As we see, Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, but it took her another eight days, until August 5, to declare war on Russia, on account of her obligations to Germany under the Dual Alliance treaty. But she could not get her act together: in a case of truly exceptional schlamperei, she forgot to declare war on Great Britain and France. After waiting until August 12, these two countries took it upon themselves to correct the Austrian oversight and declared war on Vienna, via telegram to her ambassador in Switzerland.
Our header picture shows General William J. Donovan, Wartime Head of the Office of Strategic Services – forerunner of the CIA. Please click on the pic or the link below to see the PDF – File in a new window!
The map pictured below was signed by Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop on August 23, 1939, when the USSR and Nazi Germany agreed to attack, conquer and divide Poland between themselves. It shows the planned border between Russian and German zones of occupation. It is derived from the Secret Protocol of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, often called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in which the USSR and Nazi-Germany agreed to split Eastern Europe.
According to the protocol, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland were divided into German and Soviet “spheres of influence“. In the north, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its “political rearrangement”: the areas east of the Pisa, Narev, Vistula and San rivers would go to the Soviet Union, while Germany would occupy the west. Lithuania, adjacent to East Prussia, would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed to in September 1939 reassigned the majority of Lithuania to the USSR. According to the protocol, Lithuania would be granted its historical capital Vilnius, which was under Polish control during the inter-war period. Another clause of the treaty stipulated that Germany would not interfere with the Soviet Union’s actions towards Bessarabia, then part of Romania; as a result, not only Bessarabia, but Northern Bukovina and Hertza regions too, were occupied by the Soviets, and integrated into the Soviet Union.
The attack started at 4:45 am on September 1, 1939, on the German front – the Russians followed two weeks later, for logistical difficulties.
While the pact came as a rude shock to the world, it is widely unknown that it had been secretly prepared for many months by the Auswärtiges Amt, the German Foreign Office. While they wanted – after the war – to present the legend they had been only doing their job and were certainly not Nazis, their efforts are well documented and I have located them at the Avalon Project at Yale Law School and University. They will be the subject of a subsequent post.
86 years before, on January 4th, 1933, former Centre Party politician and German Chancellor Franz von Papen (Chancellor from 1 June 1932 until 17 November 1932) agreed to meet Adolf Hitler, chairman of the NSDAP, for a mutual discussion how to remove then-chancellor General von Schleicher from office and replace his regime – which was based on presidential emergency decrees – with a government which commanded a parliamentary majority.
As things were, this was possible only with a coalition between the NSDAP, which commanded 196 of the 585 Reichstag seats, the Centre Party, which contributed 70 seats and the DNVP (“Deutsch-Nationale Volkspartei” or “German National People’s Party, a fringe nationalist affair pinching in 52 seats). This would form a majority of 318 seats. On January 4, 1933, the two met and discussed well into the night. This meeting has often been called the “Hour of Birth” of what eventually become Nazi Germany.
Five days later, on 9 January 1933, Papen informed Reichspräsident Hindenburg about the meeting. In the night of 10 to 11 January 1933, a second meeting followed, in the villa of champagne salesman Joachim von Ribbentrop, who went on to become Foreign Secretary of the Third Reich. On 18 January 1933, a third meeting followed and on the eve of 22 January a fourth.
Papen
tried to bait Hitler by offering him the post of Vice Chancellor which
Hitler refused – insisting on being appointed chancellor. Hindenburg
declined, but at the occasion of a long meeting of Papen and Hindenburg
on 28 January, Papen charmed away the old President’s doubts by
suggesting that a cabinet of old hands with only three Nazi ministers
could easily control and contain Hitler.
It did not work out that way, as we know.
The
slim coalition’s majority had to be extended to a two-thirds majority
for the passage of the sunsequnt laws establishing Nazi Rule.
“A decree of the Reich President for ‘the Protection of the German People’ of February 4, 1933 limited the freedom of assembly and the press a few days after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany and gave the Reich Interior (Police) Minister Wilhelm Frick, who belonged to the NSDAP, far-reaching powers. The emergency decree issued by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg and countersigned by Reich Chancellor Hitler, Interior Minister Frick and Minister of Justice Gürtner had already been planned by the Papen Cabinet and served in the beginning of the election campaign (Reichstag election on March 5, 1933) to combat the political opponents of the NSDAP. Further legal norms ensuring the National Socialist seizure of power were the decree of the Reich President for the protection of people and state (“Reichstag Fire Ordinance“) of 28 February 1933, which abrogated almost all fundamental rights, and the Enabling Act of 24 March 1933, which transferred the legislative authority from the Parliament to the Government .” (see Wiki)
The decisive majority was procured by eliminating the one hundred seats of the Communist Party (KPD) and exiling respectively throwing in jail twenty-seven Socialist MPs of the SPD. The final tally for the Enabling Act came to 444 Aye to 94 Nay.
Papen
served as vice chancellor in the Hitler cabinet until the summer of
1934, when he was removed to the post of German Ambassador to Austria
until February 1938. From 1939 to 1944 he served as Ambassador to
Turkey.
He was eventually arrested by American troops in April 1945 and faced the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial. He was acquitted but subsequently re-indicted by a German Denazification court and sentenced to eight years hard labour. On appeal, he was released in 1949.
He failed to restart his political career and died in 1969, aged 89.