On December 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, General Alfred Jodl, chief of operations staff in The Military High Command, hurried through a call to the chief of the Plans Section of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). He informed General Walter Warlimont that the Fürher had just declared war on the United States and asked his staff to study where the bulk of American forces would initially be deployed.¹ Warlimont agreed that such an examination was necessary "for we have never even considered a war against the United States and so have no data on which to base this decision."²

The army leadership was not alone in its surprise at the new turn of events. Few Germans thought Hitler would go beyond an affirmation of solidarity with his Japanese Tripartite partner. At the very most, Germany would rupture diplomatic relations with the United States.³ All prior indications suggested that Hitler would continue to resist adamantly the entreaties of naval officials to declare war on the United States. On July 15, 1941, he had pointedly reminded Admiral Erich Raeder that he did not want to antagonize the United States during the campaign in the East,⁴ and he continued to resist the pleadings of Admiral Dönitz who urged an Atlantic attack on the United States.⁵ Despite numerous provocations by the Americans from the summer of 1940 on, one of the essential aims of German strategy was to keep the United States from entering the war. Indeed "the Fürher had absolutely prohibited the torpedoing of passenger ships even when they were sailing in convoy, in order not to provoke neutral countries, the United States in particular."⁶ Yet abruptly, without discussing his decision with anyone else -- generals, foreign ministers, cabinet members -- Hitler scuttled his cautious policy and without hesitation declared war on the United States.⁷ Hitler's decision downright bewildered American policy makers who thought that in abandoning his policy of avoiding war with the United States and Russia, Hitler had taken leave of his senses.⁸

Numerous explanations have been offered to account for Hitler's reversal of policy. But the only area of unanimity among writers on the subject is that Hitler made the decision alone and that he created the circumstances which effectively guaranteed Germany's final ultimate defeat."⁹ It bears mentioning at the outset that Hitler's war declaration was not an automatic commitment incurred by Germany under the terms of the Tripartite Pact of September 27, 1940. Article III of the pact only committed the three powers" to assist one another with all political, economic, and military means when one of the contracting parties is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Sino-Japanese conflict."¹⁰ Indeed, part of the rationale of the Tripartite Pact had been to frighten the United States into staying out of the conflict by threatening Washington with war across two oceans. While the cosignatories of this document agreed to render aid to the victim of aggression by a fourth party: "whether a Contracting Party has been attacked within the meaning of Article 3 of the pact shall be determined among the three Contracting Parties(Germany, Japan, Italy)."¹¹ Clearly then, Hitler was under no compulsion to come to Japan's aid.

Nonetheless on April 14, 1941, Hitler had gone beyond the letter of the Tripartite Pact when he assured Ambassador Yosuke Matsuoka that "Germany would declare war immediately in case of a Japanese-American conflict regardless of who started it,"¹² a promise that Matsuoka did not pay attention to and may not have fully understood.¹³ It is likely that Hitler pledged unqualified support to Japan at this time to encourage her entry into the forthcoming Russian campaign. But when Japan clearly indicated its unwillingness to join in the attack on Russia, Hitler could have reverted to the original Pact terms without undo difficulty. Instead, surprisingly, Hitler quit pressing the Japanese for a quid pro quo and seemingly was prepared to declare war without it.¹⁴

Even if he felt honor bound to keep his pledge, a premise made doubtful by his previous diplomatic dealings, excuses for procrastinating implementation of his promise were readily available. As diplomatic historian Selig Adler concludes:

It certainly must have been something other than a sense of honor that led Hitler to keep his word with Japan instead of remaining neutral and letting the American public cry "on to Tokyo" while Germany conquered Europe.¹⁵

Interestingly, the evidence suggests that Hitler would have preferred that Japan enter the lists against Great Britain or the Soviet Union rather than America.¹⁶ Britain's hopes rested on Russia and the United States. If Russia dropped out of the picture, America, too, would be lost for Britain because Russia's capitulation would greatly increase Japan's power in the Far East¹⁷. Relieved of the Russian threat at its back door, Japan could then move ruthlessly forward in Asia against Britain, thereby keeping the United States occupied in the Pacific. Britain, deprived of its present aid from America, and of potential help from Russia, would collapse, while expanded U-boat warfare would diminish Roosevelt's support for Churchill across the Atlantic.¹⁸ The United States, finding itself without allies, would be forced to recognize that Hitler's European stranglehold was virtually unassailable.

When it became clear that Japan had no intention of participating in the Russian campaign or of waiting for it to conclude, but instead planned to confront the United States, Hitler might have extracted as a quid pro quo for his support, either Japanese agreement to stop American shipments to Russia via Vladivostok, or better yet, a Japanese pledge to tie down Russian troops in Siberia. If the Japanese remained unyielding, Hitler could revert to his ultra-cautious policy of not antagonizing the United States and providing her, thereby, with an excuse to come into the war against Germany. Without any apparent gain, however, Hitler chose to declare war on the United States, thereby canceling the greatest single benefit of the Japanese attack: diverting American attention from Europe to the Pacific.¹⁹ Earlier, on November 28, 1941, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop told the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, Oshima, that if Japan became engaged in war with the United States, Germany would join immediately. In return, Japan said it would not leave the conflict until the war in Europe was won.²⁰ On November 30, 1941, Oshima was instructed by Foreign Minister Hideki Tojo to inform Hitler that the Washington talks had collapsed and of Japanese plans to resort to military means to curtail the American threat. Subsequent dispatches by German Ambassador Eugene Ott, almost until the day of the attack, reiterated that Japan's conflict with the United States was unavoidable.²¹ It would seem that Hitler's goal of tying down America in a Pacific conflict was assured even if he did nothing, that Japan intended to pursue her course of action against the United States regardless of whether the immediate support of her Axis partner was forthcoming. After learning of the attack (about which the Japanese did not tell Hitler of in advance), said Hitler: "Now it is impossible for us to lose the war; we now have an ally who has never been vanished in three thousand years."²² That he would declare war was a foregone conclusion; he also failed to consult his number two man, Göring, about the war declaration and ignored the advice of Ribbentrop and other cabinet members not to do so.²³ We are left with the less than satisfactory conclusion that "for reasons best known to himself, Hitler was quite ready to grant Japan the assurance (of German backing) desired."²⁴ In effect, Hitler granted the Japanese a blank check to launch an attack at a time and place of their own choosing. "The news of the attack (on Pearl Harbor) took the Wilhelmstrasse completely by surprise."²⁵

The timing of Hitler's decision is especially puzzling in that it was taken while the campaign against Russia was going poorly. Early in December, 1941, following its success at Rostov, the Red Army, almost overnight, seized the initiative all along the front and administered to German Headquarters a series of shocks such as it had never known before.²⁶ The German drive ground to a halt; on December 6, Marshall Zhukov's Red Army launched a counteroffensive west of Moscow. By mid-December, the Germans were in retreat at dozens of points. Frustrated by these reverses, the Fürher announced that "in obedience to an inner voice, he had determined to take over the supreme military command, deposing the generals who had sought to undo the work accomplished in Russia."²⁷ And most significantly, under these adverse circumstances, by declaring war Hitler relinquished the cardinal tenet of his American policy of avoiding incidents with the United States until the outcome of the Russian campaign was clear.²⁸

Some writers have pointed out that the Eastern setbacks notwithstanding, Hitler remained convinced he would successfully smash Russia by the spring of 1942 at the latest. If this was the case, then from his perspective "it seemed better to split the American naval forces from the start rather than have the U.S. concentrate all her forces against Japan, resulting in all likelihood in a rapid defeat."²⁹ While it is possible to accept Hitler's monumental mis-reading of the Russia situation, it seems most unlikely that Hitler wished to alleviate American pressure on Japan by directing it against Germany. Hitler's declaration of war, while German troops were still bogged down in Russia "must be considered the single greatest mistake of his career."³⁰

But might it not simply be the case that Hitler assumed American intervention was imminent and nothing was to be gained by postponing the inevitable conflict; that following the Japanese attack, the German Foreign Office expected the United States to come in anyway.³¹ According to some accounts, Hitler's belief in imminent American intervention dated from Roosevelt's re-election in November, 1940.³² Another source contends that Roosevelt's "shoot-on-sight" order of September 11, 1941, led Hitler to conclude that isolationists like Lindbergh could no longer keep the United States out of the war.³³ In the wake of the Japanese attack the White House accused Germany of having done everything in its power to push Japan into the war.³⁴ Leaders of Congress were talking of a declaration of war not only on Japan but on the entire axis as well. The New York Times Newspaper editorials reminded its readers that Hitler, not Tokyo was the greater threat to our security. "The real battle of our times will no tbe fought in the Far East. It will be fought in the English Channel.... If Hitler is smashed then the situation in the Far East will take care of itself automatically."³⁵ Still, there is no reason for assuming that Hitler equated press commentary with official government policy. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese attack, before assessing the American response, Hitler ordered that German submarines and warships might open fire on American ships on sight.³⁶ Moreover on December 8, the German Chargé d'Affaires in the United States reported that for the present Roosevelt wished to avoid any worsening of the situation in the Atlantic and "that from the standpoint of American conduct of war against Japan, it would seem logical to avoid a war on two fronts."³⁷ Hitler ignored this evaluation; indeed, he reached his decision to declare war no later than December4th.³⁸

Hitler's views about America were contradictory. On the one hand, he asserted that the United States was the great meeting place of Nordics, who were protecting their racial purity by excluding Asiatics and by other immigrant legislation.³⁹ On the other hand, he was known to comment that the wrong side had lost the Civil War and that the American people had lost, not the South; the United States was a racial mixture after all, ⁴⁰ that its internal political weakness and degenerate culture would prove no match for German will.⁴¹ After all, in his previous presidential campaign, FDR had pledged to keep the United States out of the war, while in August 1941, the House of Representatives barely approved the renewal of compulsory service. Gallop polls taken in May and October of 1941 revealed only 17% favored war with Germany.⁴² More important, Hitler was aware of the American political situation and had encouraged German propaganda to stir up isolationist sentiment to defeat Roosevelt in the1940 election, while focusing on American reasons not to be involved in the war.⁴³

While it is not possible to say for certain what America's response might have been had Hitler exercised restraint, Roosevelt did not indicate that he considered an immediate declaration of war against Germany a viable option. When Secretary of War Henry Stimson made this suggestion at the cabinet meeting of December 7, no one supported him.⁴⁴ Nor did the final American declaration of war in any way connect Germany with Japan.⁴⁵ As things stood after Pearl Harbor, despite the American military's preference for an "Atlantic first" strategy, Churchill had to face the scary possibility that the United States might become involved only in the Pacific. David Kennedy reinforces this notion, suggesting that in the absence of a legal declaration Roosevelt might have found it impossible to resist demands by the Navy and public opinion to place the maximum effort in the Pacific.⁴⁶ For various domestic reasons, including fear of congressional opposition and awareness of isolationist sentiment, the American president had placed himself in a position where the course of action he would take was largely determined by the unpredictable determination of his enemies.⁴⁷ Harold Ickes, PWA head, confided to his diary following the President's speech on May 27, 1941that "it seems that he is still waiting for the Germans to create an 'incident'".⁴⁸

Hitler's declaration seemed to fly in the face of his previous policy toward the United States, which was geared toward avoiding any confrontation that might result in American entry into the war against Germany. He initially interpreted America's neutrality legislation to mean "that the United States considered itself absolutely out of European affairs and that Germany might follow a continental policy without danger of interference, so long as it did not violate the Monroe Doctrine."⁴⁹ As Roosevelt succeeded in removing the restrictions of the Neutrality Act of 1937 -- repeal of the arms embargo, destroyer for bases deal, shoot-on-sight order, arming of American merchant ships⁵⁰ -- Hitler continued to avoid provocation while refusing to permit "his impetuous admirals to inveigle him into premature adventures with the United States."⁵¹ His unwillingness to act against the United States despite numerous opportunities to find a casus belli, stands in marked contrast to his precipitous action of December 11. Hitler's remarkable restraint, despite every excuse to declare war on the United States, led Admiral Stark, chief of American Naval Operations, to remark in a memo of September, 1941:

I do not believe Germany will declare war on us until she is good and ready; that is, it will be a cold-blooded decision on Hitler's part if and when he thinks it will pay, and not until then.⁵²

This hardly seems to have been the case as we have seen. Strangely, the German war declaration, while accusing the United States of proceeding from initial violations of neutrality to open acts of war omitted any reference to the Pacific situation, which ostensibly was decisive in causing Hitler to alter his policy of ignoring American neutrality violations.⁵³

If the short term considerations do not satisfactorily explain Hitler's decision of December 11, then might not Hitler's American policy be seen within the framework of a firmly held long-term Weltanschauung? The argument here is that Hitler envisaged a two-phase foreign policy -- the so-called Stufenplan. Phase One involved an alliance with Great Britain, or at least her neutrality while Germany established continental hegemony via a series of localized military campaigns against isolated opponents. After eliminating Russia and France as powers, the new "Super Germany" would stretch from the Urals to the Pyrenees. Germany would also create a colonial empire in Central Africa to supply it with raw materials and get ready to assume the struggle with America from its advanced bases in the Atlantic. Phase One was to be reached by 1943-45.⁵⁴

Preparations for the future conflict against the United States--Phase Two--were set forth in the "Z" or Ziel plan of January,1939, which spelled out the details for constructing a naval fleet by 1948, designed with the United States in mind. This phase would be completed after the death of the Führer. Temporarily shelved when Germany found itself fighting the wrong enemy --Britain instead of Russia--in 1939, the plan was rekindled after Hitler's smashing victories in the West when it appeared to him that Britain might come to terms. The plan again receded into the distant future with the attack on Russia.⁵⁵

The "Z" plan can hardly have been instrumental in Hitler's December 11 decision. Britain was clearly neither an ally nor a neutral; at best, the Russian campaign was inconclusive. Not only had long term naval preparations against the United States failed to get underway, but as has been noted, Hitler had no immediate plans for dealing with the American belligerency his own declaration guaranteed. As General Walter Warlimont correctly observed, "Hitler's declaration of war on the United States was little more than an empty gesture."⁵⁶

If Hitler's decision was bereft of immediate military gain, was not based on treaty obligations, ignored the practicalities of implementation, abruptly rejected his previous cautious policy, and violated his long-range plans, then how do we account for it? In his Nuremberg testimony, Ribbentrop claimed Hitler told him "If we don't stand on the side of the Japanese, the Pact is politically dead....but the chief reason is the United States is already shooting at our ships....and through their actions created a situation which is practically, let's say, a situation of war."⁵⁷ A similar argument is made by John Lucas, intent on proving that Hitler's decision was reasonable. "He could hardly betray his Japanese ally by welshing on the principle item in their alliance which required them to go to war with the United States together and simultaneously."⁵⁸ Both explanations are unsatisfactory: the first smacks of post-decision justification; the second begs the question of why Hitler agreed to joint action. A tentative answer is that the decision defies rational explanation alone and that irrational factors need to be considered. As the German historian, Sebastian Hoffner concludes, "there is to this day no comprehensible rational explanation for what one is tempted to describe as an act of lunacy."⁵⁹

It appears that Hitler's personality, rather than military considerations or miscalculation, played an important role in Hitler's baffling decision.

For Hitler, "willpower (sic) was the dominating factor everywhere."⁶⁰ It is likely that this article of faith led Hitler to misread the Russian situation, and to maintain that despite the reverses suffered in the winter of 1941, he could still crush Russia shortly byBlitzkrieg tactics, and be ready to confront the United States head-on by 1942.⁶¹ At the same time, belief in will power could not indefinitely permit him to deny the seriousness of the Russian situation, nor the possibility that victory was not inevitable.

The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, occurring under very difficult military circumstances for Germany, likely seemed to the destiny-conscious mind of the Führer one of those fateful strokes to which a world-historical figure must respond.⁶² The man who believed providence had a special concern for him once again had been miraculously snatched from the throes of defeat by the Japanese action. His invincibility reaffirmed by divine intervention, Hitler threw caution to the winds in a bold gesture oblivious to practical concerns. Delighted at the news of Pearl Harbor, Hitler "forgot all else in his relief that at last the Japanese had taken the plunge."⁶³

As Allan Bullock argues:

In declaring war on America first, without waiting for the Americans to act, he saw himself recapturing the psychological initiative, pursuing his favorite tactic of surprise, demonstrating to the German people the value of the Japanese alliance....and so reviving their faith in his leadership.⁶⁴

Hence the recklessness of his declaration of war compared with the others which usually came after German troops had already invaded the country.⁶⁵ Perhaps Hitler acknowledged his impulsivity when during the final days in the Berlin Bunker, he said: "the war with America is a tragedy, illogical, devoid of fundamental reality."⁶⁶

Let us carry this line of thought one step further. Many writers agree that Hitler was a gambler in the field of foreign policy and that circumstances in 1939 led him to undertake the wrong war, at the wrong time, against the wrong enemy.⁶⁷ The numerous military successes by which he surprised himself and others led Hitler to fall victim to his own propaganda, that he was an infallible and invincible leader. However, the deteriorating situation on the Russian front threatened to shatter his self-image of omnipotence. The alternative to this self-image was psychologically unacceptable to Hitler, for given the dichotomous nature of his self-perceptions, to be less than all-powerful was tantamount to an admission of impotency.⁶⁸ To maintain his blinders (ego integrity) in the face of the worsening military situation in Russia, Hitler recklessly threw down the gauntlet to the United States as a means of reaffirming his feelings of omnipotence. Military strategy took a back seat to Hitler's psychological needs. He would reaffirm himself as tireless leader and fearless crusader by upping the ante -- not only would he master a difficult task, the conquest of Russia, but he would do so under the added handicap of simultaneously confronting the military power of the United States. Creating and then "mastering" an impossible situation would serve to re-validate his omnipotence. To justify what on the surface seemed to be an unnecessary, if not foolish decision, Hitler now rationalized that the United States was a feeble country with a loud mouth and of little military consequence,⁶⁹ an assessment which his earlier policy of restraint indicates he did not seriously believe. That emotional factors were paramount in Hitler's decision is further attested to by his failure to formulate any plans for dealing with his new, powerful adversary.

While this scenario helps explain the immediate circumstances of Hitler's irrational conduct, it is also possible to fit his decision into a more complicated psychological pattern -- that of suicidal martyrdom. According to James McRandle, suicidal martyrdom involves the active courting of situations which in one manner or another will cause injury to the subject. In a large number of cases of chronic bad luck, there is good reason to believe that these situations are created by the sufferer.⁷⁰ McRandle cites a number of instances which suggest Hitler followed a self-destructive pattern: a) failing at school and as an artist (p. 156); b)allowing the initiative to pass into the hands of others during the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 (p. 175); c) pressing for the dissolution of the Reichstag after his July electoral success (p. 185); d) entering the war in 1935 without plans for a long-term conflict (p.206); e) planning an offensive against Russia before the campaign against England failed (p. 211). And then there was the least understandable of Hitler's major decisions of this time -- his unnecessary declaration of war against the United States when Hitler "gratuitously brought into the ranks of his enemies the most powerful and implacable country in the world (p. 214)."

McRandle's theme is augmented by Robert Waite⁷¹ who adds to Hitler's list of costly blunders: a) halting tank movement on the Dunkirk salient (p. 358); b) refusing to pursue a Mediterranean strategy after France's fall (p. 399); c) not asking Japan for help in launching Barbarossa (p. 401); d) naming the Russian operation after Frederick Barbarossa who failed in five campaigns against the Italian city-states to unify the Holy Roman Empire (p. 402).

There are other instances in Hitler's career which suggest that he responded to reverses or stiffening resistance not by reappraising his objectives, but by countering with one more offensive, regardless of whether such a course of action made political or military sense. It was almost as if Hitler deliberately placed himself in an exposed position and blocked all lines of retreat⁷² Hence in December, 1932, despite the gathering gloom in the party and his weakening position vis a vis Chancellor Papen, Hitler stubbornly refused to join a government of national concentration.⁷³ Or one might cite Hitler's behavior in September, 1938, when he deliberately placed himself in a more perilous position over Czechoslovakia as if by upping the odds against success he could muster up latent spiritual reserves to ride out the crisis without faltering or crumbling.⁷⁴

While one may quarrel with these interpretations of particular decisions, taken as a whole they support the notion that there was a pronounced tendency towards self-destruction in Hitler. More specifically, throughout his lifetime Hitler oscillated between extreme creative and destructive roles; if he could not win everything, he was willing to lose all. The rapidly deteriorating situation on the Russian front where the German drive ground to a halt in the first week in December and was even thrown into reverse around Moscow, shattered Hitler's feeling of invincibility. He responded by recklessly challenging the United States as a means of speeding up the defeat he now intuited as all but certain.⁷⁵ The psychological pay-off for this seemingly perverse action-- to make a bad situation worse -- was to reaffirm Hitler's feelings of omnipotence, an omnipotence now hinging not on the power to conquer boldly but to destroy absolutely by ordering the death of a nation.⁷⁶

My argument obviously is not that Hitler's declaration of war on the United States was the decisive step in his self-destructive pattern, only that Hitler's action here is consistent with his long established mode of operation.⁷⁷ Hitler tended to make abrupt, spontaneous decisions. The war declaration illustrates his habit of getting overwhelmed in the moment and acting rashly. The evidence clearly supports the notion that psychological considerations, not rational factors -- military strategy, loyalty to an ally, the prestige of declaring war first, feelings of vengeance towards Roosevelt, misperceptions of America's military strength -- were paramount in determining the timing of Hitler's decision. Hitler had reasonable, less costly options available to him for responding to the Japanese attack, i.e., doing nothing, extracting concessions from Japan for his support. The unofficial state of war that existed in the Atlantic could have continued without full mobilization against Germany and with a relatively low level of hostilities. His declaration of war against the United States was a highly subjective decision intimately tied to the Führer's personal characteristics, the two most important of which were his belief that his destiny was in the hands of providence and his psychological need to maintain at all costs his feeling of omnipotence and invincibility.

The unnecessary declaration of war against the United States, coupled with the underestimation of American capabilities, led to the ultimate defeat of Germany in World War II. The question remains of what might have happened if Hitler hadn't made that grave mistake.

Endnotes

1. Gordon A. Craig, Germany: 1860-1945 (New York., 1978), 731.

2. General Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 1939-1945, trans. by R.H. Barry (London, 1964), 208.

3. Louis P. Lochner, What About Germany? N.Y. 1942), 199.

4. Holger H. Herwig, Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889-1941 (Boston, 1974), 228.

5. Edwin Hoyt, Hitler's War (New York, 1978), 203-204.

6. Hans Trefousse, German and American Neutrality (New York, 1969), 37.

7. Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler:Hitler's Use of Power:His Successes and Failures, trans. by Ewald Osers (N.Y., 1979), 120.

8. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (N.Y., 1948), 441.

9. Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, The Nazi Staff, and the Course of Expansion (N.Y., 1973), 238.

10. Nicholas Henderson, "Hitler's Biggest Blunder," History Today 43 (April 1993): 36.

11. Paul W. Schroeder, The Axis Alliance and Japanese American Relations, 1941 (N.Y., 1958). 121.

12. Quoted in Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 228.

13. Eberhard Jackel, Hitler in History (Hanover, Mass, 1984), 71. On April 13, 1941, Japan signed a five-year neutrality pact with Russia which it carefully observed; Siberiantroops pulled back from the Russo-Japanese military frontier in Manchuria and helped halt the German offensive at Moscow.

14. Henderson, "Hitler's Biggest Blunder," 40.

15. The Isolationist Impulse: Its Twentieth Century Reaction (N.Y., 1961) 290.

16. James V. Compton, The Swastika and the Eagle: Hitler, the United States, and the Origins of World War II (Boston, 1967), 238-39.

17. Gerhard L. Weinberg, "Hitler's Image of the United States," American Historical Review, vol. LXIX, no. 4 (July 1964): 1014-1015.

18. James McGregor Burns, The Soldier of Freedom (N.Y., 1970), 69.

19. Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 237

20. Jackel, Hitler in History, 86

21. Compton, Swastika and Eagle, 232-33.

22. Quoted in David Irving, Hitler's War, (New York, 1977), 352.

23. Ibid., 353 (The Pact was signed on December 11, the day Germany declared war on the United States.)

24. Schroeder, Axis Alliance, 152.

25. Trefousse, American Neutrality (N.Y., 1965), 48.

26. Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 203.

27. Quoted in Forrest Davis and Ernest Lindley, How War Came About: An American White Paper, From the Fall of France to Pearl Harbor (N.Y., 1942), 301.

28. Irving, Hitler's War, 297.

29. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 236-37.

30. Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 245.

31. Trefousse, German and American Neutrality, 155.

32. Friedlander, Prelude to Downfall, 311-14.

33. Irving, Hitler's War, 352-53.

34. New York Times, Dec. 8, 1941, 1

35. Ibid., 22

36. Trefousse, German and American Neutrality, 147.

37. Documents on German Foreign Policy. Series D, 1936-1941, XIII, 980.

38. Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, Hitler vs. Roosevelt: The Undeclared Naval War (N.Y., 1979), 238-39.

39. Gerhard Weinberg, World in the Balance: Behind the Scene of World War II (London, 1981), 57.

40. Ibid., 61

41. Percy Schramm, Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader, trans. By Donald Detwiler (Chicago, 1971), 87

42. Alistair Horne, "The 5 Worst Military Decisions of the 20th Century," Forbes, vol. 156, no. 10 (October 23, 1995), 187.

43. Alton Frye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere (London, 1970), 95-96. See also John Lucas, "The Transatlantic Duel: Hitler vs. Roosevelt," American Heritage vol.42, no. 8 (Nov, 1991), 72

44. Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York., 1965), 157.

45. William Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940-41 (Gloucester, Mass., 1969), 938.

46. Freedom From Fear: The American People in the Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York, 1999), 524

47. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 382-83.

48. David Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 494

49. Quoted in De Witt, C. Poole, "Light on Nazi Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, vol. 25, no. 1 (Oct. 1946), 146.

50. Wayne S. Cole, "American Entry into World War II: A Historiographical Appraisal," in A.A. Offner, ed., America and the Origins of WWII (Boston, 1971)

51. Trefousse, German and American Neutrality, 38: Rich, German War Aims, 235.

52. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 380.

53. The War Declaration appears in the Department of State Bulletin, vol. V, no. 129 (Dec. 13, 1941), 481.

54. The following account draws heavily from Klaus Hildebrand, The Foreign Policy of the Reich (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), esp. 20-23, 81-82 and Herwig, Politics ofFrustration, 185. Both writers summarize the views of Andreas Hillgruber on the subject in such works as Hitler's Strategie: Politik und Kriegsführung, 1940-1941 (Frankfurt IM, 1965); Deutschlands Rolle in der Vorgeschiechte der bieden Weltkriege (Gottingen, 1967); Kontinuiät und Diskontinuität in der deutschen Aussenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler (Dusseldorf, 1969).

55. William Carr, "National Socialism: Foreign Policy and Wehrmacht, in Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A Reader's Guide (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976), 169.

56. Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 209

57. Henderson, "Hitler's Biggest Blunder," 42

58. John Lucas, The History of History (New York, 1997), 154

59. Haffner, The Meaning of History, 117. Even writers who stress rational factors acknowledge an irrational component. Compton, p. 265 speaks of a contradiction between Hitler's "Atlantic caution and Pacific recklessness;" Trefousse, p. 155-56 notes that Hitler "had long fallen victim to his own propaganda" that "he let himself be carried along by the acts of his allies;" Rich, p. 237, remarks that Hitler gained no military or economic advantage from the war declaration; Schroeder, p. 152, states that "for reasons best known to himself, Hitler was quite ready to grant the Japanese the assurance desired;" Poole, p. 142, remarks: "We found the most baffling question in the whole Nazi story to be the prompt declaration of war on the U.S.; from Sherwood, p. 441, "It seemed at the time that German-Italian declaration of war was another 'irrational act' ..." Herwig, p. 236, says that "Hitler probably had in mind certain reasoning as he reached his fateful decision on Dec. 11, 1941."

60. Percy E. Schramm, Hitler, 108

61. The issue is more clouded than the above comment indicates. While professing public optimism about the success of the Russian campaign, on Dec. 8, Nazi spokesmen announced that hostilities in Russia would be halted until the spring. Shortly thereafter, Hitler took over the supreme military command and deposed the generals "who had sought to undo the work accomplished in Russia." Davis and Lindley, How War Came About, 301.

62. Compton, Swastika and Eagle, 236.

63. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, 940.

64. Allan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (New York, 1997), 761.

65. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 236.

66. Quoted in Compton, Swastika and Eagle, 266.

67. A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (N.Y., 1961), pioneered this thesis. Some of his particular interpretations must be handled cautiously.

68. More technically: "The 'Fürher' personality shows all the earmarks of a reaction formation that has been created as a compensation and cover-up for deep-lying tendencies that he despises." Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler (New York, 1971.), 135. Because the alternative to repudiating the Fürher images of masculinity, hardness and unyielding willpower was to acknowledge that he was effeminate, soft and indecisive, an admittance that would be psychologically devastating, Hitler had compelling incentive torefute this possibility.

69. Weinberg, Hitler's Image of the United States," 1017.

70. James H. McRandle, The Track of the Wolf: Essays on National Socialism and Its Leader Adolf Hitler (Evanston, Illinois, 1965), 154.

71. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler (N.Y., 1977).

72. William Carr, Hitler: A Study in Personality and Politics (N.Y., 1979), 97-98.

73. Ibid., 34

74. Ibid., 97-98.

75. According to General Jodl, it had become clear to Hitler after the Germans were stopped outside of Moscow that "victory could no longer be achieved." Schramm, Hitler: The Man and Military Leader, 26-27.

76. Waite, The Psychopathic God, 410.

77. For a useful discussion of when psychological as opposed to situational factors best explain behavior, see Faye Crosby, "Evaluating Psychohistorical Explanations," Psychohistory Review, vol. VII, no. 4 (Spring, 1979), esp. 9-10.