Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler: A Psychological War
- Solomon Schmidt
- Apr 9
- 15 min read
“Now at last the slowly gathered, long-pent-up fury of the storm broke upon us...Within six weeks we were to find ourselves alone, almost disarmed...with the whole of Europe open to Hitler’s power” (Churchill 231).
Introduction
The melancholy exhibited in the opening quote is reflective of the dire straits a British leader found himself in during the darkest spring in twentieth-century British history.
At once rolling with hills and jammed with industrial city centres, Great Britain had a maniacal enemy on its doorstep, and the threat of being invaded and possibly overrun by this foe loomed over the island. Events leading up to this threat were caused by a combination of malfeasance and strategic blunders.
Winston Churchill—the British leader referred to earlier—was at fault in this latter realm but by no means in the former. In fact, Churchill was the leading voice of a handful of British governmentarians[1] who sought to prepare Britain militarily to match and outpace the growth of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht, or military.
Though a political outlier throughout most of the 1930s (indeed, Martin Gilbert’s official biography of that period of Churchill’s life is titled The Wilderness Years), Churchill was a member of Parliament for the entire decade and was vocal in the House of Commons about what he believed should be Britain’s stance towards Hitler. Also, at the outbreak of war in September of 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty, and upon Chamberlain’s resignation the following year, Churchill assumed the mantle of authority as Prime Minister himself.
In his biography of Hitler, Sir Ian Kershaw, renowned historian of Nazi Germany, addressed this historic moment in dramatic, yet accurate terms: “...[T]he end of the Chamberlain government...brought into power the person who would prove himself Hitler’s most defiant and unrelenting foe: Winston Churchill” (Kershaw 553).
Sir Kershaw is exactly right here, but when I asked myself the question, “What was Churchill’s palpable impact on Hitler as his international opponent?” I arrived at an answer that is decidedly impalpable in nature.
Winston Churchill deftly understood Hitler’s political ideology and changed the outcome of World War II by personally taking a psychological offensive against Hitler in the decade leading up to the war—and especially in the spring and summer of 1940.
Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler: The 1930s
Churchill’s great offensive does not begin there, however, but as far back as 1930—the beginning of a decade of attacks against Hitler in private conversations and correspondence.
In October of 1930, Churchill found himself dining with the counsellor at the German embassy in London. One month before this meal, Hitler’s political party had increased its seats in the German Reichstag to 107, up from a mere twelve in 1929.
Churchill’s conversation at dinner with the counsellor turned to this subject, and the counsellor reported, “Hitler of course declared he does not intend starting a world war but Churchill believes that Hitler and his followers will grasp the first chance to resort to arms again” (Lukacs 39).
As a believer in the fundamental greatness of the British Empire, Churchill naturally opposed such a future world order and also grasped early on Hitler’s anti-Semitism. This was repulsive to Churchill, as demonstrated by another illuminating personal conversation about Hitler.
While visiting Germany in August of 1932, Churchill continued to build his case against the Fuhrer by asking Hitler’s close friend Ernst Hanfstaengl: “Why is your chief so violent about the Jews ... How can any man help how he is born?” (Roberts 363-364).
It was not only in physical conversations that Churchill denounced Hitler. Sprinkled among his 1930s letters to his wife, Clementine, are ominous references to Hitler’s growing political influence, along with this personal indictment in August of 1934, in reference to Hitler scrapping the office of president and becoming absolute dictator of Germany: “I was disgusted by the D.M. [Daily Mail]’s boosting of Hitler...I was glad that so many had the courage to vote against making that gangster [Hitler] autocrat for life” (Churchill and Churchill 359-360) (my emphasis).
Churchill was candid and closely affectionate with his wife in their letters, and his “gangster” label here can be counted as an accurate indicator of his private thoughts about Hitler, which were oppositional at their core, despite some people’s argument that he admired Hitler.[2]
Churchill's Public Assault on Adolf Hitler
Churchill’s private musings and declarations about Hitler eventually mushroomed into a public assault on Hitler’s rearmament of Germany, with Churchill passionately advocating for Britain to be sober and aware that Hitler had malicious intentions towards Europe.
Tim Bouverie, the author of Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War, reflects that, along with Sir Robert Vansittart, Brigadier A.C. Temperley, Sir Austen Chamberlain, and Ralph Wigram: “...Churchill stand[s] as [an] [example] of [a man] who understood ‘the nature of the beast’ from the very beginning and argued for remedial action” (Bouverie 416-417).
Churchill wrote directly to the British public in the chapter “Hitler and His Choice” in his 1937 book Great Contemporaries. In addressing the constituents of Great Britain, Churchill appealed to the source he once said a person could turn to in order to learn “all the secrets of statecraft”[3]: history. “If...we look only at the past, which is all we have to judge by, we must indeed feel anxious...Hitherto, Hitler’s triumphant career has been borne onwards, not only by a passionate love of Germany, but by currents of hatred so intense as to sear the souls of those who swim upon them” (Meacham 36).
These currents of hatred were being sown especially in the souls of German young people. My friend Gert Schmitz was drafted into the Hitler Youth as a young man and was one of a number of millions of men that Hitler and his deputies were moulding into a militarily efficient, physically elite fighting force.[4]
As far back as November of 1933, it was Churchill who drew Britain’s attention to these troubling programs, reporting that a “philosophy of blood lust” was being fostered by Hitler in German young people (Bouverie 30).
Churchill doggedly persevered in his public campaign against Hitler, even telling America on the radio in 1938 that they “...must arm,” but unfortunately, Hitler wielded more power at this time and was a highly capable and intelligent politician in his own right (Roberts 439).
Mein Kampf and Hitler's Ideology
Churchill recognised this, and his offensive vehemence towards Hitler stemmed from a clear understanding of Hitler’s ideology. How did Churchill gain this understanding? In part it was by reading Hitler’s autobiography and dogmatic treatise, Mein Kampf, which was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926.
“When eventually he [Hitler] came to power there was no book which deserved more careful study from the rulers, political and military, of the Allied Powers,” Churchill recalled in his post-war memoirs (Churchill 26).
“All was there – the programme of German resurrection...the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war...” (Churchill 26).
Utilising the label “Koran” here was apropos, and Churchill continued on this theme of violence by summarising what he believed was essentially the thesis of Mein Kampf, namely, that Hitler believed a nation must and should be a “fighting animal,” as Churchill said (Churchill 27). An integral portion of this “animal” was to be made up of German young men, as noted previously.
It is fascinating and relevant to note that it was Churchill’s reading of Mein Kampf that gave him a peek behind the scenes of Hitler’s youth programs, for he notes Hitler made it clear in his book that the “...ultimate aim of education is to produce a German who can be converted with the minimum of training into a soldier” (Churchill 27).
In addition to these tenets of Hitler’s domestic plan, Churchill had a savvy view of what Hitler’s international instincts would be once he gained power in Germany, in particular, that Hitler’s only viable options for a long-term ally were either Italy or Great Britain (Churchill 27).
This musing of Churchill’s is corroborated by Hitler’s sequel to Mein Kampf, published in 1961 as Hitler’s Secret Book, in which Hitler drew upon history to suggest that Britain would not align herself against a European hegemony (Taylor 149).
Throughout the 1930s and as prime minister, Churchill worked to commit Britain to doing just that, as one of the few who had grasped and opposed the essential points of Mein Kampf.
Churchill Becomes Prime Minister
This effort by Churchill took on several tangible forms during his service as First Lord of the Admiralty and Prime Minister during the Second World War, but by far the most effective—and climactic—assault he ever undertook against Hitler was his psychological rousing of the British people and his governmental Cabinet between May and September of 1940.
Focusing on psychology here is justified because, while he experienced a fit of fortune in the results of the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill fell into many strategic errors during his time leading Great Britain (e.g., a botched naval attack on Hitler’s Norway and a misreading of France’s readiness to resist Hitler’s invasion).
Despite these blunders, Churchill is and should be considered one of the most forthright and inspiring orators in world history, and he directed this talent towards riling up the British against Hitler.
Upon learning of Churchill’s ascension to the position of Prime Minister in May of 1940, Joseph Goebbels, an odious crony of Hitler and the propaganda minister of the Third Reich, jotted in his diary: “Churchill really has been made Prime Minister. The position is clear! That’s what we like” (Berthon and Potts 3-4). The “position” Goebbels was referring to was Churchill’s stance of opposition.
What surely would have scared Goebbels in hindsight is the fact that Churchill did not merely plan to defend Great Britain but to devote Britain’s resources to reconquering Europe.
If one reviews the speeches Churchill delivered for public consumption in the spring of 1940, one notes an overall tone that, while containing a characteristic of defiance, is offensive at its core.
Consider the following key quotations:
“You ask, what is our policy? ... It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might...What is our aim?...victory at all costs...for without victory there is no survival...for the British Empire” – in a speech to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940 (Churchill 245)
“We shall not be content with a defensive war...we must put our defences [sic] in this Island into such a high state of organization...that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized” – excerpt of a speech before Parliament on June 4, 1940 (Churchill 284)
Churchill actively worked to foster this same mental posturing towards Hitler among his Cabinet members.
During the spring of 1940, he issued a memo to his staff with this telling exhortation:
“...the Prime Minister would be grateful if all his colleagues in the Government...would maintain a high morale in their circles...showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his [Hitler’s] domination” (Churchill 272).
It is significant to note the reference here to Hitler himself as “the enemy,” for Churchill made a point of effecting a personal sortie towards Hitler in front of his staff, telling his secretary John Martin one night during this time, “You know I may seem to be very fierce, but I am fierce only with one man – Hitler” (Lukacs 111).
Churchill’s ferocity resulted in the appearance of a Britain that was united against Hitler.
Adolf Hitler Responds
Britain’s stance of resistance resulted in Hitler dramatically reversing course on his long-held hope for an alliance and settling on its subjugation through invasion.
As documented earlier, Hitler had always planned to pursue a policy of appeasement with Britain. He hoped to focus his fury on Russia as the source of lebensraum (“living space”), by which he primarily meant farmland for the German people to cultivate.
Churchill foresaw this, and his prophecy about Hitler’s ultimate doom is a stunning testament to the Prime Minister’s understanding of his German counterpart.
In July of 1940, he mentioned to his assistant secretary, John Colville, “Hitler must invade or fail. If he fails he is bound to go east, and fail he will” (Berthon and Potts 29). Churchill dared Hitler to challenge history and prepare a sea-borne assault on Britain.
In words that Hitler and his associate Goebbels both were aware of (as they were aware of all Churchill’s public speeches), Churchill rallied Parliament on June 4, 1940, telling them that “We will defend our island, whatever the cost may be”[5] and reminded Parliament that Napoleon himself had hoped to invade Britain but the French conqueror had been wisely cautioned, “There are bitter weeds in England” (Churchill 284).
Churchill psychologically goaded Hitler, and what I discovered while researching my thesis is that Hitler played right into his hands. As far as military matters are concerned, though Hitler understood the grave risks of Operation Sea Lion (his plan for invading Britain), it was on May 31, 1940, that he first gave the “all-clear” to begin official preparations for the sea-borne attack (Wheatley 21).
Ronald Wheatley, author of Operation Sea-Lion, reports that over the next two months, Hitler sustained hope that Britain would make peace and render invasion unnecessary (Wheatley 30). However, it was because of Churchill’s personal war against Hitler that the German dictator was forced to give up his dream of negotiating, and it was not until October 12 1940 that Hitler at last gave the order to suspend all plans for the invasion of Britain (Wheatley 95).
"Hitler Must be Nervous"
In the interval, Hitler revealed his true colours concerning Churchill on two significant occasions.
The first time came in mid-July, at the time when it was becoming irreversibly clear that Churchill would not allow Britain to make a non-aggression pact with Germany. While addressing German politicians in the Reichstag on July 19, Hitler blustered: “Mister Churchill has only now again declared that he wants war...I am clearly aware that our coming answer might bring nameless suffering and misfortune to people. Naturally not to Herr Churchill, because he will then surely be sitting in Canada...” (Lukacs 175).
The second symbolic statement came on September 4, right after Churchill had ordered and the Royal Air Force had carried out a moral-raising bombing of Berlin, Hitler’s city. A German reporter named William Shirer was in the audience that day when Hitler spoke to a large crowd in the Sportpalast arena.
In his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer quotes Hitler:
“‘Mr. Churchill is carrying out these raids not because they promise to be highly effective, but because his Air Force cannot fly over Germany in daylight...For three months I did not answer because I believed that such madness would be stopped. Mr. Churchill took this for a sign of weakness. We are now answering night for night...’” (Shirer 779).
It was at this point in the Battle of Britain that Hitler began to shift the Luftwaffe’s fury away from strategic targets and began to pound the civilian population of London instead.
The reaction of Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Italy, to Hitler’s speech and subsequent policy change, says it all: “Hitler must be nervous” (Shirer 780).
Adolf Hitler's Defensive Rage
Indeed, he was. When one examines the primary testaments of people who surrounded Hitler from mid-1940 on, one notes a tone of defensive rage, rather than confident arrogance towards Churchill, whose attacks were hitting home.
As Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer oversaw the distribution of military supplies throughout Hitler’s empire during World War II, and the Fuhrer confided in Speer closely about his grand ambitions for the Third Reich.
Speer notes in his post-war memoir that as the 1940s rolled on, Hitler “...often stated during the situation conferences” that Churchill was “an incompetent, alcoholic demagogue...These opinions...were indications of his flight from reality” (Speer 306-307) (my emphasis).
Though Speer was trusted by Hitler, perhaps no one was more intimate with the Fuhrer than Joseph Goebbels, who committed suicide with Hitler at the very end. They frequently spoke with one another, and in mid-1941, Goebbels set aside time to study Churchill’s book Step by Step, a compilation of his political writings from the late 1930s.
Goebbels’s reaction in his diary is illuminating:
“This man [Churchill] is a strange mixture of heroism and cunning. If he had come to power in 1933, we would not be where we are today. And I believe that he will give us a few more problems yet. But we can and will solve them” (Goebbels 354).
I carefully examined Goebbels’s mentions of Churchill in 1939 and early 1940, and in every case during this time period, his attacks on Churchill were gleeful and pompous.
As seen above, this was decidedly not the case after Churchill’s policies had begun to negatively impact his boss, whose opinions were Goebbels’s opinions—there was no daylight between these two men.
On top of Speer and Goebbels, though, the most intriguing and telling of all Hitler’s feelings towards the British Prime Minister were recorded by his private secretary in the 1940s, Christa Schroeder:
“‘...if he mentioned the “whisky-guzzler” [Churchill]...his voice would increase to maximum volume, over-pitch so to speak, and he would make lively gestures with his hands. His face would become florid and the anger would shine in his eyes. He would stand rooted to the spot as though confronting the particular enemy he was imagining’” (Roberts 652).
Hitler was revealing himself to be a battered man. In this instance, he was not a man weary from the toils of constantly being on the attack, but rather, a man exhibiting great weakness before a tough, aggressive adversary.
Winston Churchill's Critics
Despite the brilliance of this adversary, though, there are some who minimize Churchill’s understanding of and assault on Hitler, and thereby, the outcome of World War II.
Of note is Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who wrote the book Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill. While not a prolific author, Wheatcroft is an accomplished British journalist, who has travelled extensively and written for some of the world’s most famous newspapers.
Peter Baker of The New York Times conceded that Wheatcroft’s book Churchill’s Shadow “...could be the best single-volume indictment of Churchill yet written” (Baker, “The Case Against Winston Churchill”).
In his book, Wheatcroft systematically unravels the major accomplishments of Churchill’s political and writing career. On the subject of whether Churchill understood Hitler’s intentions and was an effective opponent of the Fuhrer, Wheatcroft asks, “But surely he [Churchill] was a great prophet? This is at the heart of his self-created legend, the lone voice in the wilderness before the war, who...claim[ed] that the war ‘could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot’. On close examination these claims are at best highly speculative” (Wheatcroft 17).
This is inaccurate, as the facts in this paper demonstrate. As Wheatcroft himself admits in his introduction, he is a “historian of Opinion” (Wheatcroft 4).
Conclusion
Winston Churchill, through careful study of the past and through clear readings of the times, was well-suited to attack Adolf Hitler’s encroachment on humanity—and he did, through the power of his tongue and indomitable personality. His psychological stand was consummated in the spring and summer of 1940 and was a key factor in the Allies’ fortunes in World War II.
By flexing the muscles of his mind in the face of Hitler’s military superiority, Churchill effectively put Hitler on the defensive for the first time in the war. He was like a nail on a road that punctures the wheel of a car.
He did not single-handedly save Western civilisation through great strategy, but he did make the first major assault on Hitler himself and, therefore, on Hitler’s war machine.
In the final months of the war, on February 14, 1945, as the Third Reich lay mouldering around him, Adolf Hitler consoled himself with a desperate wish, which he shared with the people around him in Berlin: “A Churchill may disappear and then everything may change” (Hitler 367).
Those who love freedom, those who love peace, and those who love humanity can be thankful that Herr Hitler’s wish was not fulfilled.[6]
Notes
The word “governmentarians” here is not a typo. Though infrequently, it has been used before, including in Forbes Magazine –https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2015/01/30/rand-paul-emerges-as-the-successor-to-daniel-patrick-moynihan/?sh=bbfeb7a4e0b2.
In his seminal biography Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Sir Andrew Roberts touches on this claim about Churchill on page 440.
This is an oft-repeated quote, i.e., a common knowledge quotation, and does not require a citation.
I had the great opportunity to interview Mr. Schmitz on my History Bites YouTube channel. We discussed his childhood in Germany, his war service on the Western Front, his imprisonment by the Americans, and the new life that he eventually started in the United States after World War II. The interview can be viewed at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORMoz9Gf4Zs.
This is an oft-repeated quote, i.e., a common knowledge quotation, and does not require a citation.
The following books in the “Bibliography” section below are primary sources: Inside the Third Reich, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hitler’s Secret Book, Hitler’s Letters and Notes, The Goebbels Diaries: 1939-1941, Memoirs of the Second World War, and Winston and Clementine.
Bibliography
Baker, Peter. “The Case Against Winston Churchill.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/books/review/geoffrey-wheatcroft-churchills-shadow.html.
Berthon, Simon, and Joanna Potts. Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-Creation of World War II through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Da Capo, 2006.
Bouverie, Tim. Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War. Tim Duggan Books, 2019.
Churchill, Winston, and Clementine Churchill. Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills. Edited by Mary Soames, Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Churchill, Winston. Memoirs of the Second World War: An Abridgement of the Six Volumes of the Second World War. Easton Press, 2002.
Goebbels, Joseph. The Goebbels Diaries: 1939-1941. Putnam's, 1983.
Hitler, Adolf. Hitler's Letters and Notes. Edited by Werner Maser, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974.
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler. Routledge, 2013.
Lukacs, John. The Duel the Eighty-Day Struggle between Churchill and Hitler. Yale University Press, 2001.
Meacham, Jon. Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. Random House, 2004.
Roberts, Andrew. Churchill Walking with Destiny. Penguin Books, 2019.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon and Schuster, 1960.
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs. Sphere, 1971.
Taylor, T. Hitler's Secret Book. Evergreen Books, 1962.
Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. Churchill's Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill. W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.
Wheatley, Ronald. Operation Sea Lion: German Plans for the Invasion of England 1939-1942. Oxford University Press, 1958.
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