From: Barone <rayssd!m1b@uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Re: Why Hitler declared war on the US
Organization: Raytheon Submarine Signal Division, Portsmouth, RI
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 15:52:39 GMT


From Barone <rayssd!m1b@uunet.uu.net>

In article <Bwzp2n.4M3@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> Herschel H Mayo
<hhm@ihlpe.att.com> writes:
> 
> This is a good point. Had Hitler been a master politician instead of a
> egomaniac, he would have declared war on Japan.  Hitler had nothing to
> gain by following Japan to suicide. Hitler had been repeatedly rebuffed
> in his desire to involve Japan against Russia. He had nothing to loose
> by cutting loose the Japanese, and everything to gain.  Churchill would
> have found it hopeless to continue any efforts to involve America in the
> war against Germany. Roosevelt, and those who had struggled for years to
> whip up sentiment against Germany would have seen their efforts evaporate
> overnight. Even in 1941, there was no real desire in the U.S. for another
> war with Germany, and the image of Germany coming to the aid of America
> would have been hard to resist.

	There is a very good article in the Spring 1992 issue of
Military History Quarterly concerning this question.  It is written
by Gerhard Weinberg who is a professor of history at the University
of North Carolina.

	Weinberg's contention is that Hitler declared war because
it suited his plans perfectly.

	"The reality is that war with the United States had been
	included in Hitler's agenda for years, that he had deferred
	hostilities only because he wanted to begin them at a time,
	and under circumstances, of his own choosing, and that the
	Japanese attack fitted his requirements precisely.  Already
	in the summer of 1928 he had asserted in his second book
	(not published until I did it for him in 1961, as "Hilters
	zweites Buch") that strengthening and preparing Germany for
	war with the United States was one of the tasks of the
	National Socialist movement."

While military planning of a war with the US was not very detailed,
the one thing that the Germans did acknowledge was that, in order
to fight the US, a large surface fleet had to be built.  Until then,
Germany had to bide her time.  The German navy actually wanted to
drag the US into the war as soon as possible in order to engage in
unrestricted submarine warfare.  Hitler demurred, doubting that what
didn't work in the last war, would work in this war.

The next best thing to building their own fleet was to have an
ally with a large navy.  Many Germans believed that the Japanese
had the best navy of that time.  As a result, by allying with
Japan, there would be no need to construct their own fleet.  Further,
if Japan locked horns with the US, not only would it engage the
US Navy, but it would engage it on the other side of the world.
The American navy would be smashed in the Pacific and thus incapable
of aiding Britain, while American troops and supplies would be
diverted to that theater as well.

When Hitler heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was
at his headquarters in East Prussia.  He had to get back to Berlin
and summon the Reichstag to declare war.  His great worry, and that
of his foreign minister, Joachim von Rippentrop, was that the
Americans might get their declaration of war in ahead of his own.
As Ribbentrop explained it, "A great power does not allow itself
to be declared was upon; it declares war on others."

That issue of MHQ also has a map with general plans of the invasion
of the US (and the rest of the world) and paintings that appeared
in the March 2, 1942 issue of "Life" depicting the Battle of San
Fransicso, the invasion of Alaska, German paratroopers capturing
La Guardia Airport and German Heinkel 177s bombing a war plant.
-- 
Joe Barone
m1b@rayssd.ssd.ray.com
Look, when we was in the Bocage country, we was assaulted by them Tigers!
You know what I mean by assaulted, hunh?!  Well, I mean assaulted!!

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