Hitler, top Nazis pressured Japan to attack Singapore as soon as possible
SINGAPORE — On 26 March 1941, Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka arrived in Berlin for a visit to meet Nazi Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler and his German counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop with the aim of deepening relations between their two countries. One city emerged as a key subject of their talks amid the ongoing World War II (WWII): Singapore.
At the time of Matsuoka’s four-day visit to the German capital, Singapore was about eight months away from experiencing its first bombing of WWII. To Hitler and other top Nazis, if the strategically crucial British colony were to fall to the Japanese, the opposing Allies would be weakened significantly, paving the way for Japan to further expand her empire in Asia and bolstering Germany’s seemingly unassailable fortress in Europe.
While the Fall of Singapore to Japan on 15 February 1942 has been covered extensively over the decades by historians, what has generally been overlooked was how Singapore figured prominently in the wartime calculations of Germany, which had signed the Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy in Berlin in 1940.
Among the key articles of the Pact were the recognition by Germany and Italy of Japan’s leadership to set up a new order in Greater East Asia and for the three Axis Powers to cooperate through means including military in the event of one of them being attacked by a nation not involved in the ongoing European war, in an allusion to the United States.
Japan urged to attack the UK
About a week before Matsuoka’s arrival in Berlin, Hitler held a meeting with his top military men including Admiral Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the German Navy, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of the German Armed Forces High Command, and General Alfred Jodl, head of the German Armed Forces operations staff.
During their meeting, they agreed that Germany aimed to induce Japan to start aggression against Singapore and other British bases in Asia.
"Japan must take steps to seize Singapore as soon as possible since the opportunity will never again be as favourable…Germany must, therefore, concentrate all her efforts on spurring Japan to act immediately. If Japan has Singapore, all other East Asiatic questions regarding the US and England are thereby solved (Guam, Philippines, Borneo, Dutch East Indies),” said Admiral Raeder. His comments at the meeting, contained in a secret document, were read out after WWII in December 1945 during the trial of the major German war criminals in Nuremberg.
Singapore was also mentioned in Hitler’s Basic Order Number 24, which stipulated the Nazi policy on collaboration with Japan. “The seizure of Singapore as the key British position in the Far East would mean a decisive success for the entire conduct of war of the three powers (Germany, Japan and Italy).”
When Hitler met Matsuoka, he expressed his wish for Japan to enter the war against the UK as soon as possible, with its Singapore colony as a primary target. The dictator assured him that the war in Europe was practically over and that the UK would be compelled to concede defeat. Similarly, Ribbentrop told Matsuoka that Japan should attack Singapore, as the British Navy had been weakened in the Battle of the Atlantic and was in no position to retaliate against any Japanese attack.
Ribbentrop even assured Matsuoka that the Germans would provide assistance to the Japanese in their invasion of Singapore. He said that he had earlier discussed the matter with the Japanese ambassador to Germany General Hiroshi Oshima and asked him to get maps of Singapore for Hitler – considered “the greatest expert on military questions” then – to advise Japan on the best way to attack Singapore, according to testimony produced at the Nuremberg trial. German experts on air attack could also advise the Japanese on the use of dive bombers against the British Navy based on their experience in Europe, Ribbentrop added.
Keeping the US away from Europe
A key consideration for the Germans as they pressured Japan to invade Singapore was how the US, which had yet to enter the war at the time of Matsuoka’s visit to Berlin, would react to such an attack. Germany had hoped that Japan’s military campaigns in Asia would divert the focus of the US to the Pacific and weaken its assistance to the UK in the Atlantic.
The Germans assessed that the US was unprepared for war against Japan and that the American Navy was inferior compared with its Japanese rival.
In his meeting with Matsuoka, Ribbentrop said that the US could not thwart Japan’s capture of Singapore and that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt would “think twice” before launching any measures against Japan. He also raised the possibility of the US losing its colony in the Philippines to Japan, which would be a “considerable loss of prestige”, according to the prosecution’s statement at the Nuremberg trial.
Nonetheless, the Germans also calculated that the US could still end up in a conflict against Japan. “They were aware that the course along which they were pushing the Japanese in the Far East would probably lead to involvement of the United States. Indeed, the Japanese Foreign Minister had told Hitler this in so many words, and their own military men had fully realised the implications of the move against Singapore,” American prosecutor Sidney Alderman stated at the trial.
Hitler told Matsuoka that if Japan were to be at war with the US, Germany would “immediately take the consequences and strike without delay”.
Just like the Nuremberg trial, during the Tokyo War Crimes trial from 1946 to 1948, the prosecution also produced evidence that showed the significance of Singapore as a key war objective for the Axis Powers.
“The capture of Singapore by Japan will also be shown as the fulfillment of Japan’s desire to aid Germany in bringing the war against England to a speedy close. It was considered that a sudden attack by Japan upon Singapore without a declaration of war would constitute a blow that would prevent the United States from effectively interfering,” according to the prosecution’s documents entitled “Collaboration between Japan, Germany and Italy”.
The Russian factor
Apart from the possible reaction by the US to any Japanese aggression against Singapore and other parts of Asia, Germany and Japan also discussed how the Soviet Union would respond in such a scenario. At the time of Matusoka’s visit, the non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union – signed just prior to the outbreak of WWII – had been in effect for about one and a half years.
Ribbentrop had assured Matsuoka that the largest part of the German army was poised on the borders with Russia, ready to attack any time. In the event of a conflict with the Soviet Union, the communist state would collapse within a few months, according to Ribbentrop.
“Germany would strike immediately, should Russia ever attack Japan. He (Ribbentrop) was ready to give Matsuoka this positive assurance so that Japan could push forward to the south on Singapore without fear of possible complications with Russia,” the prosecution said at the Nuremberg trial.
Likewise, Hitler also tried to sway Japan to attack Singapore as soon as possible by giving a similar guarantee against any Soviet intervention. “Japan, he implied, need have no fear of attack from the Soviet Union in the event of her moving against Singapore: 150 German divisions – Hitler more than doubled the actual number – were standing on the border with Russia,” historian Ian Kershaw wrote in the second book of his biography on the German dictator, “Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis”.
Despite the alliance between Germany and Japan, they had kept each other in the dark about the plans for their respective monumental operation that would ultimately pave the road to utter defeat for them in 1945: Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany and its European partners on 22 June 1941; and the attack on Pearl Harbour by Japan against the US on 7 December 1941.
After Operation Barbarossa began, Ribbentrop again spoke about the invasion of Singapore to the Japanese. But this time, he hoped to persuade them to join the Germans in the attack against the Soviet Union to ensure that Japan would be “safe in the rear”, according to the evidence produced at the Tokyo war trial.
“Ribbentrop reiterated the great importance from the standpoint of Japanese interests of a drive toward the south in the direction of Singapore, but advised that in view of her present unpreparedness for this action, Japan would solve her Russian question by joining Germany in the war against Russia.”
Hitler’s muted reaction to Fall of Singapore
When Japan stunned the world with the Pearl Harbour attack, Hitler was initially ecstatic and predicted that the Axis Powers would go on to win the war. Just hours after the attack, Singapore experienced war for the first time when Japanese aircraft bombed the city at several locations.
Having put persistent pressure on the Japanese to invade Singapore, Hitler later developed conflicting feelings about Japan’s overwhelming military success in Asia. For a dictator with fervent views about the superiority of the Aryan race, Japan’s impending defeat of the British in Singapore was a bitter pill to swallow.
“He told his entourage in the Fuhrer headquarters that the entry of Japan had been a turning point in history, which would denote ‘the loss of a whole continent’ – regrettable, because the loss would be that of the ‘white race’. The British would not be able to prevail against Japan once Singapore had been lost,” Kershaw wrote in his book.
Hitler revealed his racial prejudices against his wartime partners in the presence of his personal secretary Christa Schroeder. “The Japanese are yellow-skinned and slit-eyed. But they are fighting against the Americans and English, and so are useful to Germany,” said Hitler, according to Kershaw, citing Schroeder.
After Singapore fell to Japan, Hitler told Ribbentrop not to go overboard with the announcement of the news. Hitler apparently said then, “We’ve got to think in centuries…One day the showdown with the yellow race will come.”
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