Hitler's Allies

The Ramifications of Nazi Alliance Politics in World War II

John P. Miglietta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780429647376
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

This bookexamines the significance of alliances in the international system, focusing on the dynamics between great and regional powers, and on the alliances Nazi Germany made during World War II, and their implications for Germany.

It examines a variety of case studies and looks at how each of the respective states contributed to or weakened Nazi Germany's warfighting capabilities. The cases cover the principal Axis members Italy and Japan, secondary Axis allies Hungary and Romania, as well as neutral states that had economic and military significance for Germany, namely Bulgaria, Iran, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and Vichy France. Additional case studies include topics such as the German attempts to cultivate Arab nationalism, focusing on German involvement in the coup in Iraq against the pro-British government, and the wartime state of Croatia, whose creation was made possible by Germany, with the rivalry between Germany and Italy for control being a major focus. The book also includes a case study exploring the unique position of Finland among German allies as a democracy and how the country was essentially fighting a very different war from Nazi Germany.

This will be of interest to students and academics with an interest in power dynamics in World War II, economic, political, strategic, and alliance theory, and scholarly debate on Nazism and Europe.

1 The significance of great/small power alliances

DOI: 10.4324/9780429029011-1

Introduction

This work examines German alliance politics during World War II and how this ultimately detracted from German military and political effectiveness. In addition to looking at the case studies described below this work also provides a discussion of the economic, military, and political ramifications of alliances in general. This puts German alliance politics into a general framework of alliances in general. The following case studies are examined in some depth and are divided into several categories. The first consists of Germany’s major Axis partners: Italy and Japan. The second tier allies those states that actively participated in World War II on the side of Germany: Hungary, Romania, and Finland. This work also looks at the neutrals that supported Germany by providing economic and some military support: Bulgaria, Vichy France, and Spain. A further category of neutral states were those that provided economic support: Sweden, Switzerland, Iran, and Turkey. Another category of states was the Nazi puppet states fully under the control of the Axis countries. While there were several—Norway, Slovakia, and Croatia—only Croatia is discussed in this work. Hungary and Italy effectively became satellite states as the Germans exerted total control. There were other puppet governments set up in Albania, Greece, and Serbia, as well as fascist political movements in Belgium and the Netherlands which were supported by Germany largely to facilitate the occupation of those countries. There were also German attempts to cultivate alliances with nationalist groups and political/religious movements. Although not states in the traditional meaning of the term, they aspired toward statehood and were a factor in Nazi occupation policies toward the Soviet Union and parts of southeastern Europe, as well as trying to weaken the British colonial empire. While some within the German government offered the hope of independence or autonomy, these were not seriously contemplated. This affected German relations with Baltic and Ukrainian nationalists, as well as Arab nationalism, specifically the short-lived Rashid Ali government of Iraq, as well as Islamic groups drawn primarily from southern Russia. These are very interesting case studies, but except for the pro-Axis coup in Iraq these will not be discussed in this work.

The significance of alliances

Alliances have been a very important component of international relations since the development of centralized states in ancient times. Alliances are made for many reasons. The most common is to augment the military capabilities of the nations involved and to protect them from threats. A common thought was to combine the respective militaries and strategize for common protection.

In the modern theory of alliances these treaties can be bilaterally or multilateral. They can be broken down as follows:

• Defense pacts are interventions to support a fellow member who is attacked militarily.
• Neutrality and non-aggression pacts, as the names imply, concern countries required to be neutral if any co-signers are attacked. A non-aggression pact is more comprehensive and pledges the signers not to go to war against each other. One of the better-known non-aggression pacts is the Molotov–Ribbentrop agreement of 1939. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany pledged not to attack each other but in the secret protocols of the agreement they agreed to partition Poland, and the Soviet Union was given a free hand in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), which were reincorporated back into the Soviet Union. Hitler would lament he paid too high a price for gaining Soviet neutrality against the West. However, it did free him up militarily in the East while also providing great quantities of raw materials to the Reich. The two sides engaged in a very robust trade arrangement right up to the German invasion of June 1941.
• Finally, an entente which pledges the parties to consult and cooperate in a crisis which can include an armed attack. The most famous example of an entente was the triple entente of World War I composed of Great Britain, France, and Imperial Russia. There was no one treaty of alliance but rather a series of agreements involving the states.¹

Thucydides discusses at length the elaborate alliance system of Ancient Greece where Athens and Sparta led rival coalitions. The Greeks also banded together to defeat the invasion of Greece led by the Persian king Xerxes. However, alliances are a double-edged sword; while they generally are viewed as benefiting the states, they can also have negative repercussions. Toward the end of the Western Roman empire Rome made alliances with various Germanic tribes to help guard their borders. This did not end well as some of these tribes ended up attacking Rome. In the seventh century both the Byzantine and Sassanian Persian Empires used Arab auxiliaries to augment their own military formations. This gave Arab forces advanced military training and access to modern weaponry which they put through good use in the service of the Islamic state. The Islamic state established by the Prophet Muhammad on the Arabian Peninsula spread after his death. It was under the Caliph Umar that the Arabs invaded and defeated the Sassanian Empire. They also made impressive gains against the Byzantines taking Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. The Germans also used auxiliaries during World War II. Non-Germans were recruited into the Waffen SS where they fought alongside German troops on the Eastern Front or against partisans in the rear areas. Some of the last SS troops fighting for Berlin at the end of the war were French and Norwegian SS units.

Ideology and domestic politics

Another important factor in alliance formation is the role of ideology and domestic politics. Often during the Middle Ages and the early modern era alliances were made as part of royal marriages, or to secure the position of a new ruler. A famous royal marriage that established and alliance for a short period of time, was the alliance between England and Spain during the reign of Henry VII of England and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Spain was the most powerful state in Western Europe. In 1492 the last Muslim state of Grenada in southern Spain was defeated. This reunited the entire country. Columbus’s voyages of discovery, in the service of Spain, led to Spain claiming much of north, and South America and all of Central America. Spain became the first modern transcontinental empire and was growing wealthy from the gold and silver coming from the Americas. When Henry VII son Alfred died, they wished to preserve the relationship so they received papal permission for Catherine of Aragon to marry Alfred’s younger brother, Henry, who would eventually become Henry VIII.

Another example was the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s. Charles VI of Austria attempted to assure the succession of his daughter Maria Theresa. He sought to use the marriages of his nieces Maria Joseph and Maria Amalia to the royal houses of Saxony and Bavaria. In return they agreed to renounce any rights of succession in favor of Maria Theresa. Unfortunately, at the death of Charles VI war broke out which involved most European states. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 provided a temporary settlement of the conflict. Maria Theresa was recognized as archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary. The Habsburgs agreed to give up Silesia. This settlement was only temporary, and it served as a prelude to the Seven Years War (1756–1763).

Germany’s alliance with Italy, the Pact of Steel, was in part ideologically based. Mussolini viewed Britain and France as his major threats toward building an Italian empire in Africa. Germany did not have any territorial ambitions in Africa and was only drawn into Africa during World War II to bail out the Italians who were facing defeat at the hands of the British. Ideology played less of a role in the other German alliances. In Hungary and Romania, the Germans seemed to prefer to work with traditional conservatives and kept the native fascists on a short lease to use them as a threat in the conservative government should decide to switch sides. In Hungary, the Arrow-Cross was put in power in October 1944 when it was evident that the conservate government, led by Admiral Horthy, was about to make peace with the Allies. Other than Italy the only German ally where there was a strong ideological affinity was Croatia. The Ustaše regime in Croatia was supported and came to power because of Germany and Italy. However, the Nazis were often at odds with the Ustaše because in many ways they were destabilizing southeastern Europe with their genocidal policies against the Serbs especially. Attempting to pacify Yugoslavia was a huge drain on Germany. Some historians argue that the invasion of Yugoslavia, which led to the postponement of Operation Barbarossa by about a month, may have directly led to Nazi Germany losing the war as the Germans lost a month of good weather in the spring of 1941 on the Eastern Front.

Coalitions against a dominant power: balancing

Alliances have often been utilized to reign in a dominant country from becoming too powerful. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries this was done to curb the ambitions of France under Louis XIV. He attempted to have his grandson Philip of Anjou put on the Spanish throne, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). This could have led to the union of the two most powerful countries in Europe. A coalition arose composed of the Holy Roman Empire, Britain, Holland, the German states, and the Kingdom of Savoy to prevent this. During the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century, a grand coalition of most of Europe, led by Britain, allied to defeat France. Likewise, a similar coalition of Great Powers allied to defeat a rising Germany during World War I.

Alliances are the oldest international organizations in human history. Alliance dynamics revolve around strategic issues but can frequently also involve economics. Often social aspects help to bind an alliance. An example of this is the US and Britain from about the middle nineteenth century onward. A common political system, language, and ethnicity of the early settlers to the US helped pave the way for a close relationship among the governments. An important dynamic of alliance formation is the relationship between greater and lesser powers. Historically alliances were viewed as a way for states to enhance their power. States could augment their militaries, gain access to strategic resources, and military bases. It was a policy of Great Britain to keep their navy as strong as the next two navies combined, should these states form an alliance against Great Britain. The power dynamics of the respective powers do raise some issues. Frequently while allies have a common enemy their interests can diverge. They also may be pursing different strategic interests. An example of this was the Crimean War (1850–1853). The British and French were supporting the Ottoman Empire to prevent the Russians from taking the Dardanelles and gain access to the Eastern Mediterranean. They however were not interested in supporting the Turkish effort to reconquer former Turkish territory in the Caucuses. In this endeavor the Turks had to go it alone.

Another component of alliance dynamics is the relationship between great and small powers. Great powers focus on geopolitics. They are looking at the global system and often seeking ways they can increase their power at the expense of their rivals and become the global hegemon. Smaller powers are interested in becoming a dominant power in the region or regime survival. They may also be attracted to the potential economic, military, and political benefits that an alliance with a great power can give to them. Status and legitimacy are also very important concepts. There is a debate over who holds sway in an alliance. The traditional view is that the smaller powers are manipulated by the major powers. Another argument is that the greater power has the perception that it needs the smaller powers and attempts to placate them. In effect the regional power interests become their own. Often this leads to the allocation of military, political, and economic resources to promote the interests of the smaller power.

This later view is illustrated by looking at the alliance policy of Nazi Germany during World War II. Germany, as in World War I, alienated the strongest powers while allying with relatively weak states that it had to support. This was the case in World War I as Austria–Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire did not contribute much to the German war effort and were supported by Germany. Attempts at joint military operations between the Germans and Austrians while at times successful, largely floundered. A major factor was the inability of the higher levels of command to get along. Several German military commanders had contempt for the Austrians and joint military planning was not a high priority. The Germans had difficulties themselves in coordinating military planning as the army and navy were not able to come together and form a unified joint war plan. This interservice rivalry did not create a climate for joint military planning with foreign armies.²

In World War II Germany attempted to forge a broad ideological alliance with fellow fascist states, as was the case with Italy, as well as conservative states such as Hungary and Romania. During the war with the defeat of France they allowed the central and southern parts of the country to maintain nominal independence under a pro-German government based in Vichy. Their allies had war aims as well. Italy’s Mussolini was attempting to carve out an empire in Africa and gain control of the Mediterranean. Vichy France wanted to maintain the French colonial empire and a place at the table as a great power. There was also Franco’s Spain a fascist neutral state. Madrid also had territorial ambitions in Africa, and they wanted to regain Gibraltar from Britain. In Eastern Europe Hungary wanted to regain territory lost after World War I, and Romania sought to gain territory at the expense of the Soviet Union. Both Hungary and Romania were competing for control over Transylvania.

The early victories of Germany made possible the creation of parallel empires among its allies. German diplomatic and military efforts were responsible for creating a greater Hungary and Romania and fed Mussolini’s desire for empire. It also gave Spain an opportunity to expand. These countries, as illustrated above, often had conflicting territorial and political aims.

The importance of geography

Geography has been tied into the concept of statehood and national identity. Aristotle discussed the idea that people were inseparable from their environment. Jean Bodin, the sixteenth-century writer, discussed the role of climate on the development of nation-states. This is apparent when looking at the modern world. The United States is fortunate that most of the country lies in a temperate zone. In most of the country there are long growing seasons, in some cases multiple seasons, so the US has been and continues to be self-sufficient in food production. The United States also has physical boundaries, which served as a deterrent to foreign invasion. Until the missile era an adversary would have to cross and maintain a supply line over thousands of miles of ocean. Also, the United States has neighbors (Canada and Mexico) who did not pose a military threat. The US has been largely insulated from the credible threat of military attack for most of its history. This is in sharp contrast to most European countries where there are few physical barriers to invasion. In addition, there are numerous countries that have strong militaries and various territories, notably Alsace-Lorraine, and gone back and forth between countries.

The development of geopolitics in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries

Geography began to influence international relations thought in the late nineteenth century. One of the factors was the development of social Darwinism. The view that it was necessary for species, and people, to adjust to their physical environment. One of the first to adapt the survival of the fittest idea to states was Friedrich Ratzel. He developed the idea of Anthropogeographie, a synthesis of geography, anthropology, and politics. He coined the idea of lebensraum, living space. Humans were in constant conflict over land. This concept would influence later writers notably Karl Haushofer, who influenced Hitler.³

An important scholar who helped create the concept of geopolitics was Halford Mackinder. Mackinder believed in the concept of a World Island. A country that controlled the world island could control the world. He identified Eurasia as the heartland of this world island. The heartland was the center of the world island. Key to controlling the heartland was the “pivot”. He defined the pivot as the geographical center of the planet. This is the river basins of the great rivers of Central Asia, including the Caspian and Aral Seas. The pivot could not be attacked by maritime powers but could sustain large populations. It was also the area where nomads came out of and spread to other regions.⁴

Mackinder’s geographical boundaries of the Pivot would change and expand as we refined his theory during the twentieth century. He also labeled other regions of the world in their relationship to the pivot/heartland. Of particularly importance was the inner crescent. This included Eastern Europe and European Russia. Control of this region was central to controlling the pivot/heartland. In his later years there is evidence that Mackinder thought of Eastern Europe as part of the pivot itself. According to Mackinder the country that controls Eastern Europe (the inner crescent) controls the heartland, and the heartland controls the world island. Possession of the world island enables a country to control the world. This idea of dividing the world into different ...