Chapter 19: Sitzkrieg in the West
After the conquest of Poland, nothing much happens in the West, despite declarations of war by France and the UK.
In the past two chapters, Shirer has documented the opening of World War II—the German Blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” that quickly overtook Poland. In today’s chapter, we discuss something a little different: “Sitzkrieg.”
What is Sitzkrieg? Well, first we need to take a step back.
To fulfill their treaty obligations to Poland, in September 1939, France and Britain declared war on Germany. This reaction differed significantly from the Munich Agreement, where both countries attempted to avoid war over Czechoslovakia by staking out an extremely conciliatory posture with regard to Nazi Germany.
Despite this declaration of war, however, their stance had not changed all that much. France and Britain were simply unprepared to fight another world war—logistically or psychologically. And it showed.
In their strategy to counter the Nazis, Poland had counted on British and French engagement on the Western Front. They needed the Western democracies to keep the Nazi troops occupied while the Poles defended their homeland. As it turned out, the French and British didn’t do much of anything on the Western Front, not just in September 1939, but for the first seven months of the war.
In English, we call this seven-month period the “phoney war” (usually with the British English spelling of the word, although Shirer’s publishers opted for the American spelling: “phony”). In French, it is called “la drôle de guerre,” a funny sort of strange war. In German, though, it is called “Sitzkrieg,” or “sitting war,” which has the added benefit of rhyming with “Blitzkrieg.”
An Unsurprising Development
Shirer begins the chapter by quoting General Halder’s diary (one of his favorite sources for The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich):
Operation in the West not yet clear. Some indications that there is no real intention of waging a war… French cabinet lacks heroic caliber. Also from Britain first hints of sobering reflection.
They lacked “heroic caliber…”
What a phrase.
And yet so true.
As we will see in a few chapters, despite having perhaps the best army in the world at the time, the French were unprepared to fight.
In the leadup to World War II, the British had given a general guarantee to Poland, but the French had given something much more specific, that that they would “progressively launch offensive operations against limited objectives toward the third day after General Mobilization Day.” In the early days of the war, both fulfilled those commitments in the most nominal way possible. Very little pressure was brought to bear on the Germans.
Directly after noting this dynamic, Shirer quotes German generals at Nuremberg to demonstrate their mistake in doing so. “The success against Poland was only possible by almost completely baring our Western border.”
By way of passing, I’ll note that it is in moments like this that I feel most acutely that Shirer is a journalist. He regularly brings in testimony from the Nuremberg trials (which he covered as a journalist) to evaluate decisions made by politicians or generals before or during the war. It’s not that using testimony from the trials is wrong. Rather, it’s how often he does so and how he does so as the final word.
And, in another very typical move, Shirer moves from testimony at Nuremberg to settle a factual question, to a quotation from Churchill to provide the proper interpretation.
The battle, Churchill wrote, “had been lost some years before,” when Hitler established a conscript army and reoccupied the Rhineland.
Once again, not necessarily wrong, but the recourse to the same 1-2 punch does come across as something an established historian wouldn’t do quite so consistently.
No Phoney War at Sea
Unlike on land, at sea there was action. The German Navy started strong by sinking 11 British ships, but within a few weeks that tapered off.
On September 3, the British liner Athenia was also scuppered. This was of deep concern because 28 American citizens were aboard, and the Germans wanted to avoid an American entry into the war. Consequently, the Germans chose not to look into the truth too much, and Nazi propaganda went into high gear shit-stirring, accusing the British of torpedoing their own boat.
The truth only really came out at Nuremberg after the war (another reason why Shirer’s journalistic instincts were not wrong).
In the Aftermath of Victory in Poland
By the end of September, Hitler was hoping that his massive victory in the East would lead to peace in the West. On October 6, he gave a long speech in the Reichstag, which Shirer attended.
To me as I sat in the Reichstag beginning at noon on October 6 and listened to Hitler utter his appeal for peace, it seemed like an old gramophone record being replayed for the fifth or sixth time. How often before I had heard him from this same rostrum, after his latest conquest, and in the same apparent tone of earnestness and sincerity, propose what sounded—if you overlooked his latest victim—like a decent and reasonable peace. He did so against this crisp, sunny autumn day, wiht his usual eloquence and hypocrisy.
The French and British, of course, had caught on to his hypocrisy. So they weren’t terribly inclined to take up Hitler’s offer. Both sides continued preparing for war.
On October 9, Hitler drafted out a secret memorandum (Directive No. 6) on how to carry out the war in the West. Shirer notes that Hitler’s understanding of military tactics and strategy were actually quite good:
It must be admitted that in this memorandum the former corporal showed an astonishing grasp of military strategy and tactics, accompanied though it was by a typical lack of morals.
Around the same time, there was another failed attempt to take down Hitler, the Zossen Conspiracy. Like the Halder Plot in 1938, there was a simple lack of execution, a lack of will. There was also a mysterious bomb that went off in Munich.
Meanwhile, the Germans began to terrorize the inhabitants of Poland, and the Italians expressed concern about what the German push to war. Mussolini was particularly peeved that Germany had made peace with the Bolsheviks to carry out his invasion of Poland. The Axis relationship would continue to deteriorate.
By the end of 1939, Hitler was prepared to go to war in the West, but before he would go through the low countries to attack France, he would turn north first.
Topical Posts
Podcast ep. 1: The Man, The Myth: Hitler in American Culture
The Problems with the German Character Explanation of the Nazis
Podcast ep. 2: Why are Dictators (and Techno-monarchs) Appealing?
Podcast ep. 3: Interview with a 20th Century War Correspondent: Jon Randal
If You’ve Fallen Behind on the Reading, This Post is For You
Who was William L. Shirer? — part 2 (The Nightmare Years 1934-1940)
Podcast ep. 4: The Exhilaration & Peril of Covering the Nazis (with Prof. Michael Socolow) (Video, Audio)
Podcast ep. 5: What American Reporters Saw That Others Didn't (with Prof. Deborah Cohen) (Video, Audio)