Spying on the Reich: The Cold War against Hitler by Roger T. Howard

Abstract

Based on extensive research in British and French archives as well as substantial relevant literature, Howard’s book examines the efforts primarily of France and Britain to observe and understand the purpose of Germany’s secret violations of the 1919 peace treaty and extensive rearmament in the 1930s. The Soviet Union and the United States are generally omitted, and there is no bibliography.The book opens with a good review of British and French espionage in Germany in the 1920s, which is followed by an account of both governments’ watching the rise of Adolf Hitler in German politics. The author repeatedly and quite fairly presents the substantial differences and the varying levels of cooperation between the two governments and their operations in the field. There were many instances of specific espionage successes and failures, and the author provides interesting and detailed accounts of numerous examples of both.Howard correctly emphasizes both London’s and Paris’ interest in the attitudes of the German public toward rearmament. But the public in England, France, and most other countries on earth was strongly affected by the great human and material costs of the Great War, and the author should have paid more attention to the impact of Hitler’s advocating for more wars and drawing millions of votes in free elections by 1930. On the technical side, the book pays attention to French and British interactions with the intelligence services of Czechoslovakia and Poland. Regarding the latter, an early mention in the text and a subsequent more extensive discussion of the importance of Polish success in breaking the German Enigma code system are still not adequate in this reviewer’s opinion in view of the enormous importance of this Polish contribution to Allied victory in World War II.Readers will appreciate Howard’s proper emphasis on the financial constraints on British and French intelligence operations, an issue that was certainly not easily resolved as the Great Depression strained government revenues. Ironically, some help by Major Truman Smith in the American Embassy in Berlin proved a limited offset to that problem. The text appropriately devotes a separate chapter (chap. 11) to the secret development of a new German navy, highlighting British interest in the construction of submarines. Special attention to the German effort in this regard in the Netherlands would have been as helpful as the included review of the German secret warplane development by Fokker in that country.London, Paris, Prague, and Warsaw were alarmed by the clear signs of further rearmament in the 1930s. The author’s review of the limited reaction to Germany’s annexation of Austria (chap. 16) is supported by his repeated emphasis on the British and French quite excessive estimates of German strength. Readers will find the account of the crisis about Czechoslovakia and its temporary settlement in the Munich Agreement of considerable interest, but the author has neglected and only mentions elsewhere the fact that Hitler until the last days of his life considered that agreement the greatest mistake of his career. He was certain that he should have gone to war in 1938, and in 1939 he kept the German ambassadors to Warsaw, London, and Paris inside Germany to make sure that no one could cheat him of war as, in his opinion, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had done in 1938.The Western powers did obtain some intelligence on the secret negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1939, and this issue is carefully covered. The author expresses considerable doubt about the wisdom of Chamberlain’s commitment to the defense of Poland in March 1939, but he does not see this as a reaction to Hitler’s violation of the Munich Agreement and subsequent occupation of Prague two weeks before the public announcement of that commitment. There is also no reference to any British intelligence about the 1939 negotiations between Germany and Poland in which the latter offered substantial concessions that the Germans rejected. The comment on this event in the diary of Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano on August 11, 1939, is worth quoting and remembering: “The decision to fight is implacable. He [Ribbentrop] rejects any solution which might give satisfaction to Germany and avert the struggle. I am certain that even if the Germans were given more than they ask for they would attack just the same, because they are possessed by the demon of destruction.” Published in English in 1946, this insight provides a perspective that Howard missed completely.This book will provide interested readers with a detailed review of how the British and French governments, while often following or preferring different policies, tried to keep a close eye on what Germany was doing and planning between the two world wars. Although the knowledge that they acquired at times influenced their mutual relations, it hardly ever affected their plans for future dealings with Germany. Minor technical errors, such as making Henry Stimson Secretary of State when he was no longer in that position (5) and changing the German opponent of Hitler Hans Oster into Hans Ostler (276, 299) do not detract from a new major contribution to twentieth-century intelligence history.