…There Was War
Fall Weiss
00:00 30 August 1939
Reichsbunker, Berlin
“What just happened, Hess!?” shouted Hitler over the din of air raid sirens and blaring klaxons.
“I’m not sure, mein Führer. Perhaps we should seek out General Beck and the others, make some sense of all this chaos.” Hess was clueless. Nothing had gone this disastrously wrong for Hitler since the München Putsch. Rudolph Hess followed Hitler as he rushed through the concrete corridors to the underground bunker’s sound-proofed committee room. Along the way, Hitler barked some orders to a confused sergeant to telephone the Ministers for an emergency meeting.
00:30 30 August 1939
Reichsbunker, Berlin
“I was having my Indian tea!” protested Hermann Göring.
“No time for that, Hermann!” shouted an irate Hitler. “I demand to know what went wrong! We didn’t have all these damned alarms blaring when I seized the Sudetenland! For the love of the Reich, what happened!?” Hitler looked at each of his Ministers in turn, and each looked at the floor. “Beck, von Neurath, you two stay. The rest of you out!” Hitler glared at the retreating men. “Oh, not you, Hess. You should be here for this, help me make sense of things.”
“Mein Führer, if I may, I believe I know what this is about…” pleaded Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck.
“Oh, do you, Beck? I am the Reichskanzler, and I don’t know what’s going on… but you do? You think you know?”
“Yes, I believe so. You see, I was drunk, and she didn’t tell me she wasn’t 18…” began Beck.
Hitler’s fury gave way to a blank stare. “Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein! You think this is about your conjugal affairs, Beck? We are wearing out our sirens on account of your tomfoolery!? Think again, Beck! The last thing I knew, we were reclaiming Danzig, as we rightfully should, and then this! I make one announcement from the security of my bunker and this happens.”
“What happened?” asked the clueless Beck.
“What happened indeed! Hess has no idea, and neither do I. Why don’t you just offer us a summary of your activities this year. Feel free to chime in if you have something important to offer, von Neurath. I’m watching you, too,” warned Hitler.
“Well, sir, it went something like this.” began Beck.
“I was involved in only two events. We had many military deployments these last several months, most notably our two Panzer corps in Ostpreussen. I organized them as such and handed over command to two fine young Lt. Generals. Recently promoted, too, I might add. You know Herr General Rommel from his time as the commander of your personal bodyguard, if I’m not mistaken, sir.”
“Yes, yes, good fellow that one. Clever, too,” commented Hitler. “Get on with it,” he ordered, his anger fading.
“The other was Heinz Guderian. We figured since he masterminded the codenamed Kitten Doctrine, that is to say Blitzkrieg, he might as well test it against the Poles should they fight for Danzig.”
“Nothing that should cause alarm so far,” assented Hitler.
“The only other major event was the distribution of new Panzer models. The models still on the main production lines are woefully obsolete, but we have some smaller factories supplementing production to outfit our existing divisions. Even the replacements are so old in design they are proving very quick to produce. And that’s about it, sir. Nothing from us that should cause calamity,” explained Beck.
“Yes, I thought as much. But still, you usually are abreast of the goings on elsewhere in the Reich. Any idea what might have caused this?”
“No, sir.”
“Anything to say, Minister von Neurath?” inquired Hitler as he offered him a chair.
“Not… the comfy chair!” shouted Hess.
“Why not?” asked Hitler with scrunched brows.
“I want it,” responded the other quite simply.
“Eh, I did think to bring announcements from this year, sir. When the sergeant called and had no idea why you wanted us, I assumed I might need to bring information from my side of things,” said von Neurath.
“Good thinking,” commended Hitler. “So what were the major events this year?”
“As you know…” He paused as he pinned up the announcements.
“… March was a good month for us. Hungary agreed to ally herself with our cause if we split the remainder of Czechoslovakia with her. That all went seamlessly with a few strongly worded complaints. The Allies said ‘Hey, you can’t do that!’ and the Russians thought it served them right for not inviting Stalin. All in all a success. Of course, no one cared that the Lithuanians
wanted to give Memel back to us,” remarked von Neurath with a chuckle.
“No, if it were any of these things, surely war would have come sooner. It must be something else,” dismissed Hitler.
“Well, we did support Italy, verbally that is, when they decided to expand into Albania. It wasn’t a bad month-long war for them, either.”
“They would have fought the Italians for that, not us.”
“Oh. Right.”
Von Neurath pondered what might be the cause as he stared at this announcement. “Aha! I think I have it!”
“You have VD as well?” inquired an incredulous Hess.
“Er, no. I might know what this is all about.”
“Well, on with it!” interrupted Hitler.
“Yes, of course. Remember when the British decided to bring Poland into the Allied fold to further guarantee Polish sovereignty?”
“Yes, I recall something of the sort, a bit before our treaty with the Poles terminated, I believe.” Hitler still didn’t see where this was going.
“We decided to form our own pact with the Russians so they wouldn’t interfere for a slice of eastern Poland in response to this.”
“And what a splendid idea it was! We should give Ribbentrop a medal!” Hitler beamed with pride at the German’s prowess.
“Yes, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” agreed von Neurath. Before Hitler could respond, he motioned to another announcement.
“In hindsight, it wasn’t such a good idea,” continued von Neurath. “It seems the British held to their alliance and their entire commonwealth followed, along with the French.”
“Hess, give this man a medal, too. He quite deserves it. Now that we have this all sorted out, we have only to figure out what to do about it.
“Mein Führer, if I may,” offered Beck, “I really do have the answer to this one. The General Staff and I came up with it just before you called this meeting, in case we had to fight the Poles.”
“Go on, Beck. Let’s hear it.”
“What we decided was to move straight on Danzig in the hopes the Poles will capitulate, as Danzig is really what we are after.”
“Total defeat is all that is in store for the Poles, and that is final!” shouted Hitler resolutely.
“Very well. That works with the rest of our plan, mein Führer,” continued the undaunted Beck. “The sweeping yellow lines show our current lines of advance. The plan is to encircle what intelligence estimates to be eight divisions in our drives to Warsaw and Lodz. We don’t expect Warsaw to be an easy target, but we are optimistic of the overall situation. Now, the black lines and x’s represent secondary lines of advance and targets. The red x’s are primary targets for the early parts of the campaign. And finally the red line is the primary line of advance in the south once divisions in Oppeln are freed up from supporting duties. We expect to meet the Russians around Grodno and Lvov somewhere after they let us finish the hard part: breaking the Polish lines.”
“Very good, Beck. I like this plan. Bold but cautious. What of the Hungarians?”
“We expect them to rush forth all willy nilly, sir.”
“To… what?”
“Eh, to advance in a disorganized manner. Sir.”
“Why didn’t you just say that? What of the Allies in the West, Beck?”
“We believe our border forces to be sufficient to hold until new divisions and those freed up from what we expect to be a short Polish campaign can reinforce the line. At such a time, we will have refined the Schlieffen Plan. The French are likely to fall for it twice.”
“We shall see, Beck. In time, we shall see. Secure my victory in Poland first.”
“Yes, mein Führer. Consider Poland ours.”
