Hitler in 1940

Hitler's most successful year confounds the world ... but his true ambition is yet to be revealed ... key posts from the past year

Speeches at the Kroll Opera House were dramatic events with Hitler saluting and the audience responding with repeated ‘Sieg Heil’s’ (Hail Victory).

Hitler's ‘appeal to reason’

19th July 1940: After a long speech congratulating himself and his generals, the Nazis ‘hope and pray’ that a peace offer to Britain will be accepted

The Hitler we saw in the Reichstag tonight was the conqueror, and conscious of it, and yet so wonderful an actor, so magnificent a handler of the German mind, that he mixed superbly the full confidence of the conqueror with the humbleness which always goes down so well with the masses when they know a man is on top .

Hitler greets Mussolini at the Brenner Pass railway staion on 4th October 1940.

Hitler and Mussolini in talks

4th October 1940: Hitler keeps his plans secret and tries to dissuade Mussolini from further adventures

Hitler was energetic and again extremely anti-Bolshevik. “Bolshevism,” he said, “is the doctrine of people who are lowest on the scale of civilization.” Ribbentrop, on the other hand, was very silent …

Hitler triumphant

8th November 1940: At his annual address to the Nazi Party faithful, Hitler has much to boast about

I realize one thing. If I had stepped up as a prophet on January 1 of this year to explain to the English: by the spring of this year, we will have ruined your plan in Norway, and it will not be you in Norway, but Germany …

… and if I had said: by this summer, there will be no more France; then, all would have said: “The man is insane.”

One of a strictly limited number of copies of the 18th December order , which were circulated in great secrecy, annotated by those who saw it.

Hitler orders ‘Case Barbarossa’

18th December 1940: The fateful order to ‘crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign’ envisages an attack in May 1941, while the Luftwaffe continues to attack Britain

… if we compare the percentage of Lebensraum occupied by the German Volk to that of the earth as such, then we must remark that our Volk is one of the most disadvantaged peoples of the world.