December 7 gets all the publicity; this was the “day that shall live in infamy” when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War Two.
12/11 is not so well remembered, but that was the day that Hitler’s Germany declared war on the United States.
Historians sometimes wonder about this decision; by declaring war on the United States, Hitler took on the richest power in the world. What if Hitler had sat on his hands, refusing to declare war? Wouldn’t that have wrecked Franklin Roosevelt’s grand strategy of “Europe first”? What possible motive could Hitler have had in widening the war in this way — and wasn’t this one of the great strategic blunders of the war?
It isn’t easy or particularly pleasant to try to read Hitler’s mind, but this decision did have its logic.
First, early December 1941 saw Hitler’s fortunes at a high point. In four and a half months of fighting in the Soviet Union, Nazi forces had defeated Soviet armies in one pitched battle after another from the Polish frontier to the gates of Moscow. In the first week of December, German forces were within a few miles of the city center, and German officers could see the city’s buildings through binoculars. A Soviet counter-offensive started on December 5 and by the middle of the month it was clear that the Germans, under-supplied and unprepared for the Russian winter, were in serious trouble. That was not yet clear on December 11; Hitler must have still hoped that victory in the East was within his grasp.
If he had taken Moscow and knocked the Soviet Union out of the war, Hitler would have had very little reason to fear the United States. It is not at all clear that the Allies could have defeated Germany without Soviet help; the Normandy landings could never have been carried out against the full strength of the German army and with the resources of the Soviet Union at his command Hitler would have been ready to fight a very long war.
At the same time, Hitler must have believed that Japan’s brilliant success at Pearl Harbor meant that the United States would have its hands full in the Pacific. While the initial reports exaggerated the destruction at Pearl Harbor and its effect on American naval strength, this calculation was not far off. Had the United States lost the Battle of Midway the following June, Japan would have kept its naval supremacy in the Pacific and occupied much more of America’s attention.
As it was, significant American fighting forces did not reach the German theater of operations until November of 1942 when American soldiers landed in North Africa. By then, the British had already defeated General Rommel at the Battle of El Alamein, stopping the German advance into Egypt.
In December of 1941, Hitler had known nothing but victory against both the British and the Russians. He believed that final victory in the war was a few weeks or months away — that the war would be decided before American troops could arrive on the scene.
He was largely right in this; the three decisive battles of Moscow, El Alamein and Stalingrad were all fought without American troops.
As for the other problem, the vast shipments of American goods to Britain and Russia which did in fact help turn the tide, Hitler believed that America would do that with or without a declaration of war. Hitler’s own written declaration of war, while a bit one sided in its interpretation of events, was a not unreasonable summary of the overall position. As the Germans put it:
“On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance the Greer, the Kearny and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German submarines according to plan. The Secretary of the American Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that American destroyers attacked German submarines.
Furthermore, the naval forces of the United States, under order of their Government and contrary to international law have treated and seized German merchant vessels on the high seas as enemy ships.”
They could have said more. In Franklin Roosevelt’s great fireside chat of December 29, 1940, FDR told the world that the United States would be the “arsenal of democracy” and produce the guns, ships, tanks and ammunition that would help Germany’s enemies defend themselves and ultimately prevail. Even before Pearl Harbor, the United States was building vast quantities of weapons and supplies and ensuring their safe delivery across the Atlantic by, when necessary, firing on German naval forces. Hitler had to have understood that after Pearl Harbor the United States would do even more.
Hitler’s working strategic assumption had always been that Germany would likely lose a long war. His strategy was built on trying to win knockout blows — against Poland in 1939, France in 1940, the Soviet Union in 1941. As of December 11, 1941, he was still committed to this. Either he would win the war before the Americans could make their weight felt, he must have reasoned, or he would not win it at all.
In any case, for Americans and their friends and allies today, there’s something else to think about on 12/11.
The world looked incredibly dark in December of 1941. German armies were within sight of Moscow. The U.S. Pacific fleet was in ruins; Japan was launching a series of attacks that within months would destroy British power in Asia and leave Australia exposed to Japanese invasion. (On February 19, 1942, Japan attacked Darwin in Australia; it was the first of almost 100 air raids the Australians would suffer in the war.) If the war could be won at all, it would only be with the help of the Soviet Union, a tyranny second only to Nazi Germany itself for pure, unadulterated evil. And behind all that was the Great Depression; the stock market crash came in 1929 and only World War Two brought the Depression to an end. What kind of economic system did we have that left you with two choices: world wars, or unemployment at 25%?
To listen to us today, you would think we faced something equally dark. Our pundits and our political classes are wringing their hands non-stop: the rise of China, the financial crisis, the war in Afghanistan and so on.
Please. None of this compares to what we faced on December 11, 1941.
So here’s the lesson for today: man up. There’s nothing out there we can’t overcome.