Enemy in the East

Comprehensive account that convincingly punctures some previously held assumptions around the plans for the German-Soviet war.

Rolf-Dieter Müller convincingly explains that Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 was not the first time a plan had been compiled by the German High Command, but that plans had been formed going back to the early 1930s even before the Nazis came to power.

Although Jodl and Keitel paid the ultimate price at the Nuremberg Trials Müller argues that the likes of Halder and Warlimont were just as guilty, but managed to cover their tracks better.

More surprisingly the early plans had always assumed that Poland was an ally or at the very least neutral and that the campaigns would have been two pincer movements from East Prussia via the Baltic states into Northern Russia and from Rumania and Slovakia into the Ukraine.

The author describes how Hitler and the Nazis held Pilsudski, the Polish leader until 1935, in very high regard and saw Poland as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. High level diplomacy from Germany tried to convince Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact along with Japan and Italy.

The surprising and shocking nugget of information that underlines the closeness of Poland and Germany prior to May 1939 was that the Polish Ambassador to Germany Jozef Lipski was actively talking to the Nazis about a joint effort to exile the Polish and German Jews to Africa.

In January 1939 Hitler tried to form a military alliance with Poland, but the relationship broke down over Danzig and the Polish corridor, forcing Poland towards Britain and setting in train the German invasion of September that year. However if agreement had been reached Barbarossa or it’s 1939 equivalent could have started off with both Polish and German armies participating and with the Baltic states as yet unoccupied by the Soviet Union.

Rolf-Dieter Müller has convincingly punctured some previously held assumptions around the plans for the German-Soviet war and created a book that anyone interested in the Eastern Front should add to their bookshelves.

A scholarly work that has to be a "must-read" for anyone with an academic interest in Hitler and his scheming!  What makes it so enjoyable for the lay reader is the manner in which we are educated in the subtleties and political machinations of warfare. Of course you need the manpower, brilliant command of logistics, appropriate weaponry and a cohesive strategy but, as Muller makes clear, these are as naught if you can't build alliances, if you create confusion amongst your senior military commanders and, above all, if you let monstrous ego cloud your judgement. As a result Hitler was always doomed to fail in Russia. This excellent book educates us as to how indecisiveness and inability to build trust can cost you a victory. Read and enjoy.

‘On 22 June 1941, the German Wehrmacht and its allies began their assault on the USSR.’

Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, let to one of the most brutal campaigns of World War II. It is estimated that of the 70 million people who died during the war, more than 30 million died on the Eastern Front.  In this book, Rolf-Dieter Müller explains that Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1940 was based on earlier plans, some of which had been formed even before the Nazis came to power.  The early plans had assumed that Poland would be at least neutral, if not an ally, and that the campaigns would have been two pincer movements: from East Prussia via the Baltic states into Northern Russia, and from Romania and Slovakia into the Ukraine.  Professor Müller explains how Hitler and the Nazis held Józef Piłsudski, who led Poland until 1935, in very high regard.  They saw Poland as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, and tried to convince Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact together with Italy and Japan.

The key questions to be addressed, identified in the introduction to this book, are: 
‘When did plans for a war against the USSR emerge and become part of the Third Reich’s military deliberations?  What role was played by the relationship with Poland, the ‘anti-Russian trench’?  Was Hitler’s turn against Poland in spring 1939 intended to create the basis for a subsequent war in the west or in the east?’

How close were Poland and Germany before May 1939? Professor Müller writes that Józef Lipski, the Polish Ambassador to Germany:  ‘.. promised Hitler ‘a nice monument in Warsaw’ if he could find a solution to the ‘Jewish question’.’  Poland and Germany were discussing a joint effort to exile the Jews of Poland and Germany to Africa.  In January 1939 Hitler tied to form a military alliance with Poland, but the relationship broke down over Danzig and the Polish Corridor. This pushed Poland towards the ‘ever-greater support offered by the Anglo-Saxon powers’ and set in train the German invasion in September.  If agreement had been reached between Poland and Germany in 1939, the 1939 equivalent of Barbarossa could have started with the armies of both countries participating, and with the Baltic States not yet occupied by the Soviet Union.

‘Hitler was deeply convinced in 1939 that conquering the USSR would be a piece of cake and that it would make his Third Reich unassailable for all time.  An Operation Barbarossa in 1939 probably would have led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the destruction of Russia.’

In this book, Professor Müller takes us behind the scenes of the Wehrmacht High Command.  I think that anyone the history of the Eastern Front would be interested in reading this book.

Rolf-Dieter Müller is a professor of military history at Humboldt University in Berlin and serves as the Scientific Director of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Institute in Potsdam.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher I B Tauris for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This book is a fascinating insight that sheds light on Hitler’s war plans and brings us behind the scenes of the Wehrmacht High Command strategy to attack the Soviet Union from the very start of World War 11 and the risky move that was “Operation Barbarossa”. “Enemy in the East” is a wealth of research into newly and forgotten documents discovered in archives and notes taken from speeches recorded during meetings Hitler had with his military strategists. At the end of the book we have a list of handy references and foot notes at bottom of pages when need be. 

The plan to invade the Soviet Union was in the making long before the Nazis came to power. The author brings us back to the 1800’s and to the early 1900’s with an overview of events that took place and have influenced the “Powers that be” later on. Hitler had planned a war of intervention against the USSR long before he seized power and declared the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany. We have surprising information how Hitler manipulated neighboring countries into alliance and used them as bulwark against the Soviet Union. 

There is a lot said in this book that I will not touch here that is most interesting and educational. To facilitate our orientation since some countries have changed names and borders since, the author has included useful maps to orient us through the maze. I was happy to have them as reference it helped immensely to understand the strategy and the movement of troops along the different corridors. 

In short, the author has written a concise yet a very comprehensive analysis of the military mind-set and what motivated them to carry the Crusade against Bolshevism and the subsequent atrocities that occurred.

If you are interested in the Eastern Front War, “Enemy in the East”, is an excellent addition to any library.

My thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher I.B. Tauris for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Rolf Dieter Müller outlines the German plans for the Eastern Front of World War II in Enemy in the East: Hitler’s Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union. I loved this book for so many reasons, most notably, because it thoroughly establishes the history leading up to the battle in the East. Müller writes clearly and concisely, masterfully weaving sources together to create a lucid account of the development of Operation Barbarossa. 

My one qualm is that Müller’s title does him a great disservice; his book is actually about much more than “Hitler’s Secret Plans.” Instead, Müller notes, “This investigation will examine new, little-know and forgotten sources, and recall historical episodes and contexts that, in counterfactual analysis, call the accepted interpretations of German’s expansion politics into question.”  Specifically, Müller convincingly argues that a war in the East was not a new, Hitler-centric idea, rather, as early as WWI Germany was looking to expand into the east. Yet another issue I take with the title is that this wonderful book thoughtfully discusses Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, the Baltic nations, and even Japan. Sorry, Mr. Müller, but I fear that your title is too narrow and may actually hinder the success of this extremely adept book. 

To sum up Enemy in the East, I think it’s best to include a large quote from the preface: “This book therefore examines the prelude to Barbarossa [the Nazi name for the advancement into the USSR] as a German-Polish-Russian triangle, while always keeping an eye on Japan as a possible Far Eastern partner in a pincer movement to shatter the Red empire. This will bring in a discussion of just how serious the proposals were for an anti-Russian military alliance under the aegis of the Hitler-Piłsudski pact of 1934 [Germany-Poland], and how Hitler’s eventual turn against Poland developed into a pact with Stalin. Relations between the German and Polish militaries in the 1930’s are still a largely unknown area of historical research. Here we will have to cut our own path.” The “path” Müller takes is exceptionally interesting, compellingly written, and pleasantly concise. 

My favorite portion of the book is the discussions of Hitler’s changing relationship with Poland. Based on the information provided in Enemy in the East, Poland struggled to commit to a side, often entertaining alliances with France, Britain and Germany. Polish leadership, particularly Piłsudski, deeply worried about the U.S.S.R. swooping in and gobbling up precious Polish land, pushed Poland into the arms of the Nazis, hoping to avoid a devastating war with the U.S.S.R., which would ultimately lead to the Soviets seizing Eastern Poland. At one point, Germany and Poland opted to avoid discussing the heated area of Danzig, leading to the famous Hitler-Piłsudski Pact of 1934. A joint Polish-German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 seemed to solidify a relationship between Poland and German. Shortly thereafter, however, Poland began to fear that their Nazi ally could not be trusted, and looked to Britain for help. In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, which ultimately bided time for Stalin and Hitler to prepare for an all out war against each other. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, which now put the Nazi boarder adjacent to its ultimate enemy, the U.S.S.R. 

On June 22, 1941 Hitler finally launched Operation Barbarossa, beginning one of the bloodiest most vicious fronts of WWII. This encounter was foreseeable: Germany strongly disliked Bolshevism and their ties to Jews, and Hitler was convinced that a stronger Germany meant the fulfillment of the goals of the First World War -Lebensraum (“living space”) for Germans to spread out and grow their empire. Ultimately, the war in the East dragged on for years, causing similar problems faced by Napoleon and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In summation, Müller’s Enemy in the East is an excellent summary of the events leading to Hitler’s war in the East. Müller uses newly release documents, journals, and other relevant primary sources to establish the development of Operation Barbarossa. What this book does not do is discuss the actual war with the USSR, which I believe is a wise choice because covering the events after June 22, 1941 would have required several hundred more pages. I highly recommend this book to readers interested in WWII and the Eastern front, including the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Baltics. Furthermore, Enemy in the East provides the reader with a glimpse into the motives of the Third Reich, specially their desire to destroy Bolshevism and expand into the east.

A stunning account of coalition; vacillation, and betrayal, concluding with apocalyptic Operation Barbarossa and the downfall of the Third Reich. 

The narrative of the Second World War is littered with turning points. One of the most celebrated is that of Hitler's decision to invade his Soviet ally in 1941, being as it is, largely credited with the downfall of the Reich. The framework within which this decision was made in seems incredulous with hindsight, particularly when framed against the pre-existing the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact and the later backdrop of the failed Adler Tag of 1940. 

Why then, would Hitler seek to invade his most-avowed enemy and creditor at a time when, strategically, Hitler was increasingly without allies? If the answer cannot be explained simply by psychosis, where can it be found? The answer to this conundrum is within the machinations of the unstable interwar world. 

By using previously unseen records, the author creates an enthralling and dynamic scene of political engagements and negotiations between Germany; Poland, and Japan which sought to create both a bulwark against Bolshevik expansionism, and to provide the foundations for the eventual creation of the Lebensraum which Hitler was desperately seeking. 

The politicking of the interwar period and the division of the world into communist and anti-communist spheres was built on a foundation mutual distrust and counter coalition, and the author skilfully reveals the fundamental contradiction within Nazi foreign policy which assumed the unstinting neutrality of it's partners in the face of Hitler's expansionist policies. In a post-war world which was anti communist in it's disposition, it was Hitler's inability to maintain the coalitions which had been sought and built in the interwar period which ultimately led to his nemesis. 

Whilst the book doesn't concern itself with Hitler's apparent psychosis; it still paints a vivid and enthralling picture of how the Fuhrers' unrestrained campaign of duplicity, and political miscalculation forged a path leading towards the guaranteed destruction of the Third Reich, as opposed to the bread baskets; oilfields, and Lebensraum in the East that he was searching for.