Roosevelt Read Online Free Page B

Beer Hall Putsch.
    “I am one of the hardest men Germany has had for decades, perhaps for centuries, equipped with the greatest authority of any German leader,” Hitler gasconaded to his old comrades, jammed around him in the swastika-bedecked hall. “But above all, I believe in my success. I believe in it unconditionally….” He evoked his comrades’ memories of World War I. Germany had been poorly armed when war broke out, but it had held for four years. For four years the Allies strained themselves, “and then they had to get the American magician-priest, who found a formula that took in the German nation, trusting in the word of honor of a foreign President.”
    He had wanted the closest friendship with England, Hitler went on. “If England had agreed, good. They did not agree. Also good.”
    He turned to Britain’s ally—and made a curious concession. “As far as American production figures are concerned, they cannot even be formulated in astronomical figures. In this field, therefore, I do not want to be a competitor. But I can assure you of one thing: German production capacity is the highest in the world….Germany today, in any case, is, together with her Allies, strong enough to oppose any combination of powers in the world….”
    The world listened; this was the man who, between one summer and the next, had overwhelmed six nations; the man who was now threatening to invade Britain, seize Gibraltar, and overrun the Balkans. Yet November 1940 was a time of frustration and indecision for Hitler, just as it was for Churchill. The conqueror of Europe had journeyed across France to persuade Spain’s Francisco Franco to allow Nazi troops to take Gibraltar and other strategic outposts in the western Mediterranean. Impressed by Britain’s survival and pressed by Churchill, the Caudillo had bickered and shilly-shallied through nine hours of tortuous talk with Hitler; rather than go through that again, Hitler said later, he would prefer to have four or five teeth taken out. Vichy was also an irritation. On the way back to Berlin, Hitler had met with Marshal Henri Pétain; the old man had been courteous and reserved, but made only vague promises about collaborating with the New Order.
    But it was Mussolini—Hitler’s old comrade in arms—who had been most vexing of all. Il Duce was one of the few persons Hitler really admired; even so he had not been willing to take his junior partner into his full confidence. Piqued in turn by Hitler’s coups and faits accomplis, Mussolini had ordered his troops to invade Greece on October 28, with the least and latest possible notice to Berlin. The Führer got the news on the way back from his talkswith Franco and Pétain. He was almost beside himself. Fall was the wrong time to attack through the mountains; the fragile balance of power in the Balkans would be upset; Mussolini was supposed to conserve his troops for his main thrust against the British in North Africa. Abruptly, Hitler ordered his train south to Florence to meet and deter the Duce. Too late; Mussolini greeted him on the platform with the announcement—almost as though mimicking Goebbels in Berlin—“Victorious Italian troops crossed the Greco-Albanian frontier at dawn today.”
    And then—most galling of all—the invasion had floundered. Greek soldiers, waiting in mountain recesses, had routed the Italians and sent them back into Albania. The British took the opportunity to occupy Crete and Lemnos, greatly strengthening their position in the eastern Mediterranean. Now the Rumanian oil fields were threatened by the RAF. Now Hitler would have to send divisions south. Was Mussolini an ally or an embarrassment?
    Yet, all these were pinpricks compared with Hitler’s main concern during the dark November days of 1940. He was approaching a momentous strategic decision: whether to risk a two-front war.
    Nothing had proved Hitler’s military genius more strikingly than his capacity to isolate his foe