Hossbach Memorandum

Hossbach Memorandum
Name	Hossbach Memorandum
Date	5 November 1937
Place	Berlin
Type	Memorandum of meeting
Participants	Adolf Hitler; Friedrich Hossbach; Werner von Blomberg; Werner von Fritsch; Konstantin von Neurath; Hermann Göring; Joachim von Ribbentrop (note: attendees varied)
Language	German

Hossbach Memorandum The Hossbach Memorandum records a 1937 meeting in Berlin summarizing a strategic discussion led by Adolf Hitler and noted by Major Friedrich Hossbach. The document is a primary source for debates about Nazi foreign policy, German rearmament, and the decision-making that preceded the Second World War. It has been cited in works on Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht, and diplomatic history involving figures such as Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini.

Background and context

By 1937 European diplomacy involved actors including Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, Konstantin von Neurath, and Gustav Stresemann's legacy; it occurred amid crises like the Spanish Civil War, the remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936), and the rearmament policies of the Weimar Republic's successor, the Nazi Party. German institutions such as the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Reichstag, the Prussian State Council, and the Schutzstaffel were central to policymaking alongside personalities including Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Werner von Blomberg, and Werner von Fritsch. International organizations like the League of Nations and treaties such as the Treaty of Versailles (1919) framed the strategic context, while regional flashpoints from the Austro-German relations to the Sudetenland influenced discussions among diplomats from France, United Kingdom, Italy, and Czechoslovakia.

The meeting and memorandum

The meeting convened at the Reich Chancellery with participants including Hitler, War Minister Werner von Blomberg, Army Commander-in-Chief Werner von Fritsch, and Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath, and was recorded by Friedrich Hossbach. The memorandum itself was circulated among officials like Hermann Göring and later examined by Allied interrogators alongside records concerning figures such as Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, Erich von Manstein, and Franz Halder. Contemporaneous diplomatic dispatches from envoys such as Sir Nevile Henderson, Count Galeazzo Ciano, and Józef Beck provide corroborating threads with reporting from missions like the German Embassy in London and the Foreign Office (United Kingdom).

Content and key decisions

The memorandum summarizes Hitler's statements about opportunities for territorial revision involving Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and links those aims to timelines for German rearmament discussed with military leaders including Gerd von Rundstedt and Walther von Brauchitsch. It records proposals about force posture that implicate institutions like the Heer, the Luftwaffe, and industrial concerns represented by companies tied to Krupp, IG Farben, and Daimler-Benz. The text refers to strategic calculations about alliances and rivalries involving Soviet Union, France, United Kingdom, Italy, and actors such as Joseph Stalin and Édouard Daladier.

Immediate reactions and government response

Reactions within the German leadership included skepticism from career officers like Franz Halder and support from Nazi ministers including Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop; the document influenced personnel moves culminating in later events involving Blomberg–Fritsch Affair and the consolidation of power by figures such as Heinrich Himmler. Foreign diplomats—Sir Nevile Henderson, Lord Halifax, Édouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini's envoys—interpreted the memorandum in light of appeasement policies epitomized by the Munich Agreement and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. Intelligence services such as the Abwehr, MI6, and the Soviet GRU monitored policy pronouncements while parliamentary actors in the Reichstag and the British House of Commons debated responses.

Historical significance and interpretations

Historians and jurists including A.J.P. Taylor, Ian Kershaw, Alan Bullock, Richard J. Evans, Hans Mommsen, Eberhard Jäckel, William Shirer, Christopher Browning, Klaus Hildebrand, and Timothy Mason have debated whether the memorandum shows a fixed Nazi timetable for aggression or a contingent plan influenced by opportunism and chance. Interpretive schools—structuralist, intentionalist, and synthesis approaches—associate the memorandum with debates about intentionalist claims tied to Hitler’s aims compared to structuralist emphases on institutions like the Wehrmacht and economic pressures involving industrialists such as Friedrich Flick. Allied wartime prosecutors and postwar scholars referenced it during proceedings at the Nuremberg Trials and in archival research alongside documents from the Foreign Office (United Kingdom), the United States Department of State, and the Soviet archives.

Legal and archival history

The memorandum entered legal and documentary debates in cases and inquiries involving the Nuremberg Trials, testimony by figures like Hermann Göring, and archival cataloging at repositories such as the National Archives (United Kingdom), the Bundesarchiv, and the National Archives and Records Administration. Historiographical access depended on declassification practices influenced by postwar governments including United States and United Kingdom policies, and the document has been analyzed in editions by historians associated with institutions like Cambridge University, Harvard University, and the Institute of Contemporary History (Munich). Scholarly editions and translations circulated through presses tied to Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Yale University Press.

Category:Documents of Nazi Germany