Hinge of fate - theories on the outcome of World War II if Germany had remained neutral after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor - Cover Story

National Review, March 1, 1993 by Michael B. King

February 20-25, 1993, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia--the first time in World War H that American forces engaged German forces directly. This anniversary coincides with a new debate on the course of the war. British historian John Charmley argues in Churchill: The End of Glory, published last month, that Winston Churchill should have made peace with Hitler in 1941 in order to preserve the British Empire. His argument was supported, in a controversial article in the London Times, by former MP Alan Clark, author of the history of the German invasion of Russia, Barbarossa.

But would an Anglo-German peace have ended the war? For Hitler's most fateful decision lay in the future: his decision to declare war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was that which called into being the coalition of forces that eventually defeated him. This declaration might not have been averted by a peace with Britain, and it would almost certainly have brought a non-combatant Britain back into the war on America's side. But suppose instead that Hitler had responded to Pearl Harbor with a declaration of neutrality...

CONVENTIONALLY, December 7, 1941, is taken as the turning point, the date when separate conflicts raging in Europe and Asia became a truly world war, as America's full might was thrown into the struggle against the Axis. In fact, Pearl Harbor did not bring America into the war against the Axis; on December 8, America responded to Japan's attack by declaring war on Japan alone. Three days passed before Hitler grasped a nettle he had repeatedly refused to seize and declared war on the U.S.; only then did America declare war on Nazi Germany.

Why did Hitler do it? Nothing in his treaty with Japan obliged him to declare war if Japan attacked America; that obligation arose only if America attacked Japan. Moreover, Hitler had refused for months to let America's extensive sub rosa involvement on Britain's side in the Battle of the Atlantic provoke him into a "premature" war with the United States. That December day, however, Hitler threw caution to the winds, as if to say, "We will fight you some day, let it be now." Hitler made many mistakes in his prosecution of the war--halting the panzers on the outskirts of Dunkirk, switching from bombing RAF bases to blasting London in the Battle of Britain, invading the Soviet Union--but this was the biggest, and it proved fatal to the Nazi cause.

Suppose Hitler had gone before the Reichstag on December 11 and condemned Japan's attack. Suppose he had declared that the Greater German Reich had no quarrel with America, and no wish to see German and American boys spill one another's blood. FDR would not have dared ask Congress to declare war against Germany in the face of such "generous" German sentiments. The result would have been the loss of freedom for continental Europe.

The effects would have been felt first in the Battle of the Atlantic. The political pressure to commit virtually all America's might to the Pacific theater becomes irresistible; Great Britain receives no more support in 1942 than it did in 1941, and probably less, as the isolationists--transformed into the "Japan First!" lobby--are on guard against any diversion of vital supplies. The prePearl Harbor interventionists respond that we can't let Germany strangle Britain, lest we lose our ally; the Japan Firsters retort that the British ought to make peace with Germany, so they can throw all their weight into the fight with Japan. No one wins this argument except Germany, whose U-boat campaign comes ever closer to starving Britain.

Otherwise, events in 1942 proceed pretty much as they actually did. In the Pacific, the Japanese lose at Midway, our Navy begins its island-hopping campaign, and MacArthur starts his parallel effort to return to the Philippines. In Europe, the Germans are beaten at Stalingrad (the Soviet victory had virtually nothing to do with American supplies). In Egypt, Rommel is stopped at El Alamein. (He is not, however, thrown back into Libya. Montgomery's breakthrough would not have been possible without the three hundred Sherman tanks rushed to the Mideast after the fall of Tobruk; and Roosevelt would not have dared divert our newest armor to a battle against a country with which America was not at war.)

While 1942 remains somewhat familiar, 1943 will be very different. As history actually unfolded, an influential Tory circle around Lord Halifax thought Churchill recklessly combative and expected that Britain would probably have to make peace with Hitler--although only on "appropriate" terms, under "appropriate" circumstances. If the U-boats were starving the country, this group would not stand by and allow Churchill to refuse to talk peace with Germany. In the meantime, Hitler, reeling from disaster on the Eastern Front for the second winter in a row, and hoping the British will now be willing to "come to their senses," would certainly renew his earlier peace initiatives. So, when Churchill rebuffs these feelers, Halifax moves against him; as Churchill can offer no credible hope of American intervention, he is forced to step down.