Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY 659surrounded Germany in 1914-—the French, Italian, Austrian, andRussian — only the French still existed as a threat. But even France hadin 1928 reduced her term of military service to one year; on paper shedisposed of 428,000 soldiers at the end of 1933, but of these only256,000 were in Europe; some 40,000 of these were no real soldiers, butonly police — garde mobile and gendarmes; the rest, some 172,000,were in the Asiatic and African colonies, and more than half of these, or87,000, were colored, native troops. Against this divided French army, aconcentrated and fully equipped German force of 300,000 would havebeen a more than adequate counterweight, particularly as they wouldhave been subordinated to a resolute and ruthless command, hamperedby no political restrictions at home.Aside from Germany and France, the sole military power on thecontinent was Italy. But Italy, in the long run, was the military equal ofneither France nor Germany, and in any case represented more of athreat to France than to Germany. The armies of the other countries,even of Poland, did not count by themselves — and Hitler's task, whichhe had already begun to solve, was to make sure that they alwaysremained by themselves. An unknown quantity was the Soviet Union.But in 1933, Russia was shaken by an economic crisis in whichhundreds of thousands died of hunger, and the ruling group, under theleadership of Stalin, had to contend with serious resistance, if not worse,in their own party. Up to 1931, Hitler had publicly expressed his doubtsof Russian strength, his contempt for the inefficiency of Bolshevism, hisconviction that the whole regime was crumbling; it seems that up till1933 he did not consider Russia seriously as a military adversary.It was for an explicitly limited task — to make Germany superior toan isolated foe — that the German army was first planned and created;then, with changing political situations, this army several times changedits form, size, and aims. To provide weapons, uniforms, and lodging forthis army in its first moderate form was a great economic task, but nonewhich could have set all German industry in motion. Althoughexpansion and rearmament of the German armed forces had been underway for more than a year, since Papen's regime, the German troops stillused wooden cannon