ABSTRACT
Hitler's speech in the Reichstag announcing the invasion of Poland was greeted with ecstatic applause, but, since the deputies were all Nazis, this was standard stuff. The mood among the ordinary people was subdued, even sombre. A 1914–18 veteran remarked to Victor Klemperer: ‘You should see the gloomy faces on the troop transport – different from ‘14. And did we start off with food shortages in ‘14? We will be defeated, it can’t last four years again.’1 Hitler had taken the great risk of committing his nation to war. It had been his personal decision and his status and reputation now hung upon his armies being successful. As a newspaper report from Ebermannstadt put it: ‘Trust in the Führer will now probably be subjected to its hardest acid test.’2 All his achievements at home and in Europe would be wiped out if the war went badly. But initially the war went very well, confounding the doubters and lifting the Führer even higher in public estimation. The blitzkrieg directed by General Halder, involving swift panzer assaults supported by stuker dive-bombers, broke through the thinly spread Polish forces on the German border, and destroyed Polish airfields. Within a month, Danzig and Warsaw had been taken, the government had fled to London, and Poland had surrendered.
