Declaration of war by Germany and Italy on the United States

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The declaration of war of Germany and Italy to the United States was held on 11 December 1941 during the Second World War instead.

prehistory

As early as 1937, the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke out against the appeasement policy of Great Britain and France towards Germany , Italy and Japan in his quarantine speech . The Nazi regime expected the USA to intervene in a European war. The Reich Finance Minister, Count Schwerin von Krosigk, wrote in a letter to Adolf Hitler dated September 1, 1938:

“In America two tendencies meet at the moment, a hate propaganda against Germany that goes beyond any measure, essentially nurtured by the Jewish side, and the permanent economic crisis to which all attempts by Roosevelt fail and from which a solution can currently only be seen in a European war. American industry, now only 25% employed, would immediately be transformed into a war industry of unimaginable efficiency on a completely different scale than in 1914/1918. "

The United States provided military and economic support to the United Kingdom through the Destroyer for Base Agreement of September 1940 and the Lending Act of February 1941.

A few days before the declaration of war, Japan entered war with the United States on December 7, 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor . On December 5, 1941, the Red Army started a counter-offensive near Moscow . Germany, Japan and Italy had previously signed the three-power pact . The statement refers to incidents with the American warships Greer , Kearny and Reuben James in the North Atlantic and Roosevelt's general "shoot-on-sight" command against Axis ships, such as B. the Odenwald .

Until November 1941, Hitler pursued a largely defensive policy towards the United States, advising the Japanese allies to attack British and Soviet territory, but not to attack American Pacific bases. Until the Soviet counter-offensive outside Moscow on December 5, 1941, Hitler had hoped to keep the United States out of the European war, first, as planned, to end the Barbarossa operation against the Soviet Union so that no two- front war would arise.

reasons

After that, Hitler's position changed within a few weeks for three different reasons: the failure of the Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union, the tensions caused by the apparent US support for Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and the increasing number of measures by the US Navy against German submarines in the North Atlantic. The State Secretary of the Foreign Office Ernst von Weizsäcker noted on December 10, 1941:

"It is important to us that the United States declare a state of war, not us, but us."

text

On December 11, 1941, Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented a diplomatic note on this to Leland Burnette Morris , Chargé d'Affaires of the USA in Berlin :

"Mr. Chargé d'Affaires!

After the government of the United States of America violated all the rules of neutrality in the most flagrant manner in favor of the opponents of Germany at the outbreak of the European war evoked by the British declaration of war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the most serious provocations against Germany continued guilty, it finally turned to open acts of military aggression. On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States of America publicly stated that he had given the American fleet and air force orders to fire at any German war vehicle without further ado. In his speech of October 27th ds. Js. he has expressly confirmed that this order is in force. According to this order, ds. Js. American war vehicles systematically attacked German naval forces. American destroyers, e.g. B. the "Greer", the "Kearny" and the "Reuben James" opened fire on German submarines as planned. The Secretary of State for the American Navy, Mr. Knox. confirmed that American destroyers attacked German submarines. Furthermore, on the orders of their government, the naval forces of the United States of America treated and hijacked German merchant ships on the open seas, contrary to international law, as enemy ships. The Reich Government therefore states:

Although Germany, for its part, has strictly adhered to the rules of international law vis-à-vis the United States of America throughout the present war, the government of the United States of America has finally moved from initial breaches of neutrality to open acts of war against Germany. It practically created a state of war. The Reich government therefore terminates diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances initiated by President Roosevelt, Germany from today also considers itself to be at war with the United States of America.

With great respect

Ribbentrop, December 11, 1941 "

consequences

For the German and Italian leaders, this resulted in an extended two-front war, because the Soviet Union was not defeated. For the American leadership, the question arose whether the American armed forces should intervene first in the Pacific War against Japan and only then in Europe. Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Churchill decided at the Arcadia Conference (December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942) to direct the focus of British and US military operations on the theater of war Europe and North Africa, in order to first allow the German Reich to surrender to force. This was expressed with the catchphrase “ Germany first ”.

In fact, the involvement of the United States, in terms of armaments and the military approach of the United States, triggered a significant proportion of the German loss of the war. Historically, the consequences and course of the war are similar to when the USA entered the war in 1917 with the then German Reich.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Military Tribunal Nuremberg : The Trial of the Major War Criminals . Volume 36, Nuremberg 1947, p. 492. Document EC-419.
  2. ^ A b Bernd Wegner: Hitler's strategy between Pearl Harbor and Stalingrad. In: The global war - the expansion to world war and the change of initiative 1941-1943. (= The German Reich and the Second World War . Vol. 6). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06233-1 , pp. 98-99.
  3. ^ Leonidas Hill (ed.): The Weizsäcker papers 1933–1950. Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Vienna 1974, p. 280.
  4. ↑ Federal Agency for Political Education: The Second World War. Retrieved August 30, 2018 .