Introduction

The Path to Total War

The Moment of Decision

At precisely 10:00 AM on September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler strode through the entrance of the Kroll Opera House, his footsteps echoing in the sudden hush that fell over the packed chamber. The Führer wore a simple gray military uniform, deliberately chosen to signal Germany's transformation from a peacetime nation to a country at war. Every seat in the converted Reichstag building was filled, with Nazi deputies rising as one in the familiar choreographed display of loyalty that had become the hallmark of Hitler's choreographed democracy.

The silence was palpable, pregnant with the weight of history. Outside, even as Hitler prepared to address the German people and the world, Wehrmacht forces were already advancing across the Polish frontier. Tank columns rolled through morning mist, Stuka dive-bombers screamed toward their targets, and artillery batteries opened fire on Polish positions. The war had begun before dawn, but now came the moment of public proclamation, the instant when private decisions would become irreversible public commitments.

Hitler approached the podium with characteristic deliberation, his pale blue eyes scanning the assembled faces of party officials, military commanders, and government ministers. In the front rows sat the men who had helped engineer this moment: Heinrich Himmler, architect of the SS state; Hermann Göring, whose Luftwaffe promised swift victory; Wilhelm Keitel, the compliant Wehrmacht chief who had translated Hitler's visions into military orders. Each had played his role in bringing Germany to this precipice.

The Führer's opening words cut through the tension like a blade: "Since 5:45 this morning we have been returning fire!" The phrase, carefully crafted to suggest German defensiveness rather than aggression, represented the culmination of six years of Nazi rule and decades of German resentment. In that single sentence, Hitler transformed invasion into retaliation, aggression into self-defense, and expansion into necessity.

The assembled deputies erupted in thunderous applause, their faces reflecting a mixture of excitement, apprehension, and fanatical devotion. Many had been with Hitler since the early days of the Nazi movement, witnesses to his rise from failed Munich putschist to master of Europe's most powerful nation. They understood that this moment represented not just the beginning of a war, but the implementation of everything National Socialism had promised: the revision of Versailles, the expansion of German living space, and the establishment of a new European order under German hegemony.

As Hitler continued his speech, his voice rising and falling with practiced rhetoric, the implications of this morning's events rippled outward across Europe and beyond. In London, Warsaw, Paris, and Moscow, diplomats and military leaders grappled with the reality that the most destructive war in human history had just begun. The path to total war, carefully constructed through years of diplomatic manipulation, military preparation, and ideological radicalization, had reached its inevitable destination.

Nazi Germany on the Eve of War

The Third Reich that launched its assault on Poland represented the culmination of six years of revolutionary transformation. Since Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, Germany had undergone a political, social, and economic metamorphosis so complete that the country bore little resemblance to the struggling Weimar Republic that had preceded it. The Nazi movement had not simply captured the German state; it had fundamentally reengineered German society according to its racial and ideological imperatives.

The political structure that Hitler commanded in September 1939 was unprecedented in its centralization and efficiency. The Führerprinzip had eliminated the checks and balances of democratic governance, replacing them with a hierarchy of personal loyalty that extended from Hitler downward through every level of party and state administration. Heinrich Himmler's SS had evolved from a small party protection unit into a state within a state, controlling not only internal security but also racial policy, population resettlement, and increasingly, economic enterprises. By 1939, Himmler commanded over 240,000 men in various SS formations, with his organization's tentacles reaching into every aspect of German life.

The Nazi party itself had grown from a fringe political movement to a mass organization with over 5.3 million members, its cells penetrating every factory, neighborhood, and social organization in Germany. Joseph Goebbels had crafted a propaganda apparatus of unprecedented sophistication, utilizing radio, film, mass rallies, and print media to create what he termed a "spiritual mobilization" of the German people. The party's auxiliary organizations-the German Labor Front, the Hitler Youth, the League of German Girls, the National Socialist Women's League-ensured that Nazi ideology shaped Germans' experiences from cradle to grave.

Economically, Germany in 1939 presented a paradox of apparent strength masking fundamental weaknesses. Hermann Göring's Four-Year Plan had achieved remarkable progress in rearmament and industrial expansion, with military spending consuming nearly 23 percent of German national income by 1939. Steel production had doubled since 1933, while aircraft production had grown from virtually nothing to over 8,000 planes annually. The unemployment that had plagued the Weimar Republic had been eliminated through massive public works projects, rearmament programs, and the absorption of previously jobless men into expanding military and paramilitary formations.

Yet this economic miracle rested on increasingly shaky foundations. Germany's autarky policies had failed to achieve genuine economic independence, leaving the Reich dependent on imports for critical raw materials including oil, rubber, and high-grade iron ore. The Mefo bills that had financed early rearmament represented a form of disguised deficit spending that could not continue indefinitely without triggering severe inflation. By 1939, German foreign exchange reserves had dwindled to dangerously low levels, while the country's trade deficit continued to widen despite increasingly desperate attempts to secure barter agreements with Southeastern European nations.

The military machine that Hitler unleashed in September 1939 represented both the triumph and the limitation of Nazi ambitions. The Wehrmacht had grown from the 100,000-man force permitted under Versailles to nearly 3.7 million men by the outbreak of war. German tank production had advanced from experimental prototypes to the production of increasingly sophisticated armored vehicles, though the majority of German divisions remained dependent on horse-drawn transport. The Luftwaffe had evolved from a clandestine training program to the world's most modern air force, with over 4,000 combat aircraft and a doctrine emphasizing close air support for ground operations.

More significantly, the German military had developed innovative tactical doctrines that would revolutionize warfare. The concept of Blitzkrieg-though never formally codified under that name-represented a synthesis of concentrated armored thrusts, close air support, and rapid infantry follow-up designed to achieve decisive victories before enemy forces could mobilize effectively. Generals like Heinz Guderian had studied the lessons of World War I and concluded that future conflicts would be won through speed, surprise, and the psychological shock of overwhelming force applied at critical points.

The ideological framework that underlay all these preparations was perhaps the most significant factor distinguishing Nazi Germany from traditional European powers. National Socialist doctrine envisioned not merely territorial expansion but racial revolution, the creation of a new European order based on German racial supremacy and the subjugation or elimination of supposedly inferior peoples. This ideology had practical implications that would shape every aspect of the coming war. The SS Race and Settlement Main Office had already begun detailed planning for the demographic reorganization of Eastern Europe, while Nazi legal theorists developed concepts of "living space" that justified unlimited expansion.

The radicalization of anti-Semitic policies provided a preview of the regime's capacity for systematic brutality. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 had stripped German Jews of citizenship and civil rights, while the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom demonstrated the regime's willingness to employ orchestrated violence against civilian populations. By September 1939, approximately half of Germany's 500,000 Jews had emigrated, while those remaining faced increasing restrictions on their economic activities, social interactions, and freedom of movement.

This ideological dimension created structural imperatives that made peaceful coexistence with neighboring nations virtually impossible. Nazi doctrine demanded not just the revision of Versailles but the fundamental reordering of European civilization according to racial hierarchies. The concept of Lebensraum implied the displacement or elimination of existing populations to make room for German settlers, while Nazi theories of racial struggle suggested that conflict was not only inevitable but desirable as a means of strengthening the German Volk through combat.

The social transformation of Germany under Nazi rule had created a population psychologically prepared for war and conquest. Six years of Nazi education had indoctrinated an entire generation of young Germans in the virtues of struggle, sacrifice, and racial superiority. The Hitler Youth had militarized...