As Hitler, discouraged by his failure to make any headway with the Spanish and French, traveled by train back to Italy for another meeting with the duce, the conviction grew that his initial instincts were correct: the solution to Germany’s dilemma lay in action in the east. He once again emphasized to Keitel and Jodl his intention to attack and defeat the Soviet Union in the spring, after the threat to the German flank in the Balkans had been removed. Still, in late October and early November, he had not definitively decided on a course of action. He retained some hope that Franco might yet be pressured into cooperating in seizing Gibraltar, but the goal now had faded from forcing Britain out of the war merely to protecting the German rear as decisive victory was sought in the east. During his talks with Mussolini, Hitler mentioned the upcoming visit to Berlin of Soviet foreign minister Molotov and his hope of directing Russian expansive energies against Great Britain in the Persian Gulf and India. In early November, however, the Führer observed to his military leaders that Russia remained “the great problem of Europe” and that everything had to be done “to prepare for when the showdown comes.” At the meeting, Hitler had seemed to his army adjutant, Major Engel, “visibly depressed,” as if “at the moment he [did] not know how things should proceed.”34
The discussions with Molotov had, in fact, come at the behest of Ribbentrop, who hoped to realize his plan for a continental bloc by incorporating Russia into the Tripartite Pact. Although the spheres of interest of the four powers would touch, Ribbentrop hoped that they need not clash. For his part, Stalin seemed genuinely interested in the prospect since it would prolong the “capitalist war,” provide time for the further growth of the Soviet war economy, and add to the booty he had acquired from the 1939 pact with Germany, which had also allowed him to push the Soviet security zone to the west. The Germans, however, were much less sanguine. The Soviet acquisition of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina had prompted direct German involvement in Rumania in order to protect its oil supplies. This not only raised protests from Moscow that Berlin had violated the 1939 agreement but also strained German relations with Italy while exacerbating a Hungarian-Rumanian territorial dispute. All this threatened unrest in the one region that Hitler most needed calm. German intervention stabilized the situation, but Mussolini’s pique had also been one of the motives behind the invasion of Greece, which now threatened to destabilize the region anew. The increasing German dependence on deliveries of vital food and raw materials from Russia also drove fears that the long-term interests of Germany and the Soviet Union were incompatible.35
Although skeptical of any agreement, Hitler nonetheless bowed to Ribbentrop’s argument that Soviet inclusion in the Tripartite Pact would prove decisive in the struggle against Great Britain. Still, on 12 November, the very day Molotov arrived in Berlin, Hitler signed Directive No. 18, which, after laying out the various combat possibilities inherent in the Mediterranean strategy, finally declared, “Political discussions for the purpose of clarifying Russia’s attitude in the immediate future have been initiated. Regardless of the outcome of these discussions, all preparations for the east for which verbal orders have already been given [i.e., military operations against the Soviet Union] will be continued.” Though no military options had been closed in this directive, the implication seemed to be that Hitler had grown very doubtful of the possibilities offered by alternative schemes and increasingly viewed the strategy he had always favored, attack on the Soviet Union, as the only realistic way to achieve a swift victory.36
In any case, the meetings with Molotov did not go at all well, merely confirming Hitler’s assessment of the incompatibility of their positions. While Hitler and Ribbentrop delivered rambling monologues, the cold, steely-eyed Molotov sat impassively. When it came his turn to speak, he shot a series of specific questions at the visibly discomfited Führer about German intentions in the Baltic and Balkans, the proposed spheres of interest, and the aims of the Tripartite Pact. The Soviet foreign minister pointedly ignored Hitler’s suggestion that Russia expand toward the Persian Gulf and India, making demands instead on Finland, Rumania, and Bulgaria, expressing Soviet interest in control of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, and demanding as well a secure exit from the Baltic Sea. Molotov further suggested, perhaps not so innocently, that Germany should seek its gains in the remains of the British Empire. He also pressed Hitler on German actions in Rumania and Finland, which Moscow viewed as clear violations of the 1939 agreement. Even when the Soviet foreign minister mentioned the mutual benefits of the German-Soviet relationship, without which German victories would have been impossible, it served merely to reinforce in Hitler’s mind German dependence and exposure to Russian blackmail. By the end of the second day of talks, despite Molotov’s indication of Russia’s willingness to cooperate with the Tripartite Pact, Hitler recognized that the aims of the two sides remained irreconcilable. All in all, the talks proved a fiasco, best symbolized by the British air raid during the closing banquet that forced the dignitaries into a bomb shelter.37
Although Molotov’s demands in Berlin were almost certainly intended as a tactical maneuver, the opening proposals in an ongoing negotiation that would result in Soviet accession to the Tripartite Pact, Hitler viewed them as extortionist and confirmation of the long-term Russian threat to Germany. Neither Hitler nor the German Foreign Office even bothered to reply to Molotov’s further note of 25 November, in which he moderated the Soviet demands. Even before Molotov’s visit, according to his army adjutant, Major Engel, Hitler had viewed the talks as a test of Moscow’s intentions, of whether Germany and the Soviet Union would stand “back to back or chest to chest.” The Führer now had his answer. The talks had clearly shown the incompatibility of Soviet and German territorial aims. “Molotov had let the cat out of the bag,” Engel recorded Hitler as saying. “He [the Führer] was really relieved. It would not even remain a marriage of convenience.” The day after Molotov’s departure, Admiral Raeder observed that Hitler believed the Mediterranean strategy posed greater risks than an attack in the east and, thus, was “still inclined toward a confrontation with Russia,” while, on the seventeenth, Weizsäcker noted the talk in Hitler’s circle, “It would be impossible to create order in Europe without the liquidation of Russia.” Hitler’s conviction, formed in the summer and shaped by the failure of the alternative strategies, had been reinforced: the way out of Germany’s dilemma lay in the east.38
On 5 December, Hitler ordered Brauchitsch and Halder to prepare the army for an attack on the Soviet Union in the spring. Soviet ambitions in the Balkans, he declared, threatened Germany. He then added, “The decision concerning hegemony in Europe will come in the battle against Russia.” The aim of the operation, he stressed, echoing his arguments of 31 July, was the annihilation of “Russia’s manpower.” Bock noted the Führer’s emphasis once again on the importance of Russia and America for Britain: “If the Russians were eliminated England would have no hope of defeating us on the continent, especially since an effective intervention by America would be complicated by Japan, which would keep our rear free.” Three days later, the last attempt to convince Franco to join the war failed, and the Germans suspended preparations for the proposed attack on Gibraltar. The failure of the Mediterranean and continental bloc strategies now prompted Hitler to concentrate his energies on the defeat of the Soviet Union. On 17 December, after a briefing by Jodl, the Führer summarized his estimate of the global situation. “All continental European problems,” he stressed, would have to be solved in 1941 “since the United States would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards.”39