Book Three: The Road to War
- After Hitler announced his plans to invade Czechoslovakia and Austria in the not-so-distant future, just three of the men present at the "fateful" meeting in November 1937 dared to question him.
- Each of them soon found himself out of a job.
- The men who dared to question Hitler's plans were Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, Hitler's Minister of War and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces; General Freiherr Werner von Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the Army; and Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Hitler's Foreign Minister.
- Shirer writes that Hitler's decision was so shocking to Baron von Neurath that the Foreign Minister had several heart attacks in the days that followed. Despite his poor health, he consulted with General von Fritsch and General Ludwig Beck. The three men agreed that they should try to talk Hitler out of his plans for war.
- General Fritsch met with Hitler soon after the meeting, didn't get anywhere.
- Neurath tried to arrange an appointment, but had to wait until January 1937.
- According to his own testimony, Neurath explained to Hitler that his actions would lead to another world war, and, when Hitler refused to listen to him, Neurath warned the Fuehrer that he'd have to find another Foreign Minister to replace him.
- Hitler had already decided to do just that.
- Before giving us the story of Neurath's "fall," Shirer starts with that of Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, who in 1937 retired from his position as Hitler's Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary for War Economy.
- Schacht resigned voluntarily after Hitler began to give Hermann Goering more and more responsibility in Germany's economic planning.
- Schacht seems to have found it impossible to do his job while duking it out with Goering at the same time—the two men didn't exactly see eye to eye—and so he retired.
The Fall of Field Marshal von Blomberg
- Having related the relatively unscandalous story of Schacht's retirement, Shirer turns to Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg.
- In 1937, Marshal Blomberg married a young woman by the name of Fräulein Erna Gruhn. Hitler and Hermann Goering were the witnesses at the wedding, and for a short while everything seemed hunky-dory. But while Blomberg and his bride were on their honeymoon, a scandal erupted.
- It came to light that Fräulein Gruhn had a criminal record. She'd grown up in a brothel managed by her mother, and had previously been arrested for prostitution and posing for pornographic photos.
- When the news reached Hitler, he flipped out. The Fuehrer felt that Blomberg had made a fool of him, since Hitler stood up for the couple at their wedding.
- Blomberg seemed to be just as surprised as everyone else, and he promptly offered to divorce his wife. Goering, however, insisted that just a divorce wouldn't cut it, and he informed the unhappy Blomberg that he'd have to resign.
- In the last week of January 1937, just two weeks after the wedding, Hitler dismissed Blomberg from his position as Minister of War and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
The Fall of General Freiherr Werner von Fritsch
- Next up: General Freiherr Werner von Fritsch.
- Fritsch was an obvious successor to Blomberg, but Hitler remembered how Fritsch had opposed his plan to invade Austria and Czechoslovakia.
- Someone else in the upper echelons of the Nazi Party who had a bone to pick with Frits, too. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the S.S., had a beef with Fritsch because the general had never bothered to hide his hostile feelings about the S.S.
- Shirer explains how Himmler—with the help of his buddy Reinhard Heydrich—succeeded in framing Fritsch for homosexual activity that was considered criminal under the German criminal code.
- When Hitler became convinced that the charges were true, he sent Fritsch on indefinite leave of absence. In other words, b'bye.
- The Army conducted its own investigation and quickly determined that Fritsch was the victim of a frame-up by the S.S. But before the Army officers could decide what to do about it, Hitler jumped one step ahead of them.
- In the first week of February 1938, Hitler announced that he himself would be taking over the complete command of the armed forces.
- If that wasn't enough, Hitler dismissed another sixteen senior generals from their positions, and transferred 44 others whom he felt weren't enthusiastic enough in their devotion to the party.
- In that same first week of February, Hitler got rid of Baron von Neurath, and appointed Joachim von Ribbentrop in his place.
- Shirer concludes the chapter by arguing that February 1938 was a turning point in German history. The Nazi revolution was complete, since Hitler had managed to get rid of anyone who stood in the way of the Third Reich.