Tomorrow the world

Did Adolf Hitler's Germany have designs on the Western Hemisphere? As early as the 1920s Hitler had repeatedly argued that the Nordic struggle for racial dominance would become worldwide, but his thoughts regarding the United States were sometimes obscured by his aims in Europe. In Tomorrow the World, Norman J. W. Goda retraces the documentary evidence to demonstrate that Germany's long-term strategy, developed early in World War II, pointed toward the United States following the expected conquest of the European continent. Even before the war in Europe began, Berlin had placed contracts for a massive surface navy, and a transatlantic bomber was also in the process of development. This cogently argued, well-written book focuses primarily on Germany's secret efforts to gain base sites for these new weapons in French North and West Africa, Spain's Canary Islands, and Portugal's Azores and Cape Verde Islands. These efforts began with the surrender of France in June 1940 and ended with the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. During this period, Hitler rated the base issue a higher priority than the efficient prosecution of the war against Great Britain and second only to the Eastern Campaign. In the end, Berlin's policy failed to gain the desired base sites and also antagonized the Spanish and French governments, pushing each away from a more actively pro-German stance. Meanwhile, German military and naval intelligence misjudged the American capability of capturing the sites; thus Northwest Africa was left relatively unprepared for the Allied invasion of 1942. Goda questions both the more traditional interpretations that Hitler's Germany operated from unplannedopportunism and that its aims were confined to the European continent. His extremely close reading of the diplomatic and military sources from German, Spanish, and French records also opens new windows on the policies of Franco's Spain and Petain's France. By focusing on policy formulation and implementation at the political and diplomatic level, he adds substantial evidence for the view that Hitler's ambitions were not just grandiose table talk, but formed the basis for concrete military plans and building projects. Military historians and scholars of World War II will welcome this assiduously researched and well-crafted study for the light it throws on some of the classic arguments of the period.