work has come to nothing. And when he goes out, do you know what Hitler does? He literally slaps his thigh. This was Hitler's great thing. He loved slapping his thigh. He does chortle. He says, Ha, ha, ha, Chamberlain won't survive this discussion, his cabinet will fall this evening.

• 44:19Tom Holland?

  It does really feel like a kind of board game, doesn't it? Kind of like diplomacy or something.

• 44:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  It does. But also in which one person has now completely lost sight of reality because there's no way Chamberlain's cabinet is going to fall apart. I mean, Hitler's, he's completely deluded. So I think at this point Hitler has just completely lost the ability to read what's going on in Britain and France. I mean, he's all over the shop because the next couple of days go by and he gets all these reports from London, the British are actually preparing for war. They've made coastal defence preparations, they have requisitioned merchant ships, they put their air raid on standby. In France, almost a million men have been called up to the colours. Hitler can't get his head around this. What? Why are they sticking by the mad pledge to Poland? Why haven't they yielded to reality? And so he says, well,

• 45:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  I'm going to have to change tactics, clearly. So on the Friday, which is the 25th of August, he's moved back to Berlin and he says, get Henderson back. So Henderson comes back to the Reich Chancellery and Hitler says, look, I've changed my mind. I will make Britain a very generous offer. If you let me solve this Polish problem, I promise that will be it. And I will guarantee the integrity of the British Empire. And actually, I'll even lend you German forces to defend the British Empire, as long as you let us have some of our pre 1914 colonists back. So come on, that's a brilliant deal. We can be friends. And he says, um, do you know what? It's such a good deal, actually. I think you should

• 45:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  take my private plane and go to London and offer it to Chamberlain personally. And then he says, I mean, this is shameless. He says to Henderson, the thing is, I actually, I actually hate war. I, I don't, I'm not a war, I'm not a warrior. I'm an artist. He says, when this Polish business is settled, I'll probably give up and just go back to art. Because that's what I really, that's what I'm really all about.

• 46:09Tom Holland?

  So Dominic, you, I mean, this whole thing on the, all these episodes, tour de force, magnificent. You've covered yourself in glory. But at this point, you shame yourself.

• 46:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  No.

• 46:20Tom Holland?

  You've written in your notes, he, Hitler, is John Lennon.

• 46:28Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 46:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Just an artist.

• 46:29Tom Holland?

  Are you going to slap your thigh and chortle?

• 46:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Almost certainly, but once the recording is finished, I think, just privately. Just imagine, Tom, imagine there's no religion, you know, imagine there's no countries. It's not, it isn't hard to do. That's, that's what Hitler said afterwards. He just loves art. Come on. So the, the irony is, of course, while Hitler was pontificating about art, you know, imagine this and that and the other. His generals are preparing to launch the invasion of Poland the very next morning, the very next morning. Saturday, the 26th of August, everything is ready. The final decision is delayed because Hitler is still talking to Henderson about his love of watercolours. But at last, that afternoon, he gives the order.

• 47:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  We're going tomorrow, the 26th, 4:30 in the morning. The British will be taken by surprise. It'll be a fait accompli, they'll just have to suck it up. Brilliant. Everything is ready, the wheels are put in motion, the generals are ready. And then, unbelievably, at 7:30 that evening, they get a new order from Hitler. It's off. It's cancelled.

• 47:36Tom Holland?

  What's happened?

• 47:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  What's happened?

• 47:39Tom Holland?

  Unbelievable twist.

• 47:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Mussolini. Mussolini, once again, has thrown a spanner in the works. Late that afternoon, he sent Hitler a message. This war you're planning is, but actually I don't fancy this war at all. We're not, Italy's not ready for a war. We're not, we don't fancy this. Hitler can't believe it. What, the Pact of Steel is for nothing? He says, Mussolini has betrayed me. The Italians are behaving just like they did in 1914. You can never rely on the Italians.

• 48:07Tom Holland?

  So, I mean, it's all right for Hitler to rip up the pacts and treaties, but when it's done to him, he doesn't like it at all.

• 48:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. On the other hand, Tom, you could say the Italians had let Germany down in 1940. So Hitler could, you know, should perhaps have been forewarned. Anyway, it's too late to stop all the preparations. The army are outraged. I mean, they do stop most of the preparations, but some units do go ahead. So there's a, there's an attack on a railway tunnel in the Carpathians that is actually beaten back by the Poles overnight. The Poles wanted to order general mobilisation of their own, but the British and the French say, don't do it, don't do it. Don't provoke Hitler. And as we will discover next time.

• 48:44Tom Holland?

  That's a really, I mean, terrible for the Poles, right?

• 48:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  This is terrible for the Poles because it means when the war does start, they are not properly ready. So. As a result of Mussolini dragging his feet, the timetable is sort of frozen. Everybody is still in place, but you know, the war has been postponed. And that gives Hitler one last chance to find a deal with Britain. Now, at this point, he has given up on traditional diplomacy. You know, the stuff with Henderson isn't going to work clearly. Ribbentrop says, look, it's pointless. You know, they're not going to, they're not going to abandon Poland now. But Göring is still hanging around in his white suit. He, he kind of likes the idea of a deal. And he has this mate.

• 49:25Tom Holland?

  Not least because it would kind of stiff Ribbentrop, right?

• 49:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. He has this mate who's a Swedish industrialist called Berger Dahlorus, who Göring uses often as a kind of go between with London. And Hitler says, well, let's maybe use this bloke, this Dahlorus. So he sends this Swedish guy off to London with an, with an alliance offer, an alliance offer for Britain. So he still hasn't given up on that old idea.

• 49:50Tom Holland?

  And again, this is quite reminiscent of they built up the First World.

• 49:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is. I was just thinking about that, about the Kaiser's various attempts at the last minute to have a deal with the British. And he says, look, Dahlorus's offer is Germany gets Danzig, Germany gets the Polish corridor, Germany gets its old colonies in Africa and stuff. But it will guarantee Poland's borders and it will do, do all this, deal with the British Empire and it will defend the British Empire. The difference this time is Hitler says, we'll have this deal first and then we'll only worry about the Polish business afterwards. Like, it's so important to me to be friends with you and Britain. Now, there's a bit, a lot of faffing around with this offer that we don't really need to go into because basically the underlying reality is that all the time Hitler is still making plans for the invasion. He has not given up on the invasion idea.

• 50:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  So after Dahlorus has been sent off to London, he gathers the Nazi top brass, the leaders of the SS, Himmler, Heidrich, Goebbels, all the, all these bad guys. And Hitler at this point is really strung out. He's exhausted, he's massively stressed, his voice is cracking. And he says, Okay, we're going to do it on Friday, the first of September. There'll be no more postponements. I made up my mind, you know, enough faffing around. This is gonna happen. And he says, this is gonna be brutal. But for as long as I live, there will never be any, we will never surrender. Isn't it interesting that at this point, even at this point, before it's even started, he's contemplating, at least in part of his mind,

• 51:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  his own death and the possibility of defeat. And actually, Göring says to him privately at one point, he says, listen, we don't actually need to fight the British. Like, we don't, we don't need to do this. We don't need to gamble everything.

• 51:33Tom Holland?

  Because Göring has been told, hasn't he, that the Luftwaffe lacks the capacity to bomb Britain.

• 51:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  And Göring has not, I think, been completely honest with Hitler about the Luftwaffe's capabilities for obvious reasons. And he says, he says to Hitler, look, we don't need to do this. You know, you don't need to prove anything. And Hitler says to him, all my life, I've always put my entire stake on the table, which is true. He gambled and gambled and gambled and won and won and won until he didn't, until he didn't. Exactly. So the evening of Monday, the 28th, Henderson pitches up again. He's drunk half a bottle of champagne to steady himself. Champagne? What is it with sparkling wine and these people before meeting Hitler? And he says, look, we've got the latest stuff from, from this Swedish guy. We're not going to do a deal with you, but while this Danzig thing is dragging on. Fine, we can talk about Danzig, but there is no way that you can invade because if you do that,

• 52:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  we will fight you. And Hitler says, okay, I'll think about it. So a day goes by. Then on the evening of Tuesday, the 29th, Henderson comes back for his answer. And Berlin now is in darkness. The government in Berlin has ordered a trial blackout. There are hundreds of people waiting outside the Reich Chancellery because they know that this is kind of the last chance for peace. And Hitler, I mean, I was going to say unbelievably, but of course it's perfectly credible. He decides to try the same trick that he had done in Bad Gudersberg.

• 52:57Tom Holland?

  With Chamberlain.

• 52:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  With Chamberlain. He decides to just completely change the rules of the game and raise the stakes. And so instead of being Mr. Nice, he starts ranting and raving, oh, I'm sick of you, British. You don't care about Germans. You don't care if we're being slaughtered. And he says, oh, it's all your, you've circled Germany, you've tricked us, you betrayed us, all of this kind of thing. Henderson, for the first time, probably in his diplomatic career, really, with Hitler, completely loses his temper. And he says, I won't listen to this language from you or from anybody. How dare you insult the British government? If you want a war, says Henderson, then you will have it. And Hitler says, well, fine. I mean, the Poles should come, send someone tomorrow to give me everything that I want. And if they don't, I'll send in my army. I'm not waiting any longer.

• 53:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Now, actually, amazingly, Henderson, at this point, he walks out and he's steaming with rage, but he's still, because he's an appeaser and has always been an appeaser, he's still partly, you know, part of him still wants a deal. And so he actually says to London, maybe we should get the Poles to negotiate. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't give up completely. And Chamberlain, back in London, says, no way. You know, we're not going to be bullied again by Hitler. Chamberlain, by this point, has, I think, definitely run out of patience with the policy of appeasement. He says, we are not going to yield on this point. There is nothing more to discuss. So the stage really is set now. The next day, Wednesday, the 30th, the Poles begin to mobilize. They should have done it earlier. They had delayed at the request of the British and the French to avoid provoking the Germans. That will cost them very dear, I'm sorry to say.

• 54:25Tom Holland?

  Can I just ask you, they mobilizing the expectation that Britain and France will declare war on Germany, but more than that, that Britain and France will attack Germany in the West? And that this would therefore give the Poles a fighting chance to, to survive. Do you think, if they'd known that the British and French weren't actually going to do anything, that they were just going to kind of sit? There. Might they have negotiated in that eventuality?

• 54:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, I don't think so. I think they would.

• 54:55Tom Holland?

  They'd still have fought.

• 54:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think they would probably still have fought. I think they can't conceive that the British and the French won't intervene.

• 55:00Tom Holland?

  Right. Okay. So it's a non question.

• 55:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, but I think the British and the French have sent slightly mixed signals. They've sent a military mission. They've sent some, some sort of pretty pitiful supplies. The British and the French have been saying to them, you know, it'll be a long war. They've been sort of hinting that they, their intervention will not exactly be as game changing as the Poles might like. But Polish national pride, Polish public opinion, they make it, will make it very, very difficult for any kind of compromise, I would say. So where are we? Thursday, the 31st of August, 1939. First thing that morning Hitler says to his generals, invasion will start tomorrow. He signs the attack order just after midday and then he confirms it an hour later.

• 55:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  That afternoon, early that afternoon, Ribbentrop arrives at the Reich Chancellery and he says, look, no give from Britain. You know, it's looking pretty bleak on the British front. And Hitler says, well, I've already given the order. De zakarola, things are rolling. And Goebbels writes in his diary that afternoon. It looks as if the die is finally cast and largely that will appeal to you, Tom. And late that afternoon, a very ominous sign, they cut the telephone lines to and from the Polish embassy in Berlin. And at 11 o'clock that evening, the 31st, you have the first reports of incidents on the Polish frontier. The most famous one is at the, a radio station at a place called Gleiwitz, now Gliewitzza in Upper Silesia.

• 56:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  So this was basically a radio station generally used for kind of weather forecasting. And there are reports that Polish troops have stormed a German position. They executed the staff and they broadcast Polish nationalist slogans. Actually, what happened was the attack was organised by the SS. It was planned directly by Reinhard Heidrich. Both the attackers and the defenders were SS men and they were actually firing blanks. And when they left, they left three bodies behind them. Two of these bodies.

• 57:00Tom Holland?

  These are called canned goods, aren't they?

• 57:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Canned goods, exactly. Is the, is the sort of the jargon. Two of these guys were concentration camp inmates. They'd been killed with lethal injections and dressed in Polish uniforms. And the third man was a Pole, a Pole but who was a German citizen. He was a local farmer and his name was Francissek Honiok. And he had been arrested the day before. He was well known for being a very patriotic Pole. And he was arrested, thrown into prison, and then he was taken out of prison and put to sleep with an injection. And then he was taken asleep to the railway, to the radio station. And then he was shot dead and his body was dumped there.

• 57:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  And he is the first of the six million Poles who will be killed by the Nazis in the next six years. So we'll get on to the fate of Poland in Monday's episode. But just to tie up this bit of the story. The war proper began at four forty-five the next morning, Friday, the first of September, when an elderly German battleship called the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military depot on the Westerplatte, which is a peninsula that commands the entrance to Danzig's harbour. And the same time that happened, sixty German divisions, about one and a half million men, spearheaded by tank divisions, began to cross the border, flood across the border from Germany into Poland.

• 58:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  And by the afternoon of that day, Friday, you have the first reports of bombings, of Stuka attacks, coming in from western Poland, and the Polish army is already beginning to fall back from the border. Hitler addressed the Reichstag that morning at ten o'clock. As you described, Tom, he was wearing his Wehrmacht uniform and he never takes it off for the, I mean, presumably takes it off to sleep. To the shower. Yeah. But he, he never dresses again in civilian clothes. And you did that performance with gusto because that's what we associate with Hitler. But actually, as we said, he was very nervous, he stumbled over his words, he's very downbeat, he gets the time wrong. And even that line, looking forward to his own death, is a hint, I think, at the doubts

• 59:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  that must, that must have been there, if only subconsciously.

• 59:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  It was a very gloomy day in Berlin. There was no public enthusiasm at all. The American journalist William Shire described the, quote, astonishment, depression on the faces of the people. No excitement, no hurrahs, no cheering, no throwing of flowers, no war fever, no war hysteria. Of course, they're all still waiting to find out what Britain and France will do. And Hitler did make one last attempt, another attempt through this Swedish guy, Dalaris. When Dalaris went to meet him at the Reich Chancellery, Inkertschul describes the scene in his biography. Hitler, probably as a result of stress and tiredness.

• 59:53Tom Holland?

  Not, not the gun oil.

• 59:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Not the gun oil. His, his breath was so repellent. The odor from his mouth was so strong that Dalaris was tempted to move back a step or two. So, you know, Hitler's hygiene has kind of collapsed.

• 1:00:08Tom Holland?

  Halitosis is.

• 1:00:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. And Hitler says, you know, tell the British, give, this is their last chance to avoid a fight with me. I'll fight them for 10 years if I need to, which is not a very.

• 1:00:19Tom Holland?

  It's not very amoliant, is it?

• 1:00:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Not very amoliant and obviously doesn't work. The next day, the second, Britain and France by now had ordered full mobilisation. They begin evacuating children from the cities. Chamberlain is in talks about drawing up a war cabinet, bringing Winston Churchill back as First Lord of the Admiralty. And that evening is the evening of the very famous debate. Chamberlain gives, as he so often does, a very ill-judged speech in which he says, if the Germans pull back from Poland, maybe we could still talk to them. What a mad thing to say. And this is the moment at which famously, as the Labour leader, Arthur Greenwood, stands up to reply, one of Churchill's sort of allies called Leo Amory shouts, speak for England, Arthur. And, and this is a great shock to Chamberlain. He's, he's, the sense

• 1:01:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  that he's lost touch with the public.

• 1:01:07Tom Holland?

  With his own party.

• 1:01:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  With many of his own party. And indeed with his own cabinet, because that afterwards, his cabinet say to him, look enough, it's got, you've got to give an ultimatum. And Henderson goes to give the ultimatum first thing the next morning. So, Sunday, the 3rd of September, nine o'clock in the morning, Henderson goes to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. Ribbentrop. Do you remember when we did the series on the First World War? All those scenes of the ambassadors crying and foreign ministers shaking hands and...

• 1:01:36Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  The sense...

• 1:01:37Tom Holland?

  None of that now.

• 1:01:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  You know, it's really kind of moving, actually, really moving. Well, Ribbentrop is cut from a very different cloth. He will not even meet Henderson. He refuses even to see him.

• 1:01:48Tom Holland?

  And Henderson gets interned, doesn't he?

• 1:01:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  He does indeed, yes.

• 1:01:51Tom Holland?

  When war gets declared.

• 1:01:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Henderson has to make do with the interpreter Paul Schmidt. So he gives him the ultimatum. As surely everybody listening to this podcast will know, the ultimatum expired at 11 o'clock. The Germans didn't reply. And a few minutes later, Chamberlain made that very famously gloomy speech. "No such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany." You know, announcing the beginning of the Second World War for Britain and for France. But let's end with the interpreter, Paul Schmidt. He said, "I took the ultimatum to the Chancellery where everyone was anxiously awaiting me. There was something of a crush and I had difficulty in getting through to Hitler.

• 1:02:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  When I entered, Hitler was sitting at his desk and Ribbentrop stood by the window. Both looked up expectantly as I came in. I stopped at some distance from Hitler's desk and then I slowly translated the British government's ultimatum. When I finished, there was complete silence. Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him. He was not at a loss, as was afterwards stated, nor did he rage, as others allege. He sat completely silent and unmoving. After an interval which seemed an age, he turned to Ribbentrop, who had remained standing by the window. And Hitler asked, 'What now?'"

• 1:03:13Tom Holland?

  What now? What now, indeed? We will be back on Monday to find out what happened next. We'll be doing the story of Poland's heroic resistance, doomed resistance, and the tragedy of its fall and its fate. And if you're a member of the Restless History Club, you can hear that episode right now. But for now, thank you, Dominic. Brilliant stuff. Goodbye.

• 1:03:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Goodbye.